Season 1, Episode 13: Hearts and Minds

Ah, incest finally comes to the crazy world of Lost. OK, so it's not real incest but rather step-incest. Boone and Shannon have always been bit players in this epic melodrama, but some back story was still needed. Turns out, there's a reason for the jealousy the pair exhibit as there also was some heat once upon a time.

MAJOR PLOT POINTS

Boone's feelings for his sister to this point could have been taken as mere over-protectiveness, which would be more than understandable given the circumstances. But his over-the-top reaction when Sayid begins wooing Shannon by bringing her a pair of cute shoes he found, shows there is perhaps more depth to his Boone's sisterly passion.

Boone continues to help Locke dig up the hatch almost daily, lying to Shannon about trying to find Claire and telling others the two are hunting. The deceit is wearing on Boone, who wants to let Shannon in on the secret. Locke, however, has other ideas, knocking Boone unconscious, drugging him and leaving him tied up in the jungle alone. During the subsequent hallucination, Boone tells Shannon about the hatch and the pair are kidnapped by Locke. Boone frees himself and finds Shannon, helping her free as well before the pair are chased by the smoke monster, who kills Shannon.

In a flashback, we see Boone arrive in Australia and attempt to bribe Shannon's boyfriend into leaving her alone. She manipulated the whole thing, faking a phone call in which she was being beaten by her boyfriend and further staging a bruise on her forehead. Desperate to help the sister he loves (a little too much), Boone and Sawyer come within arm's length of one another at a Sydney police station, where he is trying to file a report about his sister's plight. Unable to get the cops to take him seriously, he offers $50,000 if the boyfriend will leave.

Of course, it was all a ploy by Shannon to get at some of the inheritance she felt she was wrongly denied. When her own boyfriend double crosses her and takes the money, Shannon goes crawling back to Boone and seduces him as a form of payment for his loyalty. She also gets him to fund her return trip to the United States, which landed the naughty nympho step-siblings on Oceanic 815.

We find that Boone is actually relieved when he finds out that Shannon didn't die. But he also learns that he was relieved to unburden himself of his sister and all her drama when he thought she was dead. It is only then that he can let Shannon go and worry about his own life.

Kate, who is helping Sun scavenge seeded for the garden and grove she has carved out of the jungle, learns that she speaks English. Now, she and Michael are in on the secret.