The Character Who Remodeled Misplaced’s Narrative

Once we consider Lost’s most essential characters, it’s straightforward to deal with those that arrived on the island by way of the Oceanic Airways Flight 815 aircraft crash firstly of the sequence. Nonetheless, the character who serves as the largest plot driver within the present doesn’t truly enter the scene till its second season.

Most rankings of Lost’s main characters rightly place Desmond Hume close to the very prime, and he’s an undisputed fan favourite. But, Desmond’s significance to the sequence as an entire is definitely underappreciated. The character virtually singlehandedly modified the course of the present together with his look in “Man of Science, Man of Religion”.

He was key to a lot of the key conceptual premises and plot threads which might be launched into Misplaced thereafter, because the sequence started to rework into one thing radically totally different from the way it had began out. With out Desmond, this transformation would by no means have been doable.

In addition to being the chief conduit for time travel in Lost, he’s basic to grounding the science fiction components in seasons 2 to five extra broadly. Whereas Desmond was criminally underused within the present’s last season, this oversight didn’t diminish his total affect and recognition as a personality.

Desmond’s Introduction Utterly Modified What Misplaced Was About

Nearly a decade earlier than Henry Ian Cusack starred in The 100, one other disaster-themed sci-fi present, he joined Misplaced’s solid to play the likable however enigmatic Desmond Hume. Named after Enlightenment-era empiricist thinker David Hume, Desmond was to impact the sequence far past the scope of his character’s particular person function.

Earlier than the survivors of the Oceanic Airways Flight 815 crash encountered him, Misplaced was basically a up to date model of conventional desert-island survival tales. Whereas there have been mysterious and apparently supernatural components within the present’s first season, such because the rumored existence of “the Others” and transient glimpses of the “Smoke Monster”, it couldn’t actually be described as a sci-fi sequence.

That each one modified with Desmond, who launched the survivors to the work happening inside The Swan – an underground hatch by which he was dwelling – to forestall international catastrophes. From that time on, the entry of quantity sequences into a pc was linked to different occasions within the sequence.

From the season 2 premiere on, no sci-fi trope or idea was off limits for Misplaced, from chaos concept to a personality-altering illness, and even time journey. The truth is, Desmond is the first character in Misplaced to follow time journey, each within the type of time-jumps in consciousness and in a bodily sense, from season 3 onwards.

Even Although He Wasn’t On The Airplane, Desmond Grew to become A Fan-Favourite

It’s uncommon for a personality who solely seems in the primary solid of a present for 2 thirds of its run to be an outright fan favourite, however Desmond Hume unquestionably achieved this feat in Misplaced. He wasn’t initially a part of the sequence, lacking everything of the primary season, and solely seems in a handful of season 2 episodes.

What’s extra, Desmond is absent for many of season 6. But, he’s proper on the coronary heart of a lot of Lost’s best episodes. His plucky Scottish allure and curiosity problem Jack Shepherd to reexamine his life decisions, and his enduring romance with Penny Hume proves to be a serious spotlight of the entire sequence.

By the tip of season 2, many followers had been already enamored with Desmond, and it’s unsurprising that he was voted Misplaced’s greatest character when the Washington Submit held an viewers ballot in 2007. Given his uncommon insights into the human situation and his compelling private story, it didn’t matter to most viewers that he wasn’t within the present’s first season.

His time-traveling exploits in later seasons of the sequence, alongside together with his historical past on the island, solely made him a extra intriguing and spectacular character. There are many standout figures within the present, however nobody made extra of an impression than Desmond total.

Why Desmond Was Misplaced’s Most Vital Character

Moreover his excellent options as a personality in his personal proper, Desmond’s story in Misplaced is key to the trajectory of the sequence as an entire. It was when the survivors discovered him on the island that it grew to become clear they weren’t merely stranded on a abandoned strip of land in the course of the ocean.

It was Desmond’s relationship with Penny that gives the catalyst for Lost’s most chilling scene, which can also be among the many most vital moments within the sequence, when the survivors notice they’re not being rescued. It was Desmond, too, who grounded the present’s time-traveling conceit in a real human story, when he managed to name his spouse on Christmas Eve.

With out this one character, Misplaced would have been dramatically diminished as an exhilarating drama we might sympathize with, in addition to one of many small display screen’s biggest works of science fiction. Though different characters might have had extra display screen time or embodied the tropes of an ideal hero or villain extra absolutely, nobody was extra essential than Desmond.

Launch Date

2004 – 2010-00-00

Showrunner

Damon Lindelof, Carlton Cuse

Administrators

Jack Bender, Paul A. Edwards, Tucker Gates, Eric Laneuville, Bobby Roth, Greg Yaitanes, Daniel Attias, J.J. Abrams, Karen Gaviola, Kevin Hooks, Rod Holcomb, Stephen Semel, Adam Davidson, Alan Taylor, David Grossman, Deran Sarafian, Fred Toye, Mario Van Peebles, Marita Grabiak, Mark Goldman, Matt Earl Beesley, Michael Zinberg, Paris Barclay, Robert Mandel

Writers

Jim Galasso, Christina M. Kim, Graham Roland, Kyle Pennington, Brent Fletcher, Daybreak Lambertsen Kelly, Janet Tamaro, Jeffrey Lieber, Paul Dini, Jordan Rosenberg

• 

  Matthew Fox

  Jack Shephard

• 

  Evangeline Lilly

  Kate Austen