When we think of Lost ’s most important characters, it’s easy to focus on those who arrived on the island via the Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 plane crash at the start of the series. However, the character who serves as the biggest plot driver in the show doesn’t actually enter the scene until its second season.

Most rankings of Lost ’s main characters rightly place Desmond Hume near the very top, and he’s an undisputed fan favorite. Yet, Desmond’s significance to the series as a whole is actually underappreciated. The character almost singlehandedly changed the direction of the show with his appearance in "Man of Science, Man of Faith".

He was key to most of the key conceptual premises and plot threads which would be introduced into Lost thereafter, as the series began to tra

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