Jack Shephard

Jack Shephard
Matthew Fox as Jack Shephard
First appearance	"Pilot: Part 1"
Centric episodes	"White Rabbit" "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" "Do No Harm" "Man of Science, Man of Faith" "The Hunting Party" "A Tale of Two Cities" "Stranger in a Strange Land" "Through the Looking Glass"
Information
Name	Jack Shephard
Former residence	Los Angeles, California, USA
Profession	Spinal Surgeon
Portrayed by	Matthew Fox

Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Jack is the de facto main character of the series.^[1]

Background

Jack has the most "centric" episodes out of all the characters with a total of eight centric episodes to date, and first one to have a flashforward. He is the son of Christian Shephard, half brother of Claire Littleton, and uncle of Aaron Littleton, though neither he nor Claire know this.

Jack is a talented spinal surgeon at St. Sebastian Hospital in the Los Angeles area, where his father, Christian, is Chief of Surgery. Jack had previously attended Columbia University and went on to graduate from medical school ahead of the rest of his class.^[2] Jack has been portrayed as a “man of science” and a natural leader. He is taciturn, but speaks bluntly, and is somewhat emotionally reserved which has caused him relationship problems with women. He lets go of matters that appear important to him with great difficulty and has tattoos on his left arm.

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.

Fictional character biography

Prior to the crash

Jack was born into the surgeon career, following the footsteps of his father, who told him as a child that he would never make a great leader. Early in his career, he operated on a young girl. As he was finishing off, he accidentally severed a nerve sac on her spine. After briefly panicking, he manages to fully repair the wound. Later, he chose to operate on Sarah, a woman involved in a car accident, over Adam Rutherford (Shannon's father). He informs her of the high chance she would no longer be able to use her legs, but vows to "fix her." After relieving stress by running at a stadium after the operation, he returns to find, much to his surprise, that Sarah can miraculously move her toes. Following this event, the two marry on August 15. Since then, however, their marriage grows strained, as their different careers caused them to see little of each other.

Jack and Christian are soon consulted by an Italian man with a tumor, who asks him to operate on him. Jack reluctantly agrees, but during the surgery, the man dies of heart failure. Jack goes to console his daughter in the parking lot, but ends up kissing her. He returns home to Sarah and informs her, to which she admits to cheating on Jack, and leaves him. Unable to bear this loss, Jack refuses to cooperate during the divorce procedures, demanding to know the identity of the man she is seeing. Sarah refuses, resulting in Jack stealing her phone bill and calling every single number. Christian scolds him for his actions, but finds himself on the receiving end of Jack's rage after he catches him on the phone with Sarah, suspecting him of being the suspect. Jack is arrested, but released on bail when Sarah visits. Due to Jack's actions, Christian slumps back into his drunken state.

Jack retreats to Thailand for several months, where he associates himself with Achara, a mysterious young woman with a unique gift of seeing a person's true self. When Jack follows her back to her tattoo parlor, he demands that she give him a description of his true character. She tells him that he is a great leader, but is also angry and lonely as a result. Upon requesting a tattoo bearing this, she instead brands him an "outsider." He is then ambushed by the locals, who banish him from the country. Jack returns to surgery, where on one occasion he is called to relief his father during an operation on a woman. After she dies, Christian persuades Jack to sign a report saying she was beyond medical treatment. Upon learning of the woman's pregnancy, Jack exposes his father as a chronic alcoholic, shattering Christian's career.

Later, Jack's mother begs him to find and bring Christian back, and informs him that he fled to Australia. Jack travels to the last hotel his father stayed at, only to find nothing. He eventually discovers Christian's corpse in a morgue, dying of a severe heart attack brought on by alcohol abuse. Jack arranges for a funeral back home, but has trouble clearing the casket at the airport. His request is eventually granted, and Jack spends the last few minutes at the airport bar. He encounters Ana Lucia, whom he flirts with before departing to board the doomed flight. Mid-flight, air hostess Cindy slips him two bottles of vodka to ease his tension. He keeps Rose company while her husband is in the toilet at the rear of the plane when turbulance hits. Before crashing, however, Jack passes out.

After the crash

Season 1

Jack wakes up in the jungle, with a large gash on his back. He emerges from the jungle, bewildered at first, to discover the crash site. He immediately rushes over to help as many people as possible; he pulls a man from beneath the plane wheel, he rescues Claire and Hurley from a collapsing wing, and manages to revive Rose. Later, he encounters Kate, and asks her to sew up his gash. That night, he and Kate plan to head inland to find the cockpit, as well as the radio transceiver. They are soon joined by Charlie, and the three successfully find the cockpit. After a brief encounter with the "Monster", Jack returns to the beach, where is called to examine an unconscious Marshall impaled on shrapnel. He manages to control his bleeding, and learns of Kate's criminal past. When Sawyer fails to kill him, Jack performs euthanasia on the Marshall.

Deprived of sleep, Jack begins hallucinating, and follows visions of Christian, discovering a set of caves, complete with a fresh water source. He leads a handful of survivors to take up residence. However, during an argument with Charlie, he is caught in a cave in. Charlie comes to his rescue, and helps him escape. Since then, Jack deals with the survivors' illnesses up until Claire and Charlie's abduction. He, Kate, Locke and Boone search for the two, but only succeed in rescuing Charlie after Jack is beaten by Ethan. Jack also takes possessions of the guns contained in the Marshall's briefcase. After Ethan threatens Charlie to return Claire to him, Jack conducts a plan to capture and interrogate him; the plan backfires when Charlie shoots and kills him with Jack's dropped gun. Later, Locke brings a critically injured Boone to the caves, and Jack and Sun work into the night to try and save him. The next morning, Jack informs Shannon of her brother's demise.

Kate drugs Jack in order to get him to sleep. When he awakens, the key to the guns is missing. His suspicions fall upon Locke, and he, Kate and Sayid enter the jungle to find Locke at gunpoint by Shannon. The next day, Sayid takes Jack to the hatch, discovered by Locke. When Rousseau arrives on the beach, she takes Jack, Kate, Locke, Hurley and Arzt to the Black Rock, in order to gather some dynamite. After the sudden demise of Arzt, Jack and Locke set up the dynamite around the hatch, and successfully blow it open. The four peer down into the hatch.

Season 2

Shortly after the opening of the hatch, Jack declines to descend, and tells Locke and Kate not to go in. He soon learns that they have disobeyed him, and Jack climbs down after them. He finds Locke at gunpoint again, this time by Desmond, who had been living in the hatch for the past three years. He shows the three of them an orientation video, but flees as soon as Kate damages the computer. Jack chases after him, where he recognizes him from the stadium, and is given the code to enter into the computer. Since then, Jack and Locke set up a rota for certain survivors to enter the code into the computer. Jack and Kate spend a day playing golf when they encounter Mr. Eko carrying a critically injured Sawyer. They take them to the hatch, where Jack prepares to extract revenge for Shannon's death, but changes his mind when he learns more about the accident. Jack and Kate take turns in tending to Sawyer.

Jack finds Locke unconscious in the hatch armory, only to be locked in with him by Michael, who insists he doesn't follow him. Regardless, Jack, Locke and Sawyer pursue him, only to encounter the Others, who have Kate held hostage for ransom of their weapons. Jack gives Kate the cold shoulder upon returning to the beach. Later, Jack becomes an unsuspecting victim in Sawyer's long con to steal the remaining weapons and medicine. Jack, Locke and Sayid bring captured "Henry Gale" into the hatch and begin to interrogated him, suspecting him of being an Other. Since his arrival, Jack and Locke's grudge is toyed with, until Sayid, Ana Lucia and Charlie expose Henry as an imposer.

Jack decides to return to where he encountered the Others to propose a trade with Henry for Walt, only for Michael to emerge from the bushes. After he comes to, Michael promises to take Jack to the Others' camp. As Jack asks Sawyer for the guns, he learns of Ana Lucia's intention to kill Henry, and he, Kate, Locke and Sawyer rush to the hatch to discover her already dead, and Michael and Libby severely injured. At first, Jack intends to pursue the escaped Henry, but is reminded of the current situation. He administrates the confiscated heroin to Libby, but is unable to save her. He agrees to go with Michael to the Others' camp, and sets off the next day, having been cautioned by a wary Sayid. On the way to the camp, Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley are gagged, tied up and taken to a pier. Jack witnesses Michael and Walt leaving the island, while he, Kate and Sawyer are taken away with the Others.

Season 3

Jack finds himself held in a room with a glass wall, where he is questioned by Juliet. Jack refuses to cooperate with her or Ben, almost flooding the hatch. Since then, he eventually begins to settle down. On his second day as captive, Juliet seeks his medical expertise to operate on Colleen, but she flatlines and dies on the table. Jack notices some x-rays on the wall, and asks about the tumor on the spine. After attending the funeral, Ben reveals that he wants him to operate on him, to which Jack spitefully refuses. However, after watching Kate and Sawyer having sex in the cages, he reluctantly agrees. Under Juliet's secret instruction, during the operation Jack deliberately slices open Ben's kidney, and holds Ben hostage until Kate and Sawyer escape. Juliet attempts to call his bluff, but Jack reveals her intended plan. After a discussion with Juliet and Ben, Jack resumes and completes the surgery. He is then questioned by Isabel about Juliet's motives, to which Jack denies his claims. He succeeds in sparing Juliet execution for killing one of her own, and is taken back to the Others' barracks.

Jack appears to have bonded with some of the Others during his time there. When Kate attempts to rescue him, Jack warns him that he is under surveillance, and later admits to being transported home, along with Juliet. However, Locke thwarts his plans by destroying the submarine. Later, Jack is knocked out by nerve gas, and is later found by Kate. Noticing the barracks completely abandoned, Jack, Kate, Sayid and Juliet return to the beach. Jack remains protective of Juliet, and intervenes whenever Sayid attempts to interrogate her. Upon arriving back at the beach, Claire suddenly falls critically ill, and Jack learns of the fate of all pregnant women on the island. He allows Juliet to treat her, to which Claire makes a full recovery. Later, Jack and Juliet learn of the arrival of Naomi. Soon after, Jack and Juliet head into the jungle to seek Rousseau's help, and ask her to retrieve some dynamite.

Upon returning to the beach, Jack and Juliet walk in on a camp meeting, who are now aware of Juliet's purpose for being amongst them. However, Jack leads them into the jungle the next day to reveal their true intentions; to rig the targeted tents with dynamite in order to destroy the Others when they invade the camp the following night. However, Jack is forced to drastically change his plan when Karl informs them that the Others are coming very shortly. Jack allows Sayid, Jin and Bernard to remain behind while he leads everyone else to the radio tower. They witness the plan backfire that night, but Jack insists they press on. He eventually encounters Ben and Alex in the jungle, to which Ben tricks Jack into thinking that Sayid, Jin and Bernard are dead. Jack takes Ben hostage again, and takes him with them to the tower. After Locke kills Naomi, Jack uses her satellite phone to make contact with her freighter.

After the Island

In Through the Looking Glass, it is revealed that Jack and Kate leave the island sometime in the future.

In the future, Jack has become a drug-addicted alcoholic. While on a plane, he finds a small note in a newspaper, and is obviously deeply disturbed by it. Once he has landed, he takes his car and drives up on a bridge. He looks at the note again, and starts to cry. He gets out of the car and climbs on top of the ledge of the bridge, meaning to jump. Just before he can jump off the bridge, however, a car crashes and he rescues a woman and her son from the wreckage. Back in the hospital, he encounters his pregnant ex-wife, since her name was still listed as his Emergency Contact. The next day, Jack wants to perform back surgery on the woman from the car accident, but the Chief of Surgery rejects his offer.

Jack then goes to a funeral of an unidentified person and is the only person to show up. Later he attempts to fill a prescription for Oxycodone; however the prescription is out of refills, and he is unable to persuade the pharmacist that he is filling a prescription for his father. Outraged, he then returns to the hospital and steals several small packages of Oxycodone, where he is confronted by the chief, who says the patient has awoken and told him Jack distracted her, causing the crash. Jack tells the Chief to bring his father down and see which Shephard is drunker.

Jack leaves angrily and returns to his apartment, a mess with dozens of maps of what appears to be the Pacific Ocean and many items that are marked "Oceanic". Here he calls a woman, asking her to meet him at the airport. When she arrives, the woman is revealed to be Kate. He tells her about the funeral and that he has been flying across the Pacific Ocean every week (using a "Gold Pass" provided by Oceanic Airlines), hoping that the plane will crash. Distraught, Jack tells her that it was a mistake to leave the island, that they "weren't meant" to leave the island and that they have to go back. She disagrees and, crying and visibly distraught, comments that "he'll be waiting for me" and gets back into her car and drives off into the night. A passenger jet soars off overhead as Jack yells after her "We have to go back!"

Character Notes

• 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 considering a well-known guest star such as Michael Keaton.^[3][4]

• Jack's tattoo is an actual tattoo Matthew Fox has in real life. It contains a 5, two letters BC, a Lebanese Phalangist symbol, and four Chinese characters 鹰击長空, which means "eagle striking the sky", a sentence taken from Changsha, a poem by Mao Zedong.^[5]

References

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