Michael Dawson is a fictional character played by Harold Perrineau on the ABC television series Lost.

After losing a custody battle with Susan Lloyd (Tamara Taylor), Michael does not see his son Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) for almost ten years.

He is eventually successful, and they leave the Island together, but the guilt over the murders he had to commit to achieve this leads him to an estrangement with his son and a suicide attempt.

[10] Michael and Jin bond after Sun reveals her ability to speak English, and the two men begin work on a second raft.

[10] In the season finale "Exodus", Michael sets sail with Jin, Sawyer and Walt, and not far from the Island, they encounter a small fishing boat.

[14] Michael is told to retrieve their leader, who is held captive in the hatch, then bring Sawyer, Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Jack (Matthew Fox) and Hurley (Jorge Garcia) to them, and they will return Walt and let them leave the Island.

[17] Tom gives Michael a passport with the new name of "Kevin Johnson" in order to infiltrate a freighter that is trying to find the Island.

[17] On the freighter he receives a call from Ben, who instructs him to send him information on all the crew, then to sabotage the radio room and the boat engines.

[17] In his first season four appearance, Michael meets Sayid (Naveen Andrews) and Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), who have managed to get from the Island to the freighter.

[21] Cynthia Littleton of Variety described Michael as "one of the most interesting of the Oceanic 815-ers: flawed, tortured, hard to read, volatile, fighting his innate talents, his own worst enemy, at times, and at others, a totally stand-up guy.

[26] The storyline is revisited in the Missing Pieces mobisode "Buried Secrets",[26] which shows Michael and Sun almost kissing.

[27] Michael and Jin were going to be enemies throughout all of the season, but the producers felt Perrineau and Daniel Dae Kim had good chemistry, so the storyline was changed to them becoming friends.

[1] Lost writer Elizabeth Sarnoff explained that Michael's storyline in season two is about "what a father will do to save his son"; she noted "there's nothing worse than what he does".

[32] Perrineau described shooting the scenes in "Two for the Road" where Michael murders Ana Lucia and Libby as a "tough day".

[33] As it was a long camera shot, Perrineau had to sail the boat so far from the pier, that by the time he returned, all the equipment had already been packed away.

[39] Lost producer Carlton Cuse said "Michael's story is for us one of the most becoming storylines on the show because here's a character who ... undertook some very extreme actions in order to basically get his son off the Island, and then when he sailed off in that boat I think everyone was very curious about what happened to him, what is his fate ... we really feel that Michael's story will be a really compelling part of the season.

Chris Carabott of IGN said "Michael's flashback is a heart wrenching look at the relationship, or lack-there-of, between him and his son Walt."

[42] She said "One of my favorite scenes of the entire season ... was Michael and Walt bonding over the letters and the drawing of the sunburned penguin.

[45] When Michael murdered Ana Lucia and Libby in "Two for the Road", Slocum called it the "single biggest shocker in Lost history".

[46] C. K. Sample of AOL's TV Squad wrote that although he suspected that Ana Lucia and Libby were going to die, he thought what "was amazing was who shot them".

", such as Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger,[50] Erin Martell of AOL's TV Squad,[51] and Joshua Rich of Entertainment Weekly.

[24] IGN's Chris Carabott called Michael's return "the worst kept secret in Lost history", but still found his reveal "exciting".

[36] Alan Sepinwall of The Star-Ledger found "a fine performance from Mr. Perrineau" in "Meet Kevin Johnson".

[50] Sepinwall wrote that Michael's "struggle to deal with the guilt from his Faustian bargain to save Walt was another moving example of how the writers this season are really trying to build on the emotional impact of everything that's happened before.

"[22] Digital Spy's Ben Rawson-Jones commented that "[Michael's] suicidal plight was well conveyed and there were plenty of shocks and thrills along the way".

[54] Oscar Dahl from BuddyTV called Michael's death "the culmination of a fairly lackluster story arc".