Lost re-watch! (Spoilers)

[Jaxom 1974]

Hmmmm...I certainly walked away with that impression from the ending...but I suppose I could have been wrong.  They certainly didn't make it clear...

[Slurktan]

4 hours ago, Werthead said:

Going through the stats for the series, I was surprised by a few things.

The biggest is how brutal the series is. There are 49 survivors of Oceanic 815 in the fuselage, 23 survivors in the tail section and 1 in the cockpit, for 73 survivors total. By the end of the series there are only 12 survivors from the flight, and only three (Sawyer, Kate and Claire) escape permanently from the Island and live full lives afterwards (four if you count Aaron).

You forgot Walt.

[williamjm]

5 hours ago, Werthead said:

It always felt rather harsh that only the "special" main characters got survive the series and everyone else was reduced to redshirt status.

I would have liked it if at least one of the survivors of the plane at the end was just one of the background characters who had just followed along after the main characters and somehow managed to avoid getting killed. Every ensemble show should have a Morn who is just consistently there in the background minding his own business.

[DaveSumm]

31 minutes ago, williamjm said:

I would have liked it if at least one of the survivors of the plane at the end was just one of the background characters who had just followed along after the main characters and somehow managed to avoid getting killed. Every ensemble show should have a Morn who is just consistently there in the background minding his own business.

Although the show became about something else, it's quite depressing when you remember that Jack's whole motivation was to save everyone back in Season 1........and he failed miserably, 90% of them died.

[williamjm]

5 minutes ago, DaveSumm said:

Although the show became about something else, it's quite depressing when you remember that Jack's whole motivation was to save everyone back in Season 1........and he failed miserably, 90% of them died.

I was quite sad when there was the big cull of the background survivors even though I didn't know who most of them were because as you say it felt like it meant that Jack and his allies had failed even if they themselves survived (for a while).

[Werthead]

Quote

You forgot Walt.

He didn't escape permanently. Hurley and Ben broke him out of the mental hospital and took him back to the Island at the end of the series. So he's one of the 8 who stayed on the Island (Hurley, Walt, Rose, Bernard, Vincent, Cindy the stewardess and the two little kids).

Quote

I would have liked it if at least one of the survivors of the plane at the end was just one of the background characters who had just followed along after the main characters and somehow managed to avoid getting killed. Every ensemble show should have a Morn who is just consistently there in the background minding his own business.

They actually had a few - Scott and Steven, Dr. Arznt, Frogurt - they just kept killing them as well!

[Knight of Ashes]

3 hours ago, Werthead said:

He didn't escape permanently. Hurley and Ben broke him out of the mental hospital and took him back to the Island at the end of the series. So he's one of the 8 who stayed on the Island (Hurley, Walt, Rose, Bernard, Vincent, Cindy the stewardess and the two little kids).

I must've missed an episode or two.

[RumHam]

1 hour ago, Knight of Ashes said:

I must've missed an episode or two.

No, if I remember correctly this scene was cut from the original broadcast of the finale, or was some kinda DVD extra or something. I remember watching it, but not until some time after the finale. 

[Werthead]

Yup, I think it was cut from the original broadcast but added in for some repeats and on the DVD/Blu-Ray. It's on YouTube.

It also nicely takes the piss out of people who didn't quite get the polar bear thing the first time they explained it. Or the fifteenth.

[Werthead]

104: Walkabout

Written by David Fury, directed by Jack Bender

Airdate: 13 October 2004

Survivor Count: 47

Days on Island: 4-5 (25-26 September 2004)

Flashback Character: Locke

On the Island: The survivors hear strange sounds coming from the plane wreckage and discover that wild boars have gotten into the wreck. The survivors scare them off. John Locke, who up until now has been keeping to himself, volunteers to lead a party to kill one of the boar calves and use it for food. He has a large and impressive collection of knives that he brought along on the plane. Kate and Michael volunteer to join his expedition, Michael leaving Walt in Sun's care. Sayid has also put together three transmitters which he hopes to use to triangulate the source of the French distress call. He asks Kate to place one in the jungle.

Jack suggests that they burn the bodies of the dead to stop them becoming a possible source of disease and attracting carrion. The survivors start pulling the bodies out of the plane and Claire goes through their identity documents. She volunteers to lead a memorial service after Jack declines. Jack seems to be increasingly uncomfortable with the leadership position he's being put in by others. Claire finds a photo collection belonging to Sayid, including a picture of a young woman that seems to cause Sayid pain.

Locke, Michael and Kate find a boar, but it injures Michael. They patch up his wound and Kate takes him back to camp whilst Locke goes on alone. Locke encounters the thing in the jungle - "The Monster" - but it lets him go unharmed. At the beach Jack tends to Michael's wounds whilst Kate reluctantly tells Sayid that the transmitter was damaged in the boar scuffle. Sayid is angry but decides to try again. Michael says they heard the Monster in the jungle and fear for Locke's safety.

Boone berates Shannon for not helping out more and being totally reliant on others. She tells Boone that she can fish, but instead manipulates Charlie into going fishing for her (with Hurley's help). Charlie is upbeat at her apparent interest, but then realises he's been manipulated. Upset, he hits his heroin stash again. Meanwhile, Rose, the woman Jack was sitting next to on the plane, is in denial about her husband's likely death in the plane crash and has isolated herself from the rest of the group. Jack gets her to reconnect with the others, but remains positive that her husband and the rest of the people in the tail section are still alive. When Jack says they're probably all dead, she replies "They're probably thinking the same about us."

Jack sees a man in a business suit watching him from the jungle. He runs after the figure, but instead finds a bloodied Locke stumbling back to the beach with a boar. The bodies are burned and Claire leads a touching memorial service. Michael asks Locke if he saw the Monster and Locke says no, but is clearly lying. Locke watches the flames consume the bodies...along with a wheelchair that someone found on the plane.

Flashbacks: John Locke is working in a dull office job for a box company. His only relaxation is playing Risk with a fellow worker. He has a dream of going walkabout in the Australian outback, but his boss berates him for living in a fantasy world. Locke has a telephone relationship with a woman named Helen, whom he pays to talk to, but is unable to persuade her to come with him on the trip. Locke travels to Australia but is told that his "condition" prevents him from going on the trip, which is physically gruelling and demanding. Locke angrily tells the travel representative, "Don't tell me what I can't do!" Locke has been in a wheelchair for four years, completely paralysed from the waist down, but when he woke up on the Island after the crash was able to walk. This is the "miracle" he told Walt about previously.

Major WTFery: Locke was paralysed but can now walk! Jack is seeing a person walking around that other people can't see. Rose is adamant that her husband Bernard is still alive, despite all evidence to the contrary. Also, a British person would never, in a million years, say "England is an island!" as Charlie does here (Britain is an island, England is a region on that island, but not the island itself). Bad writers.

Hindsight: Bonus points to Rose, who was dead right. 23 people survived the crash in the tail section of the plane, which landed on the other side of the Island. However, it's going to be quite a while (until Season 2) before we find out what happened to them. Like Kate, Locke has a reasonably coherent and interesting backstory, even if we don't find out how he got in that wheelchair - hurled from an eighth-floor window by his murderous father - until halfway through Season 3. Locke is also the first person to come face-to-face with the Monster and be allowed to live, because the Monster sees something in him that it didn't in the people it killed. Ironically, the Monster eventually takes the form of Locke and uses that form in an attempt to escape the Island in the last few episodes of the entire series, something that will apparently have catastrophic consequences for humanity. Meanwhile, Claire and Jack have some interesting exchanges which gain a little when you realise they're (unknowing) half-siblings.

Review: For a TV show to be successful, it's generally a good idea to have a really strong pilot and then follow it up within a few episodes with some kind of major storyline moment that will get people to keep coming back (such BSG's 33, or The X-Files's Squeeze). In Lost's case, that moment comes with the revelation that John Locke was paralysed and was never supposed to walk again but was then "healed" by the Island. This, combined with him being allowed to survive by the Monster, clearly means he is important in some fashion. Also, an underrated part of Lost's appeal is its constant willingness to mock itself and its own tropes: Jack starts wondering why it's always Kate to go on a "hike into the Heart of Darkness" at roughly the same time the audience is also wondering it. It's also great to see Locke, having been set up as a balder version of Bear Grylls who knows everything about survival, exposed as someone just using the knowledge he gained from TV and reading, and actually has rarely been into the great outdoors. All in all, Walkabout is an extremely well-written and well-played episode that shows that J.J. Abrams made a great decision when he cast Terry O'Quinn in Lost without an audition. (****½)

 

105: White Rabbit

Written by Christian Taylor, directed by Kevin Hooks

Airdate: 20 October 2004

Survivor Count: 47

Days on Island: 6 (27 September 2004)

Flashback Character: Jack

Flashbacks: As a boy Jack is told by his overbearing father, Christian, that he doesn't have what it takes to help others or take charge of a situation. Years later, Christian, now an alcoholic, goes to Australia on a binge and Jack chases after him, guilted into it by an argument he had with his father two months earlier. In Australia Jack finds that Christian had been drunk and out of control. Eventually his body is found after he died of a heart attack. Jack agrees to fly the coffin back to Los Angeles for burial, after arguing about it with the woman on the Oceanic Airways check-in desk.

On the Island: Two of the survivors get into trouble whilst out swimming: Joanna and Boone. Jack dives into the water and saves Boone, who is much closer to shore, but by the time he goes back out for Joanna, she's already drowned. Boone is angry with Jack, as Boone is a trained lifeguard and tries to make out that he could have saved himself whilst Jack went after Joanna. Jack also faces a fresh crisis when he is told that the fresh water supplies from the plane are down to just 17 bottles, not enough to keep 47 (now 46) people alive. Jack becomes frustrated with the leadership role that's been forced on him. Jack keeps seeing the besuited figure, either standing in the surf or by the treeline, but other people don't seem to see him. Jack chases after the figure, who appears to be his father, and into the jungle.

Meanwhile, Claire falls ill due to the heat and someone steals the remaining water bottles, prompting a manhunt. Sayid and Kate suspect Sawyer, but Sayer is innocent. Sawyer is amused that Kate is now the Island's "sheriff" and gives her the marshal's badge. The real culprit is Boone, who was trying to make a point to show he should be in charge, but he really isn't up to the job. Locke goes into the woods to search for a river or fresh water source, but instead finds Jack dangling from a cliff whilst chasing after what appeared to be his father. Locke tells Jack that this mysterious figure is his "white rabbit" and he needs to follow where it goes. He also tells Jack that Island is special, and that (during his previous encounter with the Monster) he looked into "the eye of the Island" and it was beautiful. Jack continues following the image of his father and finds a series of caves surrounding a natural spring. Part of the plane's cargo bay also crashed nearby, spilling additional supplies into the area. Jack finds his father's coffin, but it is empty. Jack returns to the beach and starts organising a party to head up and refill the water bottles. He urges the survivors to find a way of living together, otherwise they are going to die alone.

Major WTFery: Christian Shephard and his missing body, and what Locke saw when he met the Monster.

Hindsight: The mystery of Christian Shepard's missing body is one of the more obtuse ones in Lost's history. Later episodes would reveal that the Monster was masquerading as Christian at this point, but would also reveal that it didn't need the body, it just needed the person to be dead and their body on the Island. In fact, unless I'm misremembering, the ultimate fate of Christian's body is never revealed. However, Christian does go on to become arguably the most important recurring character of Lost, responsible for events in the lives of Jack, Claire and (briefly) Sawyer.

Review: Jack episodes tend to get a reputation later on of being quite boring, but this one is okay at providing some backstory and motivation for him. The mystery about Christian Shephard isn't quite up there with Locke's story from the previous episode, but it does do a good job of continuing to prove that the Island is a very odd place indeed. This episode also gives us a good, cheesy Lockeorphism ("A leader can't lead until he knows where he's going,") and one of the show's major catchphrases ("Live together or die alone). (***½)

 

106: House of the Rising Sun

Written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, directed by Michael Zinberg

Airdate: 27 October 2004

Survivor Count: 46 (following Joanna drowning at sea)

Days on Island: 7 (28 September 2004)

Flashback Character: Sun

Flashbacks: Sun is the rich, privileged daughter of a South Korean businessman. She falls in love with the humble-born Jin, who is working as a waiter. He gives her a white flower as a symbol of his affection. Jin asks for her father's permission to marry her, but they both believe it is unlikely to be granted. Instead, he agrees on the condition that Jin works for him. Soon Sun and Jin are living in an expensive apartment and Jin showers his wife with gifts, but is away from home for long periods. Sun yearns for the more innocent days of their romance. One night Jin comes home covered in blood and Jin realises that her father is involved in some shady business and Jin is actually working as an enforcer of some kind. Distraught, she hatches a plan to run away during a trip to Australia and Los Angeles. Whilst waiting for the plan to LA, she prepares to sneak out of the airport, but Jin gives her a white rose to show he still loves her. She decides to remain with him and they get on the plane.

On the Island: Jack, Locke, Kate and Charlie depart for the caves to collect water (after Kate pauses to admire Jack's tattoos, which she thinks are out-of-character for some reason). No sooner are they gone than Jin suddenly attacks Michael and tries to drown him. Sayid and Sawyer pull him off and handcuff him to the plane wreckage whilst they try to figure out what happened.

At the caves, Jack and company find two corpses. Jack suggests that they've been dead for a few decades, with black and white stones placed on them. Locke calls them "Adam and Eve". Charlie upsets a bee hive but the group escape with just a few stings. Jack analyses the logistics of having people convoying between the caves and beach every day and suggests moving the survivors to the caves permanently. Kate is resistant to the idea, fearing that abandoning the beach and the signal fire also means abandoning any hope of rescue. They return to the beach whilst Locke and Charlie continue to search through the wreckage near the caves. Locke turns out to be a Drive Shaft fan and recognises Charlie as the bassist. Charlie admits he is desperate to find his guitar, which was stowed away in the hold. Locke suggests that Charlie give up something that was tying him to his previous life and is holding him back on the Island. Charlie gives his heroin to Locke and immediately finds his guitar, undamaged, hanging from a nearby cliff.

Sun finds Michael and reveals that she can speak English. She hasn't told her husband as she thinks he'd be angry about it. She says that Jin saw Michael wearing a watch he found in the wreckage that belonged to Sun's father. Michael thinks it's crazy that Jin attacked him for that, but for Sun's sake he gives Jin back the watch and lets him go.

The survivors become divided over where the camp should be. Eventually they decided to split into two camps: one group will stay at the caves and send water shipments down to the beach, whilst the other tends the signal fire on the beach (the funeral pyre for the bodies that they've kept burning. Jack, Jin, Sun, Hurley, Charlie and Locke set up at the caves, whilst Claire, Boone, Shannon, Sayid, Sawyer, Kate, Walt and Michael remain on the beach.

Major WTFery: The bodies in the caves are the first indication that the Island may have been previously inhabited, or might even still be inhabited (gasp). Charlie making a sacrifice to the Island and getting a reward suggests again that the Island may be partially supernatural.

Hindsight: The identity of the bodies in the caves - "Adam and Even" - becomes one of the most endearing mysteries on the show and is teased several further times throughout the series (at one point Hurley even posits they might be themselves after time travel weirdness, a popular fan theory). Eventually, a mind-boggling 111 episodes of this one, they're confirmed to be the original body of the Man in Black (before he was transformed into the Monster) and his adopted Mother, having been left in the cave by Jacob. To be fair, for such a long-running mystery it did eventually end up being important to the resolution of the show. Seeing Jin and Sun's relationship here in the knowledge of how their story ends in that sinking submarine is genuinely emotionally affecting.

Review: Jin and Sun's relationship becomes the emotional cornerstone of the show, helped by excellent performances from Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim, and this episode sells that pretty well with a straightforward but nicely-played flashback storyline. The present day storyline is also reasonable, but Jack seems to get a bit carried away with insisting that people move to the caves. The ultimate decision, to split the camp to ease logistical difficulties but maintain the signal fire, ends up being the most sensible one. With the discovery of the bodies in the caves providing Lost with its longest-running mystery, this turns out to be a more impactful episode than it first looks. (****)

 

 107: The Moth

Written by Jennifer Johnson and Paul Dini, directed by Jack Bender

Airdate: 3 November 2004

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 8 (29 September 2004)

Flashback Character: Charlie

Flashbacks: Charlie, a practising Catholic, finds his role as bassist in Drive Shaft is causing him to forget his morals as he spends nights with groupies and drinks too much. He is worried that the band's growing success will lead him further into temptation. He discusses the situation with his brother Liam, who also sings in the band. Liam reveals they've been offered a record deal. Charlie agrees to stay in the band on the condition that if they agree things have gotten too crazy, they'll split the band up. Liam agrees, but Drive Shaft become more popular and then go through the roof with their lead single "You All Everybody". Although Charlie writes the songs, Liam believes that he is the reason for the band's success and starts taking over the parts of the songs where Charlie normally sings. After one nasty argument in which Charlie sees Liam taking heroin and Liam refuses to split the band as agreed, Charlie becomes an addict himself. A few years later he flies to Australia to find Liam, who is now clean, married and a father. Charlie fails to convince Liam to reform the band. Liam realises that Charlie is still a user and offers to help him get into rehab, but Charlie refuses.

On the Island: Charlie is starting to suffer withdrawal symptoms and asks Locke for his heroin stash back. Locke believes that Charlie can overcome his temptation and makes Charlie a deal: he'll give him back his drugs if Charlie asks twice more. Charlie resolves to resist the temptation.

Jack picks up some supplies from the beach and learns that Sayid has repaired the transmitter he was trying to get Kate to put in the jungle, as well as building two more. Sayid's plan is to use the three transmitters to triangulate the location of the French woman's signalling equipment and its power source, which must be considerable to run the message for sixteen years. Sayid leaves one transmitter on the beach with Boone after telling him to switch it on when he sees Sayid's signal flare. Sayid and Kate set off to place the others. Along the way, Sayid tells Kate that it is highly improbable they would have survived the plane crash. The plane fracturing in three and landing the way it did should have killed absolutely everyone on board.

At the caves Charlie gets into an argument with Jack after Charlie is left feeling useless to the group. This causes a cave-in, which Charlie escapes but traps Jack. The rest of the cave crew starts digging Jack out, but Charlie, angry and frustrated, asks for his drugs from Locke a second time. In response, Locke shows him a moth cocoon, pointing out that the moth will struggle hard to get out of the cocoon. Locke could free the moth, but it would be too weak to survive. It needs to fight hard to come out stronger. Charlie goes back to the cave and aids the rescue effort.

Michael, a former construction engineer, heads up to the caves with Boone to help in the rescue effort. Boone puts Shannon in charge of Sayid's transmitter. Sawyer interrupts his reading of Watership Down to volunteer to tell Kate about Jack's predicament and catches up with her and Sayid. Stung by Kate's criticisms, he decides to keep quiet but offers to help set the transmitter up. Eventually he tells her about Jack and takes over the transmitter himself.

The group digs a tunnel into the cave and Charlie, as the smallest person present, is able to crawl through and reach Jack. However, the tunnel collapses behind him. He frees Jack and they follow a trail of air to find another way out. They emerge to a hero's welcome. Charlie asks for his drugs back from Locke, only to burn them. Michael and Walt decide to move to the caves, whilst Kate returns to the beach. Improbably, given their usual reliability issues, both Shannon and Sawyer trigger their transmitter at the right time and Sayid is able to set homing in on the beacon...until an unknown assailant knocks him unconscious.

 Major WTFery: For the first few episodes of Lost, more than a few viewers commented that it would have been impossible for so many people to survive such a violent and bloody plane crash. Sayid voices the same thought here. We actually never really get an explanation, although fans have theorised that the Island's electromagnetic repulsion effect may have slowed all three parts of the plane enough for some people to survive. But in real terms, it's just part of the whackiness of the show.

Hindsight: The later revelation that it's Locke who knocks out Sayid feels a bit lame, and possibly a retcon (the inference is that Locke is skinning boars just outside the cave, with people traipsing back and forth past him, all day). Beyond that, this is one of the most straightforward episodes of the show up to this point with not a lot going on in the overall mystery side of things.

Review: Dominic Monaghan is an engaging performer who plays Charlie with enthusiasm, which is good because the "junkie Charlie" storyline is one of the show's more tiresome. It doesn't help that the writers aren't particularly hot on British culture either. On the plus side, it does riff nicely off the fractious brother relationship from British rock band Oasis (even if it felt a bit late for that kind of reference, coming ten years after Oasis's heyday) and the episode does a good job of defining some of the character relationships a bit better. (****)

[Howdyphillip]

On 4/19/2016 at 2:39 PM, Jaxom 1974 said:

Hmmmm...I certainly walked away with that impression from the ending...but I suppose I could have been wrong.  They certainly didn't make it clear...

The writing was clear that what happened on the island was what actually transpired. Jack and his father had a complete discussion about it during the final scene of the show. 

[Werthead]

According to Javier Grillo-Marxuach (a writer-producer on the first two seasons) it never even came up in the writer's room - at any time - that it was purgatory, except for when critics starting talking about it. They did have an explanation for what the Island was, but Cuse and Lindelof either didn't buy it, or couldn't think of a way of revealing it that wasn't grossly unconvincing, so they left it. But they were adamant it wasn't purgatory.

[Werthead]

108: Confidence Man

Written by Damon Lindelof, directed by Tucker Gates

Airdate: 10 November 2004

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 9-10 (30 September-1 October 2004)

Flashback Character: Sawyer

On the Island: Sayid recovers from being knocked out by an unknown assailant and having his transceiver smashed. Locke suggests that whoever was responsible is someone who is likely profiting from their current situation so doesn't want to leave. He gives Sayid a knife to defend himself with. Sayid says that his first suspect is Sawyer, but he was manning one of the signal rockets at the time. Locke points out that Sawyer could have used a cigarette to rig a time-delay to set off the rocket whilst rushing over to attack Sayid .

Sawyer finds Boone going through his stash of looted supplies from the aircraft and beats him bloody. Jack treats Boone's injuries and Boone says that he was looking for inhaler capsules for Shannon, who suffers from asthma. Her last capsule ran out a couple of days ago and Boone thinks Sawyer is hoarding the rest, since some of Boone and Shannon's other things are in Sawyer's stash. Jack asks Sawyer for the capsules and Sawyer refuses. Kate then asks, and Sawyer agrees in return for a kiss. She is disgusted and asks him why he is working so hard to be hated when he's not that kind of person. Sawyer shows Kate a letter he has from a little boy whose parents were conned by Sawyer: the father killed the mother and committed suicide. Sawyer tells Kate to leave him alone.

Shannon's condition worsens. When Sayid arrives at the caves for water, Jack punches him out. Sayid, now believing that Sawyer was the one who attacked him, volunteers to use the "enhanced interrogation" techniques he learnt as a member of the Republican Guard in Iraq to get the information out of Sawyer. After briefly being tortured, Sawyer gives in and agrees to hand over the capsules in return for that kiss from Kate. Kate agrees, but Sawyer laughs and tells her he never had the inhalers: he found other stuff from Shannon's luggage scattered along the beach but not the capsules. Sayid goes beserk and attacks Sawyer with Locke's knife. He severs an artery but Jack is able to stop Sawyer bleeding out. Sayid is horrified at his loss of control and doing what he promised himself he'd never do again. He tells Kate he is setting out to map and explore the Island and departs.

Sun enlists Michael's help in finding eucalyptus leaves. She grinds them up to create smelling salts for Shannon which eases her breathing. Meanwhile, Hurley is hurt when Charlie suggests he might be hiding food somewhere to explain why he hasn't lost weight. Charlie apologises. Charlie also spends more time with Claire at the beach and eventually convinces her to join the survivors at the cave.

Kate confronts Sawyer with the envelope from his letter: the postmark on it says 1976, making Sawyer far too young to have been conning anyone out of anything. Sawyer admits he lied: he was the little boy who wrote the letter. He was searching for the real Sawyer, the man who conned his parents, and ended up using his techniques himself to survive. He became the man he hated.

Flashbacks: Sawyer is having an illicit affair with a married woman, Jessica. He mentions an oil deal he is setting up in Baton Rouge which will have a 300% return rate. Jessica gets her husband, David, interested in the deal and agrees to put up $130,000. Sawyer sets it all up as a con, but has a change of heart when he sees they have a young son. He cancels the deal. When David becomes furious due to the difficulties he had in raising the money, Sawyer leaves them his money as well.

Major WTFery: For the first time, pretty much nothing too weird happens in an episode.

Hindsight: Sawyer's backstory is a bit weirdly coincidental, given that the man he is searching for turns out to be Anthony Cooper, who is also Locke's father, and he bumped into Jack's father in Australia. But by Lost standards it's pretty mild. This is also the first episode where learn that Hurley is a major Star Wars fan.

Review: Sawyer gets some background and the show treads a fine line between humanising him without making him too sympathetic or taking the edge off the character. It's a pretty standard episode apart from the relative rapidity with which Jack resorts to physical violence and coercion to get what he wants from Sawyer. For someone who a couple of episodes ago didn't want to be in charge, he's turning into a full-on authoritarian leader pretty quickly. Lost also has an interesting angle on torture, suggesting that it pretty much doesn't work. Given it aired at the same time as 24, which glorified torture to an uncomfortable degree, and directly in the aftermath of 9/11 and the invasion of Iraq, this was a bold step to take and one that works well. This isn't a massively revelatory episode, but one that is well-played by all involved and helps build character. (****)

 

109: Solitary

Written by David Fury, directed by Greg Yaitanes

Airdate: 17 November 2004

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 12-13 (3-4 October 2004)

Flashback Character: Sayid

Flashbacks: In the mid-1990s, Sayid is a member of the Republican Guard in Saddam Hussein's Iraq. Sayid proves to be an effective torturer and interrogator, and is given a promotion and transferred to Intelligence. He is assigned to interrogate a female prisoner, Nadia, who turns out to be a former schoolfriend. Sayid questions her, but can't bring himself to torture her. Her pride and defiance make an impact on him and he starts falling in love with her. Frustrated after a month of no results, Sayid's superior officer orders him to kill Nadia. Sayid agrees, but then helps her escape. Sayid's superior discovers the deception, so Sayid shoots him dead and then shoots himself in the leg to make it look like it happened during Nadia's escape. He vows to find her again one day.

On the Island: Sayid is mapping the coast of the Island, having left the beach camp two days earlier. He finds a cable on the beach leading out to the ocean. He follows it back into the jungle and doesn't get far before he's attacked and knocked unconscious. He wakes up chained to a metal bed in an old bunker and is subjected to electric shocks by a woman who demands to know where "Alex" is. The woman turns out to be Danielle Rousseau, the Frenchwoman who made the distress call that Sayid and his friends picked up on their radio. She is shocked when Sayid tells her that the message has been repeating for sixteen years. Danielle says that she and her companions were on a scientific trip when their ship ran aground three days from Tahiti. Danielle tells him that there are "Others" on the Island, but she has never seen them directly, only heard their whispers in the jungle. Sayid wins Danielle's trust by fixing a music box given to her by her husband and telling her about Nadia. Danielle leaves to investigate what appears to be a polar bear sniffing around her camp and Sayid escapes with one of Danielle's rifles. She confronts him outside, noting that his rifle's safety pin has been removed. Sayid asks Danielle to kill him, so he will be reunited with Nadia in the afterlife. Danielle makes a confession: the other members of her expedition, including her husband, fell sick after a trip to the "black rock" and started acting dangerously. She had to kill them herself. She lets Sayid go, but he asks again who Alex is. She replies that Alex is her child. Sayid departs back to the beach camp, but hears whispering voices in the jungle.

Out in the jungle, Locke has been joined in his hunting expeditions by a Canadian survivor, Ethan Rom. Ethan has some hunting experience and soon proves to be of invaluable assistance in boar hunting.

At both the beach camp and the caves, the survivors are starting to suffer from declining morale. Jack is becoming concerned at mounting cases of hypochondria and depression. Hurley appoints himself morale officer and tries to find an activity to keep the survivors occupied. Finding some golf clubs in the plane's cargo hold, he constructs a golf course. The survivors are initially incredulous, but soon join in a mini-tournament with even Sawyer taking part.

Major WTFery: After last week's "normal" episode, this week the craziness is back with full force. According to Danielle, there is a sickness on the Island that turns people crazy and can only be cured by killing them. Danielle also has maps of the Island that may prove useful. If you're a careful screencapper and you can speak French, you can see references on the map to something dangerous called "The Smoke" and the location of the radio tower and Danielle's cable

Hindsight: This episode references a whole truckload of things on Lost that eventually become hugely important. There's Danielle's expedition, which we actually get to see in a later episode, and there's also the first mention of the Black Rock, the "smoke" (i.e. the Monster), the Others and Alex (at this point not identified as being female). We also get to meet our first Other, Ethan Rom, although that doesn't become more apparent until next week. There's also the first appearance of the beach cable. Eventually, in the penultimate episode of Season 3, we find out that it leads to an underwater DHARMA Initiative research station called the Looking Glass. And there's also the Whispers, which go unexplained until the middle of Season 6, when it is confirmed that they are attempts by dead spirits trapped on the Island to communicate with the living (although occasional voices in the Whispers appear to be people who died off the Island as well).

Review: When Lost started in the UK, airing a few months after the USA, most of the cast was unfamiliar to British audiences with one notable exception: Naveen Andrews, who played Sayid. Andrews had been a staple of British TV and cinema for a decade by that point, appear on many series but perhaps most memorably The Buddha of Suburbia, and in films such as The English Patient. A seriously talented actor, this episode is the first of Lost to really stretch him as he has to play a torturer and ambitious military officer, fall in love, find remorse and attempt to make contact with another damaged human being on the Island. It helps even more when that character is played by the extraordinarily talented Mira Furlan, a Croatian actress notable for playing the role of Delenn on Babylon 5. This episode is a frankly a joy to watch just to see two great actors sparking off one another. Throw in the genuinely amusing subplot about the golf course and the fact that this one episode sets up almost the entire mythology of the show and gives us our first map of the Island, and this becomes the first unmissable episode of the series. (*****)

 

110: Raised by Another

Written by Lynne E. Litt, directed by Marita Grabiak

Airdate: 1 December 2004

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 15-16 (6-7 October 2004)

Flashback Character: Claire

Flashbacks: Eight months before the crash, Claire tells her boyfriend that she is pregnant. He is initially delighted and volunteers to help raise the baby as he should. They move in together, but after two months together he freaks out at the responsibility and leaves. Claire decides to give up the baby for adoption. Her friend convinces her see a psychic, Richard Malkin, but he tells Claire it is imperative that she raise the baby herself. Disbelieving him, Claire goes to sign over the rights to her baby to the new parents, but all of the pens stop working. Taking it as a sign she shouldn't agree to the contract, Claire decides to raise the baby herself. To her confusion, Malkin insists that she should now give up the baby for adoption, but in Los Angeles. He gives her a plane ticket and a confused Claire sets out to get on Ocean Flight 815.

On the Island: Claire has a nightmare in which Locke - who has black and white stones instead of eyes - warns her that her baby is in danger. Claire wakes up screaming, discovering that she was sleepwalking. Jack puts the incident down stress, but the next night Claire wakes up again, this time convinced that someone was trying to inject her with something. The survivors make a sweep of the area but can't find any sign of wrongdoing. Charlie decides to look after Claire and becomes annoyed when Jack suggests she may have been hallucinating.

Concerned about the possibility that someone was trying to hurt Claire, Hurley decides to create a census of the planet survivors. He creates the list and Boone suggests that he compare the list to the flight manifest, which Sawyer has in his possession. Hurley talks Sawyer into giving up the manifest.

Jack tries to talk Claire into taking some sedatives, but she becomes angry and storms off into the jungle. Charlie calms her down and she tells him about the psychic. Charlie is puzzled as to why the psychic was so adamant that she raise the baby herself and then suddenly advised her to go to LA. He raises the possibility that Malkin knew Flight 815 was going to crash and, that if she got on board, that Claire would survive the crash. This would create a situation where Claire had to raise the baby herself. Recalling Malkin's insistence that she take Flight 815 and no other, Claire realises that this may be true. Shocked, she starts having contractions. Charlie calls out for help and Ethan Rom (Locke's hunting companion) agrees to go and get Jack.

Sayid staggers back to the caves, still injured from his brush with Danielle. He warns the group that there are "Others" on the Island. Moments later Hurley arrives at a run from the beach. He tells the others that there is one more person amongst the survivors than on the manifest.

Claire's contractions stop and Charlie promises to look after her. Suddenly, they are confronted by a threatening-looking Ethan Rom...

Major WTFery: Malkin's reliable psychic powers move Lost a few more notches into the supernatural, whilst the confirmation that there are Others on the Island and Ethan is one of them is a key moment in the show's development. We also learn that the baby is special and Claire needs to be a mother to him or bad things will happen.

Hindsight: Deleted scenes from this and later episodes would suggest that Malkin was actually a fraudster rather than a real psychic: he was paid money to get Claire onto Flight 815 and may have advised Claire not to go through with the adoption so his other contacts in LA could get the baby instead. However, it appears this storyline was abandoned as the producers couldn't work out the logistics of it, so in show canon (which does not include deleted scenes) Malkin indeed appears to be psychic. The question of what makes Aaron so special is eventually answered when he becomes the first baby successfully born on the Island in twenty-seven years, the last being Ethan himself (actor William Mapother was 39 when he played the role; Ethan's age was a later retcon).

Review: A bit of an oddball episode which seems to conclude that psychic powers are real. But it's all engaging enough, thanks to Emilie de Ravin's sympathetic performance as Claire and William "cousin of Tom Cruise" Mapother's creepy turn as Ethan. The confirmation that there are other people on the Island adds a fresh element of drama to the show just as the everyday survival stuff was threatening to run out of steam (after the agonising drama of choosing where to live and how to build a shower unit out of wood and sticks). The cliffhanger ending adds just the right amount of jeopardy into the show at the right moment. (****)

 

111: All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

Written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach, directed by Stephen Williams

Airdate: 8 December 2004

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 16 (7 October 2004)

Flashback Character: Jack

Flashbacks: Jack is called into his hospital where his father is carrying out an operation whilst drunk. The patient dies on the operating table. Jack is furious. Jack's father warns him that if Jack reports the situation, he'll be stripped of his medical licence. At first, Jack agrees to lie and protect Christian's reputation. But later he learns that the woman was pregnant. After seeing her grieving husband at the hospital, he makes a full confession to the hospital board that the death was Christian's fault. This is presumably the incident that would lead, two months later, to Christian's trip to Australia and his death.

On the Island: At the caves, Hurley confirms that Ethan Rom was not on the plane when it took off or when it crashed. He must have hid himself amongst the survivors during the chaos of the crash. Jack and Locke set out in search of Ethan, who was last seen heading off after Charlie and Claire. They can't find any of them, but do find signs of a struggle. Locke suggests they regroup and carry out a measured pursuit, but Jack tears off by himself. Boone and Kate join Locke and they find Jack exhausted further along the trail. The four continue searching but find that Ethan has made a dummy trail. Unable to determine which way he want, Locke and Boone take one trail and Jack and Kate (whose father taught her to hunt when she was little) follow the other. Jack and Kate are on the right path and soon catch up with Ethan, who overpowers them. He warns them that if they continue to follow him, he will kill one of the prisoners. When Jack and Kate carry on regardless, they find Charlie hanging from a tree. Jack is able to resuscitate him. They return to the beach, where Charlie tells the others that Ethan had no interest in him, only in Claire and her baby. He can't remember anything else from the kidnapping or chase. Night falls and Boone and Locke still haven't returned.

Sawyer confronts the injured Sayid, still angry about Sayid torturing him. Sawyer seems ready to exact some revenge until Sayid tells him about Rousseau and her claim that there are "Others" on the Island, as well as strange whispers in the jungle. Sawyer leaves Sayid alone.

Boone and Locke are deep in the jungle and Boone thinks they should head back to camp. Locke tosses him a torch but Boone drops it on something metallic, hidden under the undergrowth. Locke and Boone unearth some kind of metal surface, apparently built into the jungle floor.

Major WTFery: The discovery of the hatch is a major gamechanging moment on the show. Ethan appears to show borderline supernatural abilities, easily defeating Jack (who is not a small man) in hand-to-hand combat and keep him on his back with his foot. He also seems to display awareness of the pursuit and where Jack and Kate are.

Hindsight: The hatch leads into the Swan Station, one of the DHARMA Initiative's research stations on the Island. This will not be confirmed until the start of Season 2. Locke and Boone make a lot of noise on the hatch surface (during this and subsequent episodes) which the hatch's occupant, Desmond, doesn't hear, which is odd. Ethan does display abilities (here and in Homecoming a few episodes down the line) which border on the superhuman. However, later episodes confirm that the Others are just ordinary men and women. It's possible the producers had something in mind at this point and later discarded it.

Review: Argh! Jack flashback! But this one is okay, fairly restrained and well-paced, whilst the on-Island pursuit story is tense, relentless and excellently-shot. Jack and Ethan's confrontation in the rain is one of the show's more iconic, visually arresting moments. (****½)

 

112: Whatever the Case May Be

Written by Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson, directed by Jack Bender

Airdate: 5 January 2005

Survivor Count: 46

Days on Island: 21-22 (12-13 October 2004)

Flashback Character: Kate

Flashbacks: Kate is opening a bank account in New Mexico when armed robbers break in. Kate is in league with the gunmen, pretending to be held hostage to convince the manager to open the vault. When the gunmen threaten to kill the manager, Kate shoots one of them in the leg and kills two others. It turns out she only wanted something from a specific safety deposit box. With that in hand, she flees.

On the Island: Kate and Sawyer find a waterfall and lake in the jungle and enjoy a dip. They also find additional wreckage and bodies from the plane at the bottom of the lake, including a metal case. They retrieve it, Kate claiming it as hers. Sawyer agrees to give it to her if she tells him what's in it. She refuses and says she doesn't care. Sawyer sets about trying to break into the case, but can't do so. In desperation he throws it off the top of a cliff, but this doesn't even dent it. Kate tries to steal the case back but fails. She enlists Jack's help, telling him that two of the US Marshal's guns are in the case. They exhume the body to get the marshal's key, which Kate tries to steal. Jack notices and realises he's being manipulated. He takes the key and gets the case from Sawyer. He opens it with Kate, takes the Marshal's gun and a small package. Kate opens the package and it has a small toy plane in it. She tells Jack it belonged to the man she loved, who was also the man she killed.

Charlie is angry and withdrawn because of Claire. The tide is coming up the beach and threatening to inundate the fuselage, so the survivors are moving a mile up the beach to a more secure location. Rose asks Charlie to help and he agrees. Later on, Rose (who, like Charlie, is a Christian) tells Charlie that no-one blames him for what happened. They pray together as Charlie breaks down in tears.

Shannon notices that Boone is disappearing off into the jungle with Locke every day. Boone claims they are searching for Claire, undertaking lengthy sweeps through the foliage. Boone gets annoyed and tells Shannon she is useless. Sayid then asks for Shannon's help in translating the notes on Danielle's notes. Shannon's French isn't great and she finds it hard going. She storms off, thinking her brother was right. However, then she returns and tells Sayid that some of the notes are actually song lyrics from a film she watched about fish (Finding Nemo). She sings "Le Mer".

Major WTFery: The unusual tide swamping the plane fuselage feels like a weird moment, but it was actually a real problem: the plane set was in danger of being destroyed due to Oahu's seasonal tide surge sending waves up the beach. This required that the plane set be dismantled and taken away. Sayid indicates that the tide surge is unusual, but the show never addresses it again so it can be dismissed as a simple natural occurrence.

Hindsight: The significance of the plane is explained in Born to Run: it was a gift from a childhood sweetheart, Tom. Later, when they were both adults, he was killed by a policeman who was trying to arrest Kate. Jack getting his hands on the marshal's additional guns plays into a minor Season 1 subplot about firearms and who has access to them; this subplot is mostly negated by the opening of the hatch in Season 2, with its significant stash of firearms.

Review: Given the urgency of the last couple of episodes, it feels a bit odd to be spending time again on a stand-alone episode. However, it works mostly because Evangeline Lily does a great job as the conniving, manipulative past-Kate and letting this facet of her personality slip into her current-day persona. Kate's obsession with the plane is odd, but can be explained by her secretive personality and trust issues, which evolve over the course of the show. Overall, not an outstanding episode but a perfectly watchable one. (***½)

[DunderMifflin]

Robbing the bank for a toy was the worst thing ever in that show almost made me stop watching all together 

[RumHam]

I'm up to the season one finale. It holds up really well so far. As Wert notes a few times it's interesting to see the setup for plot threads they never properly followed through on. Like Ethan's strength, the psychic wanting Arron on the island, and Walt's powers. 

The bank robbery for the toy was stupid. Her obsession with the plane is only part of the problem. Why does the Marshal put it in a safe deposit box in New Mexico? Why does he then slip that fact into their phone conversations without setting it up as a trap? how does she get the customer key from the marshal? 

The marshal's gun case is also a stupid plot device. No, you don't need five guns. You only have two hands.

[DunderMifflin]

I'd always heard that Walts story was never finished simply because the actor got too old.

Incidentally, the actor who played Walt is now in a decent boy band.

Michaeal (his dad on Lost) is in one of their videos.

[RumHam]

17 minutes ago, DunderMifflin said:

I'd always heard that Walts story was never finished simply because the actor got too old.

There should have been other ways they could have addressed it though, even without him. They could have just had some people talk about it, or even introduced a new character with similar abilities (maybe Alex could have had them?)

I might be complaining for no reason, my memory on this subject isn't the best. I don't remember how much they addressed it after season one. I know there was one webisode before/during season three where he was creeping his captors out by having birds fly into the window. And then I think Ben tells Micheal they got more than they bargained for when they grabbed him. So it seems the Others were just looking for kids and had no idea Walt was special. I know he does pop up in that after finale bit that was mentioned earlier in the thread, but I don't know that anything is explained. 

I'd at least liked to have found out why Walt was so adamant that Locke not open the hatch. It scared him off the island, and I'm not sure that makes any sense. Even if we think he was scared of the chain of events that leads to the button not being pushed, as I recall nothing bad really happens as a result of that. We think it knocked out the Other's communications for a while but that turns out to have been Ben. The only long term result I can remember would be Desmonds time powers and they're not used for evil or anything.

Oh I just thought of another thing I wanted to mention: Montand's arm! I thought that line and Artz's reaction to it were so great. I spent the next four seasons hoping for a Montand's arm flashback and they eventually delivered. I was so happy. They actually sold Montand's arm after the show was done but it was way too expensive for me. 

I'm not sure Danielle's description of events lines up with what we eventually see though. I think she says it was weeks or months before they got "sick" and I don't remember it being that long. Plus "the sickness" is a pretty odd description for what happened to her crew. 

I've never understood the Smoke Monster's behavior, I kinda doubt it makes sense at all. Some people it "infects" but in the early seasons we just see it killing people. Except Locke, who apparently had to die off-island before he could be infected? 

[Werthead]

Walt's story is wrapped up (kind of) in the series epilogue. It does an okay job of it but they never really made his story fly completely.

Some interesting connections that are quite funny to see now:

Dominic Monaghan got onto the show after starring in three Middle-earth movies by Peter Jackson. He dates Evangeline Lily. After the show ends, Evangeline Lily went and made two Middle-earth movies with Peter Jackson

The other one is that Mira Furlan became famous for playing Delenn in Babylon 5, made by J. Michal Straczynski. In Lost she played Danielle Rousseau and had a lot of scenes with Naveen Andrews. Naveen Andrews is now in Sense8, written by J. Michael Straczynski.

[DaveSumm]

The whispers have gotta be up there with the worst mysteries on the show. The resolution was awful in S6, and they were blatantly intended to signify the Others (Ben: "When you hear whispers, you run the other way.")

I'm torn reading these reviews......on the one hand I'm reminded how much I loved the first season and how gripped I was by it, on the other hand, I forgot how many teases there were of things that led nowhere. Superhero Ethan? The sickness? Even the stuff that did lead somewhere doesn't really have a resounding sense of pre-planning to it. They basically did a fantastic job.......of winging it.

[williamjm]

6 hours ago, Werthead said:

Locke and Boone make a lot of noise on the hatch surface (during this and subsequent episodes) which the hatch's occupant, Desmond, doesn't hear, which is odd.

Maybe he was listening to his music really loudly?

The bank robbery for the toy was stupid. Her obsession with the plane is only part of the problem. Why does the Marshal put it in a safe deposit box in New Mexico? Why does he then slip that fact into their phone conversations without setting it up as a trap? how does she get the customer key from the marshal?

It was one of the stupider flashbacks from what I remember, especially since it basically has no relevance for the rest of the show.