Michael Dawson (Lost)
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| Michael | |
|---|---|
 Harold Perrineau Jr. as Michael |
|
| First appearance | "Pilot: Part 1" |
| Last appearance | "Live Together, Die Alone" |
| Centric episodes | "Special" "Exodus: Part 2" "Adrift" "Three Minutes" |
| Information | |
| Name | Michael Dawson |
| Status | Left the island on motorboat with his son, Walt |
| Profession | Construction Worker, Former Artist |
| Portrayed by | Harold Perrineau |
Michael Dawson is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Harold Perrineau.
Contents |
[edit] Fictional character biography
[edit] Prior to the crash
Michael has been estranged from his son, Walt — named for Michael's father — for nearly all of Walt's life. Years earlier, Michael was very excited at the prospect of becoming a father and husband, but Walt's mother, Susan Lloyd, had other plans. Michael puts off his intentions to be an artist, in order to find steady construction work to support his family, while Susan goes to law school. When Susan is offered a plum job in international law, she takes their son with her to Amsterdam, leaving Michael alone in New York City. While abroad, she eventually marries Brian Porter, the man who hired her. When Susan calls to tell Michael about her marriage intentions, he becomes enraged, announces he is coming to Amsterdam to get his son back, and promptly runs off. As he crosses the street, he is hit by a car, which leaves him hospitalized for months and requiring a year off for rehabilitation. Two months after the accident, Susan tracks him down at the hospital and convinces him to give up his parental rights to Walt in return for completely covering his medical expenses, so that her new husband can adopt the boy.
Michael, however, refuses, and he and Susan are caught up in a custody battle. Michael is adamant not to let Susan take Walt away from him. However, when he meets Susan privately, she manages to convince him to reconsider his motives, asking him whether he is resisting for his own benefit, or for Walt's best interest. Susan allows Michael to say goodbye to Walt. He gives him a toy polar bear as a parting gift.
Several years later, in an abrupt visit by Brian, Michael learns about Susan's death. Distraught at the loss of his ex-wife, and seemingly afraid of Walt, Brian requests that Michael fly to Sydney to take custody of Walt, which briefly enrages Michael when he believes Brian is "passing the buck". Before leaving on Flight 815 to the United States, Michael calls his mother and asks if she can take Walt, since Michael believes he is unfit to take care of him at the time. She refuses, and when Michael hangs up the phone, he sees Walt standing right beside him, although it is unclear how much of the conversation Walt has heard.
[edit] After the crash
Because of his inexperience as a father, Michael is sometimes overly strict and protective of Walt, which leads to some difficulties in their developing relationship. For a time, Walt looks to John Locke as a father figure, and this leads to several confrontations between the two, with Michael forbidding Walt to approach Locke. This situation changes after Locke is instrumental in helping Michael save Walt from an attacking polar bear.
It is also Michael's idea to begin the building of the raft, though his initial motivation is primarily to save his son. Michael is the first person to know that Sun can speak English. His association with Sun causes numerous conflicts between him and Sun's husband, Jin. This conflict reaches a head when the first raft Michael builds is burned. Michael at first blames Jin, but after their confrontation, in which Sun reveals to the other survivors that she can speak English, Michael and Jin begin working together to build a new raft.
Michael and Jin overcome their earlier animosity to achieve a kind of friendship while working together, even becoming comfortable enough with each other to learn to accurately interpret each other's speech despite the language barrier. Their close working conditions prove problematic, however, when on the day before the second raft is to be launched, Michael becomes ill, from an apparent poisoning, and blame falls upon numerous people. Eventually, Jack figures out that it was Sun who had spiked Jin's water, which Michael accidentally drank.
After the launch of the raft, Michael, Jin, Sawyer, and Walt find themselves confronted by the Others, who have come to abduct Walt. The Others take Walt by force and blow up the raft, leaving Michael stranded, floating on raft debris with Sawyer. The ocean currents bring the pair back to the island, whereupon they find Jin shortly before being attacked by a small group of people. These captors eventually reveal that they are survivors of the tail section of the plane, and decide to travel across the island to join up with Michael's group.
However, upon learning from Libby that the Others live nearby, Michael abandons the group and heads off into the jungle to search for Walt. It is only after being chased down by Jin and Mr. Eko that Michael decides to hold off his search.
Upon being reunited with the mid-section survivors, Michael learns about the Hatch and the need to input the numbers into the computer. He raises questions about the Hatch, related to its blast doors, which it seems at least Locke has noticed before, but the purpose for which is unknown, and a computer with no other use than punching in numbers. However, while Eko and Locke are discovering the part of the Orientation film that warns not to use the computer for communication, Michael notices a "Hello?" on the computer's screen. He types in that he is Michael, to which the screen responds "Dad?". After seeing this, Michael volunteers for an extra shift in the hatch, hoping to get a chance again since he assumes that he has been communicating with Walt. The communication happens again in "The 23rd Psalm"; this time the screen asks if Michael is alone, and then tells Michael he must come for him because "they are coming back soon".
In "The Hunting Party", Michael knocks out Locke, takes a rifle, and sets out to rescue Walt on his own. Before he does, he again contacts "Walt" via the computer, and finds out a more exact location of the Others camp. When Jack enters the room, Michael orders Jack at gunpoint into the armory, and he locks the two in.
Not far into Michael's journey, he is captured by the Others, but not before shooting at them. An Other named Pickett shoots back at Michael, but Mr. Friendly wants him alive, so he knocks Michael out with a bola. Michael wakes up at a camp site at night, where he is bound and gagged. A blindfolded Kate, who was also captured while following Michael's rescue party, is also brought there, but Michael is told to keep quiet. Michael meets Alex, who seems sympathetic to his plight and asks if Claire's baby is safe. Michael is soon knocked out again.
The Others and Michael trek for two days to their camp. The Others appear to be scraggly and live in huts, and they also have a hatch. Pickett takes a sample of blood from Michael, and then Michael is approached by a woman named Ms. Klugh, who ignores his pleas for Walt by asking questions about Walt, mainly if he ever appeared in a place when he could not have been there. Since he was not around for most of Walt's life, Michael is unable to answer Klugh's questions. She then repeats Susan's lawyer's line, "For someone who wants his son back so badly, you really don't seem to know much about him, Michael."
He is kept prisoner in a hut for several days, constantly being questioned. Klugh finally offers Michael a deal: if he rescues a captured Other that the survivors have imprisoned since he has been away, and then brings four of his fellow survivors to the Others, they will give Walt back to him. Michael refuses to do anything unless he sees Walt, and Klugh allows it for three minutes. Walt is brought in, but he quickly tells his father the Others are acting and they make him take "tests." Klugh orders Walt out, but he breaks free of his escorts and hugs Michael. As he is dragged away, a broken and crying Michael agrees to help the Others in exchange for his son and a boat. Klugh gives Michael a list with the four survivors they want: Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley. The Others want them and only them. Michael is let go.
A number of days later, in "S.O.S.", when Jack and Kate enter the territory of the Others in order to propose a trade, Michael runs out of the brush, ragged and in a terrible state, then collapses unconscious at their feet.
After being dragged unconscious from the trading point, in "Two for the Road", Michael wakes in the hatch to retell Kate, Jack and Locke about The Others. He mentions their ruthlessness and scraggly, bare-footed appearance. He says they keep the captured survivors in what appears to be another 'hatch'. While Jack, Locke and Kate go off to trade for Sawyers' guns, Michael is kept under Ana Lucia's guard. Discussion leads to the fact that "Henry Gale", an Other, is locked in the next room, and after Ana Lucia says she couldn't kill him, Michael offers to do so. He takes the gun, asks for the combination to the room, says "I'm sorry" and shoots her in the chest, killing her. Libby stumbles upon the scene, and the startled Michael shoots her twice in the abdomen, mortally wounding her. After unlocking the room for "Henry", he then takes the gun and appears to shoot himself in the left shoulder/arm.
In "?" Michael tells Jack that it was Henry Gale who had shot him and that he thought that Ana Lucia and Libby were dead. They later found out that Libby wasn't dead but in a critical condition, leaving Michael afraid that she would reveal what really happened. Michael kept asking Jack if she said anything, and at the end of the episode Libby coughs "Michael" before finally dying.
In "Three Minutes" Michael begins to feel tremendous guilt over the killings, even throwing up and asking Eko about Hell. However, he begins to enact the next phase of the plan: bringing only Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley to the Others. It does not go smoothly: Sayid wants to go and Hurley does not. Michael convinces Sayid that he cannot come along, which he accepts, but makes him suspicious. Hurley becomes angry during Libby's funeral and decides to join Michael. Sayid, however, informs Jack of his suspicions that Michael's been compromised, and forms a plan to trail the group via the newly discovered boat.
In "Live Together, Die Alone" Michael leads Kate, Hurley, Jack and Sawyer into the jungle. He realizes that they may suspect his plan when he discovers that Jack gave him a gun with no bullets. After Kate and Sawyer detect and kill an Other who was trailing them, Jack admits to everyone that he knew Michael was leading them into a trap. Michael soon confesses the truth about everything: the deaths, the release of "Henry", and trading them for Walt. It turns out Michael never has to lead them all the way to the camp: the Others ambush the party in the jungle, knocking everyone but Michael out.
The Others take them to a dock where the four are gagged and tied. "Henry", who turns out to be the most senior of this group of Others, fulfills his end of the bargain and gives back Walt, along with a boat and coordinates to apparent rescue. Michael wonders why the Others are not worried about him telling the outside world about the island, but "Henry" says it does not matter; for one reason, no one will find the island, and another reason is he knows Michael will not risk having his murder of Ana Lucia and Libby revealed to the authorities if he returns. Michael asks about the fate of everyone else (they will live with the Others) and who the Others actually are ("We're the good guys"). Michael leaves on the boat with Walt, and the two have not been seen or heard from since.
[edit] Trivia
- Michael and Walt are the first main characters to have left the show who have not been killed off.
- It has been said by producers that they will not reappear until season 4 of the show.[citation needed]
| Lost | |
|---|---|
| Production: | DVD releases | Episode list | Season 1 | Season 2 | Season 3 | Soundtrack |
| Main characters: |
Ana Lucia | Ben | Boone | Charlie | Claire | Desmond | Hurley | Jack | Jin | Juliet | Kate Libby | Locke | Michael | Mr. Eko | Nikki | Paulo | Sawyer | Sayid | Shannon | Sun | Walt |
| Supporting characters: |
Alex | Bernard | Christian | Cindy | Ethan | The Others | Pickett | Rose | Rousseau | Tom |
| Organizations: | DHARMA Initiative | Hanso Foundation | Oceanic Airlines |
| Elements: | Crossover list | DHARMA Initiative stations | Flight 815 | Mythology | Thematic motifs |
| Miscellaneous: | Gary Troup | In popular culture | Lost Experience | Rachel Blake | Video game |
