Rewatching LOST: 1.20 "Do No Harm"

While Jack tries to save Boone’s life, Claire goes into labor.

• Picking up immediately after the events of “Deus Ex Machina,” Jack sets to work on the gravely wounded Boone. He gets plenty of help from Sun, Kate, and even Hurley. Boone’s condition quickly becomes increasingly dire, and Jack works hard to save the young man’s life, promising Boone he will save his life. He sends Kate to the beach to procure supplies from Sawyer.
• At the beach, Jin shows an unstoppable work ethic when it comes to finishing the raft. Claire stops by and asks how long until it will be finished, and Michael estimates a week or less. Kate suddenly runs up and asks Sawyer for all of his alcohol. Sawyer offers to go back with her and help and she appreciates the offer, but advises him to stay put, since there are already “too many cooks.” While running back through the jungle to the caves, Kate trips and breaks a few of the bottles of alcohol. She hears cries of pain nearby and finds Claire, who’s having contractions. The baby is coming! She can’t move Claire, who’s in too much pain, so she calls out for help. Back at the raft, Jin hears her shouting and runs to help. Kate manages to convey to Jin that they need Jack, and sends him running to the caves with the alcohol.
• At the caves, Jack works feverishly until he realizes Boone has lost too much blood and will soon require a transfusion. Sun doesn’t understand how they’ll make that happen, so she offers to watch Boone for a few minutes so Jack can get some air and clear his head. When Charlie badgers Jack with questions about Boone, Locke, and Shannon’s whereabouts, Jack’s frustrations boil over and he blows up at Charlie. Later, Sun manages to find out Boone’s blood type from him even though he’s delirious, so Jack sends her and Charlie on a hunt for anyone among the survivors who’s a match.
• Unaware of the drama back at camp, Sayid takes Shannon on a surprise date. He’s prepared a romantic, beachside picnic for them, and the spot he chose is at a different beach than the one the survivors inhabit, so they’re quite secluded from everyone else. As the evening unfolds and the two of them come closer to consummating their relationship, Shannon decides to confess to Sayid that Boone is really her step-brother, and is in love with her, though she doesn’t share his feelings. She asks that they take things slow.
• Charlie and Sun can’t find a match for Boone’s blood type, but Sun locates something Jack can use as a needle. Jack decides to donate his own blood, since he’s O-Negative, making him a universal donor. Jin shows up just as Jack has hooked himself up to Boone with some plastic tubing and Sun’s needles; he has no choice but to relay what he knows to Sun so she can translate to the others about Claire’s situation. Jack sends Charlie and Jin back to help Kate, who he says will have to deliver the baby in his place, because he can’t leave Boone.
• Night soon falls, and Claire’s contractions stop just before her water breaks. She’s in a total panic, frightened of having the baby this way, but Kate tries to reassure her. When Charlie and Jin get back to Claire, they report that Kate has to deliver the baby, and she resists until Charlie points out that someone has to do it, and right now, there is no one else. While Jin and Charlie watch from a short distance away, Kate coaches Claire, promising Claire that she’s not alone in this, that the baby will have all of the survivors as its family.
• Boone wakes up while Jack is watching over him, and tells Jack about the beech craft that fell, which is different than the story that Locke told everyone. He mumbles that “we found a Hatch,” but that Locke told him not to tell anyone. He passes out before he can tell Jack more. Sun returns later and finds Jack pale from the blood he’s given up, and the blood isn’t helping Boone anyway. Jack tells her that the problem is Boone’s fractured leg, which is pooling the blood, and that Boone didn’t get these injuries from falling off of a cliff — something had to have fallen on him. Sun pulls the needle out of Jack’s arm before he can protest. Jack sends Hurley to find Michael at the beach.
• Michael helps Jack put together a makeshift device using a damaged cargo container from the plane. As Sun watches in horror, they test it on a piece of firewood, slicing the wood in half. Jack says there’s no other choice, Boone’s leg is dead and he can’t be saved if it remains. As they prep Boone for the procedure, Boone starts coughing up blood — evidence of internal bleeding. Sun argues with Jack about amputating Boone’s leg, saying that since he’s bleeding internally, there’s no saving him now. But Jack won’t listen, and puts Boone into position. But before he can go through with it, Boone wakes up and tells Jack he’s off the hook regarding his promise. He convinces Jack that he has to give up the struggle, and Jack painfully, reluctantly agrees.
• Claire gives birth to a healthy baby boy.
• Boone dies.
• As the morning dawns, the survivors celebrate the arrival of their newest member, and Shannon and Sayid return from their date. Jack quietly tells them the sad news and takes Shannon to see her brother’s body in private. Back at the beach, Kate catches Jack putting together a backpack of supplies. Declaring that “Boone didn’t die — he was murdered,” he informs Kate that he’s going to find the man responsible: Locke.

• A considerable amount of time before the surgery where he took over for his drunk father, Jack married a woman named Sarah. They met when Sarah was brought to the hospital after a terrible car accident, and became Jack’s “miracle patient” when repaired the “irreparable” damage done to her spine. Sarah fully recovered and fell in love with her hero, and Jack with her, although just before the wedding, Jack wondered if he truly wanted to marry her, or if he merely felt responsible for her because he saved her life. After a pep talk from his father, Jack decided he really did want to be married to Sarah, and went through with the wedding.
• Jack has an almost obsessive sense of responsibility to fix things, and to make his patients better.
• Jack can play the piano.

• Did Jack and Sarah divorce? If so, why?

• “Do No Harm” is the third Jack-centric episode of the series.
• Boone is the fourth person to perish that was one of the original 48 survivors of Oceanic 815’s midsection. However, there is now a new survivor added to the group in the form of Claire’s baby boy. So the tally of 45 survivors remains accurate.
• Jack is the second character to say the phrase, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do.” The first, of course, was Locke. Methinks there’s no coincidence that the representatives of the two major opposing ideologies on the show — Jack and Locke — both used such a specific phrase.
• It had been hyped for months. Do you remember where you were and what you were doing when the first “Major Character Death” happened? Lost was a pop culture sensation at the time, and the thought of the show brazenly killing off one of its sprawling cast of main characters — and for story reasons, no less, and not because the actor wanted out of his contract — was a stunningly bold move. It set the tone for the show in future seasons, and communicated to the audience that no character is ever safe. You have to admit, looking back, that that sense of ever-present peril has added a lot to the stakes of the show over the years. Many others would follow in his footsteps, but Boone will forever be remembered as the first time Lost went there.
• This episode was the first time I remember thinking that flashbacks were included simply because they were part of the show’s expected formula, as if the audience wouldn’t know what to make of an episode without them. In hindsight, I think the hour would have benefited more from their absence. With all of the tension surrounding the Boone scenes and the Claire scenes, that tension could easily have carried the entire hour without needing flashbacks at all, and it would have been a much bolder and more interesting choice on the part of the producers. Don’t get me wrong — the failed marriage to Sarah storyline is a critical part of what makes the Jack we know tick. But the rather tame tale of their wedding paired up against the nail-biting drama of Boone’s struggle to live on the island was hopelessly unbalanced from the get-go. There was already a perfect balance created between the birth of baby Aaron and the death of Boone. We didn’t need another.
• A lot of the acting in this episode — particularly that of Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Yunjin Kim, and Emilie de Ravin — was some of the cast’s best work to date, in my opinion.

Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 1 cast promotional image and Oceanic Airlines logo: American Broadcasting Company.