Danielle Rousseau was a woman of French origin who was shipwrecked on the Island with an expedition in 1988, seven months pregnant with her daughter, Alex. It was during this time that her team rescued Jin, who, as a result of the Island’s move, was traveling through time. Shortly after Danielle gave birth, her daughter was taken away by Benjamin Linus, an Other. Rousseau lived alone for sixteen years, and over time became slightly disturbed due to her isolation. Following the crashing of their plane, Rousseau met and eventually joined the Flight 815 survivors, and finally reunited with her daughter. On 27 December 2004, while she, Alex, and Karl were traveling to the Temple, they were ambushed by Keamy and hismercenary team. Both Rousseau and Karl were shot dead. Her body was discovered by Miles as he, Sawyer, and Claire were going back to thebeach.
In the afterlife, Danielle shared a happy, normal life with Alexandra, away from the Island. She eventually met Ben, who was now Alex’s history teacher, and moved him by saying he was the closest thing to a father Alex ever had.
- Danielle’s total episode count is 26.
- Rousseau is the character with most appearances who never got a star billing.
- Rousseau has met all of the main characters, except for Boone, Libby, Eko, Daniel, Richard, Ilana, Lapidus, Pierre, Christian, Penny and Eloise.
- Boone heard Danielle’s voice in her transmission.
- Richard is presumably aware of Danielle, since Ben mentioned in Dead Is Dead about „the crazy woman“ and Richard was present.
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau is the name of a French philosopher.
- Henri Rousseau was a French painter whose paintings depicted jungle scenes.
- Daniel LaRusso is the name of Ralph Macchio’s character in The Karate Kid.
- In French dub, Rousseau is said to be German, which creates some continuity errors, notably with the song „La Mer“ and her name.
- Both of the actresses who portray Rousseau have the initials M.F. In fact, both actresses’ first names start with the letter „M“, and end with the letter „A“, while both of their last names have „F“ as the first letter, „R“ as the third letter, „A“ as the fifth letter, and „N“ as the sixth letter.
- Among the names written in the lighthouse Rousseau is number 20. It remains unclear if this refers to this Rousseau or another.
- She, Carmen Reyes and Nadia have appeared in every season without ever being a main character.
- Her story causes some potential inconsistencies with the estimated date of the Purge. Assuming the Purge was in 1992, Danielle would have coexisted on the island with the DHARMA Initiative for about four years. It would also have been unexplained how she survived the toxic gas attack that struck the island when The Others destroyed DHARMA, or how she could have tampered with the DHARMA radio tower while they where still using it for the transmission of the numbers. But, assuming the Purge was in 1987 (or some other point before 1988), the timeline provided by Danielle is more believable.
- Witnesses of death: Alex, Several Soldiers
- Last words: „He’s gone! Listen to me… I need you to take my hand, on the count of 3, we’re going to run. Can you do that with me? I love you… I love you very much, Alexandra. Are you ready? One… Two… THREE!“
Lost 