Season 2, Episode 6: "Abandoned"

ABANDONED
The title of the episode. This was a Shannon-flashback episode. I think this gave us a lot of information about Shannon, whereas we had always just thought of her as a spoiled brat. But we saw that she had been "abandoned" by virtually everyone she loved. Her father died, her stepmother hates her and won't help her at all, and Boone, who has always helped her in the past, succumbs to his mother and goes to work for her, leaving Shannon alone to fend for herself. She's had a tough life. Then, on the island, she finally finds someone that truly cares about her, and she feels "abandoned" by him as well when he doesn't believe that she saw Walt. She feels left alone once again. Another thing I thought of, is that early on in the 1st season, Boone often told her she was worthless and didn't do anything, and she seemed to accept that and continued to just lie around. I think because she had always been made to feel like she was worthless and couldn't do anything (her stepmom told her this) that she just started to accept it. It was finally Sayid who helped her overcome this, when he sought her help with the French translations.

WALT'S WHISPERS
The first time Walt appeared to Shannon in the woods, he was talking backwards (verifed when played backwards) and said "Don't push the button, the button is bad." We soon found out about the Execute Button in the hatch. In this episode, Walt once again appears to Shannon in the woods, telling her to "Shhhhh!" When his whispers are played backwards, it says "They're coming, and they're close." Is he talking about the other castaways or the "Others?" You can listen to the clip here (it's freaky!)
http://elitemrp.net/fark/2005/hesaid.wav

SHANNON'S DAD
Shannon's dad was the driver of the SUV that was hit head on by Sarah, Jack's future wife who he "saves" at the hospital. (See, I was right! I said this back at the beginning of the season!) Also, when the doctor tells Shannon and her stepmom that he has died, we see Jack walk by them. In the previous episode when Shannon's dad was brought in, Jack made the choice to work on Sarah (his future wife) rather than Shannon's dad. In a way, he died because Jack chose to work on Sarah first and he saved her instead. Boone later died because Jack could not save him.

BOONE'S DREAM
When Boone had his "hallucination" last season - he saw Shannon die. In the rain. And she has blood all over her chest. Very similar to what happened in this episode.

SAYID
Sayid has now lost both of the women he has loved. We know that he feels responsible for Nadia's death (still don't know how she died, but he told the French woman that the woman he loved is dead because of him). He probably feels responsible for Shannon's death as well, since he was right there and probably could have prevented it. Once again, here is the theme of people feeling responsible for others' death. This is pretty much evident of everyone on the island. (Jack feels responsible for his father's death, Sawyer feels responsible for killing the "innocent" man who he thought was the real Sawyer but wasn't, Hurley feels responsible for his grandfather dying, Kate feels responsible for Tom getting killed, Walt likely feels responsible for his mom dying, etc. - see a pattern here?)

OTHER RANDOM THOUGHTS

-The area in the jungle where Cindy is "taken" is where they are are climbing up this very steep hillside. This looked very similar to the area where Ethan was climbing up when he went to grab Claire last season. Maybe the "others" have some sort of hideout "hatch" in there. The tail-end survivors did say that they always sneak up and take people with no warning.

CONNECTIONS BETWEEN SURVIVORS
As we see every week, there is a connection between almost every survivor. Last night we got confirmation that it was in fact Shannon's dad who was killed by Jack's wife. In some way or another, a lot of their paths have crossed previously, whether directly or indirectly. I think we will also see that some of the tail-end survivors have connections as well. (For example, I think Ana Lucia will have some connection with Kate and her "fugitive" past. I also think that Libby, who said last night she was a psychiatrist, maybe was Locke's psychiatrist)

Here are some of the connections we have seen so far:
- Sawyer and Boone in Australian police station
- Charlie in elevator when it opened for Hurley
- Jack and Desmond in the stadium
- Hurley on tv in Jin's flashback
- Shannon turning in Sayid at the airport
- Ana and Jack at the airport bar
- Hurley and John have the same boss (randy)
- Sawyer and Jack's dad in the bar
- Jack's wife killed Shannon's dad
- Locke worked at the box company Hurley owns
- Jack walking by Shannon in the hospital
- Jin and Sun at the hotel before they met