The Characters: Jack (as leader)

Welcome to the first entry in Jack Shepherd Week: five days devoted to my favorite character and the show’s hero. Certainly other characters have stepped up during Jack’s absences. And yes, Jack’s stubbornness and single-mindedness can both blind him and annoy the hell out of us. However, Jack will always have my loyalty; he earned it through at least three solid seasons of leadership. It’s not just that he’s the dashing doctor. It’s because he’s been comfort to those in pain, strength in times of war, a peacemaker in times of peace, and a friend to all those who would have his friendship. He has consistently chosen the right over the easy.

He is also the dashing doctor. In his first 10 minutes on the island, he saves four lives: an unidentified man trapped beneath one of the plane’s wheels, Rose, Claire and then Claire and Hurley.[1] He does the hardest thing to do in an emergency: cuts through the diffusion of responsibility to both help his fellow passengers and organizes them to help each other. The next few days are a combination of Jack taking leadership and having it trust upon him. He tends to the slowly dying Marshall while Sayid works on getting a radio signal and later persuade the castaways’ to burn the bodies in the fuselage. Then tasks for which he is only marginally qualified are assigned to him. For example, Boone tells Jack that Rose has eaten since the crash. He does convince her to eat despite her missing her husband who was also on the plane and is unaccounted for.[2]

The turning point is “White Rabbit”. By this point, Jack is a little pissy about being the leader. His day starts with saving Boone from drowning, who himself tried unsuccessfully to save Joanna from drowning. He then storms off into the jungle following what appears to be his father’s ghost. By the end of the episode, Jack returns to camp with his most famous speech: every man for himself isn’t going to work; “if we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.”[3] This is way before the Others show up. The principle threat facing the castaways is themselves and they take the opportunity to attack each other over the dwindling water supply. They fight and may have destroyed if Jack hadn’t stopped it. He continues to be a peacemaker. He tries to break up Michael and Jin’s fighting after the first raft burns down.[4] As late as the 4th season, he breaks up the Rose and Bernard led lynch mob against Daniel and Charlotte.[5]

Jack is also a leader when the Others’ bring war to the survivors. His best moments are while the Others are holding Jack, Kate and Sawyer prisoner and threaten to execute Sawyer if Jack does not perform life saving surgery on Ben. Juliet and Ben have been working Jack hard when Jack pushes back. He describes in detail the grim ending Ben faces without surgery—just so Ben understand how he’s going to die.[6] He agrees to do the surgery in exchange for a ticket off the island after seeing Kate and Sawyer post-coital and supposedly no longer cares about them.

Once he gets Ben on the table though, he cuts his kidney sac, demands a walke-talkie, arranges for Sawyer and Kate to be released, tells Kate to run, and makes her promise not to come back before shutting off his walkie.[7] This is the guy Sawyer thought he could hustle at poker?

[1] “The Pilot”
[2] “Walkabout”
[3] “White Rabbit”
[4] “In Translation”
[5] “Something Nice Back Home”
[6] “I Do”
[7] See “I Do”, “Not in Portland”