Danielle Rousseau

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. Croatian actress Mira Furlan plays the scientist who shipwrecks on the island sixteen years prior to the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. After Rousseau is killed in the fourth season, the American actress Melissa Farman portrayed a younger version of the character in the fifth season. Furlan later reappears for one episode in the sixth season in a flashback. 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, and her final episode in the sixth season.

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; 16 years 253 days 21 hours 42 min 59 seconds later, 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.

Damon Lindelof later revealed that the short-lived reunion was unexplored due to the 2007–2008 Writers Guild of America strike, which also scrapped an episode dedicated to the character. Furlan also later denied rumors she requested to leave the series. The character's death scene in "Meet Kevin Johnson" received generally negative reviews; retrospective reviews opined that the scene was "tacked on".

Furlan was recast in the fifth season, partly after a salary dispute. While it was remarked that Rousseau's return in flashback form "disingenuous", the character does return in Ben's flashback "Dead Is Dead", while two other appearances are accounted for through the storytelling device of time travel.

Critical reaction to the character has been generally positive; however, many have expressed disappointment in the execution of Rousseau's death scene.

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 Tahiti. 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.