Tom (Lost)
Encyclopedia
Tom Friendly, often referred to as Tom or Mr. Friendly, is a recurring
fictional character
portrayed by M. C. Gainey
on the American Broadcasting Company
(ABC) television series Lost
. The series follows the lives of around forty survivors from the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. The survivors find themselves on a mysterious tropical island, and interact with a group known as the Others, who appear to have lived on the island since long before the crash. Tom is an influential member of the Others, and is introduced in 2005 in the season one finale "Exodus: Part 2", where he kidnaps one of the survivors. The character makes another fifteen appearances before being killed in the season three finale "Through the Looking Glass
". Tom appears twice in season four
in the flashback
s of other characters. Gainey was initially credited as playing "bearded man" and then as "Mr. Friendly" throughout season two before the character was given a first name. In a montage of deceased characters shown at Comic-Con in 2009, the Lost producers present the character's full name as "Tom Friendly".
Gainey accepted the role despite knowing nothing about it; his sole motivation was a chance to work again with Lost producer Carlton Cuse
. Speculation over Tom's sexuality arose when he commented to Kate
that she was "not [his] type". Gainey began playing the character as such, and in season four Tom is shown kissing another man on the cheek. Lost producer Damon Lindelof
commented that this revelation was "not subtle, to say the least". Tom was received positively by critics, particularly in his first appearance.
", set around three years before the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Tom has a brief conversation with newly recruited Other Juliet Burke
(Elizabeth Mitchell
), where he mentions he is a patient of therapist Harper Stanhope (Andrea Roth
). Shown in flashbacks during "Maternity Leave
", when Claire Littleton
(Emilie de Ravin
) is kidnapped by the Others a few weeks after the plane crash, Tom oversees Ethan Rom's (William Mapother
) progress at the Others' medical station. He criticizes Ethan for kidnapping Claire before making "the list". After forty-four days on the Island, the survivors finish building a raft, with Michael Dawson
(Harold Perrineau), his ten-year old son Walt Lloyd
(Malcolm David Kelley
), James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway
) and Jin-Soo Kwon
(Daniel Dae Kim) volunteering to sail it. Tom makes his first appearance in "Exodus: Part 2", where he arrives in a motorboat
, wearing a fake beard and old clothes, with a crew of Others who kidnap Walt and destroy the raft. When Michael goes searching for the Others in the jungle, Tom captures him, and then confronts the other survivors who are looking for Michael. Tom warns them not to come any closer to the Others and then leaves with Michael in tow. A deal is made for Michael to bring Jack Shephard
(Matthew Fox
), Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lilly
), Sawyer and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia
) to the Others in exchange for Walt. In the second season finale "Live Together, Die Alone
", Michael successfully leads Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to the ambush point; various Others including Tom sedate them and take them to a pier. There, Tom knocks Jack, Kate and Sawyer unconscious and transports them to a small island nearby.
In season three, Tom supervises an operation on Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
), the leader of the Others, which Jack is performing, and is blackmailed into letting Kate and Sawyer escape. He loses trust in Juliet, believing her to be plotting against Ben, and expresses his views to the Others' sheriff, before returning to the Island. Shown in a flashback during season four, Tom leaves the Island and tracks down Michael in Manhattan, where Michael is trying to kill himself. He tells Michael that the Island will not let him die and gives him the address of his hotel penthouse. There, Tom convinces Michael to work for Ben, and instructs him to get a job as a janitor onboard a freighter that is about to set sail from Fiji
. When Michael arrives at the port Tom tells him to wait a day or two before activating an explosive device, to kill all the freighter crew, preventing them from reaching the Island. He returns to the barracks and is seen playing football
with Jack. Shortly after this, he and the Others abandon the barracks, making camp in the jungle en route to the temple. Tom is shocked when Ben agrees to take one of the survivors, John Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
), to see Jacob, Ben's superior. His faith in Ben's leadership is shaken, and ignores Ben's calls to intervene when Locke begins to beat another Other, Mikhail Bakunin (Andrew Divoff
). When Ben returns from Jacob, he orders a raid on the survivors' beach camp that night; Tom is part of the party sent. In "Through the Looking Glass", the season three finale, Jin, Sayid Jarrah
(Naveen Andrews
) and Bernard Nadler (Sam Anderson
) are captured by the party, and Ben radios Tom to shoot them. This prearranged code is the signal for Tom to shoot three bullets into the ground, only pretending to kill the hostages, to mislead the rest of the survivors, who have been met by Ben. Afterwards Tom expresses regret at not finishing the hostages, as they killed seven of the Others. The arrival of Hurley in a van, along with Sawyer and Juliet, sees the rest of the attack party killed. Tom admits defeat and surrenders, but Sawyer shoots him in his heart, claiming his life as payment for taking Walt off the raft. Juliet later buries Tom near the jungle along with his team of deceased Others.
", which led to some critics using this name for him. In the season two finale "Live Together, Die Alone", his name is revealed to be Tom. On his character's death, Gainey noted that "just because they kill you on this show, don't mean they don't need you anymore 'cause everybody's got a past."
In the third season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities
", Tom tells Kate that she is not his type. This comment resulted in online discussion in regard to Tom's sexual orientation, and Lindelof and Cuse hinted that a Lost character would later be outed. Gainey joked, "if [Kate's] not your type, you're gay", and began playing the character as such. He tried to subtly flirt with Jack, claiming that this attraction "got [him] through the first half of the season." In the fourth season
episode "Meet Kevin Johnson
", Tom is seen kissing his New York lover Arturo (Francesco Simone). After the broadcast of "Meet Kevin Johnson", Lindelof and Cuse confirmed that the line from the third season premiere is an allusion to Tom's sexuality, but felt that it needed to be explicitly confirmed in the show, although Lindelof noted that the confirmation scene in "Meet Kevin Johnson" "was not subtle, to say the least". Lost writer Edward Kitsis
stated that "It was great to see [Tom] and realize that... he is a true gentleman."
"loved" Tom's first appearance because "It's a great scene and our first introduction to The Others besides Ethan's infiltration of the camp." Gainey found the fan reaction to his first appearance "really tough", because "everywhere [he] went people would just give [him] dirty looks and they were like 'What are you going to do with that boy?'", but he noted this gradually improved after his appearances in season two. Erin Martell from AOL
's TV Squad listed Tom in her five "most entertaining guest roles" from the first three seasons, commenting "I am counting his first episode as my favorite. For my money, there was nothing more disturbing than when Gainey showed up out of the blue and uttered the words, 'We're gonna have to take the boy.' I could not get that scene out of my head for days after 'Exodus' aired. Ben has made Tom seem relatively less menacing over time, but I have a feeling that the terrifying, bearded sea captain is still in there somewhere." In her review of the season four episode "The Other Woman", Nikki Stafford of Wizard
called the return of her "favorite Other" (Tom) a "highlight". Following his posthumous flashback appearance in "Meet Kevin Johnson", Martell said "Now I feel even worse about his death. He wasn't just one of Ben's scary, Walt-napping minions. He had a heart." Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle
thought the revelation that Tom is gay was a "unique and funny twist". Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post
noted this revelation "seemed a little oddly placed, kind of like 'Let's make one of our characters gay just for the heck of it' but still it's cool that the show has a perfectly normal (well for an 'Other') not over-the-top gay character."
Recurring character
A recurring character is a fictional character, usually in a prime time TV series, who appears from time to time during the series' run. Recurring characters often play major roles in an episode, sometimes being the main focus...
fictional character
Fictional character
A character is the representation of a person in a narrative work of art . Derived from the ancient Greek word kharaktêr , the earliest use in English, in this sense, dates from the Restoration, although it became widely used after its appearance in Tom Jones in 1749. From this, the sense of...
portrayed by M. C. Gainey
M. C. Gainey
Michael Connor "Mike" Gainey , better known as M. C. Gainey, is an American film and television actor whose distinctive mustache, 6'2½" height, and threatening look have given him supporting roles as Southern/Southwestern types, thugs, and criminals.Gainey attended the University of Southern...
on the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
(ABC) television series Lost
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
. The series follows the lives of around forty survivors from the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. The survivors find themselves on a mysterious tropical island, and interact with a group known as the Others, who appear to have lived on the island since long before the crash. Tom is an influential member of the Others, and is introduced in 2005 in the season one finale "Exodus: Part 2", where he kidnaps one of the survivors. The character makes another fifteen appearances before being killed in the season three finale "Through the Looking Glass
Through the Looking Glass (Lost)
"Through the Looking Glass" is the third season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 22nd and 23rd episodes of the third season. It is also the 71st and 72nd episodes overall. It was written by co-creator/executive producer Damon Lindelof and executive producer Carlton Cuse,...
". Tom appears twice in season four
Lost (season 4)
The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the American Broadcasting Company Network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008 and concluded on May 29, 2008...
in the flashback
Flashback (narrative)
Flashback is an interjected scene that takes the narrative back in time from the current point the story has reached. Flashbacks are often used to recount events that happened before the story’s primary sequence of events or to fill in crucial backstory...
s of other characters. Gainey was initially credited as playing "bearded man" and then as "Mr. Friendly" throughout season two before the character was given a first name. In a montage of deceased characters shown at Comic-Con in 2009, the Lost producers present the character's full name as "Tom Friendly".
Gainey accepted the role despite knowing nothing about it; his sole motivation was a chance to work again with Lost producer Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse
Carlton Cuse is an AmericanEmmy Award winning screenwriter and producer, most famous as executive producer andscreenwriter for the American television series Lost for...
. Speculation over Tom's sexuality arose when he commented to Kate
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
that she was "not [his] type". Gainey began playing the character as such, and in season four Tom is shown kissing another man on the cheek. Lost producer Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
commented that this revelation was "not subtle, to say the least". Tom was received positively by critics, particularly in his first appearance.
Arc
In a flashback during "The Other WomanThe Other Woman
The Other Woman , is a 1995 made-for-TV movie that follows dying mother Tessa Bryan's attempts to gain the acceptance of her two young daughters Lara and Kate of her husband Michael's second wife Carolyn. To do so, she takes them on a trip across the country to their father's ranch...
", set around three years before the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Tom has a brief conversation with newly recruited Other Juliet Burke
Juliet Burke
Dr. Juliet Burke is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Elizabeth Mitchell. Her character was introduced in the third season premiere.- Prior to arrival on the island :...
(Elizabeth Mitchell
Elizabeth Mitchell
Elizabeth Mitchell , is an American actress/modelwho is known for her roles as Dr. Juliet Burke on ABC's TV series Lost and as FBI agent Erica Evans on V. She has starred in such films as The Santa Clause 2, The Santa Clause 3: The Escape Clause, and Gia.-Early life:Mitchell was born Elizabeth...
), where he mentions he is a patient of therapist Harper Stanhope (Andrea Roth
Andrea Roth
Andrea Roth is a Canadian actress. She is perhaps best known for her role on the FX television series Rescue Me , as Janet Gavin, the wife of main character Tommy Gavin.-Biography:...
). Shown in flashbacks during "Maternity Leave
Maternity Leave (Lost)
"Maternity Leave" is the 15th episode of the second season of Lost,and the 40th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender, and written by Dawn Lambertsen Kelly and Matt Ragghianti. It first aired on March 1, 2006 on ABC...
", when Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton is a fictional character played by Emilie de Ravin on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific. Claire is introduced in the pilot episode as a pregnant crash survivor. She is a series regular until her...
(Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin born 27 December 1981)is an Australian actress. She is commonly associated with her roles as Tess Harding on Roswell and Claire Littleton on the ABC drama Lost....
) is kidnapped by the Others a few weeks after the plane crash, Tom oversees Ethan Rom's (William Mapother
William Mapother
William Reibert Mapother, Jr. is an American actor and former teacher, perhaps best known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series Lost.-Personal life:...
) progress at the Others' medical station. He criticizes Ethan for kidnapping Claire before making "the list". After forty-four days on the Island, the survivors finish building a raft, with Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson (Lost)
Michael Dawson is a fictional character played by Harold Perrineau on the ABC television series Lost. After losing a custody battle with Susan Lloyd , Michael does not see his son Walt for almost ten years. They reunite when she dies, but on their journey home, their plane crashes on a mysterious...
(Harold Perrineau), his ten-year old son Walt Lloyd
Walt Lloyd
Walter "Walt" Lloyd is a fictional character portrayed by Malcolm David Kelley in the American ABC television series Lost. The series follows the lives of over forty survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Walt is introduced in the pilot episode as one of the survivors aboard the plane, which...
(Malcolm David Kelley
Malcolm David Kelley
Malcolm David Kelley is an American teen actor. He starred in the 2004 film You Got Served as "Li'l Saint". He also appears in the television series Lost as the character Walt Lloyd. A regular cast member in the show's first season , he has appeared only occasionally since due to a dramatic...
), James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway
Josh Holloway
Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway is an American actor and model from Free Home, Georgia. He is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the American television show Lost.-Early life:...
) and Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon, better known as "Jin," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Daniel Dae Kim.- Prior to the crash :...
(Daniel Dae Kim) volunteering to sail it. Tom makes his first appearance in "Exodus: Part 2", where he arrives in a motorboat
Motorboat
A motorboat is a boat which is powered by an engine. Some motorboats are fitted with inboard engines, others have an outboard motor installed on the rear, containing the internal combustion engine, the gearbox and the propeller in one portable unit.An inboard/outboard contains a hybrid of a...
, wearing a fake beard and old clothes, with a crew of Others who kidnap Walt and destroy the raft. When Michael goes searching for the Others in the jungle, Tom captures him, and then confronts the other survivors who are looking for Michael. Tom warns them not to come any closer to the Others and then leaves with Michael in tow. A deal is made for Michael to bring Jack Shephard
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
), Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Kate Austen in the ABC drama, Lost.-Early life:...
), Sawyer and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia
Jorge Garcia
Jorge García is a U.S. actor and comedian. He first came to public attention with his performance as Hector Lopez on the television show Becker and later for his portrayal of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the television series Lost. Garcia also performs as a stand-up comedian.-Early life:García was born...
) to the Others in exchange for Walt. In the second season finale "Live Together, Die Alone
Live Together, Die Alone
"Live Together, Die Alone" is the second season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd and 24th episodes of the second season. It is also the 48th and 49th episodes overall. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Jack Bender. It first...
", Michael successfully leads Jack, Kate, Sawyer and Hurley to the ambush point; various Others including Tom sedate them and take them to a pier. There, Tom knocks Jack, Kate and Sawyer unconscious and transports them to a small island nearby.
In season three, Tom supervises an operation on Ben Linus (Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson
Michael Emerson is an American actor who is perhaps best known for his roles as Benjamin Linus on Lost and fictional serial killer William Hinks in The Practice.-Early life:...
), the leader of the Others, which Jack is performing, and is blackmailed into letting Kate and Sawyer escape. He loses trust in Juliet, believing her to be plotting against Ben, and expresses his views to the Others' sheriff, before returning to the Island. Shown in a flashback during season four, Tom leaves the Island and tracks down Michael in Manhattan, where Michael is trying to kill himself. He tells Michael that the Island will not let him die and gives him the address of his hotel penthouse. There, Tom convinces Michael to work for Ben, and instructs him to get a job as a janitor onboard a freighter that is about to set sail from Fiji
Fiji
Fiji , officially the Republic of Fiji , is an island nation in Melanesia in the South Pacific Ocean about northeast of New Zealand's North Island...
. When Michael arrives at the port Tom tells him to wait a day or two before activating an explosive device, to kill all the freighter crew, preventing them from reaching the Island. He returns to the barracks and is seen playing football
American football
American football is a sport played between two teams of eleven with the objective of scoring points by advancing the ball into the opposing team's end zone. Known in the United States simply as football, it may also be referred to informally as gridiron football. The ball can be advanced by...
with Jack. Shortly after this, he and the Others abandon the barracks, making camp in the jungle en route to the temple. Tom is shocked when Ben agrees to take one of the survivors, John Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
), to see Jacob, Ben's superior. His faith in Ben's leadership is shaken, and ignores Ben's calls to intervene when Locke begins to beat another Other, Mikhail Bakunin (Andrew Divoff
Andrew Divoff
Andrew Daniel Divoff is a Venezuelan film and television actor, best known for playing the evil Djinn in the two first Wishmaster films and the villains Cherry Ganz in Another 48 Hrs., Boris Bazylev in Air Force One, Ivan Sarnoff in CSI: Miami and Mikhail Bakunin in Lost.- Early life :Divoff was...
). When Ben returns from Jacob, he orders a raid on the survivors' beach camp that night; Tom is part of the party sent. In "Through the Looking Glass", the season three finale, Jin, Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Jarrah
Sayid Hassan Jarrah is a character from the ABC show Lost portrayed by Naveen Andrews.-Season 1:Sayid fixes the transceiver recovered from the cockpit, and leads a group into the jungle in order to send out a distress signal. Instead, he picks up a looping message . He tries to locate the...
(Naveen Andrews
Naveen Andrews
Naveen William Sidney Andrews is a British American actor. He is best known for portraying Kip in the movie The English Patient and Sayid Jarrah on the American television series Lost.-Early life:...
) and Bernard Nadler (Sam Anderson
Sam Anderson
Sam Anderson is an American actor.-Early life:Anderson was born in Wahpeton, North Dakota. He is a graduate of the University of North Dakota in Grand Forks. During the 1970s, Sam taught drama at Antelope Valley College in Lancaster, California.-Career:Anderson is perhaps best known for his roles...
) are captured by the party, and Ben radios Tom to shoot them. This prearranged code is the signal for Tom to shoot three bullets into the ground, only pretending to kill the hostages, to mislead the rest of the survivors, who have been met by Ben. Afterwards Tom expresses regret at not finishing the hostages, as they killed seven of the Others. The arrival of Hurley in a van, along with Sawyer and Juliet, sees the rest of the attack party killed. Tom admits defeat and surrenders, but Sawyer shoots him in his heart, claiming his life as payment for taking Walt off the raft. Juliet later buries Tom near the jungle along with his team of deceased Others.
Characteristics
When Tom is introduced in the first season finale, he wears a fake beard and old clothes. He continues to appear under this guise throughout the second season, only revealing his beard to be fake in the finale. M. C. Gainey, the actor who portrays Tom, was only informed that his character's beard was fake near the end of season two. The producers describe Tom as "friendly", earning him the nickname "Mr. Friendly". One critic has described him as "sarcastic" and "bright". Tom's dislike of blood causes him to struggle while supervising Ben's operation, which Emerson believes makes him "cuddly". Gainey does not think he is very similar to Tom, commenting, "He seems to be very loyal and I'm a very loyal person so I have that in common, but other than that, I don't really know what he's about. He seems much more socially awkward than I am." After Tom was revealed to be gay during season four, M. C. Gainey stated that "anytime you've got a group of people, somebody's got to be marching to a different drummer - that would be Tom Friendly."Development
M. C. Gainey first met Lost producer Carlton Cuse while working on The Adventures of Brisco County, Jr. The opportunity to work with Cuse again was motivation enough to take the part of Tom, even without a script or description of the character. Gainey watches every episode of the series, but admits to not knowing what is happening much of the time. In his first appearance, in the season one finale "Exodus: Part 2", Gainey was credited as "bearded man", then in his season two appearances as "Mr. Friendly". In the Official Lost Podcast, Damon Lindelof confirmed Mr. Friendly is not his real name, but is how the producers refer to him internally, because "he's so friendly"; however, his surname was later suggested to actually be Friendly during Comic-Con 2009. He is nicknamed "Zeke" by Sawyer in "The Hunting PartyThe Hunting Party (Lost)
"The Hunting Party" is the 36th episode of Lost. It is the 11th episode of the second season. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams, and written by Elizabeth Sarnoff, Kiel Jeffery, and Christina M. Kim. It first aired on January 18, 2006 on ABC...
", which led to some critics using this name for him. In the season two finale "Live Together, Die Alone", his name is revealed to be Tom. On his character's death, Gainey noted that "just because they kill you on this show, don't mean they don't need you anymore 'cause everybody's got a past."
In the third season premiere "A Tale of Two Cities
A Tale of Two Cities (Lost)
"A Tale of Two Cities" is the third season premiere, and 50th episode overall, of the American Broadcasting Company's serial drama television series Lost. The episode was written by co-creators/executive producers J. J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, based on a story by Lindelof and directed by...
", Tom tells Kate that she is not his type. This comment resulted in online discussion in regard to Tom's sexual orientation, and Lindelof and Cuse hinted that a Lost character would later be outed. Gainey joked, "if [Kate's] not your type, you're gay", and began playing the character as such. He tried to subtly flirt with Jack, claiming that this attraction "got [him] through the first half of the season." In the fourth season
Lost (season 4)
The fourth season of the American serial drama television series Lost commenced airing on the American Broadcasting Company Network in the United States, and on CTV in Canada on January 31, 2008 and concluded on May 29, 2008...
episode "Meet Kevin Johnson
Meet Kevin Johnson
"Meet Kevin Johnson" is the 80th television episode of the American Broadcasting Company's Lost and the eighth episode of the fourth season. It was written in October and November 2007 by supervising producer Elizabeth Sarnoff and co-producer Brian K. Vaughan, and directed in November by...
", Tom is seen kissing his New York lover Arturo (Francesco Simone). After the broadcast of "Meet Kevin Johnson", Lindelof and Cuse confirmed that the line from the third season premiere is an allusion to Tom's sexuality, but felt that it needed to be explicitly confirmed in the show, although Lindelof noted that the confirmation scene in "Meet Kevin Johnson" "was not subtle, to say the least". Lost writer Edward Kitsis
Edward Kitsis
Edward Lawrence Kitsis, also sometimes credited as Eddy Kitsis, is an American screenwriter and producer, best known for his work on the popular American television series, Lost and Once Upon a Time.-Life and career:...
stated that "It was great to see [Tom] and realize that... he is a true gentleman."
Reception
Chris Carabott from IGNIGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
"loved" Tom's first appearance because "It's a great scene and our first introduction to The Others besides Ethan's infiltration of the camp." Gainey found the fan reaction to his first appearance "really tough", because "everywhere [he] went people would just give [him] dirty looks and they were like 'What are you going to do with that boy?'", but he noted this gradually improved after his appearances in season two. Erin Martell from AOL
AOL
AOL Inc. is an American global Internet services and media company. AOL is headquartered at 770 Broadway in New York. Founded in 1983 as Control Video Corporation, it has franchised its services to companies in several nations around the world or set up international versions of its services...
's TV Squad listed Tom in her five "most entertaining guest roles" from the first three seasons, commenting "I am counting his first episode as my favorite. For my money, there was nothing more disturbing than when Gainey showed up out of the blue and uttered the words, 'We're gonna have to take the boy.' I could not get that scene out of my head for days after 'Exodus' aired. Ben has made Tom seem relatively less menacing over time, but I have a feeling that the terrifying, bearded sea captain is still in there somewhere." In her review of the season four episode "The Other Woman", Nikki Stafford of Wizard
Wizard (magazine)
Wizard or Wizard: The Magazine of Comics, Entertainment and Pop Culture was a magazine about comic books, published monthly in the United States by Wizard Entertainment from July 1991 to January 2011...
called the return of her "favorite Other" (Tom) a "highlight". Following his posthumous flashback appearance in "Meet Kevin Johnson", Martell said "Now I feel even worse about his death. He wasn't just one of Ben's scary, Walt-napping minions. He had a heart." Tim Goodman from the San Francisco Chronicle
San Francisco Chronicle
thumb|right|upright|The Chronicle Building following the [[1906 San Francisco earthquake|1906 earthquake]] and fireThe San Francisco Chronicle is a newspaper serving primarily the San Francisco Bay Area of the U.S. state of California, but distributed throughout Northern and Central California,...
thought the revelation that Tom is gay was a "unique and funny twist". Jay Glatfelter of The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post
The Huffington Post is an American news website and content-aggregating blog founded by Arianna Huffington, Kenneth Lerer, and Jonah Peretti, featuring liberal minded columnists and various news sources. The site offers coverage of politics, theology, media, business, entertainment, living, style,...
noted this revelation "seemed a little oddly placed, kind of like 'Let's make one of our characters gay just for the heck of it' but still it's cool that the show has a perfectly normal (well for an 'Other') not over-the-top gay character."