Danielle Rousseau
Encyclopedia
Danielle Rousseau is a fictional character
on the ABC
drama
television series Lost
, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific
. Croatia
n actress Mira Furlan
plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen years prior to the crash of Oceanic
Flight 815. After Furlan decided to leave the show, the American actress Melissa Farman
was chosen to portray a younger version of the character in the fifth season
. Furlan later reappears for one episode in the sixth season. Rousseau is a recurring on-island character who has appeared in nineteen episodes in seasons one through four, as well as one episode where her voice alone is heard.
The character, who is commonly known as "The French Woman" among the survivors on the island, is introduced early in the first season. Sixteen years prior to the plane crash, Rousseau was a member of a French research vessel, whose ship ran aground on the island. Two months after being stranded, Rousseau gave birth to her daughter Alex
(Tania Raymonde
); however, Alex was taken by the island's original inhabitants, a group which Rousseau called the "Others". Rousseau's primary objective is to reunite with her daughter, which is achieved in the season three finale "Through the Looking Glass
". The reunion is short-lived; Rousseau is shot and killed by a band of mercenaries in the middle of the fourth season.
The writers wrote Rousseau out of the series upon request by Furlan, who did not wish to travel to Hawaii to film her scenes. The producers planned for Rousseau to get her own flashback episode in season four; however, this was delayed due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
. The writers stated that Rousseau would be in the fifth season, and her story would be told, but to say that it would be told through a flashback would be "disingenuous". In the fifth season of Lost, a younger version of Rousseau is shown. Critical reaction to the character has been generally positive; however, many have expressed disappointment in the execution of Rousseau's death scene.
. The crew picked up a radio signal emanating from the South Pacific, which was a repeating set of six numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. While attempting to find the source of the signal, the ship ran aground on rocks surrounding the island. Before reaching the shore, Rousseau and her team found Oceanic 815 survivor Jin-Soo Kwon
(Daniel Dae Kim) in the water, who had been time-travelling as a result of the time shifts which had been moving him and the flight survivors through the island's history.
Rousseau later tells the survivors of Oceanic 815 that two months after their arrival, that the island natives, which she called the Others, carried a disease that the rest of her crew had contracted. She believed that this disease could not be allowed to reach the rest of the world, so she killed her colleagues, including her husband Robert. When Jin time-travels to the past, he witnesses a different version of Rousseau's past. It is shown that the Smoke Monster, not the Others, was responsible for the "sickness" that forced her to kill her crew. Rousseau confronts the father of her child, Robert, at gunpoint and accuses him of "being changed" inside the temple. Robert denies this, explaining that the Monster is a security system for the temple, and convinces Rousseau to lower her weapon. He attempts to shoot her when she does, but is shot by Rousseau. Rousseau also attempts to kill Jin, having witnessed him vanish moments after her team entered the Smoke Monster's lair, believing he has the disease.
Rousseau hiked to the radio tower and changed the message from the numbers to a repeating distress call. Three days later, Rousseau gave birth to a daughter, Alexandra. One week after Alex's birth, Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson
) came and took Alex from Rousseau. Ben told Rousseau that the child would be safe with them, and that she was lucky for being left alive. Before leaving, Ben tells her that if she hears whispers, she should run the other way. After this, Rousseau began setting traps in the jungle with the hope of catching one of the people responsible for Alex's kidnapping.
", where she captures Sayid
(Naveen Andrews
), one of the plane crash survivors. Rousseau tortures him until he eventually convinces her that he is not one of the Others. She allows Sayid to return to his camp, and cautions him to keep a close eye on the other survivors. Over two weeks later, she comes across a delirious Claire
(Emilie de Ravin
), who had been left in the jungle after being kidnapped by the Others. Noticing that Claire's shouting is alerting the Others to her presence, Rousseau knocks her unconscious and carries her back to the other survivors. Rousseau makes her next appearance in "Numbers
", where she shoots at Charlie
(Dominic Monaghan
) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia
), suspecting them of being Others. In the season one finale
, set 43 days after the plane crash, Rousseau arrives on the beach and warns everyone that the Others are coming. After Claire gives birth to her son Aaron, Rousseau steals him and intends to swap him for her own child. When the Others do not come, Rousseau reluctantly returns him to Sayid. In season two, set two weeks later, Rousseau informs Sayid that she has caught one of the Others, who later turns out to be Ben. Later, Rousseau joins Claire and Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lilly
) who are searching for medicine for Claire's baby, in one of the Others' work stations. Disappointed that she has not found any trace of Alex, she begins to leave them when Claire tells her that she believes Alex helped her escape when the Others captured her.
Midway through season three, Kate persuades Rousseau to help some of the survivors find the Others' home, by informing her that Alex helped her escape from the Others. When they arrive, Rousseau abandons the group and watches from the bushes as Alex walks past. A few days later, Rousseau leads the survivors to the radio tower in order for them to contact a nearby freighter. En route, they encounter Ben and Alex; Ben explains to Alex who Rousseau is and the mother and daughter are reunited. Season four
begins with the survivors dividing into two groups, with those who believe the people from the freighter to be dangerous, including Rousseau and Alex, joining Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
). After learning of the freighter crew's intentions to kill everyone on the island, Ben directs Rousseau, along with Alex and her boyfriend Karl (Blake Bashoff
), to head to the Temple where the rest of the Others are located. On their way, Rousseau and Karl are shot by unseen attackers, and both are killed. The buried bodies of both are discovered by Miles
(Ken Leung
), Sawyer (Josh Holloway
), and Claire after they leave Locke and travel back to the beach.
Rousseau is named after French-Swiss philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau
. Although Rousseau is French, actress Mira Furlan is Croatian, which led to speculation that Rousseau is not really from France. In one of the official Lost podcasts, producer Carlton Cuse
joked, "any French woman who speaks with a Croatian accent and has been living in the woods for sixteen years eating bugs ... has got some issues, and those issues need to be overcome before she can actually go and embrace Alex". Furlan understood Rousseau's decision to not meet her daughter, believing that no one can ever be prepared for that moment. Furlan met Raymonde for the first time just minutes before shooting their reunion scene in the season three finale. The actors believed the scene to be a "huge moment" for their characters, which Furlan described as a "basic human moment". Furlan was glad to have "such a beautiful partner", and noted their physical resemblance.
Furlan is said to have asked for her character to be written out of the series because she did not want to travel to Hawaii to film her scenes, although she later called this an untrue rumor. The producers decided for Rousseau to be shot, with the possibility of her returning in season five
. Co-show runners and executive producers Damon Lindelof
and Cuse originally intended for Rousseau to get her own flashback episode in season four, however as a result of the Writer's Strike
, this did not come to pass. When asked whether Rousseau would have a flashback in season five, Lindelof said that Rousseau's story would "definitively" be revealed, but that "to use the word flashback would be disingenuous". Cuse revealed that they were trying to steer away from the word flashback and were "embracing a whole new word". He explained that "there will still [...] be flashbacks and flash-forwards on the show, but we're going to do something different this year. We're going to mix it up." Instead of using flashbacks and flashforwards like in previous seasons, stories of the fifth season will play out both on and off the island stories in different points in time. The writers were supposedly scheduling an appearance by Furlan for the fifth season, but Furlan did not end up making an appearance. However, she returns in the form of Rousseau's "sideways" counterpart (who never crashed on the Island, lost Alex or went insane) in the sixth season.
", Chris Carabott of IGN
commented that Rousseau appeared to be more emotionally fragile than in later seasons, and was like a "loose cannon". Carabott found that as the series progressed and the mystery around the character was lessened, Rousseau was unable to deliver the same impact she made in her first appearance. In his review of "Numbers
", in which Rousseau makes her second appearance, Carabott described Hurley and Rousseau's encounter as "the episode's best moment", as "Hurley finds comfort with someone who we would least expect." Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams commended Furlan for giving the character "heart and soul", and managed to make her "identifiable and complex".
Rousseau's unknown fate in "Meet Kevin Johnson" was heavily discussed among critics. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
felt that the relationship between Rousseau and Alex after their reunion remained unexplored, which made Rousseau's death a wasted opportunity for a powerful death scene. BuddyTV
's Don Williams believed that Rousseau would survive, mainly because he had been waiting to see her flashback for four seasons, and thought her death would ensure it would not happen. Dan Compora from SyFy Portal
was disappointed in her death scene, noting, "I wasn't shocked to see Danielle get killed, but the scene felt like it was tossed in just in case this had to serve as the season finale." Compora felt that Rousseau deserved more screen time in the episode leading up to her death. The San Francisco Chronicle
' s Tim Goodman described it as "a rude and lazy way to get rid of Rousseau". John Kubicek, also of BuddyTV, found her death scene unsatisfactory, commenting, "Then we have that entirely tacked on scene at the end which felt so artificial, like I accidentally flipped over to a different show. While I agree Danielle Rousseau being shot with an arrow is shocking, is this really what the show has come to? Arbitrarily putting a recurring character's life in peril to pose as a cliffhanger?"
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
on the ABC
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
, which chronicles the lives of over forty people after their plane crashes on a remote island somewhere in the South Pacific
Oceania
Oceania is a region centered on the islands of the tropical Pacific Ocean. Conceptions of what constitutes Oceania range from the coral atolls and volcanic islands of the South Pacific to the entire insular region between Asia and the Americas, including Australasia and the Malay Archipelago...
. Croatia
Croatia
Croatia , officially the Republic of Croatia , is a unitary democratic parliamentary republic in Europe at the crossroads of the Mitteleuropa, the Balkans, and the Mediterranean. Its capital and largest city is Zagreb. The country is divided into 20 counties and the city of Zagreb. Croatia covers ...
n actress Mira Furlan
Mira Furlan
Mira Furlan is a Croatian actress and singer currently residing in the United States. She is well known for her roles as the Minbari Ambassador Delenn on all five seasons of the science fiction television series Babylon 5 , and Danielle Rousseau on Lost.-Early life:Furlan was born to an...
plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen years prior to the crash of Oceanic
Oceanic Airlines
Oceanic Airlines and less frequently Oceanic Airways are fictional airlines used in several films and television programs.The most famous use of this brand is in the TV show Lost, where Oceanic Airlines is featured branded with a highly-stylized logo depicting an Aboriginal dot painting that...
Flight 815. After Furlan decided to leave the show, the American actress Melissa Farman
Melissa Farman
Melissa Farman is an American actress who has had roles in Cold Case, an HBO biopic of Temple Grandin, and most notably in Lost as a young Danielle Rousseau...
was chosen to portray a younger version of the character in the fifth season
Lost (season 5)
The fifth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the ABC network in the United States and on A in Canada in January 2009, and concluded with a two-hour season finale on May 13, 2009...
. Furlan later reappears for one episode in the sixth season. Rousseau is a recurring on-island character who has appeared in nineteen episodes in seasons one through four, as well as one episode where her voice alone is heard.
The character, who is commonly known as "The French Woman" among the survivors on the island, is introduced early in the first season. Sixteen years prior to the plane crash, Rousseau was a member of a French research vessel, whose ship ran aground on the island. Two months after being stranded, Rousseau gave birth to her daughter Alex
Alex (Lost)
Alexandra "Alex" Linus is a recurring fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Tania Raymonde. She was born 16 years prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, but was taken from her mother, Danielle Rousseau by the Others. She was raised among them, believing her mother to...
(Tania Raymonde
Tania Raymonde
Tania Raymonde is an American actress. Raymonde's first prominent casting role was the recurring character of Cynthia Sanders in TV series Malcolm in the Middle between 2000–2003, followed by a popular role as Alex Rousseau in ABC's Lost from 2006 to 2010.She can currently be seen as UTF officer...
); however, Alex was taken by the island's original inhabitants, a group which Rousseau called the "Others". Rousseau's primary objective is to reunite with her daughter, which is achieved in the season three finale "Through the Looking Glass
Through the Looking Glass (Lost)
"Through the Looking Glass" is the third season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 22nd and 23rd episodes of the third season. It is also the 71st and 72nd episodes overall. It was written by co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse,...
". The reunion is short-lived; Rousseau is shot and killed by a band of mercenaries in the middle of the fourth season.
The writers wrote Rousseau out of the series upon request by Furlan, who did not wish to travel to Hawaii to film her scenes. The producers planned for Rousseau to get her own flashback episode in season four; however, this was delayed due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....
. The writers stated that Rousseau would be in the fifth season, and her story would be told, but to say that it would be told through a flashback would be "disingenuous". In the fifth season of Lost, a younger version of Rousseau is shown. Critical reaction to the character has been generally positive; however, many have expressed disappointment in the execution of Rousseau's death scene.
Prior to the crash
Sixteen years before Oceanic 815 crashes on the island, Rousseau was a heavily pregnant member of a six-person crew aboard a French research vessel three days out of TahitiTahiti
Tahiti is the largest island in the Windward group of French Polynesia, located in the archipelago of the Society Islands in the southern Pacific Ocean. It is the economic, cultural and political centre of French Polynesia. The island was formed from volcanic activity and is high and mountainous...
. The crew picked up a radio signal emanating from the South Pacific, which was a repeating set of six numbers: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42. While attempting to find the source of the signal, the ship ran aground on rocks surrounding the island. Before reaching the shore, Rousseau and her team found Oceanic 815 survivor Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon, better known as "Jin," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Daniel Dae Kim.- Prior to the crash :...
(Daniel Dae Kim) in the water, who had been time-travelling as a result of the time shifts which had been moving him and the flight survivors through the island's history.
Rousseau later tells the survivors of Oceanic 815 that two months after their arrival, that the island natives, which she called the Others, carried a disease that the rest of her crew had contracted. She believed that this disease could not be allowed to reach the rest of the world, so she killed her colleagues, including her husband Robert. When Jin time-travels to the past, he witnesses a different version of Rousseau's past. It is shown that the Smoke Monster, not the Others, was responsible for the "sickness" that forced her to kill her crew. Rousseau confronts the father of her child, Robert, at gunpoint and accuses him of "being changed" inside the temple. Robert denies this, explaining that the Monster is a security system for the temple, and convinces Rousseau to lower her weapon. He attempts to shoot her when she does, but is shot by Rousseau. Rousseau also attempts to kill Jin, having witnessed him vanish moments after her team entered the Smoke Monster's lair, believing he has the disease.
Rousseau hiked to the radio tower and changed the message from the numbers to a repeating distress call. Three days later, Rousseau gave birth to a daughter, Alexandra. One week after Alex's birth, Benjamin Linus (Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice.-Early life:...
) came and took Alex from Rousseau. Ben told Rousseau that the child would be safe with them, and that she was lucky for being left alive. Before leaving, Ben tells her that if she hears whispers, she should run the other way. After this, Rousseau began setting traps in the jungle with the hope of catching one of the people responsible for Alex's kidnapping.
After the crash
Rousseau makes her first appearance in the season one episode "SolitarySolitary (Lost)
"Solitary" is the ninth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Greg Yaitanes and written by David Fury. It first aired on November 17, 2004 on ABC. The character of Sayid Jarrah is featured in the episode's flashbacks.-Flashbacks:Sayid is torturing a prisoner who will not...
", where she captures Sayid
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
(Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
), one of the plane crash survivors. Rousseau tortures him until he eventually convinces her that he is not one of the Others. She allows Sayid to return to his camp, and cautions him to keep a close eye on the other survivors. Over two weeks later, she comes across a delirious Claire
Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton is a fictional character played by Emilie de Ravin on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific. Claire is introduced in the pilot episode as a pregnant crash survivor. She is a series regular until her...
(Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin born 27 December 1981)is an Australian actress. She is commonly associated with her roles as Tess Harding on Roswell and Claire Littleton on the ABC drama Lost....
), who had been left in the jungle after being kidnapped by the Others. Noticing that Claire's shouting is alerting the Others to her presence, Rousseau knocks her unconscious and carries her back to the other survivors. Rousseau makes her next appearance in "Numbers
Numbers (Lost)
"Numbers" is the 18th episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Dan Attias and written by Brent Fletcher and David Fury. It first aired on March 2, 2005 on ABC...
", where she shoots at Charlie
Charlie Pace
Charlie Hieronymus Pace is a fictional character on ABC's Lost, a television series chronicling the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island...
(Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost....
) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia
Jorge Garcia
Jorge García is a U.S. actor and comedian. He first came to public attention with his performance as Hector Lopez on the television show Becker and later for his portrayal of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the television series Lost. Garcia also performs as a stand-up comedian.-Early life:García was born...
), suspecting them of being Others. In the season one finale
Exodus (Lost)
"Exodus" is the first season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd through 25th episodes of the first season and the show overall. The episodes were directed by Jack Bender, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. "Part 1" first aired on May 18, 2005 and "Part 2"...
, set 43 days after the plane crash, Rousseau arrives on the beach and warns everyone that the Others are coming. After Claire gives birth to her son Aaron, Rousseau steals him and intends to swap him for her own child. When the Others do not come, Rousseau reluctantly returns him to Sayid. In season two, set two weeks later, Rousseau informs Sayid that she has caught one of the Others, who later turns out to be Ben. Later, Rousseau joins Claire and Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Kate Austen in the ABC drama, Lost.-Early life:...
) who are searching for medicine for Claire's baby, in one of the Others' work stations. Disappointed that she has not found any trace of Alex, she begins to leave them when Claire tells her that she believes Alex helped her escape when the Others captured her.
Midway through season three, Kate persuades Rousseau to help some of the survivors find the Others' home, by informing her that Alex helped her escape from the Others. When they arrive, Rousseau abandons the group and watches from the bushes as Alex walks past. A few days later, Rousseau leads the survivors to the radio tower in order for them to contact a nearby freighter. En route, they encounter Ben and Alex; Ben explains to Alex who Rousseau is and the mother and daughter are reunited. Season four
Lost (season 4)
The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the American Broadcasting Company Network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008 and concluded on May 29, 2008...
begins with the survivors dividing into two groups, with those who believe the people from the freighter to be dangerous, including Rousseau and Alex, joining Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
). After learning of the freighter crew's intentions to kill everyone on the island, Ben directs Rousseau, along with Alex and her boyfriend Karl (Blake Bashoff
Blake Bashoff
Blake Warren Bashoff is an American television and motion picture actor, known for his role as Moritz Stiefel in Spring Awakening. He has also appeared in a number of guest roles on television series, including the ABC series Lost as Karl Martin.- Life and career :Bashoff was born in Philadelphia,...
), to head to the Temple where the rest of the Others are located. On their way, Rousseau and Karl are shot by unseen attackers, and both are killed. The buried bodies of both are discovered by Miles
Miles Straume
Miles Straume is a fictional character played by Ken Leung on the ABC television series Lost. Miles is introduced early in the fourth season as a hotheaded and sarcastic medium as a crew member aboard the freighter called the Kahana that is offshore the island where most of Lost takes place...
(Ken Leung
Ken Leung
Kenneth "Ken" Leung is an American actor best known for his role as Miles Straume in the ABC television series Lost and roles in such films as Shanghai Kiss, Rush Hour, X-Men: The Last Stand, and Saw.-Early life:...
), Sawyer (Josh Holloway
Josh Holloway
Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway is an American actor and model from Free Home, Georgia. He is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the American television show Lost.-Early life:...
), and Claire after they leave Locke and travel back to the beach.
Flash-Sideways
She's still the mother of Alex and lives with her. Alex introduces her mother to Dr. Linus because he's too hurt after being battered by Desmond. Danielle and Alex bring him home for dinner. While Alex is doing her homework, Danielle and Dr. Linus are talking about her. She tells him that since the death of her father when she was two, he's the closest to a father figure that she ever got. Dr. Linus is visibly touched.Development
Jean-Jacques Rousseau
Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of 18th-century Romanticism. His political philosophy influenced the French Revolution as well as the overall development of modern political, sociological and educational thought.His novel Émile: or, On Education is a treatise...
. Although Rousseau is French, actress Mira Furlan is Croatian, which led to speculation that Rousseau is not really from France. In one of the official Lost podcasts, producer Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
joked, "any French woman who speaks with a Croatian accent and has been living in the woods for sixteen years eating bugs ... has got some issues, and those issues need to be overcome before she can actually go and embrace Alex". Furlan understood Rousseau's decision to not meet her daughter, believing that no one can ever be prepared for that moment. Furlan met Raymonde for the first time just minutes before shooting their reunion scene in the season three finale. The actors believed the scene to be a "huge moment" for their characters, which Furlan described as a "basic human moment". Furlan was glad to have "such a beautiful partner", and noted their physical resemblance.
Furlan is said to have asked for her character to be written out of the series because she did not want to travel to Hawaii to film her scenes, although she later called this an untrue rumor. The producers decided for Rousseau to be shot, with the possibility of her returning in season five
Lost (season 5)
The fifth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the ABC network in the United States and on A in Canada in January 2009, and concluded with a two-hour season finale on May 13, 2009...
. Co-show runners and executive producers Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
and Cuse originally intended for Rousseau to get her own flashback episode in season four, however as a result of the Writer's Strike
2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike
The 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, more commonly referred to as simply the Writers' Strike, was a strike by the Writers Guild of America, East and the Writers Guild of America, West ....
, this did not come to pass. When asked whether Rousseau would have a flashback in season five, Lindelof said that Rousseau's story would "definitively" be revealed, but that "to use the word flashback would be disingenuous". Cuse revealed that they were trying to steer away from the word flashback and were "embracing a whole new word". He explained that "there will still [...] be flashbacks and flash-forwards on the show, but we're going to do something different this year. We're going to mix it up." Instead of using flashbacks and flashforwards like in previous seasons, stories of the fifth season will play out both on and off the island stories in different points in time. The writers were supposedly scheduling an appearance by Furlan for the fifth season, but Furlan did not end up making an appearance. However, she returns in the form of Rousseau's "sideways" counterpart (who never crashed on the Island, lost Alex or went insane) in the sixth season.
Reception
In a review of the first season episode "SolitarySolitary (Lost)
"Solitary" is the ninth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Greg Yaitanes and written by David Fury. It first aired on November 17, 2004 on ABC. The character of Sayid Jarrah is featured in the episode's flashbacks.-Flashbacks:Sayid is torturing a prisoner who will not...
", Chris Carabott of IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
commented that Rousseau appeared to be more emotionally fragile than in later seasons, and was like a "loose cannon". Carabott found that as the series progressed and the mystery around the character was lessened, Rousseau was unable to deliver the same impact she made in her first appearance. In his review of "Numbers
Numbers (Lost)
"Numbers" is the 18th episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Dan Attias and written by Brent Fletcher and David Fury. It first aired on March 2, 2005 on ABC...
", in which Rousseau makes her second appearance, Carabott described Hurley and Rousseau's encounter as "the episode's best moment", as "Hurley finds comfort with someone who we would least expect." Lost co-creator J.J. Abrams commended Furlan for giving the character "heart and soul", and managed to make her "identifiable and complex".
Rousseau's unknown fate in "Meet Kevin Johnson" was heavily discussed among critics. Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger
The Star-Ledger is the largest circulated newspaper in the U.S. state of New Jersey and is based in Newark. It is a sister paper to The Jersey Journal of Jersey City, The Times of Trenton and the Staten Island Advance, all of which are owned by Advance Publications.The Newark Star-Ledgers daily...
felt that the relationship between Rousseau and Alex after their reunion remained unexplored, which made Rousseau's death a wasted opportunity for a powerful death scene. BuddyTV
BuddyTV
BuddyTV is an entertainment-based website based in Seattle, Washington, which generates content about television programs and sporting events. The website publishes information about celebrity and related entertainment news through a series of articles, entertainment profiles, actor biographies and...
's Don Williams believed that Rousseau would survive, mainly because he had been waiting to see her flashback for four seasons, and thought her death would ensure it would not happen. Dan Compora from SyFy Portal
SyFy Portal
Airlock Alpha, formerly SyFy Portal, is an entertainment news website focusing on science-fiction, fantasy and comic book television series and films.-History:...
was disappointed in her death scene, noting, "I wasn't shocked to see Danielle get killed, but the scene felt like it was tossed in just in case this had to serve as the season finale." Compora felt that Rousseau deserved more screen time in the episode leading up to her death. The San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...