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Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Shephard is the de facto main character of the series.
Biography: Jack Shephard is a talented spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian Hospital in the Los Angeles area, where his father, Christian, is the head of surgery. Jack had previously attended Columbia University and went on to graduate from medical school ahead of the rest of his
class.
After the crash of Oceanic 815, the survivors sense Jack’s natural leadership abilities and treat him as their leader from the start. Though reluctant at first, he gradually grows comfortable with taking charge. But as time passes and pressures mount, Jack’s mental condition worsens, and he begins lashing out angrily with increasing unpredictability. Before long, his authority is challenged by Locke, leading to an intense rivalry between the two.
Jack has been portrayed as a “man of science” and a natural leader. He is taciturn, but speaks bluntly, and is somewhat emotionally reserved.
Before the crash: Early in his career at St. Sebastian, Jack is called on to operate on a woman, Sarah, who had been paralyzed in a car crash. Jack is convinced that surgery will not help and, characteristically of his bedside manner, is cold and blunt to her about her prognosis. During the operation, though, Jack has an emotional change of heart and promises to “fix her.” His doubts return immediately after the surgery, and he is agonized at having made a promise he cannot
keep.
Needing to relieve stress, Jack leaves the hospital to run the steps of a nearby stadium. There, he encounters Desmond for the first time. Upon returning to the hospital, Jack is startled to learn that his operation had been a success: Sarah can “miraculously” move her toes and has regained feeling in her
legs.
Jack and Sarah eventually marry, despite Jack’s apprehension in the days preceding the
ceremony. Jack's wedding date was August 15th, or 8/15, the same number as the doomed flight, and also the same as two of the numbers. Their marriage is soon strained under the pressure of his work and Sarah's different work schedule, which causes them to see little of each
other.
Some time later, Jack and his father are working on a tumor patient named Angelo. Angelo's daughter Gabriela is his translator. Jack and his father think that the operation will not work like his miracle operation on Sarah. He gets home to Sarah; she says that her pregnancy test was negative, and Jack is relieved. Christian, Jack's father, sees that Jack is attracted to Gabriela and tells him not to cheat. Jack performs the operation on Angelo and thinks that he did succeed in removing the cancer, but Angelo's illness has weakened him, and he dies on the operating table of a heart attack. On his way to his car, Jack sees Gabriela, whom he tries to console. Gabriela ends up kissing Jack, but Jack tells her that it is not the right thing to do. When he gets home, Jack confesses to his wife about what happened. She, in turn, tells him that she had been cheating on him and that she is leaving him, with her final words to him being, "You will always need something to fix." Jack, being a workaholic, feels he caused the failure of the
marriage.
Jack soon becomes obsessed about the man that Sarah left him for, as she refuses to reveal his identity, even during their divorce proceedings. Jack stalks Sarah from afar, even stealing her cell phone and calling every number in it in hopes of discovering the man. When one number turns out to be Christian's phone, Jack believes that his father is the man seeing Sarah. He follows Christian to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting, where his suspicion boils over and he ends up attacking him. Jack is jailed but released on bail, thanks to Sarah, who was asked to post Jack's bail by a drunk Christian, who has relapsed thanks to the incident at the meeting. Sarah tells Jack that she was on Christian's phone because they were both concerned about Jack's mental state after the marriage ended. Jack sees an unidentified man waiting for Sarah, and she tells Jack that he finally has something new to fix: his relationship with his
father.
Later on, Christian operates on a woman while under the influence of alcohol; when a nurse tells Jack about this he relieves his father and takes over the surgery. He is unable to repair the damage, however, and the woman dies. Christian pressures Jack to sign a report saying the woman was beyond medical assistance, but during the inquiry Jack discovers that the woman was pregnant and reveals that his father had caused fatal damage by severing her hepatic
artery. His father flees with his medical career shattered, eventually ending up in Sydney. Christian Shephard later dies of a massive heart attack brought on by alcohol poisoning. When Jack leaves the United States, he knows only that his father is missing. Eventually he finds him in a Sydney morgue. Jack has trouble getting the casket onto the plane and has an emotional outburst while at the checking counter, stating that he has to bury his father.
Prior to the flight back to Los Angeles, Jack has a conversation in the airport bar with Ana Lucia Cortez, who will also be on the same flight. The two flirt and promise to meet each other later during the flight, though they are seated in different sections of the plane. It is later revealed that she was Christian's bodyguard and drinking buddy while in Australia.
On the plane, he is seated next to Rose. When the turbulence strikes, Rose's husband is in the bathroom and Jack promises to take care of her until he returns. Before the plane's tail section broke off, Jack loses consciousness.
Jack's seat number during the flight is 23 B; it should be noted that this is one of the numbers.
After the crash: At the beginning of "Pilot: Part 1", we see that Jack was thrown into the woods and had multiple gashes, including a large one on his back. Upon finding the plane's wreckage on the beach, he tends to many survivors but is unable to save all of them. He enlists Kate to sew the gash on his back, marking the beginning of their friendship. He leads an expedition with Kate and Charlie to find the cockpit and the plane's transceiver. Together they find it but also witness the pilot's death at the hands of the "monster".
Jack is quickly thrust into a leadership role by the other survivors because of his medical training and take-charge attitude. He quickly develops a rivalry with Sawyer, mainly over Kate and her feelings towards them. Starting in "Walkabout" and continuing in "White Rabbit", Jack begins glimpsing his father distantly. He chases the image, which eventually leads him to a cave shelter and source of fresh water. He also finds his father's empty casket, and destroys it. Jack gets some of the survivors to join him in the caves, while others refuse to leave the beach, hoping to spot a rescue ship.
Until "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues", Jack is mainly seen performing medical duties, such as trying to help Shannon with her asthma, or Claire with her false labor pains. In that episode, he hastily tries to find Ethan after he abducts Charlie and Claire. When they find Charlie, Jack attempts to save him with CPR, but to little avail at first. Even when Kate tells him to give up, Jack continues until he resuscitates Charlie.
When Kate tries to get a case that belonged to the U.S. Marshal, she gets Jack to help exhume the Marshal's body to find the key. After Jack finds the guns in the case, he takes it and the key and hides it. He first takes them out when he, Sawyer, Charlie and Sayid decide to trap Ethan. In "Deus Ex Machina" and "Do No Harm", Jack works furiously to save Boone, who had suffered fatal injuries in the previous episode. However, he finds himself still having trouble letting go, as evidenced when he reveals that he is O-negative and gives Boone some of his blood. This problem with letting go was foreshadowed in most of his flashbacks. Boone eventually tells Jack to let him go, to which Jack agrees. Since then, Jack's distrust of Locke has grown due to Locke not telling Jack everything that's going on.
In "Exodus", Jack is part of the team that retrieves the dynamite at the "Black Rock" and that plans to open the mysterious hatch. Before he leaves, he and Sawyer make up when Sawyer tells him about the encounter he had with his father. Jack and Locke put aside their differences in order to open it, although Locke says that the reason they don't get along is because Jack is a "man of science," while Locke is a "man of faith."
In "Man of Science, Man of Faith" and "Adrift" it is Jack who descends into the hatch after Kate and Locke. He explores the rooms underground and is surprised by Locke and his kidnapper. Jack discovers that the man who has taken them prisoner is none other than Desmond, whom he met the night he operated on Sarah.
In "Collision" Jack is surprised to hear that Ana Lucia survived the crash along with other members of the tail section of the plane, and that she accidentally shot and killed fellow castaway Shannon Rutherford.
In "What Kate Did" Jack struggles with his unresolved feelings for Kate. The situation is complicated when an injured and delirious Sawyer declares his love for her in front of Jack, and when Kate suddenly kisses Jack in the jungle. At the end of the episode Jack reaches out to Ana Lucia, who has distanced herself from the other survivors. He offers her tequila, the drink she had with him in the bar so many weeks before, and the two reconnect.
In "The Hunting Party", he and Locke search for Michael, who had locked them both in the arms locker and gone in search of Walt. Even though he asked Kate not to come, she follows them anyway, and is taken hostage by Mr. Friendly. After a brief standoff, the flight survivors drop their weapons, and Kate apologizes for following the group. Later, Jack asks Ana Lucia how long she thinks it would take to "train an army."
In "The Long Con", after Locke moves the guns they argue about the state of their trust in each other.
In "One of Them", as the interrogation in the armory get out of control, Jack holds Locke against the wall and demands him to unlock the armory. The timer goes off and with few seconds to spare, Locke complies with Jack and lets him in to stop the interrogation.
In "Lockdown", Jack takes care of Aaron, who is running a fever, and is approached by Libby, who was stung by a sea urchin. He comments to Libby that some Neosporin should help, to which she replies that the going rate of exchange for Neosporin is 10 loads of laundry, alluding to Sawyer, who stole all the medical supplies from the hatch. Sawyer is playing poker with Hurley and Kate for mangoes. Jack shows some knowledge of poker when he advises Hurley to fold, implying he can read in Hurley's face that he doesn't have anything good. Sawyer goads Jack into playing a few hands with them, figuring Jack was someone who just played poker online. It is revealed that Jack learned to play poker in Phuket,Thailand, and is later suggested by Sawyer that this is where Jack got his tattoos. Jack agrees to play a few hands and ends up winning all the mangoes and fruit. As he gets up to leave, Sawyer raises the stakes, offering one final hand where Jack names the stakes of the game. After thinking for a second, Jack asks for the medical supplies from the hatch, and beats Sawyer with a pair of nines. As Jack goes to leave, Sawyer asks why he didn't ask for the guns, to which Jack replies, "When I need the guns, I'll get the guns."
In "S.O.S.", Jack, fed up of Henry's unwillingness to co-operate, decides to go into the jungle to propose a trade with the Others; Henry for Walt. Jack heads to the beach looking for Kate and ask her to go with him into the jungle to find the Others. Kate, surprised, says yes. Sawyer, who was with Kate at the time, wonders about the gun that Jack is carrying. He asks him where he got the gun, to which Jack replies "Does it really matter?" While in the jungle, Kate finds a small play doll lying on the ground. Jack senses that it's a trap and tries to prevent her from picking it up, but Kate picks it up and they both get caught in one of Rousseau's traps. They eventually make their way out of the trap by shooting the rope holding them up, and they continue into the jungle. They eventually get to the line that Mr. Friendly marked out, and Jack starts to call the Others out. By nightfall the Others still haven't appeared. Kate thinks that the Others can't hear Jack, but Jack thinks otherwise. After a while, Kate says, "I'm sorry I kissed you," referring to the episode "What Kate Did." Jack replies, "I'm not." Immediately, the sound of a twig snapping gets Kate's and Jack's attention. Jack readies his gun as they both watch a torch move through the distant jungle. The figure gets closer and falls over at their makeshift camp. Jack and Kate both help the person up. It is Michael.
In "Two for the Road", Jack is taking care of Michael. After Michael explains the situation with The Others, Jack confronts Sawyer, telling him to give up the guns. After he doesn't get them, Locke tells Jack why Sawyer doesn't have his gun and what happened to Ana Lucia earlier that day. Jack sets off along with Kate, Sawyer, and Locke back to the Hatch.
In "?", Jack is going back and forth taking care of a wounded Libby and Michael. Jack is unaware that Michael is the shooter, but he tells Sawyer to give him some heroin, so as to put Libby in a more peaceful state. Jack and Hurley are there to hear Libby's last word: "Michael..."
During "Three Minutes", Jack and Sawyer's friendship becomes slightly more visible as they begin talking a little more. Sawyer asks Jack about his trek into the jungle with Kate, to which he replies, "We were caught in a net." Later on, Sawyer finally tells Jack how Ana Lucia got his gun, and confides that Jack is the closest thing he has to a friend. Jack and Sawyer both go to the funeral for Ana Lucia and Libby; Jack speaks for Ana Lucia and Hurley speaks for Libby. Jack is later confronted by Sayid, who tells him that he believes Michael has been "compromised." Jack is one of the people Michael says has to go with him, otherwise, "it won't work."
In "Live Together, Die Alone", Sayid tells Jack that he will sail around the island and ambush the Others when they arrive. Jack does not put any bullets in Michael's gun to be safe, and when the group kills an Other following them, Jack reveals to everyone that Michael is a traitor, which Michael admits. Jack reveals Sayid's plan, but it does not work - Sayid sets off a signal fire from the Others camp, but it is miles away; Michael has not led the group there. Jack and the rest are suddenly ambushed, bound and gagged, and taken to a long dock.
Jack, Sawyer, and Kate watch as Michael leaves the island with Walt via boat. Hurley is let go. The fate of the three is unknown, although "Henry Gale" states that they will not be harmed and that they will live with the Others.
In "A Tale of Two Cities", Jack is now imprisoned in the DHARMA Hydra Installation, in what initially appears to be a jail cell--later revealed to be an emptied aquarium--for questioning by Juliet, one of the Others. After initially refusing to cooperate with her in exchange for food, he gives in after trying to escape and finding out that the cell is underwater. He then finds out that the Others seemingly have medical records, employment papers, and other documents relating to his life and his family. Upon asking about how she got his father's autopsy report, he is simply told, "We got it."
Later, "Henry" sits down with Jack in "The Glass Ballerina," revealing his real name: Benjamin Linus. He tells Jack that he can take him off the island, just as he did with Michael and Walt, but he wants Jack to see where the Others are coming from so he won't think of them as enemies. He proves to Jack that they all have access to the outside world, using examples of events after the crash (up until November 2004), such as the reelection of George W. Bush, the death of Christopher Reeve, and the Boston Red Sox winning the World Series. Jack is skeptical about the Red Sox winning the Series, because of his (and his father's) belief that the Red Sox are cursed by fate. Ben shows him videotaped footage of the Red Sox's victory, leaving Jack speechless.
Trivia
- In the original outline of the pilot
episode, Jack was supposed to be killed halfway through the two-part
pilot; however, early readers claimed killing him off would lose
viewers. The producers subsequently cast Fox in the role as a
permanent character after considerations of a better known guest star
such as Michael Keaton.
- Jack's tattoo contains a 5 and four
Chinese characters 鹰击长空,
which means eagle striking the sky.
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