'Worst Heartbreak': Lost's Maggie Grace Explains Why Being Killed Off Was So Devastating
Lost hit the airwaves back in 2004 and would run for an increasingly convoluted but always thrilling six seasons. It was also clear from fairly early on that even major characters can be killed off, years before Game of Thrones made that option famous. Shannon, played by Maggie Grace, survived the first season only to be unceremoniously killed off six episodes into Season 2. Now, nearly twenty years after Shannon's death and well into the 2024 TV schedule, the actress is opening up about how being killed off the show still hurts.
Shannon hasn't been forgotten by fans, and Maggie Grace even weighed in on why she thinks fans will always ask for more after the controversial ending. Grace appeared in the series finale's version of the afterlife, alongside Sayid. That didn't quite undo Shannon's abrupt death when she was shot to death, however. Speaking with The Independent, Grace addressed her exit from Lost:
It’s still the worst heartbreak of my career. I was devastated!
Considering how huge Lost was at the time, being killed off the show could have tanked Maggie Grace's career. Fortunately, that wasn't the case, as she went on to land ongoing TV gigs on shows like Californication and Fear the Walking Dead, as well as playing Kim in the Taken franchise. Still, Grace describes it as "still" her worst career heartbreak. The actress went on:
I thought maybe she would do something surprising, or have another colour [to her personality]. Maybe she’d, at the last moment, redeem herself and be incredibly self-sacrificial in some way. I guess there were flashes of it, but not in the way I hoped in terms of an arc. That’s a selfish actor’s point of view. They definitely had bigger fish to fry.
Grace's Shannon did outlive her on-screen stepbrother Boone, portrayed by Ian Somerhalder in his pre-The Vampire Diaries days, although Boone has the distinction of being the first death of a major character on Lost. Shannon didn't really last long enough to get the kind of depth that the actress evidently had in mind. At least it's safe to say that Shannon isn't an outlier, as so many people died on the show that actor Henry Ian Cusick had plenty to choose from when he picked which he thought was Lost's most devastating death. (I have to agree with him about Charlie Pace and "Not Penny's Boat.")
It does speak highly of Lost that Grace is still heartbroken about having to leave it, and there seemingly wasn't bad blood left behind since she returned for the series finale. The show also found its huge success in a time before social media really took off, and the cast was more insulated than most as they filmed in Hawaii.
While it seems unlikely that a total reboot of the show will ever happen in light of what one executive producer said, you can still revisit the highs and lows of Lost – including the death of Shannon – streaming with a Hulu subscription now. As for whether or not the finale feels more satisfying with the passage of time... well, that's up to each individual viewer to discover for themselves!
