Shannon Rutherford
Encyclopedia
Shannon Rutherford is a fictional character
played by Maggie Grace
on the ABC
drama television series Lost
, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific
. Shannon is introduced in the pilot episode
as the stepsister of fellow crash survivor Boone Carlyle
(Ian Somerhalder
). She is a series regular until her funeral in "What Kate Did". For most of her time on the Island, she is unhelpful and spends much of her time sunbathing. She forms a relationship with another survivor from the plane crash, Sayid Jarrah
(Naveen Andrews
). Shannon is accidentally shot by Ana Lucia Cortez
who mistakes her for an Other.
During the casting process, she was compared to Paris Hilton
. Naveen Andrews
, who plays the character Sayid on the show, had the idea of encouraging the writers to write a romantic relationship between his character and Shannon into the story. Critics found her to be an unsympathetic character. Nonetheless, Grace received a Teen Choice Award nomination for her role as Shannon.
), and she spends much of her adolescence with her stepbrother Boone. She studies ballet and, as she gets older, teaches dance classes to young girls. When she is eighteen, Shannon's father dies in a car crash. He did not have a will prepared, so all of his money and property goes to his wife. Sabrina refuses to help Shannon financially, despite Shannon winning a prestigious yet non-paying internship to the Martha Graham
Dance Company in New York. Unable to come up with the money herself, Shannon moves to France for a short time to work as an au pair
. Shannon later forms a plan to con her stepbrother, Boone Carlyle
, into giving her some of the inheritance she rightly deserved. Playing on her knowledge of Boone's love for her, she makes it appear her boyfriend Brian abuses her. Boone pays Brian to leave her, and Shannon plans to secretly take half the money. During one con in Sydney, her "abusive boyfriend" ruins Shannon's ruse after Boone cuts him a check. Boone storms off to his hotel room and plans to return to the States. When Shannon's boyfriend takes off with all of the money, Shannon goes to Boone's hotel room in Sydney, drunk, and Boone allows her to seduce him. After they have sex, Shannon tells Boone things will go back to the way they had been before. He expresses anger because, as always, they both know she is in control of their situation/ relationship. The following morning at the Sydney airport, Sayid Jarrah
approaches Shannon, asking her to watch his bag for him. She deftly obliges, but soon leaves it unattended. Before the doomed Flight 815 takes off, Shannon rummages through her hand-luggage for her asthma
inhaler, which Boone casually hands to her. She smiles, the platonic love she has for Boone briefly relieving her of her misery. Six hours into the flight, only moments before the crash, Shannon and Boone are momentarily seen as Charlie Pace
stumbles through their row.
looped signal already being transmitted, Shannon's knowledge of the language is used to translate it. Later, Shannon has an asthma attack, but her inhalers are nowhere to be found. Sun (Yunjin Kim) cures her, by using eucalyptus plants to help her breathing. Because of her selfish and manipulative behavior, Boone brands Shannon useless. Sayid enlists her to help translate the maps belonging to the French woman who made the radio transmission, Danielle Rousseau
(Mira Furlan
). Shannon and Sayid soon form a romantic relationship. After returning from a romantic night along the beach with Sayid, she learns Boone has died after falling from a great height. At his funeral, Shannon does not speak, but allows Sayid to talk instead. Shannon holds Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
) responsible for Boone's death, and asks Sayid to take action. When he refuses, she steals the key to the gun case from Jack Shephard
(Matthew Fox
) and holds Locke at gunpoint in the jungle. When Rousseau arrives on the beach one morning to warn the camp of the Others' imminent arrival, Shannon prepares to migrate to the caves with the rest of the group. Before leaving on the raft the survivors have built, Walt Lloyd
(Malcolm David Kelley
) gives Shannon guardianship of his dog, Vincent, as a means to help her recover from her loss.
At the start of season two, Shannon loses Vincent in the jungle. While searching for him, she is shocked to find Walt standing before her, dripping wet. However, when Sayid finds her, Walt disappears. Over the next few days, Sayid builds Shannon a shelter on the beach. He brings her to it and they soon decide to sleep together for the first time. Sayid leaves to get a bottle of water for Shannon and in his absence, Shannon again sees a vision of Walt, standing in the shelter with her. Sayid brushes off her experience as a dream. She uses Vincent to try to find Walt, only for him to lead her to Boone's grave. After a while, she takes Vincent into the jungle again, with Sayid in pursuit. As it starts to rain, Sayid and Shannon admit their feelings for each other before both seeing Walt. Shannon runs after him, only to be accidentally shot by Ana Lucia
(Michelle Rodriguez
), who mistakes her for an Other. She dies moments later in Sayid's arms. Shannon's death not only left Sayid heartbroken, but also caused a rift between the survivors and the Tailies. Throughout the rest of the season, Ana Lucia is shown to be guilt-ridden over killing Shannon.
During season six the afterlife experienced by the survivors is shown as an alternate timeline where the plane never crashed. Boone is seen on the plane traveling alone and explains he went to save Shannon from a bad relationship, but she did not want to come with him. In the series finale "The End
" Boone is being attacked by someone outside a local bar, with Hurley and Sayid watching from afar. Shannon tries to defend him but is overpowered. Sayid gets out of the car and knocks the attacker unconscious. He gets down to help Shannon, and they remember their lives on the island and realize they are in the afterlife. Later that night she is reunited with the other passengers of Oceanic 815 and they all "move on" together.
described her as a "bitch. She is like a typical spoiled daddy's girl who gets whatever she wants and is not responsible to the slightest bit." Eirik Knutzen of The Repository
found Shannon to be "a self-centered twit," and she was also called a "spoiled daddy's girl." Boone describes her as a "self-centered little bitch." On her first night on the Island, Shannon is confident they will be rescued, refusing to help the others organize the luggage. She does not care Rose (L. Scott Caldwell
) has lost her husband, and spends much of her time sunbathing. She manipulates Charlie
(Dominic Monaghan
) into catching a fish for her, after which Boone apologizes on behalf of Shannon for "using this poor guy like [she] use[s] everyone else." In "Whatever the Case May Be
," Boone says to Shannon, "Don't you see the way they look at us around here? They don't take us seriously. We're a joke. I'm trying to contribute something. You're just – you're useless." This motivates her to help Sayid translate maps he obtained from Rousseau.
? The most unlikely pairing… to come completely from left field." This pairing made Shannon "less flighty... more of a person to be reckoned with." According to Lost producer Carlton Cuse
, "The relationships [the audience] expect on the show are not necessarily the ones that we [the producers] necessarily are going to give you, but we want to try to find ways in which characters that you don't expect to kind of connect to one another to connect in ways that are kind of surprising."
Shannon's flashbacks in "Abandoned" were used to allow the audience to get to a "really emotional level with the character, [to] finally understand ... why she was the way she was." Her death was planned before the start of season two, as the producers wanted the survivors in the tail section of the plane and the survivors of the fuselage to be forced to come together under difficult circumstances. Her death was also used to "spin Sayid off in another direction." Damon Lindelof commented "It's sort of understood on Lost that that's what you sign up for. There's going to be constant character turnover, because the stakes on the Island are life-or-death." Lindelof felt an "intense, emotional sense of loss" when watching her death. In her post-death appearance in "Collision," Maggie Grace was credited as "special guest star." She received the same billing when she returned in season three, appearing in Nikki and Paulo
's flashbacks. Carlton Cuse noted "it was really fun for us to actually have Boone and Shannon reemerge in the stories." Shannon was originally in "LA X
", the season premiere for the sixth and final season
, but had to be written out as Grace was unavailable. The producers eventually arranged for Grace to appear in "The End".
was critical of both Shannon and her relationship with Boone before the plane crash, commenting "Shannon's ability to 'sort-of' understand French and Boone's lifeguard training have had little impact and as characters they bring very little to the table. There are also too many more intriguing storylines and characters around them that deserve attention." On their relationship he added, "except for the final act, when they finally succumb to their lust for one another ... There's nothing exciting here or anything that will ultimately be built upon in the Lost universe." In a later review, for the episode following Boone's death, he commented "[Boone and Shannon] were both left with very little to do this season. Especially Shannon, whose high point of usefulness was deciphering Rousseau's documents for Sayid. Well, Maggie Grace is given an opportunity to shine and she does an acceptable job as the distraught sibling who is now looking for someone to blame for Boone's death. We finally get to see some real depth to Shannon's character and her quest for vengeance is believable." According to Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
, Shannon is "the least deserving of sympathy of all the previously known survivors."
C. K. Sample, III, from AOL
's TV Squad, joked, "Boone's mother is the devil. How else to make us sympathize with Shannon right before killing her off of the show." Virginia Rohan of The Seattle Times
thought the "death of troubled Shannon, just as she was becoming more likable and had found love with Sayid, was sadder than the first-season death of her stepbrother, Boone. Still, it would grieve me far more to lose Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Sun or Jin." Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune
felt fans echoed this view, describing their reaction as "muted," as they were more angry at Ana Lucia for shooting Shannon. Maggie Grace co-won the 2005
Screen Actors Guild Award for "Best Ensemble - Drama Series
. She was also nominated for the Teen Choice Award for "Choice TV Breakout Performance - Female," but lost out to Desperate Housewives
' Eva Longoria
.
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
played by Maggie Grace
Maggie Grace
Margaret Grace Denig , best known as Maggie Grace, is an American actress. Originally from Worthington, Ohio, she dropped out of high school to move to Los Angeles with her mother after her parents' divorce. While struggling financially, she landed her first role as the title character in the...
on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
drama television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. Shannon is introduced in the pilot episode
Pilot (Lost)
"Pilot" constitutes the first and second episodes of the first season of ABC television series Lost, with "Part 1" premiering on September 22, 2004 and Part 2 on September 29, 2004. The episodes were directed by J.J. Abrams, and written by him along with Damon Lindelof, based on a story by them and...
as the stepsister of fellow crash survivor Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle is a fictional character played by Ian Somerhalder on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the south Pacific. Boone is introduced in the pilot episode as the stepbrother of fellow crash survivor Shannon Rutherford...
(Ian Somerhalder
Ian Somerhalder
Ian Joseph Somerhalder is an American model, actor and producer, best known for playing Boone Carlyle in the TV drama Lost and Damon Salvatore in the TV drama The Vampire Diaries.-Early life:...
). She is a series regular until her funeral in "What Kate Did". For most of her time on the Island, she is unhelpful and spends much of her time sunbathing. She forms a relationship with another survivor from the plane crash, Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
(Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
). Shannon is accidentally shot by Ana Lucia Cortez
Ana Lucia Cortez
Ana Lucia Cortez is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Ana Lucia made her first appearance as a guest star in the first season finale, and became part of the main cast for season two. After Oceanic Flight 815 splits in mid-air, the tail section...
who mistakes her for an Other.
During the casting process, she was compared to Paris Hilton
Paris Hilton
Paris Whitney Hilton is an American businesswoman, heiress, and socialite. She is a great-granddaughter of Conrad Hilton . Hilton is known for her controversial participation in a sex tape in 2003, and appearance on the television series The Simple Life alongside fellow socialite and childhood...
. Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
, who plays the character Sayid on the show, had the idea of encouraging the writers to write a romantic relationship between his character and Shannon into the story. Critics found her to be an unsympathetic character. Nonetheless, Grace received a Teen Choice Award nomination for her role as Shannon.
Prior to the crash
When Shannon is eight, her father marries Sabrina Carlyle (Lindsay FrostLindsay Frost
Lindsay E. Frost is an American actress.Frost, who was born in Los Angeles, California, is the daughter of actor Warren Frost, and sister of Mark Frost and writer Scott Frost. She is married to actor Rick Giolito....
), and she spends much of her adolescence with her stepbrother Boone. She studies ballet and, as she gets older, teaches dance classes to young girls. When she is eighteen, Shannon's father dies in a car crash. He did not have a will prepared, so all of his money and property goes to his wife. Sabrina refuses to help Shannon financially, despite Shannon winning a prestigious yet non-paying internship to the Martha Graham
Martha Graham
Martha Graham was an American modern dancer and choreographer whose influence on dance has been compared with the influence Picasso had on modern visual arts, Stravinsky had on music, or Frank Lloyd Wright had on architecture.She danced and choreographed for over seventy years...
Dance Company in New York. Unable to come up with the money herself, Shannon moves to France for a short time to work as an au pair
Au pair
An au pair is a domestic assistant from a foreign country working for, and living as part of, a host family. Typically, au pairs take on a share of the family's responsibility for childcare as well as some housework, and receive a small monetary allowance for personal use...
. Shannon later forms a plan to con her stepbrother, Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle is a fictional character played by Ian Somerhalder on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the south Pacific. Boone is introduced in the pilot episode as the stepbrother of fellow crash survivor Shannon Rutherford...
, into giving her some of the inheritance she rightly deserved. Playing on her knowledge of Boone's love for her, she makes it appear her boyfriend Brian abuses her. Boone pays Brian to leave her, and Shannon plans to secretly take half the money. During one con in Sydney, her "abusive boyfriend" ruins Shannon's ruse after Boone cuts him a check. Boone storms off to his hotel room and plans to return to the States. When Shannon's boyfriend takes off with all of the money, Shannon goes to Boone's hotel room in Sydney, drunk, and Boone allows her to seduce him. After they have sex, Shannon tells Boone things will go back to the way they had been before. He expresses anger because, as always, they both know she is in control of their situation/ relationship. The following morning at the Sydney airport, Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
approaches Shannon, asking her to watch his bag for him. She deftly obliges, but soon leaves it unattended. Before the doomed Flight 815 takes off, Shannon rummages through her hand-luggage for her asthma
Asthma
Asthma is the common chronic inflammatory disease of the airways characterized by variable and recurring symptoms, reversible airflow obstruction, and bronchospasm. Symptoms include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness, and shortness of breath...
inhaler, which Boone casually hands to her. She smiles, the platonic love she has for Boone briefly relieving her of her misery. Six hours into the flight, only moments before the crash, Shannon and Boone are momentarily seen as Charlie Pace
Charlie Pace
Charlie Hieronymus Pace is a fictional character on ABC's Lost, a television series chronicling the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island...
stumbles through their row.
After the crash
Upon landing on the Island, she decides to join Sayid on a hike to transmit a distress signal, after she and Boone have an argument about her selfishness. When they discover a FrenchFrench language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
looped signal already being transmitted, Shannon's knowledge of the language is used to translate it. Later, Shannon has an asthma attack, but her inhalers are nowhere to be found. Sun (Yunjin Kim) cures her, by using eucalyptus plants to help her breathing. Because of her selfish and manipulative behavior, Boone brands Shannon useless. Sayid enlists her to help translate the maps belonging to the French woman who made the radio transmission, Danielle Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau
Danielle Rousseau is a fictional character on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific. Croatian actress Mira Furlan plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen...
(Mira Furlan
Mira Furlan
Mira Furlan is a Croatian actress and singer currently residing in the United States. She is well known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn on all five seasons of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 , and Danielle Rousseau on Lost.-Early life:Furlan was born to an...
). Shannon and Sayid soon form a romantic relationship. After returning from a romantic night along the beach with Sayid, she learns Boone has died after falling from a great height. At his funeral, Shannon does not speak, but allows Sayid to talk instead. Shannon holds Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
) responsible for Boone's death, and asks Sayid to take action. When he refuses, she steals the key to the gun case from Jack Shephard
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
) and holds Locke at gunpoint in the jungle. When Rousseau arrives on the beach one morning to warn the camp of the Others' imminent arrival, Shannon prepares to migrate to the caves with the rest of the group. Before leaving on the raft the survivors have built, Walt Lloyd
Walt Lloyd
Walter "Walt" Lloyd is a fictional character portrayed by Malcolm David Kelley in the American ABC television series Lost. The series follows the lives of over forty survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Walt is introduced in the pilot episode as one of the survivors aboard the plane, which...
(Malcolm David Kelley
Malcolm David Kelley
Malcolm David Kelley is an American teen actor. He starred in the 2004 film You Got Served as "Li'l Saint". He also appears in the television series Lost as the character Walt Lloyd. A regular cast member in the show's first season , he has appeared only occasionally since due to a dramatic...
) gives Shannon guardianship of his dog, Vincent, as a means to help her recover from her loss.
At the start of season two, Shannon loses Vincent in the jungle. While searching for him, she is shocked to find Walt standing before her, dripping wet. However, when Sayid finds her, Walt disappears. Over the next few days, Sayid builds Shannon a shelter on the beach. He brings her to it and they soon decide to sleep together for the first time. Sayid leaves to get a bottle of water for Shannon and in his absence, Shannon again sees a vision of Walt, standing in the shelter with her. Sayid brushes off her experience as a dream. She uses Vincent to try to find Walt, only for him to lead her to Boone's grave. After a while, she takes Vincent into the jungle again, with Sayid in pursuit. As it starts to rain, Sayid and Shannon admit their feelings for each other before both seeing Walt. Shannon runs after him, only to be accidentally shot by Ana Lucia
Ana Lucia Cortez
Ana Lucia Cortez is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Michelle Rodriguez. Ana Lucia made her first appearance as a guest star in the first season finale, and became part of the main cast for season two. After Oceanic Flight 815 splits in mid-air, the tail section...
(Michelle Rodriguez
Michelle Rodriguez
Mayte Michelle Rodríguez , known professionally as Michelle Rodriguez, is an American actress. Following on from her breakthrough role in 2000's Girlfight, she is best known for playing tough-girl roles and starring in Hollywood blockbusters such as The Fast and the Furious, Resident Evil,...
), who mistakes her for an Other. She dies moments later in Sayid's arms. Shannon's death not only left Sayid heartbroken, but also caused a rift between the survivors and the Tailies. Throughout the rest of the season, Ana Lucia is shown to be guilt-ridden over killing Shannon.
During season six the afterlife experienced by the survivors is shown as an alternate timeline where the plane never crashed. Boone is seen on the plane traveling alone and explains he went to save Shannon from a bad relationship, but she did not want to come with him. In the series finale "The End
The End (Lost)
"The End" is the series finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 17th and 18th episodes of season 6. It is also the 120th and 121st episodes overall...
" Boone is being attacked by someone outside a local bar, with Hurley and Sayid watching from afar. Shannon tries to defend him but is overpowered. Sayid gets out of the car and knocks the attacker unconscious. He gets down to help Shannon, and they remember their lives on the island and realize they are in the afterlife. Later that night she is reunited with the other passengers of Oceanic 815 and they all "move on" together.
Personality
During the casting process, Shannon was compared to Paris Hilton, and Lost producer Damon LindelofDamon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
described her as a "bitch. She is like a typical spoiled daddy's girl who gets whatever she wants and is not responsible to the slightest bit." Eirik Knutzen of The Repository
Canton Repository
The Repository is a daily newspaper serving the greater Canton, Ohio, area. Founded March 30, 1815, by John Saxton, it started as a weekly, and began publishing seven-days-a-week in 1892...
found Shannon to be "a self-centered twit," and she was also called a "spoiled daddy's girl." Boone describes her as a "self-centered little bitch." On her first night on the Island, Shannon is confident they will be rescued, refusing to help the others organize the luggage. She does not care Rose (L. Scott Caldwell
L. Scott Caldwell
Laverne Scott Caldwell is an American actress known for her role as Rose on Lost.This Chicago native started her career in 1978 as a member of the famed Negro Ensemble Company, making her Broadway debut two years later in the Tony Award nominated play Home...
) has lost her husband, and spends much of her time sunbathing. She manipulates Charlie
Charlie Pace
Charlie Hieronymus Pace is a fictional character on ABC's Lost, a television series chronicling the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island...
(Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost....
) into catching a fish for her, after which Boone apologizes on behalf of Shannon for "using this poor guy like [she] use[s] everyone else." In "Whatever the Case May Be
Whatever the Case May Be
"Whatever the Case May Be" is the twelfth episode of the first season of Lost. It was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson. It first aired on January 5, 2005 on ABC...
," Boone says to Shannon, "Don't you see the way they look at us around here? They don't take us seriously. We're a joke. I'm trying to contribute something. You're just – you're useless." This motivates her to help Sayid translate maps he obtained from Rousseau.
Development
The producers were looking for someone who had a "Paris Hilton quality" to play Shannon, but she could not just be shallow, as the storyline would require more than that. A lot of women auditioned before the producers finally settled on Maggie Grace. She was written to be a bitch in the first season as the producers needed a character they could use to create opposition and conflict. The producers thought it would be interesting for there to be more to Shannon and Boone's relationship than just Boone's possessive brotherly interest. They came up with the idea for them to be unrelated stepsiblings, who have a romantic encounter, which became the twist for their backstory. When Boone is killed at the end of season one, it forces Shannon into a more adult existence on the Island. Grace noted Boone is "the only person that ever really knew and loved Shannon, in spite of herself. Of course, losing him, especially with so much left unsaid and unresolved, will change her irrevocably." This freed her up to develop her relationship with Sayid. Naveen Andrews, who plays Sayid, came up with the idea for Shannon and Sayid relationship. He thought, "What would really shock Middle-America? What if Sayid was to have a relationship with a woman that looked like Miss AmericaMiss America
The Miss America pageant is a long-standing competition which awards scholarships to young women from the 50 states plus the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands...
? The most unlikely pairing… to come completely from left field." This pairing made Shannon "less flighty... more of a person to be reckoned with." According to Lost producer Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
, "The relationships [the audience] expect on the show are not necessarily the ones that we [the producers] necessarily are going to give you, but we want to try to find ways in which characters that you don't expect to kind of connect to one another to connect in ways that are kind of surprising."
Shannon's flashbacks in "Abandoned" were used to allow the audience to get to a "really emotional level with the character, [to] finally understand ... why she was the way she was." Her death was planned before the start of season two, as the producers wanted the survivors in the tail section of the plane and the survivors of the fuselage to be forced to come together under difficult circumstances. Her death was also used to "spin Sayid off in another direction." Damon Lindelof commented "It's sort of understood on Lost that that's what you sign up for. There's going to be constant character turnover, because the stakes on the Island are life-or-death." Lindelof felt an "intense, emotional sense of loss" when watching her death. In her post-death appearance in "Collision," Maggie Grace was credited as "special guest star." She received the same billing when she returned in season three, appearing in Nikki and Paulo
Nikki and Paulo
Nikki Fernandez and Paulo are fictional characters on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the south Pacific...
's flashbacks. Carlton Cuse noted "it was really fun for us to actually have Boone and Shannon reemerge in the stories." Shannon was originally in "LA X
LA X
"LA X" comprises the 104th and 105th episodes of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost, marking the premiere of the sixth and final season. It was written by show runners/executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse and directed by executive producer Jack Bender...
", the season premiere for the sixth and final season
Lost (season 6)
The sixth and final season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing in the United States and Canada on February 2, 2010. The sixth-season premiere was the first to climb in the ratings year-over-year since the second season, drawing 12.1 million viewers. The season...
, but had to be written out as Grace was unavailable. The producers eventually arranged for Grace to appear in "The End".
Reception
Chris Carabott from IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
was critical of both Shannon and her relationship with Boone before the plane crash, commenting "Shannon's ability to 'sort-of' understand French and Boone's lifeguard training have had little impact and as characters they bring very little to the table. There are also too many more intriguing storylines and characters around them that deserve attention." On their relationship he added, "except for the final act, when they finally succumb to their lust for one another ... There's nothing exciting here or anything that will ultimately be built upon in the Lost universe." In a later review, for the episode following Boone's death, he commented "[Boone and Shannon] were both left with very little to do this season. Especially Shannon, whose high point of usefulness was deciphering Rousseau's documents for Sayid. Well, Maggie Grace is given an opportunity to shine and she does an acceptable job as the distraught sibling who is now looking for someone to blame for Boone's death. We finally get to see some real depth to Shannon's character and her quest for vengeance is believable." According to Melanie McFarland of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is an online newspaper and former print newspaper covering Seattle, Washington, United States, and the surrounding metropolitan area...
, Shannon is "the least deserving of sympathy of all the previously known survivors."
C. K. Sample, III, from AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's TV Squad, joked, "Boone's mother is the devil. How else to make us sympathize with Shannon right before killing her off of the show." Virginia Rohan of The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times
The Seattle Times is a newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, US. It is the largest daily newspaper in the state of Washington. It has been, since the demise in 2009 of the printed version of the rival Seattle Post-Intelligencer, Seattle's only major daily print newspaper.-History:The Seattle Times...
thought the "death of troubled Shannon, just as she was becoming more likable and had found love with Sayid, was sadder than the first-season death of her stepbrother, Boone. Still, it would grieve me far more to lose Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke, Sun or Jin." Maureen Ryan of the Chicago Tribune
Chicago Tribune
The Chicago Tribune is a major daily newspaper based in Chicago, Illinois, and the flagship publication of the Tribune Company. Formerly self-styled as the "World's Greatest Newspaper" , it remains the most read daily newspaper of the Chicago metropolitan area and the Great Lakes region and is...
felt fans echoed this view, describing their reaction as "muted," as they were more angry at Ana Lucia for shooting Shannon. Maggie Grace co-won the 2005
Screen Actors Guild Awards 2005
The 12th Annual Screen Actors Guild Awards ceremony, honoring the best in film and television acting achievement for the year 2005, took place on January 29, 2006 at the Los Angeles Shrine Exposition Center, in Los Angeles, California. It was the 10th consecutive year the ceremony was held at the...
Screen Actors Guild Award for "Best Ensemble - Drama Series
Screen Actors Guild Award for Best Ensemble - Drama Series
The Screen Actors Guild Award for Outstanding Performance by an Ensemble in a Drama Series is an award given by the Screen Actors Guild to honor the finest ensemble acting achievements in dramatic television.-1990s:...
. She was also nominated for the Teen Choice Award for "Choice TV Breakout Performance - Female," but lost out to Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives
Desperate Housewives is an American television comedy-drama series created by Marc Cherry and produced by ABC Studios and Cherry Productions. Executive producer Cherry serves as Showrunner. Other executive producers since the fourth season include Marc Cherry, Bob Daily, George W...
Eva Longoria
Eva Jacqueline Longoria is an American actress, best known for portraying Gabrielle Solis on the ABC television series Desperate Housewives...
.