Libby at the mental institution.

Little is currently known about Libby’s life prior to the plane crash. Up to three years before, Libby encounters Desmond at a café, where she kindly pays for his coffee. Upon learning that he will be competing in a sailing competition, Libby adamantly offers him her boat, given to her by her late husband, David (the boat is even named the Elizabeth).

At a later point in time, Libby is institutionalized at the Santa Rose Mental Institute. Her stay coincided, at least in part, with Hurley, whom she recognizes much later on in time.

Libby has visited Vermont, where she broke her leg in a skiing incident while chasing a “cute ski patrol guy.” She attended medical school for a year before dropping out to become a clinical psychologist. Prior to boarding the doomed flight, she intervenes when Mr. Eko argues with Charlotte Malkin, and moves on when the situation is settled. She is seated in the tail-section of the plane.

[edit] After the crash

Libby lands with the tail-section survivors in the ocean, just off the shore of the island. She immediately tends to the injured, using her limited knowledge from studying as a doctor. She is subordinate to survivor Ana Lucia, and regularly gives her advice. Libby soon buries Donald, the man she tried to help on the first day. When the Others invade the camp, Libby finds herself as one of the few remaining survivors. The group relocates to the jungle, where Libby grows concerned when Ana Lucia suspects a traitor in the group. They soon discover the Arrow station, where they discover boxes full of unused items, among them being a radio. One morning, while Libby is on the beach with Cindy, they discover Jin washed up on shore. Unsure of what to do, they take him to Ana Lucia, who has him tied to a tree. Soon after, Jin, Michael and Sawyer are thrown into the pit. Libby is the only person to openly involve herself with them when they prove their innocence.

Libby goes fruit-picking with Michael prior to migrating with the fuselage survivors. She reports to Ana Lucia when he runs off, and joins them as they press on without him. Libby tends to Sawyer’s open bullet wound, up until he passes out. Shortly after Cindy disappears from the group, Libby witnesses Ana Lucia shooting and killing Shannon. At this point, Libby’s faith in Ana Lucia’s leadership is shattered, and refuses to tie up Sayid, instead pleading with her to let them move on to the beach. She eventually joins the fuselage survivors. Since arriving, Hurley takes an instant liking to her, and the two bond. When told that she is familiar, Libby tells Hurley that he stepped on her foot prior to the plane departing, but the look on her face says otherwise. Soon after, Libby helps Claire unblock her repressed memories from when she was kidnapped.

Libby and Hurley’s relationship is strained when Hurley begins seeing things and acting strangely. Helping him earlier that day with ridding himself of his secret food stash, Libby again offers her services to make Hurley see sense when he tries to throw himself off a cliff. The next day, Bernard recruits Libby and Hurley to help other survivors build an SOS sign, which fails. The next day, Hurley plans a surprise picnic for Libby, but forgets to bring a blanket. Libby offers to retrieve them for him, and heads into the hatch. Once inside, she hears the sound of gunfire, and walks in on Michael, startling him and causing him to shoot her twice in the abdomen. Libby falls unconscious, but awakens in critical condition. Jack administers heroin to ease her pain. With her dying breath, Libby coughs out Michael’s name, but this attempt to expose her killer is mistaken for concern of his well-being. She dies with Hurley at her bedside, and is buried next to Ana Lucia.

Weeks later, Hurley visits Libby’s grave and expresses how much he misses her before leaving a flower on her grave.

[edit] Character notes

Prior to the crash

Originally from Nigeria, Mr. Eko would always look out for his younger brother, Yemi, and the two lived in a small village. Eko once stole food in order to care for Yemi, which resulted in him being forced to confess his sins in the local church. Since Eko did not see this action as wrong (he saw it as helping someone in need); he refused to do so. One day, as Eko is playing with the local children, a gang of guerrillas raided the village in search of young recruits. When Yemi refuses to shoot an elderly man, Eko steps in and shoots him himself, sparing Yemi from the same fate. Impressed by his actions, the guerrillas take Eko away with them, where they draw him away from his religious lifestyle and into the criminal life. Eko grows up to be a fearless warlord and a vicious leader of a guerrilla group. He acquires a large amount of heroin, which he intends to smuggle out of the country. Eko returns to his home village and visits Yemi, who has now become the priest of the local church. He asks Yemi to help him smuggle the heroin by giving him a large number of Virgin Mary statues to hide it in, and also the use of the plane, in return for a large sum of money. When Yemi refuses, Eko threatens to burn the church down if he doesn’t sign documents that allow him and his henchmen to appear as priests. Yemi reluctantly agrees.

Eko and his men assemble at the airfield, disguised as priests, on the day the shipment is ready to be smuggled. However, Yemi has tipped off the military, and tries to convince Eko not to go through with his plans. When the military arrives, however, Yemi is wounded in the ensuing gun battle; while Eko helps load him onto the beechcraft, he is suddenly kicked off of the plane and left at the mercy of the military. Surprisingly, Eko is mistaken for Yemi and released back to his village. Feeling guilty over Yemi’s evident death, Eko resumes his role as the village priest. One day, Eko encounters a gang of guerrillas who made a deal with Yemi: they take 80% of the vaccines delivered to the village in exchange for the village’s safety. At first, Eko refuses to cooperate, but at the cost of an innocent life, Eko reluctantly agrees. In a bid to save the village from the guerrillas, Eko sells some vaccine to a dealer, with the intention that the trade is made known to the guerrillas. Soon after, the guerrillas arrive at the church and attempt to cut off Eko’s hands. However, Eko fights back and kills them, much to the shock of the village. The church is thus boarded up and Eko is ostracized until he leaves for London (taking Yemi’s place on the trip). He is told that he owes Yemi a church.

After leaving England, Eko serves as a priest in Australia, under the name Father Tunde. He receives a passport from a man taking confession to allow Eko to travel to Los Angeles. He is then asked by a senior priest to investigate a reported miracle of a young lady who has come back to life after drowning. After listening to the audio of the autopsy procedure where she is resurrected, Eko visits the family home, where he is greeted by Claire’s psychic, Richard Malkin. Malkin dismisses the miracle as an act of incompetence by the undertaker, also revealing that he is not a real psychic. Eko soon prepares to board the doomed flight; shortly after buying a ticket, he encounters Charlotte, the girl whom the investigation is about. She tells Eko that she saw Yemi as she was “between places,” and tells him to have faith. Eko grows angry and yells at her, only to be interrupted by a concerned Libby. Eko is seated at the rear of the plane.

[edit] After the crash

[edit] Season Two

Eko lands with the tail-section survivors in the ocean, a short distance from the beach. That night, while the small group falls under attack from the Others, Eko kills two of them whilst resisting a kidnap attempt; feeling guilty, Eko remains mute for the following forty days. During his silence, Eko begins carving Biblical scriptures onto a stick. He finally begins speaking again when comforting a shaken Ana Lucia. Later, Eko manages to beat Jin, Sawyer and Michael unconscious when they arrive on their beach, and haul them into a pit, dug by Ana Lucia. After proving their innocence, and Michael’s disappearance prior to leaving the Arrow station, Eko helps Jin find him and bring him back. Later, after the death of Shannon, Eko carries a critically injured Sawyer the rest of the way to the camp, where he encounters Locke in the hatch. After learning of the orientation video, and providing the missing footage found in the Arrow, Eko manages to fit in with the remaining fuselage survivors.

Upon discovering a Virgin Mary statue in Charlie’s possession, he demands to be taken to the beechcraft where it came from, knowing that his brother’s body would be there; the two decide to burn the plane, along with all the heroin-filled statues. Prior to reaching the plane, Eko has a brief encounter with the “Monster”. Soon after, Eko helps interpret Charlie’s surreal dreams, suggesting that baby Aaron needs to be baptized, which he later does himself on both Aaron and Claire. One afternoon whilst visiting Locke in the hatch, he notices the bed in the armory, and requests to speak to the man being held in there. Receiving permission, Eko confesses to him about killing two people on the first night of the crash and expresses his condolences before leaving. Later, Eko begins building a church down the beach, with the help of Charlie. However, after a dream where both Ana Lucia and Yemi tell him to help Locke, Eko abandons the church and ventures into the jungle with Locke, claiming to hunt down the escaped “Henry Gale.” Eko manages to coax Locke into taking him to the ‘?’ he drew on a map, resulting in the discovery of the Pearl station.

After watching its orientation video, Eko vows to continue pushing the button in the Swan hatch, despite Locke’s protests. Eko manages to prevent an enraged Locke from destroying the computer and throws him out of the hatch. The next day, Eko is locked out of the computer room when Locke and Desmond initiate a lockdown. Desperate not to let the timer run out, Eko asks Charlie to take him to the stash of dynamite from the Black Rock. Eko uses it to blow open the blast door but, despite his efforts, is unable to prevent the timer reaching zero. He is still inside the hatch when Desmond turns the fail-safe key, causing it to implode.

[edit] Season Three

Eko manages to survive the implosion, but is dragged away by a polar bear. He is later rescued by Locke and Charlie, and pulled to safety. Moments later, Eko tells Locke to make things right by rescuing the kidnapped Jack, Kate and Sawyer; he is later carried back to camp. Later one night, Eko awakens to find Yemi in his tent, telling him he needs to confess before finding that his tent is on fire. Eko is pulled free, but disappears into the jungle a few seconds later. Searching for Yemi, he is haunted by ghosts from his past, and eventually finds himself being pursued by the “Monster”. He soon decides to follow Locke, Desmond, Sayid, Nikki and Paulo to the Pearl station, but does not enter after them. Whilst waiting outside, he sees Yemi again, and follows the apparition to give his confession. Upon learning that it is merely a deception, Eko grows angry and chases Yemi into the jungle, where he confronts the “Monster” once more. After being thrown about by the Monster, Eko is finally thrown to the ground, fatally wounded. He whispers his last words to Locke, “You’re next,” before dying. He is buried at the spot where he died, his stick marking his grave.

The narrative takes place in late December 2004 almost one hundred days after the crash of Oceanic Airlines Flight 815. After betraying and murdering his fellow surivors and escaping from the island with his son Walt on day 67,^[4] Michael is acting as a spy for Ben, assuming the alias “Kevin Johnson” and working as a janitor aboard the freighter called the Kahana, which is searching for the island.^[5] Sayid has arrived on the freighter and he confronts Michael. Meanwhile, Ben tells Alex to flee Locke’s camp in order to survive an impending attack.^[6] Flashbacks show what Michael has been doing since he left the island and executive producer/writer/co-show runner Carlton Cuse says that “it’s safe to say Michael’s return to the outside world did not work out in any way he hoped or planned.”^[7]

On the island, Sun becomes increasingly worried about the intentions of Kahana crew. Despite Juliet Burke’s (Elizabeth Mitchell) warning to Sun that women who conceive on the island die during their second trimester, Sun arranges to defect with Jin to the rival faction led by John Locke (Terry O’Quinn), who does not want to leave the island. Juliet tries to stop Sun from leaving by telling Jin that Sun had an affair, causing him to angrily back out of the journey at the last minute. After fishing with Bernard Nadler, the only other married man, he forgives Sun, who assures him that the baby is his.

On the Kahana, Desmond and Sayid are still waiting to speak to the captain of the freighter, Gault (Grant Bowler). When they are taken to see him, Regina (Zoë Bell) jumps off the side of the ship, but Gault dismisses it as “a heightened case of cabin fever”, and losing her is better than losing several more in saving her. He takes them into his cabin, and explains the reason that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) is so intent on finding Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) is because faking a plane crash would require tremendous resources. After their meeting, Desmond and Sayid are relocated to a different part of the ship, where they meet Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau, Jr.) working as a janitor under the alias “Kevin Johnson”.

The episode’s off-island storyline seemingly depicts Jin rushing to the hospital while Sun, who had become one of the “Oceanic Six”, goes into labor. Jin’s journey to the hospital is marred by several unfortunate incidents, including difficulty in purchasing a stuffed panda and his cell phone being broken. Sun gives birth to a girl, who she names “Ji Yeon”. The final off-island scenes establish that Jin’s story is separate; Jin’s story is set in flashbacks, and the relevant pregnancy focuses upon a Chinese ambassador, whom Jin gives his employer’s wishes to. Upon leaving, he tells a nurse that the child was not his and he would not rush into having a child because he had “only been married two months”. In the final flashforward, Sun and her daughter are visited by Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge Garcia), who takes her to pay her respects to Jin. His tombstone indicates that he died on the day of the crash of Oceanic 815.

In late December 2004, Daniel and Charlotte sneak off during the night to find the Tempest. Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) and Juliet pursue them. Juliet is approached by what appears to be Harper, who tells Juliet that Daniel and Charlotte are going to kill everyone on the island by deploying a lethal gas and that Ben is ordering Juliet to kill Daniel and Charlotte.^[6]

Kate comes across Daniel and Charlotte in the jungle on her way back from the Barracks and Charlotte knocks her unconscious. After Jack and Juliet find her, Jack cares for Kate and Juliet takes off alone for the Tempest. Inside the station, Juliet finds Daniel in a hazmat suit typing frantically at a computer terminal and asks him to terminate what he is doing. Daniel and Charlotte explain that they are not trying to kill anyone; they are trying to save them by rendering the gas inert. Jack and Kate arrive and Kate examines the station, while Jack takes the ward outside the Tempest with Juliet. Juliet explains to Jack that there is going to be a war between the freighter crew and Ben. She thinks that Ben will win. She fears for Jack because Ben thinks she is his possession, but Jack shows no worry and kisses her.^[6]

In the Barracks, Ben bargains with John Locke (Terry O’Quinn) for his freedom. Ben reveals that the offshore freighter called the Kahana^[7] is owned by Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)—the father of Desmond Hume‘s (Henry Ian Cusick) girlfriend Penny (Sonya Walger)^[8]—and that Widmore intends to exploit the island. After handing Locke a file containing information concerning Widmore, Ben tells Locke who his spy on the freighter is. Locke frees Ben from captivity, however, Ben continues to reside in the Barracks.^[6]

Desmond’s flashes become more frequent and longer. In 1996, Desmond tracks down a younger Faraday at Oxford University, who takes Desmond into his laboratory where he is experimenting with a time machine. Setting his electromagnetic device with the new number settings which Desmond has just given him, Daniel places his laboratory rat Eloise in a maze and exposes her to purplish electromagnetic energy. The rat appears to go comatose, then awakens and runs the maze. Daniel becomes excited because he had just built the maze and had not yet taught Eloise how to navigate through it. Desmond realizes that, like the rat, he is caught in a kind of time warp that is toggling his consciousness between two different bodies at two different points in time and space. Eloise dies of a probable brain aneurysm brought on by the exposure to the time lapse. Desmond becomes worried that he will end up like Eloise and Daniel instructs him to find something or someone—a constant—who is present in both times and can serve as an anchor for his mental stability. Desmond decides that Penny can be that constant; however, he must make contact with her in 2004. To find out where she lives, Desmond finds her father Charles (Alan Dale) at an auction buying a journal owned by Tovard Hanso written by a crew member of the 19th century ship called the Black Rock. Widmore gives Desmond Penny’s address.^[5]

Desmond finds Penny, who is distraught over their break-up and not willing to see him, in 1996. He gets her phone number eventually and tells her not to change it because he will call her on Christmas Eve 2004. In 2004, Sayid, Desmond, and Minkowski escape the sick bay and begin to repair the broken communications equipment. Meanwhile, Minkowski enters into another flash, and suddenly dies. Showing signs of suffering the same fate as Minkowski, Desmond calls Penny. Penny tells Desmond that she has been searching for him for the past three years and they reconcile before the power cuts off. Back on the island, Daniel flips through his journal and discovers a note that he had written, “If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant.”^[5]

At the survivors’ camp at the beach, Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) stares at three face down cards and correctly identifies the values of two. Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) remarks that this is progress. After several unsuccessful attempts to call the freighter, Charlotte dials an emergency number. Regina (Zoë Bell) answers and says that Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick), Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) and Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), who departed for the freighter by helicopter the previous evening, have not arrived.^[6]

After leaving the island, Kate is famous as one of the Oceanic Six. She is tried for her numerous crimes committed before the crash and pleads not guilty. Because Kate is opposed to bringing her son into the trial, Jack is called in as a character witness. He lies in his testimony, saying that Flight 815 crashed in the water; eight survived the crash but two have since died and Kate was primarily responsible for the Oceanic Six’s survival. Kate speaks with her mother Diane Janssen (Beth Broderick) for the first time in four years. Diane is no longer angry at Kate because her perspective changed when she thought that Kate had died in the plane crash. When Diane, the prosecution’s star witness, no longer wants to testify against her daughter, the District Attorney makes a plea deal: Kate gets ten years probation, but must stay in the state of California. Jack meets Kate in the parking garage. He admits that he still loves her and asks to go out for coffee with her. Kate responds that they cannot go out until he is willing to visit her baby.^[5] Kate is raising Claire Littleton‘s (Emilie de Ravin) son Aaron (William Blanchette) as her own.^[7]

While Sayid is gone, Daniel asks Regina (Zoë Bell), a colleague on the freighter to shoot a projectile onto the island. Regina does so, but the projectile does not arrive for thirty minutes. When it lands, Daniel extracts a clock from the payload and finds that the clocks are not synchronized.

The survivors led by Locke arrive at the location of Jacob‘s cabin, but find the area deserted. Locke changes his course to the barracks, and uses Hugo “Hurley” Reyes (Jorge Garcia) to ambush Sayid, Kate and Miles. Kate is watched by James “Sawyer” Ford (Josh Holloway), and they discuss their reasons for wanting or not wanting to go home. Kate, realising that she would be arrested for her crimes upon rescue, defects to Locke’s group. Sayid negotiates with Locke to exchange Charlotte with Miles, in order to get access to the boat. Locke tells him that wouldn’t be necessary as Ben has a spy on that freighter, to which Sayid responds that he would rather sell his soul than trust Ben.

At the helicopter, Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) confronts pilot Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) about the picture Naomi had of him and his ex-fiancé Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger). Frank denies any knowledge of her, but Desmond nevertheless demands a place on a helicopter. At the same time, Sayid returns, with only Charlotte. While Frank accuses Sayid of being dishonest, he considered Miles a “pain in the ass”, and agrees to fly him offshore.

The episode’s flashforwards are centered on Sayid, who had since become one of the Oceanic Six. He is hired as an assassin, and courts a German woman, Elsa (Thekla Reuten), in order to get closer to her employer (the eponymous “economist”). After several dates, Sayid turns on Elsa, who reveals herself to be a counter-spy by unexpectedly shooting Sayid in the shoulder. Sayid is able to shoot and kill Elsa. As the episode ends, Sayid is treated for his wound by Ben, who gives him another assignment. Sayid is now wary since they now know that he’s after them, to which Ben replies, “Good”.