Start with action. Explain it later. -- John Grisham
I’m back! Okay, enough about me.
Picking up where we left off in Paradise Lost, character development is the topic, featuring a key cast member from the mysterious action adventure series, Lost.
Lost embraces the action-packed premiere like few series on TV today. That’s great for winning over the coveted 18-49 male demographic, but it can strip characterization naked as a skeleton - a disappointing byproduct for those who prefer some meat on their bones. Lost avoids this side effect with short, succinct character insights that nail you to the sofa and don’t let go.
Rather than introduce Dr. Jack Shephard in business class of a large airliner chatting with a flight attendant in a been-there, done-that regurgitation of his life story, he’s dumped on an uncharted tropic isle unconscious. No explanation. Bam! We’re immediately caught. Who is this man? Why is he lying on the ground? We can’t change the channel now. That’s like asking a New Yorker to drive by the scene of an accident and not rubberneck. Please.
Next we wonder how an average guy survives being projectile-vomited 40,000 feet from a plane to wake without liquefied internal organs. Ah…. They never do address that. We’re so horribly immersed after the first minute and a half, we don’t let issues like credibility or basic biology intervene. This is ABC, after all, not Discovery Health. But it’s great television because it’s great story. And great story comes from great character development.
Character development, according to Robert McKee, starts with characterization - who he appears to be. He’s then thrust into a dilemma that challenges his humanity; forced, under pressure, to make difficult decisions, exposing his true nature. Such revelation prompts a change in behavior, but for now we’ll concentrate on the initial character-revealing choices of Jack Shephard.
When Jack first opens his eyes, he’s flat on his back, breathless and disoriented, tangled in bamboo. Since his designer suit is mottled with dirt and blood, we’re pretty sure he didn’t start his day this way. A stomach-churning whine draws Jack toward the beach. He staggers out of the trees to discover the shoreline littered with trauma patients. The source of the noise is a detached jet engine disobeying the laws of physics by revving up and down in an arbitrary cycle amidst the charred ruin of Oceanic flight 815.
For many, this ghastly scene would inspire a panic attack. Not Jack. He jumps into the sea of wounded without a paddle. While others reel about in a daze - sobbing, shouting, or freakishly silent - Jack acts. Authority and adrenaline energize him as he enlists others to help rescue a man trapped under a row of seats just feet from the roaring engine. Once free, they drag him to safety where Jack assesses the man’s hemorrhaging leg and rips off his own tie to use as a tourniquet. Next he attends a pregnant woman, Claire, who’s having contractions. While trying to calm her, a man walks by at the precise moment the engine winds up, sucking him in before exploding. Jack hurls himself across Claire to protect her from the shower of flame and metal.
Jack earns serious brownie points here. If he ran off leaving Claire to catch fire, we’d hit the remote button and move on to something less harrowing, say, the Weather Channel. But Jack doesn’t run. He is who he appears – a committed professional putting his patients first. Classic characterization. At this point, we need that. We need someone to cling to, someone dependable and strong who can get us through this hideous nightmare. Jack delivers.
He hastens over to a woman, Rose, who is not breathing. Boone, a twenty-something male, is frantically applying CPR in such a way that he’s pumping air into the woman’s stomach, not lungs. Jack brushes him aside to take over. Boone asserts he’s a licensed lifeguard, to which Jack retorts he should give back the license. Boone hovers, insisting they need to make a hole in her throat with a pen. Jack knows better but sends Boone off in search of a pen just to be rid of him. Rose still hasn’t drawn a breath. Jack continues chest compressions, urging Rose to breathe, then glances up at Claire and her designated hero, Hurley. They are seated too close to a wing upended by the impact. Ominous cracking broadcasts bad news - it’s going down. Rose sucks in a breath and gasps out air, freeing Jack to leap up and scramble toward Hurley and Claire. He screams for them to run. Again, he shields Claire’s body as the wing collapses and heaves fire and fuselage all over the beach.
Wow. Someone get out the angel wings. This guy’s going to heaven. Too bad he got drop-kicked into hell first. Now, I like your garden variety champion as much as the next gal, but I also want to know Jack has some tarnish under his wings. No one is this perfect. If he remains so, the audience will slowly disconnect.
Jack makes sure Hurley stays with Claire - far from any combustible airplane parts - then wanders off. He’s reached the limit of his makeshift triage skills. He scans the area and shuffles toward the remains of the plane for supplies. The cockpit and first class sections are gone, the fractured hull turned so that the row of windows is now the wreckage-strewn floor. And the bodies…. For the first time, the enormity of what Jack has survived sinks in. Boone picks this exact moment to lope up beside him, holding out a handful of pens like a helpful toddler. He tells Jack he didn’t know which one would work best. Jack is speechless for a moment. Then, kindly, he tells Boone, “They’re all good. Thanks.”
This is the first glimpse of the man beneath the doctor. Harsh reality swamps Jack yet he finds it in himself to recognize the earnestness of Boone’s effort. Rather than a sarcastic brush-off, he thanks Boone with simple sincerity.
A period of calm ensues. Jack steels himself to rummage through the ruptured fuselage, looking for anything to supplement his non-existent medical provisions. Armed with a travel sewing kit, lighter, and t-shirt, he wanders off for a moment to himself. Grimacing, he pulls off his jacket, exposing a huge bloodstain soaking his dress shirt. He removes the shirt. A deep gash runs along his side and back - Jack’s one human concession to defying gravity. We realize he’s been treating people while injured. Selfless and unshakable.
He considers the possibility of suturing his own wound but discards the idea. Even he’s not that competent. He looks around. His gaze falls on Kate, our capable question mark from Paradise Lost. He asks if she could sew him up. Kate balks at the request but realizes Jack can’t manage it himself. With his shirt removed, an impressive collection of tattoos decorate one muscled arm. Well. Dr. Wild Thing. An interesting contrast to the do-right image.
As Kate sews, she marvels at his calm. Isn’t he afraid? Jack tells her about his first solo spinal surgery as a resident; it didn’t go well. After thirteen hours he accidentally ruptured the dural sack at the base of the spine. Nerves and fluid spilled out. He froze. Everyone was staring. If he didn’t act fast, the girl would be paralyzed. So he let the fear have five seconds. He counted - one, two, three, four, five - then powered through. His patient made a full recovery. Lesson? Everyone has that one moment where they define their relationship with fear. It either takes them or doesn’t.
Kate assures him she would have run for the hills. Jack points out she’s not running now. She looks at him, a stare of foreshadowing as Jack – and the audience – don’t yet know she is literally on the run.
Initially, Jack doesn’t pick up on this because more pressing matters vie for his attention - finding the transceiver and sending a signal to promote a rescue effort, to name a few. The survivors deserve genuine first aid, not the piecemeal attempts he’s slapping together like a medical MacGuyver. Kate saw smoke a mile off the beach after the crash. The cockpit? They decide to search for it at first light.
At sunrise, Jack wakes and flashes back to the plane. The first shudder of turbulence prompts Jack to nervously snap on his seatbelt while explaining to a woman across the aisle - Rose - how normal turbulence is. Seeking to soothe even though fear clatters inside him like a bag of marbles. When the plane suddenly drops two hundred feet, he grips the seat rest like a man clinging to the edge of a cliff.
Jack’s true character is slowly rising off the surface like steam off a lake. His fear of flying helps put an ordinary spin on his extraordinary feats of heroism. A real guy with real fears. You can’t help but like him.
There’s a whole lot more to Jack then this, but so far, so good. In a nutshell, he’s a dedicated neurosurgeon with an overpowering fear of flying. A universal phobia that can cripple, yet it doesn’t paralyze him. In fact, it has the opposite affect. As soon as he’s mobile, he throws himself into the business of healing with little more than sheer will and guts. That’s character. It also crosses the line from dedicated to driven. Perhaps pathologically so, foreshadowing further revelations down the road. He’s kind (tries to soothe Rose), decent (his kindness toward Boone), and - it goes without saying – heroic, yet he has tattoos decorating one arm like war paint. Not your average, every day doc. He’s made mistakes – at least one major one during surgery – but he turns it into a learning experience, one he has the emotional courage to share with Kate.
Even his name has significance. Shephard, as in shepherd – a guardian who protects, guides, and watches over a flock. In this case, the survivors of Oceanic flight 815. As a result of his take-charge actions, he becomes the de facto leader, a role that later burdens him both emotionally and psychologically.
But that’s a post for a different day.
