Top 5 Key Non-Island Characters

Before I get into my Top 5 I should qualify the criteria employed here to define my selection. By “key non-Island character” I am referring exclusively to characters that have had no direct involvement with the Island. No Christian Shephard, for example. Or Anthony Cooper. They’ve both had major plotlines on the Island. Penny Widmore may have never been on the Island but she’s had a direct involvement with events surrounding it. Same goes for her dad, Charles Widmore; since he claims ownership of the Island it’s fair to assume he’s got involvement in it!

What I am left with then, are characters that have, for their various reasons, come to be memorable, or intrinsic to the show, or just plain notable in Lost despite never being part of the Island aspect. In order of their first appearance, here’s my Top 5.

Randy Nations
Appeared In: Walkabout, Everybody Hates Hugo, Tricia Tanaka Is Dead, The Beginning Of The End



Pop quiz, hotshot! Name the only flashback / flashforward character to have appeared in every single Season of Lost by the end of Season 4. (Hint: His name and his picture are just above this piece of writing.) That’s right – Randy has the dubious honour of being such a recurring feature it would have been improper to leave him out of this list. The fact that he’s an odious piece of shit doesn’t hurt either. And that he’s got a porn star name sure doesn’t work against his legendary status, too.

In Season One he was Locke’s boss at the box factory. . .



There’s just no explanation as to why Randy is such a bastard to Locke. It’s great! Let’s not forget that Locke is in a wheelchair. He’s a guy at work who is A CRIPPLE. But does Randy give a fuck? No, sirree! He marches right in and attacks Locke on his break; belittles the games he likes to play and mocks his planned Walkabout trip. I mean, wow! Randy is a man that needlessly, mercilessly berates a crippled old man – that’s a real bastard and a half. What a guy!

In Season Two he was Hurley’s boss at Mr. Cluck’s. . .



Chronologically speaking, this is before Randy was Locke’s boss at the box factory, but he’s still a swine. He pulls Hurley into the office and crucifies that fat, greedy pig for unwittingly stuffing his face with chicken. To be fair, as Hurley’s boss, Randy did have the right to discipline his employee for being such a lazy arse – he just didn’t need to look like he was enjoying it as much as he clearly was! Cluck you, Randy!

In Season Three the tables were turned and Randy was just pleased to be an employee for Hurley at the soon-to-be-opened Mr. Cluck’s. . .



This is the one time we get to see Randy looking humble and not being a son of a bitch. Probably this incident part-fuelled how bitter he would become when he would eventually be Locke’s boss. Once you’ve seen a meteorite obliterate a television reporter it changes you.

In Season Four it was a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it appearance in the opening scene where Randy, inexplicably and improbably, was on hand to video Hurley’s unfortunate arrest. . .



There he is filming the end of the chase. How did he know he should be there, with a video camera!? No one knows. But I think we can all be assured he was loving every second of seeing Hurley arrested, upset, looking crazed – all for his home video viewing pleasure. Even though he’s filming it all with the lens cap on. Doh! Evil and comedy all in a single shot! If Randy doesn’t show up for a brief cameo during Seasons 5 and 6 I for one am going to be very upset.

Nadia
Appeared In: Solitary, Lockdown, Greatest Hits, The Shape Of Things To Come (in coffin), There’s No Place Like Home – Part 1



Just what the hell is this woman up to? Well, to be fair, after the events of The Shape Of Things To Come she’s not up to much, what with being DEAD and all. But even her death is surrounded in mystery – who did it? why did they do it? I’m telling you, the woman’s up to no good. She’s been up to no good since the day we met her.



As you may recall, Sayid was sent to torture her to verify if she had been blowing stuff up in Iraq. You can bet your bottom dollar that she really did it. Yet Sayid realised she was his childhood sweetheart and so he engineered her escape and that was the last time he saw her – until he left the Island and returned to the world as part of the Oceanic 6.

But that didn’t mean he hadn’t spent a fair old time looking, and he would have to hunt far and wide because this woman gets around. She showed up in America, buying a home that Locke was checking out for her. And she turned up in London, getting mugged, requiring Charlie to come to her assistance.



For an Iraqi woman on the run for terrorist crimes she has laughed in the face of coincidence to keep cropping up in the grand Oceanic tapestry. For this reason she makes the Top 5, mainly because I am sure we’re not quite done learning about how deep into this web she goes. For example, the FBI informed Sayid that, just before the crash of Oceanic, she was living in California, working as a “lab-tech at a medical testing company”.

A medical testing company, eh? Surely not a certain. . .



When it comes to Nadia, and how involved she may just turn out to become in the grand scheme of things, I wouldn’t put much passed her. SOMEONE wanted her dead bad enough, we’ve just yet to learn the reason why. . .


Thomas
Appeared In: Raised By Another



What an absolute dickwad this guy is. A total fucking jerk. I mean, let’s appraise his situation. He’s going out with Claire. Now take a look at Thomas, and then think of Claire. Let’s be clear: Claire is HOT. Young and blonde and full of life with a great figure and, to be fair, a cracking rack. Claire is smoking hot and this Thomas guy should be pinching himself that he’s managed to bag himself a chick like her.

So what does he do? Well he manages to get her knocked up. OK. Fair enough. Shit happens. But he convinces her that she should keep the baby. He talks about raising a family and makes Claire dream of a happy future together. Then, the moment she’s past the point of no return, he starts drinking and getting all pissy about how he needs time to be an artist and, ultimately, he bails.



In the grand tradition of shit fathers on Lost, Thomas adds himself amongst the ranks. So he makes the Top 5 for being a bad father, but also for being the father of Aaron who, I think we can all agree, is destined to be quite important. But that’s not where the end of the intrigue with Thomas ends. For the online Lost community, Thomas has generated lots of discussion and theorising because of the possibility that he may actually be the son of Ben!

That’s right. Fucking amazing, right? And how did some members of the Lost fandom manage to arrive at this incredible possibility? Ah, you know. . . because Thomas kind of, uh, looks a bit like Ben.



Jesus.

For what it’s worth, if Thomas turns out to be Ben’s long lost son I’ll spend an afternoon gnawing on my own elbows, video it, and post it here. Still, you’ve gotta love the online Lost fans. If there is a bunch of more rabidly intelligent morons all babbling away with each other I can’t imagine where I’d find ‘em!

Sarah Shephard
Appeared In: Do No Harm, Man Of Science, Man Of Faith, The Hunting Party, A Tale Of Two Cities, Through The Looking Glass



It’s hard to come up with good things to say. She done gone and messed Jack up real good! When we first met her she and Jack were getting married but we knew that things weren’t going to go well – by the time he got to the Island we knew he was single! Fact is I can only really blame her for the break-up. I mean, pre-Sarah, this was Jack:



Post-Sarah, this was Jack:



Sure, there were some other circumstances involved in Jack’s transformation but Sarah’s got to take responsibility for a major part of it. I mean, come on! When they first met Sarah was looking at a life in a wheelchair. It was a life so shit that her fiancée at the time bailed at the thought of her not even being able to go to the bathroom by herself. But up steps Jack, heroically, and performs what can only be described as a miracle.

Sarah should have been getting down on her hands and knees and kissing the ground Jack walked on every single day of her WHEELCHAIR-FREE life! There is literally nothing she doesn’t owe him! And yet what does she do? When he’s out working every hour available trying to enable other people to have wonderful lives thanks to his gifts as a surgeon? What does poor stuck-at-home Sarah Shephard do? She goes and fucks someone else behind his back.



Yeah, SHE is the one that cheats on the marriage and then SHE is the one that goes filing for divorce. Not content with making Jack think that she might just be fucking his own DAD she turns him into a crazed lunatic by declining to tell him the name of the person she’s screwing him over for. Give the guy a break! If it wasn’t for him you wouldn’t be WALKING around FUCKING people AT ALL.

As if to add insult to injury, she doesn’t even bother to go and see Jack when he turns up alive after his time on the Island. I mean fuck’s sake! For all she knew he was dead, and then he turns up as a hero having saved the Oceanic 6 and she can’t even say, “Hi!” The only time she does bother is when Jack is in hospital and she decides NOW she’ll go and see him when she’s all FAT and PREGNANT just so she can rub his nose in her new life that he’s not a part of anymore.



You’re a piece of work all right! You done gone and messed Jack up real good!

Jae Lee
Appeared In: . . . And Found, The Whole Truth, The Glass Ballerina



It’s not often you’ll hear me say that someone did the right thing when they went and killed themselves, but for Jae Lee I am making an exception. He went and threw himself out of a high building and it was the right thing to do. I mean, look, he had his shot. He turned out for an arranged date with Sun and, damn his eyes, went and led her into thinking that he might have been interested.

Oh, but then he mentions that he’s got some broad in America that he’s secretly seeing and this whole date thing was just to get his mother off his back! What a jerk! How could he do that to Sun? Lovely, lovely Sun. (I’ve got a thing for Sun. She’s not an obvious hot chick like Kate or Shannon. She’s a woman with depth and beauty beyond that superficial level.) Oh lovely, lovely Sun. . .



This Jae Lee piece of work has her practically hanging off his balls and he decides that he wants to go and live in America with some hussy. Ah, but then all that doesn’t work out so he comes back to Korea and ‘gives English lessons’ to Sun now that she’s got herself all married and unobtainable. Yeah, Jae Lee wasn’t interested when Sun was available – he just likes to fuck married women.



You had your shot, pal. And you sure as shit made your bed. You made Sun look like a cheap whore in front of her father, made Jin have to agree to become a murderer and then had Sun all stressed out on the Island with the fear that she was carrying your bloody kid! Frankly I’m GLAD Jin came round and give you a good kicking. You mess around with a man’s wife, you deserve it.

Still, he did the right thing by killing himself. Now that’s what I call justice!



And on that happy note, that draws my Top 5 peripheral character list to a close! Hurrah!