Lost - Do No Harm

Commitment is what makes you tick, Jack. The problem is you are just not good at letting go.

To live and die, right? Humans are born and humans die. In the episode, “Do No Harm”, the conclusion juxtaposes birth and death almost at the same time. Claire is on the verge of having her baby and Jack is seeing to Boone who appears on the verge of death. These two separate events give us both ends of the coin. Boone’s death just seems so pointless. As if it could have been prevented. I think that is what drives Jack at the end to go into the jungle to find Locke. To Jack, Locke murdered Boone and must answer for it. Of course there is limited information gathered because Boone is too wounded to elaborate on his previous days with Locke concerning the hatch and plane. As I mentioned in my previous piece on Locke, his decisions to keep secrets from Jack and others resulted in Boone’s death. As difficult as that is to write, the truth hurts. Locke, quite frankly, does need to answer for his actions. Did he cause the plane to crash from the cliff? Of course not. Did Locke tell Boone to get out of the plane? Yes, he did. But he persisted in Boone’s association with him, and the dream Locke had featured a bloodied and wounded Boone. If anything, that dream perhaps should have *prevented* Locke from pursuing the plane. But Locke started to lose his legs and he took that as a sign to move forward. Again, as I write this, that is tough but the truth is the truth. Locke contributed to Boone’s death. I understand why Jack is seething and feels Locke is a murderer. Jack has the Hippocratic Oath that prevails in his very personality. His reason for being, it seems, is to serve his fellow man in the efforts of good health and well being. Is it hero overload? Sure. Lost’s Creative seen fit to make Jack the very Cherub of Medicine Men. I recognize that as time goes on the writer’s room will apply shades of grey and color outside the lines with the character of Jack. That halo will eventually have to endure its little cracks. But that rage at the end makes sense, really. Locke has some explaining to do.

Kate being shoved into the role of baby deliverer is certainly among those accumulating heroics that are required on an island when one doctor can only handle so much. She certainly didn’t want this job, but Jack was busy elsewhere. Thanks for some encouragement (and anxiety, particularly in Charlie’s case) by the likes of Jin-Soo and Charlie, Kate stepped in with bits of information from Jack involving baby delivery. The rest was Kate motivating Claire to push and give the baby in her womb freedom to live. As members of the plane crash congregate to celebrate the baby boy now in their midst, Jack is left to inform Shannon of her stepbrother’s death. That mixture of euphoria and melancholy is well visualized in the episode. Such imbalance with Jack contending with the inability to save Boone (Boone telling him that he’s off the hook after promising to save him from fatality), even planning to remove his leg as “it was the only way”, a happy mother coddles her newborn as others glow around her. That hook of Jack entering the jungle as Kate is unable to stop him sure sends the episode off with a neat cliffhanger…

Flashbacks in this episode deal with Jack's indecision regarding marriage to a patient he rescued from paralyses when it appeared her back was destabilized (Julie Bowen; Modern Family; Boston Legal). There's further use of John Terry as Papa Shepherd, actually lending some sage to Jack regarding his character and how he's so committed to people that it skews his everyday life. The time before marriage and day of the wedding are revealed. It is more or less additional character development for Jack and ties into his efforts to save Boone, giving his all even as there was simply nothing more he could do for the dying young man.