Lost - Hearts and Minds [Boone & Shannon]

The episode I was dreading: back story on Shannon. I have been more than a bit vocal on my disinterest in her character. I find her a selfish, self-absorbed diva seemingly only interested in her own welfare, invested in her looks while everyone else is focused on survival and helping to develop a community while still waiting on help off the island. Boone has been the seemingly responsible brother, often quite annoyed at her behavior, critical of her lack of value to the community. And by the end of the episode I wished I had just skipped their back story altogether. What I certainly didn’t prepare for or most especially desire is to learn that they two are step-siblings who had sex with each other! Shannon chooses bad boys, and that is how Boone finds her in Australia, once again occupying herself in the home of a dick. Boone offers him money, he declines when it is revealed that Shannon just wanted him to bring the green they could lavish themselves with (“You just used me…”), and the dick takes what Boone offers with Shannon returning to her brother after the newest boyfriend leaves her. Shannon then seduces Boone with them kissing and collapsing to the hotel bed. The two then decide to board the plane for LA that instead dumps them on the island.

What I personally liked about Hearts and Minds is Locke’s “initiation” of Boone. This is like some “rite of passage” where Boone must endure what seems like a test in the woods where he must free himself from a rope trap Locke ties him in. Rubbing some fruit medicine to heal a wound on the back of Boone’s head as he clocked the young man, Locke leaves, allowing him to find the inspiration inside him to get loose. That comes in Shannon’s cry for help just at a distance, encouraging Boone to will his bound body to the knife Locke left stabbed in the ground in front of him. Once free also encouraging Boone to rescue Shannon and get her to safety is the incoming sound of the mysterious island creature the plan survivors have been hearing rustling about out of eyesight. As they run, Shannon is pulled away and Boone later finds her battered and bloody body dumped near a watering hole. So all of this has Boone returning to Locke with this rage and desire to kill him, not realizing that what he had just experienced was a hallucination. Locke clearly expresses no surprise at all as he just knew the island would lead Boone to a revelation: as Shannon died in his arms, he was relieved. Locke assures Boone he needs to let her go.

Shannon and Sayid appear to be on the cusp of a potential romance, although I have a hard time coming to terms with such a possible couple. They seem like such a mismatch to me. She is often all about herself while Sayid is the kind that focuses on the needs of the many. I guess you might could chalk it up to attraction and few real options available in regards to coupling. While Shannon seems anything but responsible, Sayid is one of the most driven and astute on the island. You’d think he’d have better things to do that spend his time flirting with her. Just the same the Creative on Lost saw this as an avenue to detour. It does appear Boone will let her go and follow Locke into the woods to contemplate how to open this hatch found buried under the earth when they had been looking for the missing Claire. The island (or that fruit “medicine” globbed by Locke into the head wound) producing the rescue and failure Boone endures when trying to save Shannon allows him to see that she is a burden to him and letting go of that could be his escape. Shannon left to associate herself with Sayid as Boone moves on, joining forces with Locke to decide how to open that hatch is his reprieve.