Before exile Charles Widmore (born 1937;) is seen as a 17-year-old
Other in 1954, when he is captured with one of his people, by
James "Sawyer" Ford (
Josh Holloway),
Juliet Burke (
Elizabeth Mitchell), and
John Locke (
Terry O'Quinn). He communicates in Latin with his associate, which is foiled when Juliet reveals what they're saying, having been similarly educated in Latin as part of her training as a doctor and an Other. When Juliet convinces his associate to bring them to
Richard Alpert (
Nestor Carbonell), Charles kills the associate and takes off into the jungle. Locke follows him and is held at gunpoint by Charles until Richard orders him to stand down. In 1977,
Ben Linus, at the time a twelve-year-old boy living with the
Dharma Initiative, is brought to the Others to be healed. Richard allows the boy to be healed, despite knowing that Charles will be displeased with his decision, stating that he does not answer to Charles. Charles, who is now the Others' leader, later visits Ben and informs him that he is now an Other, even though he must go back to living with his abusive father at the Dharma Initiative. Sometime after this incident, Charles and
Eloise Hawking (
Alice Evans) have a child,
Daniel Faraday (
Jeremy Davies), who is raised off-island. As he grows older, Charles begins to fall out of favor with the Others. In 1988, he orders the execution of
Danielle Rousseau, to be carried out by Ben. Ben is unable to kill Rousseau when he discovers that she has recently given birth. Ben abducts the infant,
Alex, without killing Danielle, and returns to the Others. Charles is furious, having expected Ben to kill both Danielle and the child. Ben claims that Charles isn't following Jacob's will, and forces him to back down by insisting he kill Alex personally. The Others subsequently move into the barracks. It is during this time that Charles is banished from the island as punishment for repeatedly leaving the island and fathering a child, Penelope "Penny" Widmore (
Sonya Walger), with an "outsider." Years later, upon Desmond's release from military prison, Charles confronts him and reveals that he has intercepted every letter Desmond wrote to Penny while in prison, causing Penny to believe Desmond no longer cares for her. Charles offers Desmond a large amount of cash to never have contact with his daughter again; Desmond refuses the money. Charles spends most of his time since his banishment searching for a way to return to the island. In 2004,
Oceanic Airlines Flight 815 crashed on the island and Charles plants fake wreckage of the plane in the
Sunda Trench, so that no one will find out that it really crashed on the island. The team consists of scientific personnel — Daniel Faraday,
Charlotte Lewis (
Rebecca Mader), and
Miles Straume (
Ken Leung) — and a mercenary team led by
Martin Keamy (
Kevin Durand). Their primary mission is to capture Ben Linus, with the secondary objective of "torching" the island by killing all of its other inhabitants. Following the mercenaries' failure to capture him, Ben moves the island, forcing him to leave it as well. Charles is subsequently visited by Ben, who claims that he will kill Penny, in retribution for Keamy killing Alex on the island. In 2007, John Locke, having left the island, is located by Charles, who explains that a war is coming for the island and that Locke must help him ensure that the "wrong side" doesn't win. He enlists the help of his associate Matthew Abaddon (
Lance Reddick) to assist Locke in reuniting the "Oceanic Six", six survivors of Flight 815 who also left the island, to bring them back. During this time, Charles also has meetings with
Sun-Hwa Kwon (
Yunjin Kim), in which they both agree upon the necessity of murdering Ben Linus, and Desmond, who demands Eloise Hawking's address. Charles complies, and asks him to return to hiding and not get involved with the island, for Penny's sake. His team captures
Sawyer and escorts him to his submarine, docked at the second island adjacent to the main one. Charles is seemingly surprised when Sawyer tells him that Locke sent him to this second island – he says Locke is dead, which Sawyer confirms. Sawyer then proposes that he return to the other Island, lie to "Locke" that the coast is clear, bring him back to this island, and walk him into Charles' trap. Charles agrees. Charles then gets his crew to abduct
Jin from Locke's camp in order to insure that he had leverage over
The Man in Black so he couldn't leave the Island. It is then revealed that Widmore brought Desmond back to the Island in order to do a specific task. He puts him in a crate that expels vast amounts of electromagnetic energy, and Desmond wakes up in the alternate timeline. When Desmond returns, he tells Widmore he knows exactly what he has to do. Widmore is later confronted by the Man in Black, who gives him a choice: either he tell the Man in Black why he returned to the island, or the Man in Black would hunt down and kill Penny upon returning to the mainland. After apparently deciding to help, he is shot and killed by Ben, who explains, "He doesn't get to save his daughter." The Man in Black then tells Ben that Widmore had already told him everything he needed to know.
Afterlife Season six of the series shows, concurrent with the main drama, a secondary narrative in what appears to be a parallel timeline. In the series finale, however, this is revealed to be a form of
purgatory constructed to reunite the various characters. In the purgatorial universe inhabited by the characters after their deaths, Widmore is married to Eloise and has a hand in raising his son Daniel. As seen in "
Happily Ever After", Desmond works directly under Charles and is respected by him, going so much as to give him some of his sixty-year-old McCutcheon scotch. He instructs Desmond to pick up
Charlie Pace since his band Drive Shaft is to play with his son in a charity event. Desmond fails to do this, since Charlie forces Desmond's car off a pier and into the water. Widmore then asks Desmond to explain his failure to get Drive Shaft to play to his wife. Eloise notices Desmond's growing awareness of his original life, and pleads with him to cease his efforts to learn more of it. In the series finale, "
The End", she pleads again that he not take Daniel away from her, and is relieved when Desmond tells her he has no intention of taking him. While the other main characters "move on", the Widmores continue to exist as a family in this universe. == Development ==