Ana Lucia & Christian

In this blog, I won't be going overly in depth into "flashback characters", but there are some that will be addressed. One very crucial such character is Christian Shepherd (AKA Ghost Dad), who has ties to not one, not two, not three, but *four* of our main Lostie cast members. For all we know, by the time this crazy TV show trip is over, maybe there will even be others. First up for discussion of ties to Christian is Ana Lucia Cortez, extremely unlikeable ex-cop extraordinaire.

Most of the interaction we actually see between Lulu and Ghost Dad takes place in the flashbacks of

Two for the Road, which culminates in La Chica Loca basically joining the Ghostie ranks herself. After a brief encounter in line, Ana Lucia and Christian first officially introduce themselves to each other at an LAX bar (probably the same one where Jack and Ana Lucia would later first meet), as Ana was taking a break (or maybe she was on the job, yay) from the daily grind as an airport security guard, and Christian was prepping for his big bender in Sydney. They made some cute small talk, such as how they both failed beautifully at their respective former professions, and Christian enlisted her to become his body guard on some sort of secret mission down under. They playfully assigned each other code names. Christian called her "Sarah" (after Jack's ex-wife) and Ana Lucia called him Tom. We don't know why she picked Tom, except that LOST is very big on Toms: Mr. Friendly, Kate's doctor-to-be teenage boyfriend, Claire's fiance and father to Aaron, Cooper's Tom Sawyer alias which inspired James Ford, Charlie's drug dealer, DHARMA honcho Thomas Mittelwerk, etc.

The two then are seen in Sydney, as Christian comes to Ana Lucia's hotel room in a completely wasted looking state, informing her that it's time for her to do her job. The duo pulls up to the house of Claire's mother, and Christian informs Ana Lucia that this is what he needed a bodyguard for, since Fodor's Guide to Australia makes it very clear that Aussie Aunties are so freakin' tough that you need a trigger-happy ex-cop to watch out for you. Christian wakes up the household at an ungodly hour and starts shouting about how "she's" his daughter, and he has every right to see her. He pays the mortgage on the house, and everything. "She", is of course, Claire, future mother of the antichrist (or something).

Now, we can interpret all of this in a few different ways. First off, if Christian did actually intend Ana Lucia to be a bodyguard, the only person who probably really needed it was Lindsey, Claire's aunt (her mom being in a coma at this point). Or perhaps Christian wanted Ana Lucia to witness the connection between him and the Littleton family, knowing somehow that Ana Lucia would eventually end up on the Island. Or, speaking of that, perhaps getting Ana Lucia on the plane to Sydney was all part of some master plan to make sure certain people ended up on The Island. Or perhaps it's a little bit of all of the above. Whether theories about machinations of how people ended up on Flight 815 were part of some big master plan will ever be proven, we don't yet know.

Anyway, that is nearly the end of the Ana Lucia/Christian story. They parted ways at this point, with Christian going into that bar where he would encounter Sawyer, and Ana Lucia going off into Sydney to... do whatever high strung, violent ex-cops do in a strange city. Beat up drunks who didn't pay for protection service, perhaps.

Ah, but there is one more beat (thus far) between Ana Lucia and Christian. In The Beginning of the End (season 4 premiere), Hurley discovers Jacob's Cabin, and (spooky!), there are whispers. Now, the contents of whispers are often debatable, but the consensus seems to be that these particular whispers include the voice of Christian Shepherd saying "Sarah, is somebody coming?", with a female voice replying "They must be coming, you..." By the end of season 4, we know that Christian hangs out in Jacob's Cabin. Jack's Sarah is still alive back on the mainland, so the most likely candidate for the "Sarah" that Ghost Dad is talking to is the woman to whom he assigned that nickname: Ana Lucia, who at this point is obviously in the ranks of Island Ghosties. So, there's a hint that the Whispers are not the voices of the Others as once thought, but are instead the voices of Ghosties. Or maybe they're both. As for whether we will ever see the story of Ana Lucia and Christian Shepherd continue in seasons 5 and 6, I think it's quite likely, exactly because of that little Whisper exchange. They're both Ghosties, and apparently are keeping in touch. However they do that.