Friday, January 22, 2021

IN PASSING

Actress Mira Furlan has passed away. She was 65.

She will be remembered as Danielle Rousseau in LOST.

Her character was important as a means of telling the story about the Island. She was shipwrecked on the island 16 years before Flight 815.  As the Island Smoke monster began to manifest its evil in her crew, she lived to survive alone. She was pregnant. Her child, Alex, was stolen from her by Ben. It was her sense of revenge that kept her alive (and perhaps that led to the Smoke Monster allowing her to live).

Her story also introduced us to the Temple where the Smoke Monster apparently lived. It also set the stage to tell the story that survivors could co-exist with the Others. The truce would be a fragile one.

It also showed that mental issues were an embedded theme of the show. Living as a hermit for years made Rousseau a survivalist; keen to nature and her surroundings. When she captured Sayid, he was aware of how dangerous she could be. But he believed she was different than the Others.

When she joined the 815 survivors to fight the Others (as a means of reuniting with her daughter), many fans thought her death scene lacked the full potential of a reunion and worthy demise.