Juliet Burke

When she was a young child, Juliet Carlson was devastated to learn that her parents (Michael Trisler and Amy Stewart) were getting a divorce; her mother explained that although she and Juliet's father loved each other, they were simply not meant to be together. Juliet grew up to become a doctor and medical researcher living in Miami, Florida with her sister Rachel (Robin Weigert). Under her married name of Juliet Burke, she worked for her ex-husband, Edmund Burke (Željko Ivanek), as a fertility scientist and researcher at Miami Central University. Despite her docile nature, Juliet performed unauthorised experiments on Rachel, whose reproductive system had been ravaged by chemotherapy and rendered sterile, hoping to restore her sister's fertility.[4]

In 2001, Juliet is approached by Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) of Mittelos Bioscience, who offers her a job leading "a team of highly trained people" in Portland, Oregon. Stating that her ex-husband would never allow her to leave the University, Juliet sarcastically states that she would only be able to accept the offer "if he were hit by a bus", before breaking down into tears and rushing out. When Juliet arrives home after the job interview, Rachel reveals that her experimental trials worked as she is finally pregnant. Upon informing her ex-husband of the news, Edmund is hit by a bus and killed, leaving Juliet shell-shocked. Richard and Ethan Rom (William Mapother) show up at the morgue to express their condolences and offer Juliet another chance to accept the job to which she agrees, believing it would only last six months somewhere "not quite in Portland". Soon after this, Rachel's cancer goes into remission.[4] Upon arriving at a private airfield to depart for her new position, Juliet is unsettled at the amount of security and secrecy involved. Richard then asks her to drink orange juice mixed with tranquilizer, telling her that she would want to be asleep for the journey. Sensing reservation on Juliet's part, Richard reveals that her expertise as a fertility specialist - especially her miraculous impregnation of Rachel against all odds - is the reason for her recruitment and he promises her that she would see things on the Island beyond her comprehension. Tempted by her curiosity, Juliet drinks the juice and promptly falls unconscious.[5]

Juliet awakens on board the Others' submarine, strapped down for safety. Ethan helps her up and she disembarks onto a pier where she is greeted by Ben Linus (Michael Emerson), who welcomes her to the Island.[5] A week later, in mid-September 2001, Juliet begins having therapy sessions with the Others' resident psychologist, Dr. Harper Stanhope (Andrea Roth). Their first discussion is cut short by Ben, who presents Juliet with her own newly-furnished house at the Barracks. She later meets Goodwin Stanhope (Brett Cullen) when treating a chemical burn on his arm. Juliet and Goodwin get off to a good start though it soon becomes apparent that Goodwin is Harper's estranged husband.[6]

For the next three years, Juliet attempts to solve the Island's mysterious fertility problem causing pregnant women to die after conception; all of Juliet's test subjects experience uniformly fatal results. She also begins having an affair with Goodwin. Harper discovers this and warns Juliet that if her relationship with Goodwin is not ended immediately, there will be dire consequences from Ben, alluding to the latter's jealous romantic affections for Juliet.[6]

Later she is discouraged by the lack of results in her work, but is forced to remain on the island "until her work is done." Juliet seeks to return to her sister Rachel, but Ben reveals her cancer had returned — she would be dead before Juliet arrives. However, he promises if Juliet stays, he will cure Rachel's cancer. She accepts this, but becomes suspicious of Ben when she discovers his spinal tumor on an x-ray. She then confronts him, upset over his deception about no one on the island getting cancer. She tearfully asks to go home to her dying sister — who she believed was never going to be cured — but Ben refuses to let her go, creating hostility.

The next day, a distraught Juliet prepares to host a book club when she is visited by Amelia (Julie Adams). Just as she is about to show Amelia the contents of a hidden envelope, the rest of the book club arrives. While discussing the novel Carrie, Juliet and the rest of the Others witness Oceanic Flight 815 crashing on the Island.[7]

Immediately after the plane crashes, Ben dispatches Goodwin and Ethan to infiltrate the survivors and gather information on them; it soon becomes apparent that Ben had sent Goodwin away out of jealousy for Juliet's affections. Ben takes Juliet to the Flame station, managed by Mikhail Bakunin (Andrew Divoff), where Juliet is shown a live-feed of a now-healthy Rachel with her two-year-old son, Julian. Juliet breaks down into tears upon seeing her sister and unsuccessfully pleads with Ben to let her go home.[5]

Weeks later, Ben invites Juliet over to his house for dinner under the pretence of having a party, only for Juliet to later discover Ben had arranged for a private date. Juliet asks Ben about Goodwin, and Ben attempts to sow discord between the two by implying Goodwin is interested in a relationship with Ana-Lucia Cortez (Michelle Rodriguez). Ben also gives Juliet his thanks for how she has consoled tail section survivors Zach (Mickey Graue) and Emma (Kiersten Havelock). Several days later, Juliet is asked by Ben to follow him into the forest and they eventually come upon Goodwin's impaled corpse. A distressed Juliet realises that Ben orchestrated these events and asks him why he would want Goodwin dead, to which Ben angrily reveals his jealousy and obsession with her, stating, "You're mine." Juliet then watches Ben walk away, leaving her to mourn over Goodwin's body even more upset.

Later, Juliet and Ben visit the Pearl station, where they watch footage of the crash survivors from the facility's surveillance monitors. Ben reveals he intends to kidnap and "persuade" them into helping him. They leave shortly after, leaving behind a walkie-talkie that is picked up by Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro).[8]

When Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) is in captivity, Juliet visits him and informs him the Others have granted him a boat to leave the island. She also comments on how Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley) is "special".[9] Later, Juliet tells Ben how dangerous Walt is becoming when he does something in "Room 23". Ben tells Juliet he's only a child, but Juliet then takes Ben to a pile of dead birds and tells him no child would do that.

Juliet is assigned to watch and interrogate Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), who has been captured by the Others and held in the underwater section of the Hydra station, located on a small island two miles offshore from the main Island. Jack initially refuses to cooperate but Juliet ultimately manages to break through and the two grow closer.[7][10] She later seeks Jack's help in operating on Colleen (Paula Malcomson) when she is shot, though the surgery proves unsuccessful. In the operating room, Jack notices Ben's x-rays on the wall and deduces that he was kidnapped to remove his tumor.[11] Juliet is sent to convince Jack to operate on Ben, but she surreptitiously plays a video of herself using cue cards to tell Jack to kill Ben during the surgery and to make it look like an accident.[12] Jack agrees to do the surgery but ends up slitting Ben's kidney sac to blackmail the Others into letting James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) and Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) go.[13] In an attempt to force Jack to play his role in her scheme to kill Ben, Juliet threatens to have Sawyer and Kate killed, after which Jack reveals Juliet's treachery to the Others. Ben wakes up during the surgery and concedes to Jack's demands, privately asking Juliet to help Sawyer and Kate escape in exchange for her freedom and finally letting her off the Island. She finds Sawyer and Kate held at gunpoint by Pickett (Michael Bowen), whom she shoots and kills on the spot before helping the two escape from Hydra Island back to the main Island.[4]

Juliet is then imprisoned and tried as the Others prepare to sentence her to death for her crime. However, Jack vouches for her and makes a deal with Ben to spare her. Juliet is marked on her lower back as punishment, and her wound is treated by Jack with an aloe plant before they set sail with the Others back to the Barracks on the main Island.[14] As part of their deal, Ben "allows" Juliet and Jack to use the Others' submarine to finally leave the Island but before they can depart, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) is subtly manipulated by Ben into destroying the submarine with explosives.[15] Prevented from leaving the Island once more, Juliet is asked by Ben to infiltrate the survivors' camp, gain their trust, and mark the tents of their pregnant women so the Others can kidnap them. Juliet handcuffs herself to Kate in the jungle, where she pretends to have been gassed and abandoned with her. When "the Monster" chases them, Juliet unlocks the handcuffs and activates the Others' sonar fence to repel it. She and Kate then reunite with Jack and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) at the Barracks, and they make their way back to the castaways' beach camp.[16] Sayid, Sawyer and the rest of the survivors are quick to express their skepticism and suspicions of Juliet but Jack declares her under his "protection". The Others activate an implant they previously placed in Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin), allowing Juliet to help her by offering a prepared solution thereby gaining the survivors' trust and respect.[5]

Juliet and Jack grow closer after she joins the survivors on the beach.[17] Upon learning that Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim) is pregnant, she takes her to the Staff station to perform an ultrasound; Juliet confirms that Sun conceived on the Island, giving the latter two months left to live until her second trimester.[18] That night, Juliet commits to betraying the Others and siding with the survivors, confessing everything to Jack about the Others' plans for the pregnant women in the camp.[19] After Kate informs Jack and Juliet of Naomi Dorrit's (Marsha Thomason) arrival on the Island, the two abruptly venture off into the jungle to find Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan) and form a plan to resist the Others using Juliet's inside knowledge of their methods.[20] They return to discover Sayid and Sawyer outing Juliet as a mole for the Others with intelligence provided by Locke while he was at Ben's camp. Juliet, Jack and Rousseau then let the rest of the survivors in on their plan: Juliet would falsely mark the empty tents of the pregnant women and when the Others arrive to kidnap them, a trap would be activated with the dynamite they retrieved from the Black Rock to kill the Others.[21][22] When Karl (Blake Bashoff) warns the group of the Others' early arrival, the survivors move up their schedule and divide into three groups: Sayid, Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) and Bernard Nadler (Sam Anderson) remain at the beach camp to spring the trap; Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) and Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) follow Juliet's instructions to breach the Looking Glass station and disable its signal jammer; and Jack and Juliet lead the rest of the group to the Island's radio tower in hopes of using Naomi's satellite phone to call for rescue. When Sayid's part of the plan backfires, Juliet gives Jack a kiss and joins Sawyer in rescuing their captured compatriots on the beach. After Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) causes a distraction with a Dharma Initiative van that results in the deaths of the remaining Others, Juliet subdues Tom Friendly (M.C. Gainey) and Sawyer murders him for kidnapping Walt.[23][24]

Juliet and the rest of the survivors on the beach reunite with Desmond who reveals that before Charlie died, he gave a warning that Naomi and her crew on the Kahana freighter are not on the Island to rescue the castaways. All of the survivors rendezvous in the jungle and fracture into two groups: Jack's camp heads back to the beach to negotiate rescue with the freighter; while Locke, believing that those arriving on the Island intend to do them harm, leads his faction to the Others' former Barracks. Juliet remains on Jack's side.[25] Juliet and Sayid express their distrust in the newcomers and arm up to track Jack down, finding him and Kate held at gunpoint by two of the Kahana's science team, Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) and Miles Straume (Ken Leung). Juliet and Sayid corner and disarm them before forcing them to reveal the whereabouts of their helicopter. When Juliet treats the head wound of the pilot, Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), he realizes her name was not on the manifest of Oceanic Flight 815 and asks her where Ben is.[26]

Juliet brings Desmond to the copter so that he and Sayid can board it and head to the Kahana so as to determine its crew's true motives.[27] Juliet then returns to the beach camp with Jack, Daniel and Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader). They repeatedly dial the emergency number of the newcomers' satellite phone to contact the Kahana and when they finally receive an answer, the freighter crew reports that the copter has not made it to them.[28] Juliet and Jack grow more suspicious of Daniel and Charlotte after receiving a mysteriously delayed call from Sayid, and Daniel is pressured into revealing that time flows in a different manner to and from the Island.[29] When Daniel and Charlotte disappear without notice from the beach camp, Juliet and Jack head into the forest to search for them. Juliet is confronted by Harper — her former therapist — on the behalf of Ben, who warns that Daniel and Charlotte intend to use the Tempest station to release a chemical gas that will kill everyone on the Island. Juliet arrives at the Tempest and subdues Charlotte but Daniel pleads their mission is to render the gas inert to prevent Ben from using it. Juliet believes him and allows the two to deactivate the station before reuniting with Jack outside. She tells Jack that Ben is possessive of her and tearfully warns him of the threat Ben poses to those she loves; Jack insists that he is here to stay and kisses Juliet.[6]

Juliet is forced to reveal to Jin that Sun had an affair prior to arriving on the Island when the couple plan to leave the beach camp for the Barracks out of distrust of Daniel and Charlotte; Sun had previously confided this information to Juliet during her ultrasound at the Staff station. Juliet apologises to Sun and successfully sways her and Jin to stay by convincing them that getting on the freighter would be Sun's best option as giving birth on the Island would kill her and their child.[30] When the corpse of the freighter's doctor Ray (Marc Vann) washes ashore, Juliet and Jack interrogate Daniel who reveals they never intended to rescue anyone on the Island. Jack stumbles in pain and collapses.[31] Juliet diagnoses Jack with appendicitis and operates on him with Bernard's assistance. Following the appendectomy, Juliet reveals to Kate they kissed but it was only for Jack to prove he "doesn't love someone else." Juliet notes that Jack is awake and had overheard their conversation.[32] As Juliet scolds Jack for walking about when he should be recovering from surgery, the freighter's copter passes over their beach camp and a package is thrown down. In it, the castaways find a satellite phone tracking the chopper.[33] Against Juliet's wishes, Jack decides to follow the phone's signal to the Orchid station. When Sayid returns in the Zodiac raft to start ferrying the people at the beach camp to the Kahana, he reveals that the mercenaries led by Martin Keamy (Kevin Durand) on the chopper intend to kill the survivors. Juliet insists that Sun boards the raft first since she is pregnant, and tells Daniel she will not leave the Island until everyone is safe aboard the freighter. Sawyer later arrives on the beach, after having jumped off the copter, and finds Juliet drinking a bottle of rum. Juliet tells Sawyer that she is not celebrating, and points to the smoke emanating from the destroyed freighter. The two drink together on the beach before the sky turns purple as a result of Ben using the Orchid station to "move" the Island. Juliet, Sawyer and the entire Island then disappear in a flash of light.[34][35][36]

Juliet remains with the Flight 815 survivors after the Island is moved, eventually staying with Sawyer and a few others after being separated from them during an attack by The Others. Juliet and Sawyer bond, which leads to Juliet deciding to stay with the other survivors once they join with the Dharma Initiative in the '70s. Over the next three years, she and Sawyer fall in love and develop a relationship, and are living together by the time Jack, Kate, and Hurley return.

Once their cover is blown, Juliet and Sawyer attempt to flee Dharma. They are captured, and set to be shipped back to the mainland, but escape when they learn of Jack's plan to destroy the Swan Station before it can be completed.

Through flashbacks, it is revealed Juliet's parents divorced when she was a child, telling her and her sister they still loved each other but were not meant to be together. Juliet later repeats this reason to Sawyer, believing he still has feelings for Kate. She decides instead to help Jack, hoping if his plan works, she will never meet Sawyer and thus never lose him.

When the magnetic forces beneath the Swan become unstable in "The Incident", Juliet is struck by a loose chain and pulled into the hole which has been drilled. Sawyer and Kate attempt to save her, but Juliet lets go to avoid having Sawyer and Kate die with her. Before she does, she admits she loves Sawyer more than anything. Juliet survives the fall, and - in the last scene of season 5 - uses the last of her strength to strike the nuclear device Jack threw in earlier until it explodes.[37]

Right at the moment of the blast of the "Jughead" bomb, Juliet and the survivors are thrown forward in time to 2007. Juliet arrives buried under the rubble of the Hatch. Kate hears her cries for help and Sawyer and the others frantically begin to dig her out. Sawyer manages to reach her and Juliet says they should get a coffee sometime and reveals she has something important to tell him. However, before she can convey her message, she dies from her injuries. Sawyer emerges from the rubble carrying Juliet's body and later he and Miles bury her. Sawyer forces Miles to 'read' her; he says the message is "it worked" but they do not understand what worked. In "The Substitute," Juliet's surname - Burke - was seen on Jacob's wall, crossed out with the number 58 next to it.

In the "flash sideways timeline", Dr. Juliet Carlson works as a maternity doctor at St. Sebastian Hospital in Los Angeles, California alongside Jack, who is her ex-husband; she and Jack even have a son named David (Dylan Minnette), who lives with Juliet and visits Jack once a month. Juliet performs an ultrasound on Sun, who is still recovering from a gunshot wound. When she shows Sun and Jin their baby's heartbeat, the couple "remember". Jack later gives Juliet three tickets so that she can take David and Claire, revealed to be Jack's half-sister, to a concert. While waiting in line to gain entry to the event, she receives a page from the hospital and departs.

Later at the hospital, Juliet notices Sawyer fishing a candy bar from a vending machine. She suggests unplugging the machine to release it and once it is free, she remarks, "It worked" - her original dying words. When Juliet passes Sawyer the candy, they brush fingers and experience flashes of their past. Beginning to regain their memories, Juliet and Sawyer then touch once more and "awaken", fully remembering their lives together. They realize the "flash sideways" is, in fact, a purgatory the survivors on the Island created so that they could find each other after death and "move on" together; physical contact with the person one loved the most would "awaken" them and cause them to "remember". Having finally been reunited, Juliet and Sawyer embrace and passionately kiss.

Juliet and Sawyer make their way to the church, where they are reunited with the other former denizens of the Island. As Christian Shepard (John Terry) opens the church doors, a glowing white light flows in and Juliet and Sawyer move on together to the afterlife as soulmates.