"Solitary" is the ninth episode of the first season of Lost, an American television drama series following the survivors of a plane crash stranded on a tropical island.

Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) is captured by a mysterious French person, who is later revealed to be Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan), a woman who shipwrecked on the island sixteen years before the crash of Oceanic Flight 815 and was alone for almost the entire time.

At the island's camp, Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia) creates a golf course in an attempt to relieve the survivors' stress and worry.

"Solitary" marked the introduction of mythology into Lost, and also solved the first mystery of the series: the origin of the transmission heard in part two of the pilot episode.

The next day, many survivors in the island's camp are stressed, including Sullivan (Scott Paulin), who is diagnosed with hives by Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox).

John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and his new hunting companion, Ethan Rom (William Mapother), give some newly found luggage to Hurley; he looks through it and finds golf clubs.

Jack, Charlie, and Michael decide to join him, and eventually around twenty people, including Kate and Sawyer, arrive to participate.

[3] According to series co-creator Damon Lindelof, discussion of both "Solitary" and the following episode, "Raised by Another", began in September 2004, when Lost debuted on television.

The production team had fallen behind schedule, so Fury worked on "Solitary" while others went to a separate room to discuss "Raised by Another", with writer Carlton Cuse "bouncing between the two universes".

The actor, Naveen Andrews, said, "we were all pretty nervous, in the sense that we all felt we owed a real obligation, not just to Iraqis but the entire Arab world about how this character would be played.

[9] The character of Sullivan, to whose medical woes Jack tended, was created to make the rest of the survivors think that Rousseau's team was killed by an illness.

[12] In a review of the episode, Chris Carabott of IGN commented that Rousseau appeared to be more emotionally fragile than in later seasons, and was like a "loose cannon".

Carabott found that as the series progressed and the mystery around the character was lessened, Rousseau was unable to deliver the same impact she made in her first appearance.

Rousseau has been on this island for over sixteen years, and it shows in her ramshackle bunker, her unkempt appearance, and the fact she tortures Sayid for information before even asking him a cursory question about his identity.

McGee explained that "Solitary" contains "a lot of enclosed encounters between two people, set against a gorgeously shot B story that warms the heart.