LOST character of the week

Shannon Rutherford



Background:
Shannon is the stepsister of Boone Carlyle. She dies in the second season, episode “Abandoned.” She’s an unhelpful wench on the island, preferring to soak up the sun instead of help building shelters, etc. She seduces Sayid with her venemous ways. Naveen Andrews, the actor who plays Sayid, actually encouraged the writers to create the relationship between Sayid and Shannon I guessbecause he was tired of his character not getting any action. Critics found her to be an unsympathetic character. Probably all the whining, refusing to help, and just being a giant load in general. When Shannon was eight, her father married Sabrina Carlyle and Boone is brought into our life. We’ll talk about Boone-walking-eye-candy on another day. Shannon pretends to be an innocent ballet dancer, but we all know that she’s an evil ninny from the get-go. She also teaches young girls how to be evil, I mean how to be ballerinas. Then Shannon’s Daddy Warbucks dies, oh noes! And he almost kills Jack’s future cheating wife in the process. What a jerk. Anyway, proof that rich people aren’t always smart: Papa Rutherford never made a will. WHAT? His lawyers weren’t very good at their jobs. Anyway, Sabrina soaks up all the money and completely cuts Shannon off, which I’ll admit is a little cold. Especially since Shannon just got an internship at a prestigious dance school. Shannon can’t come up with the money for the internship on her own so she decides to be an au pair. That doesn’t work out so she resorts to using her womanly wiles. Because women are too stupid to have more than one skill that can make them money. Thank’s writers. Do you take your pig noses off when you eat or do you just stick your faces right in the trough? Moving on. Shannon starts running a con on Boone where she dates guys, pretends they beat her up, and she calls Boone to the rescue. She picked the right mark because she does this multiple times and Boone never catches on. He comes with money to pay the boyfriends off and get them to go away. Then Shannon and the boyfriend split the cash and run. Sydney boyfriend reveals all to Boone after he gets his hand on the check and ruins the con for Shannon. Boone gets so mad that he stomps off to his hotel room and slams the door. Shannon goes to his door and seduces him. Afterwards, she tells him it was a one time thing. Boone’s been carrying a torch for Shannon for years and so this cuts him. It cuts him real deep. She’s so evil. Then they go to the airport because, for some reason, Boone still wants to take care of her. He goes to check the tickets or something and Sayid walks up and asks Shannon to watch his bag. She says, “Of course, strange man! I would love to watch your bag! Watching bags is what I do!” Then she gets Sayid handcuffed for the flight, which would suck because Sydney to L.A. is a long flight. Oh yeah, Shannon has asthma and she’s too irresponsible to take care of her own medical condition so Boone has to do it for her.

On the Island:
Shannon refuses to help anyone with anything and sees herself as on vacation, thinking that the rescue plane will fly by any minute. She has obviously never read any books or seen any movies because it never works that way. Anyway, she prefers to sunbathe. I want to take an aside for a moment and talk about Shannon’s choice of flight clothes. If you are ever flying over the ocean, pick something comfortable to wear. Don’t pick a mini skirt. That’s just ridiculous. Because you will stuck in that mini skirt for a loooong time if you do happen to crash on an island. Just sayin. There is a time for mini skirts, and an 8 hour flight is not the time. Go with the yoga pants.

Back to the island. Boone tells her she’s a selfish lass without the l and they go on a hike with Sayid to send a distress signal. Why? Because the writers realized that Shannon was a complete load and decided to give her a purpose. There is already a distress signal playing and it’s in French? What? NO ONE from the plane speaks French? Wait, Shannon does! Shannon to the rescue! She starts translating the signal and becomes a little less of a selfish twit.

Sayid and Shannon fall in love, or lust, and have a talking date on the beach. When she returns to the caves, she learns that Boone fell in the woods and got crushed by a biplane. Instead of asking What the heck?, Shannon starts pointing fingers at Locke, which was fine because it really was Locke’s fault. She asks Sayid to punish Locke and Sayid refuses and Shannon gets her panties in a big ol’ twist about that. She steals the keys to the gun case and pulls a gun on Locke in the jungle. But she continues the vein of never finishing anything she starts and doesn’t off Locke. Shannon moves back to the “rape” caves with everyone else and takes Vincent with her as Walt has sailed off on the Swiss Family Robinson raft. Season Two starts and Shannon loses Vincent. I’m still convinced that Vincent is in charge of the island. I’ll address that in my Vincent character essay. Anyway, Vinny bounces off into the jungle to chase polar bears and Shannon chases him because who needs a man when you have a good dog? While she is looking for him, she comes across dripping wet hologram Walt. Sayid finds her and Walt is gone and Sayid starts re-thinking his relationship with the crazy chick. Still he builds her a love hut and they spend the night there. Sayid leaves to get some water and Shannon sees wet ghost Walt standing in the love hut (gag. Was he there the whole time?). Sayid tells her she was dreaming. Again they run off into the jungle in the rain where they both see Walt. Shannon runs to Walt and Ana Lucia answers the silent pleas of fans everywhere and pulls the trigger, effectively ending Shannon’s life on the island. And Curtain.

In all, I didn’t like Shannon. There were times when I felt bad for her. Her stepmother was horrible. It seemed that people liked to tell her how useless she was. The only person she felt like she could trust was Boone and she had to watch him die in a pretty violent way. Someone gave her a dog and she couldn’t even keep up with it (although no one has kept a leash on Vincent since this show began). She was finally getting things in order on the island when she got shot by the likes of Ana Lucia. And she probably would have been an excellent dancer if she had been given the chance to pursue it. But her wench of a stepmother took that away from her.

Off Island Connections:
Boone Carlyle – Stepbrother
Jack Shepherd – Future wife was almost killed by Mr. Rutherford’s SUV
Sayid Jarrah – Had him cuffed as a suspected terrorist before the flight
James “Sawyer” Ford – was in the background in the police station flashback when Boone was talking to the police about one of Shannon’s boyfriends.

Any other connections that anyone can think of?

Redeeming quality – suffered great loss. That would make anyone jaded. And she did put forth effort in translating the maps and in taking care of Vincent.

Sawyer’s Nicknames for Shannon: Sticks

Sources: Wikipedia, Lostpedia, lost.about.com, My brain, Season 1 &2 DVDs

Leave your observations of Shannon in the comments and suggest someone for me to write about next week!