Hearts and Minds

Time to let go

Once in a while we see just how bad, as well as good, each and every character can be and this time we see it clearly in Shannon. Although the episode is Boone centric, I think Shannon took the limelight during the flashback story. It wasn’t Boone trying to save his step-sister that the meaning of the episode was behind, it was Shannon deceiving and conning her own step-brother. And Boone is the one acting like nothing happened on the Island. So Shannon calls Boone from Sydney asking him to come and help her, sounding like she is being abused by someone. Boone flies over and Shannon acts like nothing happened, but let’s Boone catch a glimpse of a bruise she has, convincing him that she is being abused by her boyfriend. Damn, Shannon and Sawyer should work together! Boone falls straight into the trap, not something you would expect from a wealthy businessman. A perfect target  though. So Boone takes action and tries to get the cops to pay Shannon’s boyfriend, Bryan, a visit. In this scene we get to see Sawyer being manhandled through the cop station by a couple of officers. We get to see this scene from Sawyer’s perspective in Exodus, Part 1 for those of you unsure about when. Moving on, Boone shows how desperate he is to ‘save’ Shannon from Bryan by paying him to leave her. $50,000 is what it takes to make him agree. Back at Shannon’s house, Boone finds out about the situation being a con to get the money that Shannon “deserves”. She played him because she was jealous that their mother cast her out of the family, whereas Boone stayed and was buried in the benefits. Later on, probably as Boone plans to leave to return to the US, Shannon turns up at his door. “The player got played…” as Boone says. Bryan took Boones money for himself leaving Shannon without anything. Ouch! Shannon proposes to Boone that he has and always has had feelings for her. Sounds strange. I think she’s plastered too. Apparently not though, they begin to make out then have sex. Woahhh let’s step back a minute. They’re step-siblings right? Oh ok, whatever floats your boat.

Things are getting even more interesting on the Island now as the Hatch is becoming more and more of a goal for Locke for discovering more about the Island. Now having recruited Boone, they make up the excuse for not being around all day so they can spend their time checking out the Hatch. As they literally check out the Hatch, following Locke’s story he tells of a famous artist, Locke makes the drug he will use on Boone. There’s sticking your nose in and there’s sticking your nose in. Boone’s emotions have obviously attracted Locke’s interest and he seems to fancy himself as the chief of the relationship police. So he knocks Boone out and ties him up then applies the gooey drug to his wound. It’s not so much helping that Locke is doing to Boone, he’s torturing him. Putting him in a situation where he must endure a lot of pain to save someone from something. Not that Locke knows this though. For all he knows Boone could hallucinate and see killer rabbits kidnap Shannon. The siblings get chased by the Monster and Shannon gets grabbed and killed. While they’re hiding in the trees, this is the first time we see of that kind of tree’s ability to keep the Monster out. As for how, well we never find that out. Boone finds Shannon’s body by a river and she dies in his arms. A soft touch but something tells me it’s all a bit too sudden. Boone gets back to the camp properly pissed off and attempts to attack Locke. Locke explains that it never happened. Shannon’s at the camp right now. What the hell happened to you? You were played by Locke dude.

Now Sun’s secret behind her knowledge of languages is being found out by another character, where best to reveal it than somewhere where Sun has actually done some good. Her garden. The spawn of much food to keep the survivors refreshed and raring to go. It’s also the spawn of Kate’s knowledge that Sun speaks English pretty damn well. Can Kate keep it a secret? Definitely! She’s great at it! according to Jack. Talking about Jack, the scene where he goes and sits with Locke on the beach reminds me of a moment between Jacob and MIB. The scenes reflect each other almost perfectly. Jacks approaches Locke and sits by him, they look out to sea and talks about ships – MIB approaches Jacob, sits down and mentions ships while looking out to sea. Their roles even fit. Jack wants off the Island making him MIB. Locke wants to protect and stay on the Island, making him Jacob. Just one of those moments!

Whatever the Case May Be

(Sorry for the poor quality of this episode, I wrote it while ill and just had to finish it eary. My apologies)

It belonged to the man I loved…the man I killed.

A Kate-centric episode always promises to reveal a lot about her character and just how badass she really is. Not to mention the fact that we get to see plenty of her which is no way a bad thing. This time, the flashback is set before the previous plot where she was on the run, here we see one of the many reasons the cops would want her. So Kate is in on a bank robbery and she has even picked the bank herself, in New Mexico. Why? Don’t worry, Kate always has a reason. The bank gets stormed with armed and masked robbers and create the typical bank robbery scenario, just without the bag with a dollar sign on it. We find out that Kate is in on the robbery when her what seems to be boyfriend. He grabs her and chucks her into a backroom in the bank, taking his mask off once the door is closed and they make out, giving the fact away. It didn’t surprise me at all, probably not surprising you either. We know Kate has been on the wrong side of the law before and pretty badly too, so why wouldn’t she have gotten a group of people to rob a bank. It’s classic. The manager lets them into the vaults and they get their hands on the money they came for. Except Kate. She has her own reasons for the robbery. To show off her sneaky and devious mind, she lets it be known that she isn’t here for the money. Instead she is after a safety deposit box numbered 815. Just the beginning of the numbers showing up randomly throughout the show. And Kate sure does get her own way. She shoots her boyfriend and two other robbers, not fatally of course, and gets her hand on the safety deposit box she is after. Opening it up, we see a brown envelope and that’s all. We find out what’s in it later on the Island. A toy plane. What’s with that?

Nothing could be worse than taking a swim and come across two rotting bodies in the water. That’s what happens to Kate and Sawyer though. The waterfall and pool they come across isn’t just any old waterfall, it’s the same waterfall that they appear at, those that took the Ajira 316 flight to the Island. Anyway, Sawyer does the typical Sawyer-thing and checks the bodies out for anything. Just something to add to his smokes, playboy and whatever else he has stashed away. Kate however, is more interested in the case underneath the seats. Belonging to the marshal, we could guess it had weapons in it but not what else is in it. Kate sure wants it and she wants it bad. But Sawyer has it and that makes it a pain in the arse to get back. After many attempts, she gives up and gets Jack to do her dirty work as Sawyer puts it. She must be desperate to get to the contents of the case and she knows how to make Jack feel the same way. Telling him that there are four guns inside makes Jack interested but curious. He still doesn’t trust her and I don’t see why not. Last episode we see him have a go at her for not being truthful. What happened to a new start and it doesn’t matter what she did? Jack’s curiosity obviously wins him over. He tells Kate they have to open it together. Kate obviously seems worried about doing so and for what she was after which we find out about, was it really worth deceiving Jack? For the brown envelope that she was after in the bank. What’s in the envelope? Something that means so much to her and something she has to have to set her emotions straight. So the pair of them dig up the marshal’s body and they get the key after Kate tries to deceive Jack again by hiding the key and saying it’s not there. Opening the case, Jack finds the guns that Kate told him about and Kate finds her envelope. After all she went through to get it and keeping it a secret to Jack, she goes and opens it right in front of him, revealing a toy plane. I don’t understand her at all! She ends up crying and screaming at Jack “It belonged to the man I loved…It belonged to the man I killed!”. Mmmm so we all suppose murder? So we should. But it won’t be that simple. Not with Kate. Jack ends up pissed and walks off, not being able to look at her straight. He’s probably as confused as we are.

All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

If you do not stop following me, I will kill one of them

I’ve always liked Jack centric episodes and this is one of the best by far. I have my reasons. We see Jack and his father’s relationship bend and twist while he continues to let who he is shine through. Opening the flashback with the scene during an operation in the hospital where the father and son work, we get to see Jack’s determination shine through, and not for the last time this episode. Just watching Jack refuse to give up strengthens beliefs that he is more than a leader and a surgeon. Losing his patient meant more than it should to Jack. But he didn’t blame himself for it, not like you would expect him to, because he knew it was because of his father. Their relationship has only got worse since White Rabbit now that Jack has grown up. We see his father with a drink in his hand during White Rabbit and now we see him under the influence while performing surgery on a patient. And as soon as Christian’s drink problem messes with Jack’s work and life, he doesn’t let it do so for long. At first Jack was sure about letting it be known that his father was under the influence while performing surgery, something that of course is unbelievable. Yet Christian, the snide man, makes Jack feel like he has the world’s best dad by telling him how he sacrificed so much of their relationship so Jack would turn into the brilliant doctor that he is. Jack gives in and decides to let it go. But as we know so well, Jack’s determination won’t let him down. Not at all. During a meeting over the death of the patient, Jack does what he knows is right and makes it his turn to do the sacrificing. He makes the truth heard about his father, knowing very well what the consequences will be. He had his reasons, one of them being he knows it’s the right thing to do.

So Sayid has returned with shocking news and Hurley turns up to back up the news that they are not alone on the Island. As the fact that Ethan wasn’t on the plane sinks in, Jack must have some serious assumptions about who Ethan is. He wastes no time in asking where Charlie and Claire are before running out of the caves and towards the path between the caves and the beach. Jack must have pieced it all together in a shocking amount of time, guessing that Claire did in fact get attacked the other night and it must have been Ethan because…well because he wasn’t on the plane. The leading question in the whole kidnap scenario is How did Ethan kidnap two people, one pregnant and one perfectly able to struggle and fight, on his own? Unless he knocked them both out and managed to drag both of them through the jungle then I don’t see how it would be possible. I understand Jack’s anger at what has happened although it was definitely not his fault. He blames himself for not believing Claire and shrugging it off as symptoms of stress and pregnancy. Why would he act on the theory that she was attacked over more obvious reasons like her pregnancy and stress influencing hallucinations. Jack even finds a reason amongst everything going on to have Kate by his side once again during the search. He jumps to conclusions that Kate can track footprints etc. Even though all that she suggested was that Ethan’s a clever son of a bitch and thought to make a decoy trail and double back on himself. So the group splits, Locke with Boone and Jack with Kate. As Jack’s determination kicks in, he begins to forget the fact that Kate is the so called tracker and finds his own directions through the jungle. And that gets him in some trouble.  Falling down a steep incline into the hands of Ethan kind of trouble. After being punched, kicked and warned by Ethan, Kate eventually makes it down the incline to come to his rescue, completely missing the fight between Jack and Ethan. She must have been concentrating so hard on not falling down the incline to have missed that. Jack gets up with no signs of blood anyway which for the amount of kicking he received from Ethan is unbelievable. Storming off and ignoring Kate’s protests, Jack actually got them somewhere this time. Stumbling across Charlie’s hanging almost-corpse body gives them both a kick up the arse with some determination. Jack being Jack goes into overload with the determination but so what, he manages to save Charlie’s life! After no response from Charlie after a minute or two where even Kate has almost collapsed in a puddle of tears, Jack looks as if all the fight has left him. But once again, he gets a kick up the arse from his never failing determination and continues to try and resuscitate Charlie who must have been seconds away from death from the amount of time he has spent unconscious without oxygen. Yet Jack even made my eyes moist by succeeding in bringing Charlie back to consciousness, although I’m sure I was only close to tears because Kate was crying and because crying makes her look so cute, I couldn’t help but adore her and cry for her. As for Kate, her emotional acting is just fantastic. If she can make someone like me have tears in their eyes just from crying over Jack trying to save someone then she must be brilliant. Elsewhere, unaware of Charlie’s discovery, Locke and Boone continue to delve deeper into the jungle, even though I’m not sure Locke is all that bothered about finding the missing couple. He seems to want to explore the Island and find out more about the place. However Boone seems to agree with me and tells Locke he’s going back. Considering it’s now night and Locke and Boone are still out there, it just emphasises just how deep in the jungle they are when they find the Hatch. We see many trips to and from the Hatch and the beach which only seem to take as long as popping down to your local shop. It might as well be around the corner for as long as it seems to take. Finding the Hatch really marks this episode as an important and key episode of Season 1. No one knows yet that it will open up many questions as well as more than they could ever bargain for.

Raised By Another

Everybody pays the price now

It was interesting to find out all about Claire like how she got pregnant, who the father was, why the father wasn’t with her on the plane and why she was flying to LA. The whole business with the psychic really enhanced the plot and made it much better than I first expected. So Claire ends up pregnant by mistake with a bloke called Thomas and they decide, after Thomas persuades her, to have the baby together. Considering Claire’s initial shock and anger at getting pregnant in the first place and her sudden decision to put her baby up for adoption after Thomas leaves, I doubt Claire could have kept up the act forever. She may be distraught when Thomas announces that he can’t continue their life with a baby, but I bet that if they kept going until Claire was within a few weeks of giving birth then she would have had second thoughts too. However, before the couple split, a deep twist in the time from the current moment to the crash. Not surprisingly, Claire believes in everything psychic-related and goes to see a psychic herself after being persuaded by her friend, Rachel. In the middle of her reading Richard Malkin, the self-professed psychic, has a change of heart and his facial expression tells us he saw something maybe frightening or bad. He stops the reading and demands that Claire leaves. As for what he saw, we do not know. Yet I agree with a lot of fans who believe the theory, shared also by Charlie, that he knew about the crash either after the first or second reading. Claire returns to have Malkin give her  a reading again, this time after Thomas has left her. The same facial expression spreads across the psychics face again yet this time he attempts to explain why. His explanation is extremely negative and demanding which almost scares Claire. In a nutshell, he is telling her that she must raise the baby and no other person can. If anyone else does parent the baby, then danger will surround it. Claire stays adamant that she is giving it up for abortion which Malkin is distraught about. He begs her, even calls her in the middle of the night, for a span of four months. The next day at the abortion services, we see what we can now presume (having watched all of LOST) that the reason each pen fails to work as Claire attempts to sign the adoption papers is because of the Island preventing her from giving away the baby. Claire isn’t meant to give away the baby. She can probably try as many pens as she likes but each will fail, giving her time to reconsider the decision. I drew this theory from Meet Kevin Johnson where Michael tries to kill himself but Tom tells him that the Island won’t let him so he can try to do it all he likes but it will not work. The Island gets its own way once again and Claire walks out of the adoption services and goes to visit Malkin again. Suddenly though, he changes his tact by telling Claire that he has found suitable parents for her baby and that they are “good people”. What influences Malkin’s change of heart we never find out. The theory that Charlie expresses that Malkin knows that the plane he has booked tickets for Claire on will crash, which he saw when giving Claire her reading, is a sensible look at the possibilities. However, I’d like to clear the psychic of all charges as in Season 3, don’t we find out that he in fact a fraud? Therefore he could have never known about the crash and all that he did know he managed to find out via sources linked to Claire. Yet he tells Claire “It must be this flight” and earlier he tells her “You must raise this baby”. It would have been great to find out more about Malkin accept that he was a fraud so we could understand why he acted so crazy with Claire.

Claire’s dream sure gave me the chills but I loved it for many reasons. So Claire wakes up hearing a baby’s screams from around her. She sits up in shock and realises she isn’t pregnant. This gave away the fact that it was a dream which was a shame because it would have been even more creepy if we went through all of the dream thinking it was real. Notice that when Claire gets up and walks into the jungle, we see no other characters sleeping around the caves. She comes across Locke while walking through the jungle, still hearing a baby’s cries and screams. Locke is sat at a table, illuminated by an electric lamp. Both the table and the lamp are seen during Claire’s flashback when she has her readings. Also relating to her flashback, Locke is holding what looks like psychic cards and as he draws one from the deck, it makes a metallic sound like metal against metal or a knife being unsheathed. The meaning of this is unclear but the links to the upcoming flashbacks suggest that what we find out is relevant to the dream. The dialogue in the dream between Claire and Locke is also relevant to Claire’s flashback.

Claire: What’s happening?

Locke: You know what’s happening.

Claire: But I don’t understand. Why…?

Locke: He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now.

Locke speaks as if the dream is set in the future where Claire has given her baby away after giving birth to it, just like she is plans to do during the flashback. Or maybe it was a pre-cursor to later events because Locke explains that by giving the baby away everyone will pay the price, supposing bad things will happen. Claire does ‘abandon’ the baby in Something Nice Back Home and ‘gave him away’ to Kate who left the Island and raised Aaron. Many bad things could have been said to of happened because of this. As Locke lifts his head to look at Claire, we see that one of his eyes are black and the other white. The meaning for this is unclear but again it could just probably exaggerate the meaning of good and bad happening. Claire runs off into the jungle and finds a crib which is empty. A plane mobile hangs above it which we later see in the Nursery in The Staff. Claire pulls away the blankets in the crib looking for the baby but instead comes across a pool of blood. She wakes up screaming hysterically. The meaning behind the blood is definitely unclear and in my opinion was totally unnecessary. However seeing the blood on her hands as she calms down makes the whole dream worth it.

Claire isn’t having a good time of it at the moment. She has a creepy nightmare one night and the next she gets attacked. A hand over her mouth and a hand holding a needle. The work of someone after something from her. After waking the whole camp again by screaming loud enough for the Others at the Barracks to hear her, once again Jack and Charlie run to her side. Let’s say we know as much as we have watched for  the next few minutes. It sounds very possible that it was just another nightmare influenced by stress and her pregnancy, just like Jack suggests. The fact that we saw the attack from the attacker’s point of view suggests that it was real as Claire wouldn’t have the nightmare from someone else’s point of view. Who knows. I like how Charlie takes this opportunity to bond with Claire. He may have been a bit pushy to start with though, like a stranger coming up to you on the street and hugging you. Or maybe the English touch of making tea for someone just doesn’t work on Australians. Typical English bloke Charlie is. Kicking off when Jack suggest that Claire is hallucinating looks like Charlie has taken it personally and it was him who was attacked. Later on in the jungle after Claire storms off after Jack suggests to her that she was hallucinating, Charlie becomes the lost and lonely sheep and follows Claire trying to act the hero. He manages it in a way when Claire starts having contractions. Running off to find Jack then dumping the responsibility on Ethan. Not the best thing to do but he does spawn the theory about Malkin knowing about the crash. Claire and Charlie should be a Sherlock duo. They crack mysteries like eggs!

Hurley’s idea of starting a census was a bit dim-witted really. He really sees the two groups of survivors on the beach and at the cave as two separate communities. If you want to get to know someone then do it how Locke does it – learn from their behaviour and what they ‘give off’. Who’s to say that no one will lie about their identity and reason for being in Australia. Even having the flight manifest has limited uses…except checking off names with the census. Noticing Ethan’s name not being on the manifest sparks concern in Hurley’s mind and the big guy does the survivors a big favour. When we find out more about Ethan, I’m surprised at his simple mistake of giving away his real name. Then again, a random name would still not have appeared on the manifest. Still should have been more careful. Upon Sayid’s return, Hurley could not have timed it better to break the news to Jack. Sayid breaks the news that they are not alone and Hurley appears saying someone wasn’t on the plane. Damn this is a well written episode!

Solitary

You will find me in the next life, if not in this one

I was certainly looking forward to Sayid’s flashback plot and knew it was going to reveal a lot about him. We know that he was a torturer back in Iraq yet we only get to see him interrogate prisoners this time. Ah well, it’s not like we don’t know how good a torturer he is. He seems a pro at the job as we watch him question a prisoner under the eye of his superior. Outside, they talk in a way that suggests that Sayid is trusted by Omar, his commanding officer and he knows what Sayid is capable of. He’s like a pet bull terrier. During this scene, we see a woman walk past in the arms of two soldiers which catches Sayid’s eye. The same woman in the photos Sayid acquired from Claire back in Walkabout of course. We next see the same photo during the next scene just before Sayid enters the room she is in to probably interrogate her. He doesn’t yet know exactly who she is which considering the length of the glance he gave her earlier, he must have only have recognised her as a familiar face. He doesn’t seem surprised when he learns of her identity, Nadia of course. Childhood friends they were and both have taken opposite paths in life. Nadia turning into a traitor against her country. Yet Sayid treats her like any other prisoner, telling her he will have to hurt her if she doesn’t cooperate. Next we learn of an interesting development. Not only are they childhood friends but more than friends at the present time. The last scene suggested that emotions may be flying between them and now we see Sayid feeding Nadia meaning he doesn’t want her to be in jail and be killed. Another contrasting relationship just like Jack and Kate. A soldier and a traitor, a doctor and a criminal. Sayid learns next of Nadia’s fate that she will be killed. Sayid starts to lose control over himself, revealing his emotions and nearly letting his commanding officer think something is up. Losing his professional stance shows Sayid in a new light. He can’t let Nadia be killed but he has to follow orders. He can hatch a good plan in seconds though. He gives in to his emotions and decides to set Nadia free. By shooting his commanding officer and them himself! He must be desperate to save her although he may think she will be simply caught and killed anyway. He thinks she is dead while on the Island so why mess about trying to save her and risking his own life. This is as far as we get and we should assume that his plan works and it is said that Nadia shot Omar and then Sayid. That’s a bad past he’s got there and he knows it.

Something interesting I noted during the episode, unrelated to Sayid, is our first look at Ethan. Not that we should be suspicious of him just yet, but I was thinking that Locke thinks he ‘knows the Island’ but he sure as hell doesn’t know about who lives on the Island. Since he’s always talking about the Island being special etc. it’s funny to see him live around someone who was already on the Island and he not have a clue who they are. Anyway, my personal highlight of the episode was definitely Hurley’s golf course. Yes really! And he’s right, surviving isn’t going to cut it. Surviving in itself is boring and there needs to be some kind of stress relief and Hurley’s found it, much to Jack’s surprise. He tries to keep everyone healthy and safe but they’re still panicking and all Hurley does is build a golf course and everyone’s happy as can be. Of course, Kate comes running to the course to watch and bet against Jack to tease him. Even Sawyer comes over and joins in. After everything that he’s done I’m surprised he thinks a game of golf could help him fit right back in again.

Now for the first major twist in Season 1 which I think deserved much more focus on by sacrificing some of the flashback plot. It’s not like it had much to do with the on-island events either. Anyway Sayid follows the cable into the jungle which was a foolish move if you ask me. However tempting it may be, wandering into the jungle to follow something which you don’t know where it leads to, considering the events that happened in the jungle so far, seems suicide. But what else could Sayid do? Sit on the beach and “map the Island” as he calls it. It would be interesting to know how far Sayid has travelled in the two days he has been gone. Anyway as he follows the cable into the jungle, a mystery we do not find out until Season 3, not even Sayid is experienced enough for the traps dotting the jungle. He did well to spot the tripwire. But the person who set this trap isn’t taking risks. Why not add a pressure pad to make sure not even the sneakiest of people get by. It works! In the night, Sayid’s visit from an unknown figure definitely sets the alarm bells ringing. Who, who, who?! Say hello to the first non-survivor we meet. As Sayid comes around, strapped to a board of some kind, we hear a voice. Now for a bit of trivia for you. If you listen carefully, and I mean really carefully, you will hear five different languages being spoken. If you’re currently thinking “What the hell!” then I’ll give you the transcript that we hear:

(English) “Where is Alex?”

(German) “Wo ist Alex?”

(Spanish) “¿Dónde está Alex?”

(Italian) “Dov’è Alex?”

(French) “Où est Alex?”

That’s right. I always wondered why I thought she said something different every time. Next, Sayid gets to feel the pain that he caused so many others in the past. The woman electrocutes him, the volts surging through his body almost as fast as the adrenaline. Grabbing a second to explain, Sayid tells the woman that he is a survivor of Oceanic flight 815 and he heard a transmission by a French woman etc. But she continues to interrogate him as well as electrocute him more. A contrast to the flashback plot. At last she gives in and shows her face as well as her nationality. She mentions the transmission saying “16 years…has it really been that long”, revealing that it is her that made it, before knocking Sayid out. Now that was a pleasant surprise if ever there was one. What could make you want to watch more and more than finding out that the French woman who made the distress call is alive. As Rousseau finds out more and more about Sayid, she begins to believe that he is not who she thinks he is -“One of them” as she calls him. Now Rousseau opens up to Sayid and we find out how she got to the Island. Here’s the transcript:

DANIELLE: We were part of a science team.
SAYID: A science team armed with rifles? Was Robert on the team?
DANIELLE: Yes.
SAYID: And Alex, was he, too?
DANIELLE: Our vessel was 3 days out of Tahiti when our instruments malfunctioned. It was night, a storm, the sounds. The ship slammed into rocks, ran aground, the hull breached beyond repair. So, we made camp, dug out this temporary shelter. Temporary. Nearly 2 months we survived here, 2 months before…
SAYID: Your distress signal? The message I heard, you said, “It killed them all.”

DANIELLE: We were coming back from the Black Rock. It was them. They were the carriers.
SAYID: Who were the carriers?
DANIELLE: The others.
SAYID: What others? What is the Black Rock? Have you seen other people on this island?
DANIELLE: No, but I hear them. Out there, in the jungle. They whisper. You think I’m insane.
SAYID: I think you’ve been alone for too long.

Now we hear of the Others for the first time. Not that we make anything of them as Danielle tells Sayid she has only heard them, not seen them. Yet as unbelievable it is at this stage, Rousseau is right, there are others on the Island. Sayid reels off the questions we have all asked ourselves many times so I won’t repeat them, but they are still very intriguing questions. At first mention, the Black Rock could be anything. A place sounds like the most sensible suggestion at the time. She has obviously been to the Black Rock before but she fails to mention what it is. Then again she fails to mention a lot to Sayid by ignoring his questions. The mention of others, supposedly meaning other people, sparks an endless stream of questions until Rousseau mentions that she hasn’t actually seen them. Also, what does she mean by carriers? Later on she mentions that several of the team were sick, maybe she means carriers of a disease…? Then again, she doesn’t seem to be talking much sense so making anything of it at this point is pointless. Moving on, as they hear a growling from above, Danielle leaves Sayid in her ‘den’ to check out the noise and Sayid manages to release himself and follow, not before collecting a bunch of papers and a map of what seems to be the Island. However, he forgets to grab the photo of Nadia. He grabs the remaining rifle and follows Danielle. When catching up with her, he decides to make a move to escape by holding her at gunpoint. After a confrontation, Danielle agrees to let him leave and go back to “his people”. Finally, we found out who Alex is. Her child. A disappointing answer to the burning question. I suppose we are meant to think that her child disappeared. As Sayid makes his way back to the camp we are met by an attempt to make Danielle seem less crazy. Believe or not, Sayid hears whispers surrounding him along with the brief sound of the monster. As for the whispers, like usual they are unrepeatable so I’ve also included the transcript for that as well. Maybe Danielle is telling the truth. Maybe she has more to tell.

Male Voice: “Just let him get out of here”
Male Voice: “He’s seen too much already”
Male Voice: “What if he tells?”
Female Voice: “Could just speak to him”
Male Voice: “No”

Confidence Man

Unfortunately for us both, you’re wrong

(Again I am altering the structure of the review. The flashback plot will be first then each sub-plot will be covered seperately)

Confidence Man didn’t really do Sawyer’s reputation any good from the fans or the survivor’s point of view. Just from the flashback story we learn how cunning and deceiving he can be. He even deceives us, the viewers, until the last flash scene. Let’s start at the beginning. Sawyer as we know is obviously one for the ladies and we get the message very clearly. Learning that Sawyer seems to be a businessman sure makes us think. Sawyer, a working class businessman dressed in an expensive suit? No way! Plus he’s loaded with cash. Sawyer tells Jessica, the cute blonde he has appeared to of seduced in some way, that he intends to use the cash in a too-good-to-be-true oil deal where his money will be tripled soon after if he puts a hell of a lot of cash, more than he has in the suitcase, into a share in an oil rig. We assume that the pair are in love, a happy and successful couple, and Jessica is going to help him out with getting the rest of the cash…from her husband. Now we begin to see how the story isn’t so legit. Engaging in a too-good-to-be-true deal assisted by a women planning on deceiving her husband, who she is cheating on, so she can share the riches with the man she has taken a strong attraction to? I would definitely say that that is the kind of background I can imagine Sawyer coming from. Something’s not right….So the deal goes ahead and we see the couple working with the husband to get the deal completed. Sawyer sure seems cool about the deal. Like a professional businessman. Eventually we find out why Sawyer seems such a different person before the crash. We see him talking to someone he knows that he owes money. He reveals he aims to con a couple out of a load of cash to pay the guy. Ouch. Something’s not right inside him. Yet he seems so suitable for conning people. He has the heart for it. Who has a heart that cold? So the deal goes into the next stage where he has gained Jessica’s and her husband’s trust. About to leave, the couple’s child comes into the room and causes Sawyer to stop in his tracks. The letter we find out about during the episode that explains about Sawyer’s past – that his parents are dead because of a con man when he was only a child. The con man caused his father to kill his mother and then himself. And seeing the boy in front of him is like a kick in the teeth for Sawyer. The kid is in exactly the same situation as he was as a child. His parents are being conned and what results from that could ruin the kid’s life. Here we see exactly how much Sawyer is damaged by what happened to him as a child. Now we find out why he wants to be hated and how much he hates himself. He has turned into the real Sawyer and it sickens him. Calling the deal off, meaning walking away from a hell of a deal, does anything but heal the deep scars that influenced this event.

What’s with Sawyer’s letter? Why does his expression change to a dark and emotional wreck?  Well it is the story if his life and what made him who he is. As for Kate finding out, it is more of a warning than anything else. As she reads it, Sawyer seems to almost gain from her shock. He doesn’t have to make her look at him and think ‘what the hell are you’, he can use the letter to some him up. There is certainly something between her and Sawyer and the letter will work as a catalyst against them. She still kisses him after he has been tortured showing that she isn’t completely disgusted by him. But it is definitely a stark reminder of who he is. So she thinks anyway. Kate can clearly see how deeply it means to him and it worries her. As she tells him, she knows there’s a human full of emotion inside him somewhere. Yet he doesn’t stop her from thinking that the letter is addressed to him. It’s all part of his angry plan to make her think of him as scum. He wants it so bad. But Kate works out the letter wasn’t for him. It was for his arch enemy. The real Sawyer in fact. So the true story slowly unfolds and Sawyer gives in and finishes it off for her, unleashing his damaged self. Kate can’t help but feel something for him that he puts on this tough outer shell but inside he is as weak as he was when he was young.

Along with his letter addressed to the real Sawyer and the flashbacks, we can start to understand why Sawyer is like he is now. He wants to be hated because he hates himself. Reading the letter only influences this hate. He even goes as far as to risk a person’s life to prove his point. Boone accuses him of having Shannon’s inhalers. Jack, Kate and Sayid believe this to be true. Yet there is no proof that Sawyer does have them. He lets them believe he has them, because he knows it will influence them to hate him. He knows he doesn’t have to say he has the inhalers, his reputation is enough to insure the blame always gets focused on him. To be honest, I think what Sawyer did up to a point was fair play. In a way he conned Jack, Sayid and Kate into believing he had them. He used his experience against them. Why shouldn’t he? No one actually saw him with them so why should he be blamed as harshly as he was. Of course Jack is blind with desperation to help Shannon, Sayid doesn’t trust him and Kate relies on his reputation. None of them gave him a chance to explain. Maybe if he hadn’t of beat up Boone then they may of listened to him. But Sawyer’s happy. As long as they have a reason to hate him then he’s getting what he wants. As for torturing him, I was surprised that made it into the show. No doubt because there was no blood etc. but it definitely changed the tone of the episode. Finding out that Sayid was a torturer certainly makes us wary of his capabilities. They would have been better off letting Kate talk to him. She knew about his letter therefore it may be more torturous to use the letter against him. At least Sawyer soon reached his pain limit. Telling Kate he didn’t have her inhalers set the score for definite. Sawyer had conned them all. He may not have got anything out of it, except the hate, but he used them for his own reasons. A job well done in Sawyer’s eyes. But he’s easily overstepped the mark. After Locke convinces Sayid it was Sawyer who knocked him out and destroyed his equipment, Sayid makes the matter even more personal. Stabbing him was a bitter way to deal with it, but Sayid wasn’t in the real world at the time. He was back in Iraq, back in his torturing frame of mind. As far as he was aware, Sawyer is a traitor and he wants him dead.

Ironically, Sayid’s actions recently as well as in the past torture him back. It’s strange to see Sayid show his weak side, telling Kate that he swore he would never hurt anyone like he did to Sawyer again. He broke a promise and he must pay the price. He also hates himself for his actions, yet nothing to the extent that Sawyer does. While Sayid explains to Kate, we see Sawyer hesitating with a lighter close to the letter. His secret is out now. Kate was right. The memories are too strong for him to hold on to. It’s time to let go, but he can’t. He dumps the idea and closes the lighter. Without the memories, what else has he got left.

The Moth

Struggling is nature’s way of strengthening

One of the things I would never have thought about Charlie was that he was a Christian. Even if we found out much later than we did, I would still not have believed it. However, it does work as a great contrast to his present drug induced self. During his flashbacks, we see he is not just an average religious person but a true Christian who confesses his soul etc. Definitely not a person you would expect to turn to drugs and not God in hard times. Plus Charlie sees himself as a ‘rock god’ which doesn’t sound very Christian to me. From what we learn of Charlie during his first two flashes, Christianity is not his only religion. Music is his other belief and there’s definitely friction between the two. He can only choose one – a religion which revolves around his band where he falls into bed with several irresistible girls while surrounded by stoned band members, or a religion where he leaves all the above behind – and choosing isn’t one of his strong points. Picking the band over Christianity wasn’t all Charlie’s fault though, blame Liam for starting his downfall away from right and into wrong. Some brother Liam is. Forgetting promises, lying and getting stoned while ruining their relationship as brothers. Liam ruined the band as well as Charlie. If Liam had kept his promise to walk away when things got rough, Charlie would never have turned to drugs. Too late for that though, Liam made his point. Finding out his reason for being on Oceanic 815, we see Charlie somewhere in the future after the previous scene. Liam’s warm welcome suggests that the last scene of the flashback plot is far behind them, maybe years ago. Liam is a transformed man, clearly not touching drugs anymore but this time, it’s Charlie that’s looking worse. He doesn’t deny Liam’s accusations that he is still using and we see just how much Liam has moved on from the past as he offers to help Charlie get off drugs. To enhance Liam’s changed self, we see him turn down the offer to make a comeback with the band, probably because he knows that with the band comes drugs. Charlie seems distraught with Liam’s actions and leaves, telling him he has a plane to catch. Oceanic 815 no doubt.

The writers must’ve had a few drinks while writing this episode! Risking Jack’s life just so Charlie can be a hero and make himself feel needed? How dare they! Nah I’ve got nothing against Charlie but there was no need to put Jack in the shit. Actually, the one reason I may take that comment back is because the incident really showed us how much of a team most of the survivors are and how much they rely on each other…well on Jack anyway. As the rescue party work on rescuing Jack, Charlie runs to Locke to ask for his drugs back. To be honest, I don’t think Charlie had any chance at getting his drugs back no matter how many times he asked. But Locke gave Charlie his drugs back the third time! Locke would have found a way to make out the Island wanted him to give up the drugs or he would have forced Charlie to stop getting his fix being ‘the Island told him to’. So Charlie does the heroic thing and crawls into the cave to save Jack. After fixing his arm I’m surprised at how pessimistic Jack was over the whole scenario. Mentioning that their oxygen supply is running out suggesting they’re going to suffocate is insane. Charlie should of said that most of the survivors are trying their hardest to save their leader. Especially Kate. After Sawyer sourly tells her of Jack’s situation it’s so heart-warming to see her run off, abandoning Sayid’s idea. I doubt she is expecting Sawyer to take over her responsibilities but that’s out the window. Jack needs saving. Back at the caves, I was shocked that no one was shocked that Jack and Charlie randomly appeared behind them all like they had just had a stroll from the beach. As if they could have got out of the cave via  a small hole in the ground above them. I do love the writers but they are damn crazy sometimes!

Sayid getting knocked out by an unknown figure certainly set the alarm bells ringing. Questions rapidly being generated in every fan’s head – Who? Why? What? Even though Locke doesn’t want them to leave the Island he didn’t have to destroy Sayid’s equipment, he deserved credit for that. He really is the brains of the survivors. One thing that confuses me is how did Locke know what was going on. As far as I was aware Locke was never around Sayid while he made the equipment neither was he around when Sayid recruited Boone and Kate to help him out. Yet he manages to find Sayid and he must of known what he was doing to make it worth knocking him out.

Locke may not be the one to do the best thing but he sure managed to with Charlie. After the whole scenario with him and Jack, watching him ask for his drugs for the third time was unbelievable. Not as mad as watching Locke simply hand the packet over. Locke isn’t one to stick to his word when he knows best, we all know that. Maybe he knew that Charlie would throw the drugs away. Charlie throwing the drugs into the fire was sure surprising but in a way it was expected. He saved Jack so he should be able to save himself. Alright maybe Locke saved him but maybe the whole day’s scenario was meant to happen to test Charlie. To make him realise what he was capable of. To strengthen him.

House of the Rising Sun

Our very own Adam and Eve

I’m going to continue my new layout of talking about the full flashback plot at once and then focus on what’s happening on the Island because it’s much easier to talk about that way, so I hope you prefer it like this too!

I never really appreciated Sun and Jin in any aspect during Season 1. It wasn’t that I thought their characters were not needed or anything big like that, I just found their flashbacks boring and their on-island relationship boring. However now, I see their story completely differently. I’ve taken the time to look back over the seasons and realise that they had one of the strongest relationships out of any couple, joint top with Charlie and Claire in my opinion. Anyway, on to the topic of the Kwon’s flashbacks. Seeing their relationship grow stronger then suffer prior to the crash certainly made their on-island relationship much more tolerable and understandable. In a way, the relationship is much like a  typical teenage love story. All the elements are there: they fall in love; live happy a while; they fight and piss each other off; one of them plans to end the relationship by going behind their partners back; they split up leaving each other with a broken heart. And that is pretty much how we see them during the episode, minus the heartbreak and split up. Alright, as all adults say, it’s much more complicated being an adult! After all, Jin was pretty much being Mr Paik’s slave by doing anything he asked or probably told Jin to do. He did it for Sun which was a nice touch, but relating back to the ‘typical teenage love story’, whatever one partner does to please the other it’s never enough. I hoped Sun did leave Jin while watching House of the Rising Sun for the first time, I was urging her on and on until I realised that she obviously doesn’t because she on the plane with him. Stupid me. What was going through Sun’s head when she chose to stay with Jin is beyond me after planning such a plan to run away. I’m glad she didn’t run away though, unless they ended up not being main characters and only surviving into Season 2 or 3.

On the Island, and still on the topic of Sun and Jin, we witness Jin attacking Michael. I loved this! They could have beaten each other up as much as they liked and it would have put me in a great mood. It came as a shock to many of us at the time I bet since we don’t yet know why Jin tried to kill Michael. What I find funny is that neither Sayid, Kate or any of the survivors truly believe that Jin and Sun know no English. They both made it pretty obvious by now – good acting Sun! Questioning Jin after handcuffing him to some wreckage while he “gets pretty crispy” as Hurley puts it is pointless. Jin certainly doesn’t have a clue what the hell anyone but Sun is saying and tries to let them know unlike Sun, who always falls quiet when talked to by most of the survivors.

Following Jack, Locke, Kate and Charlie’s visit to the caves uncovered what I have to say is one of the most significant moments in Season 1 in my opinion. After Charlie sets a bee militia on to the group, Kate stumbles upon the two skeletons laid to rest. “Our very own Adam and Eve”  as Locke puts it, although we now know they’re far from that. Let’s pretend we don’t know that they’re Mother and MIB yet. It was a big eye opener to what and who may have been on the Island before the crash. Another crash? A shipwreck? I thought neither. I had a sneaky feeling it was no way that simple. My first theory were they were the last survivors of an aboriginal-like race who lived on the Island…it sounded sensible at the time. As Jack finds the black and white stones, I bet none of us thought nothing of them at the time. Probably something personal to whoever the skeletons were.

We now first see Locke’s attempt at ridding Charlie of his drugs which I always thought was one of the best things Locke ever did for anyone. Why he felt he had to help Charlie so much is unknown to me but he sure helped him. It seems like Locke is trying to teach Charlie the power of faith by showing him by giving away something close to him, he gains something else close to him, being his guitar. Is Locke suggesting that the Island wants to fix Charlie when he tells him “What I know is that this Island might just give you what you’re looking for, but you have to give the Island something”? Charlie gives his drugs to Locke and he happily accepts the drug. Maybe he thinks he is a messenger for the Island or is doing this for the Island. Either way, he sure believes the Island has powers to please a person like Charlie.

I can’t wait to announce Sun revealing she speaks English so I’m going to do it now. Yes! Believe or not, Sun speaks English. And Jin doesn’t know! Shocking. At least Sun ‘comes out’ about it. She did the right thing eventually, but hang on. Now Michael has to keep it a secret. Anyone feel like we’re going round in circles? Blame Jin. Even after the on-island events Sun can’t bring herself to tell him. At least she feels bad about keeping it a secret and making communication with the other survivors impossible. She reveals her secret to Michael because she is worried that Jin will hurt him more. Fair point. Sorry to continue to pass on the blame again and again but I blame Sun’s father for Jin’s behaviour. He thinks he has to protect Sun by beating the hell out of everyone else. He wasn’t even protecting her by attacking Michael. It was over the watch Sun’s father gave him. Understand why I didn’t like him at this point?

Finally, the split of survivors to the beach and caves was very revealing to how much each character wants to leave the Island. Kate is a perfect example. I thought she had given up hope on survival by now. With the marshal dead Kate should feel quite relaxed being on the Island. But no, she believes that they could get rescued. Or maybe she, like a few others, wanted to get rescued but knew they wouldn’t but didn’t want to admit it to themselves. As for Sawyer, he hasn’t yet realised that there isn’t anything for him off the Island. He sure has determination – he went to Australia to find the real Sawyer and kill him! Maybe he thinks by getting off the Island then he can try and find the real Sawyer again. Sad but true. We all knew Locke’s decision before he joined Jack’s group at the caves. Not that we know it yet but Locke doesn’t want to be rescued but keeps that to himself for now. Of course, admitting that would make him seem crazier. He is cleverly scheming his way of making sure he can convince as many people as he can that the Island is special and making sure that no one leaves. He’s good! Good luck to them, because Locke isn’t someone to give up easily.

White Rabbit

A leader can’t lead until he knows where he’s going

Firstly, for those of you who are wondering why I didn’t title this episode review “If we don’t live together, we’re going to die alone”, then I have my reasons. If this episode hadn’t have been Jack centric and hinted more towards the survivors seeing Jack as a leader, then I would definitely of titled it after Jack’s very meaningful quote which he announces during his episode ending speech. Why I chose “A leader…” is because it stood out more to me during the episode. The whole Jack and Locke conversation in the jungle stood out so much to me more than anything else in the episode in fact. The quote ties in with Jack being seen as a leader to most of the survivors but as he doesn’t want to, as Locke says he has to “know where he’s going”, which is easier said than done. Yet Jack achieves this by the end of the episode. His speech at the end confirms this so well and guarantees Jack’s dedication to surviving. Fairly good excuse? Thanks!

Although I found this episode an episode with a lot of meaning, I felt Jack’s flashback’s lacked greatly in directing us to a deep meaning. Out of the many flashes in this episode, only at part 5 of the flashback plot does it actually go somewhere. Alright we learn that Jack and his father’s relationship back when he was a kid wasn’t great but it never really meant anything to what we know of Jack now. Only when we learn along with Jack that his father has died do we realise why Jack seeing his father on the Island is such a big deal to him. Since so many years are missed during the flashback plot, we don’t know how Jack and his father’s relationship has developed since his childhood as well as the reasons why Jack’s father is in Australia and what influenced Jack’s feelings towards his father. Moving on to the last part of the flashes, we see Jack begging for his father’s coffin to be put on to the plane. There is definite suggestion that this may not be possible by the women at the airport helpdesk. Imagine if Jack wasn’t able to fly his father’s coffin to LA! It would have changed the episode entirely. If the coffin never arrived on the Island then MIB would never have ‘taken’ Christian’s body and influenced Jack to follow him into the jungle, therefore never having the conversation with Locke and never finding the water source and therefore the coffin. This of course would have influenced Jack’s feelings towards being the survivor’s leader. So it was Jack’s fault that this episode worked out like it did. But then again if he couldn’t get his father on the plane then he may not have flown to LA anyway.

Sorry for ranting on about this episode’s flashes but at least they’re out the way now and we can focus entirely on the rest of the episode. Again we see an example of Jack trying to do the impossible and what he knows he can’t do. After saving Boone from drowning he tries to save the women known as Joanna. It is clear from before he reaches the shore with Boone that it’s too late. Yet that’s not a good enough excuse for Jack is it. He has to try. It’s the whole marshal scenario again pretty much – he knows he can’t save them but he feels he has to try because that’s just the way he is. Fair does Jack, at least someone tries. While Jack moans to Kate that he “didn’t try” to save Joanna, which is complete crap, he again sees the man he saw at the end of Walkabout. A man dressed in black. Kate makes the assumption that Jack hasn’t slept enough which Jack being Jack denies entirely. It’s a boring assumption compared to what Locke has to say later on. Once again, and believe it or not for the last time, we see Jack protesting against having to make decisions for the camp. Hurley and Charlie are to blame this time. Being simple minded guys they definitely see Jack as a leader and someone to run to when stuff gets bad. Good job they don’t ‘hallucinate’ too then and see a random man dressed in black on the beach. Jack does however and runs after the figure as he turns and walks into the jungle. Jack follows him into the jungle only for the figure to turn round and show his face properly to Jack. As Jack realises that the figure is “dad”, the figure just turns and walks off again. At this time, we don’t know anything of Jack’s father’s whereabouts except that we are guessing he wasn’t on the plane for obvious reasons. If this surprised you enough then damn you’ve got a shock soon! So we get the feeling that Jack is being led somewhere by his father…when I say father of course I mean MIB. Learning that this was actually the work of MIB far later on in the show was a great moment. This is why I love the writers! It shows that they didn’t make up everything as they went along or else how else could they explain Jack seeing his father on the Island. It opens up questions about the episode that influence some great theories. Why was MIB leading Jack into the jungle in the form of his father. To test him? Testing him in a unique way compared to how he tested everyone else it seems. An ever more difficult question to answer is why did MIB lead Jack to the water source at the end of the episode? I’ll get to that bit later. As Jack follows the body of his father into the jungle, I noticed another thing that shows that the writers weren’t making it up as they went along. So we know that Jack’s father is MIB on the Island and to back this fact up, did you notice that there is no hint of Jack being stalked/seeing/hearing the monster at all whilst he is in the jungle? Surely the monster would have jumped with joy at being able to chase a survivor in the jungle who were on their own! Notice that too?

Back on the beach, we see a great relationship continuing to develop in the form of Charlie and Claire. Charlie takes on the caring duties for Claire and finds her water and comforts her when she mentions she feels the odd one out on the Island. It’s clear that Charlie has feelings for her already, despite her being a “ticking time bomb of responsibility waiting to go off”. It’s so sweet! Also happening on the beach is the search for the missing water supply which sets off the trend of Sawyer being blamed for pretty much everything. It’s amusing to have so many questions answered with something along the lines of “I bet it’s Sawyer”. Watching Sun and Jin being questioned for stealing the water I once again feel like screaming at Sun at her ignorance. She could of solved the problem much easier if she acted like she partly understood if anything. She’s a total piss take. Have I mentioned that I used to despise Sun and Jin? Up to Season 2 anyway. It didn’t last long. Must have been Jin’s heroics at joining the raft party.

Back in the jungle after Locke saves Jack from falling off the cliff edge, we get to the best part of the episode by far in terms of importance, meaning and character development. Locke tries to explain to Jack why he is a leader. He makes a good point that everyone treats him like one. Jack tells Locke he “doesn’t have what it takes”, referring back to the earlier flashback plot. He still believes that his father was right about him. The conversation changes to Jack explaining to Locke about him “hallucinating” and following the figure resembling his father into the jungle. Locke gives Jack some words of wisdom. Maybe Jack wasn’t hallucinating. What if he did see his father. How though? Locke’s opinion and reasoning is explained throughout his speech he gives to Jack which goes like this:

I’m an ordinary man, Jack. Meat and potatoes. I live in the real world. I’m not a big believer in magic. But this place is different. It’s special. The others don’t want to talk about it because it scares them. But we all know it. We all feel it. Is your white rabbit a hallucination? Probably. But what if everything that happened here happened for a reason?

What if this person you’re chasing is really here? He is clearly wanting Jack to consider the possibilities that the reason he ‘saw’ this person is because of the Island. Remember, Locke doesn’t yet know that Jack’s father is dead, neither does he know who Jack is talking about. Jack states that it would be impossible for the person he is chasing to actually be here. Locke negotiates and agrees with him but leaves the possibility of the person Jack is chasing being on the Island open. Why? Well, Locke tells Jack that “I’ve looked into the eye of this island and what I saw was beautiful”. Locke leaves that statement open to Jack to make him think about what he’s saying. So what does Locke mean by all this? In a nutshell, Locke obviously believes that the Island is special and can make things happen and he wants Jack to consider this. He exaggerates his thoughts on the Island being special to Jack and suggests that maybe he saw his father because the Island made him see it – meaning that it happened for a reason. It’s crazy but surprisingly it makes sense. Well depending on how you interpret it. So Locke leaves Jack telling him to “finish what he started”. Hell, I may have been able to interpret the above but this is meaningless. Maybe Locke means that Jack has to find who he was chasing. And by finding this person, Jack will find out where he is going and can then lead…something like that anyway!

Nearing the end of the episode doesn’t mean things get any less complicated, no way! Jack once again sees his father and follows him through the jungle until he stumbles upon a scene with a large water source and caves which is scattered with wreckage and items from the plane. So MIB led Jack to a source of water that has become top priority to find to keep the survivors alive. But did he? Or did he lead Jack to his father’s coffin which just happens to have ended up here? Of course it didn’t just happen, it was fate! Generously, fate has given Jack a water source and caves to live at for all the survivors. As for the coffin, whether fate intended to lead Jack here we don’t know. But if you look at it at a different angle, Jack’s father led him here and this is the last time we see him. It’s almost like Christian’s body jumped out of the coffin, walked to the beach, found Jack and got him to follow him back to the coffin where he would find what he needed most. Yet that would be too simple of course. So Jack does the inevitable and opens the coffin lid only to find that his father’s body wasn’t there. That sure sparked belief in Locke’s theory that maybe Jack did see his father. As for why Jack turns angry and smashes the coffin to pieces is a bit odd, as surely he would be too shocked to react quite like that. Not that Jack hasn’t had enough shock to last him a fair while recently. Maybe he just felt so confused that something had to give. I can sympathise.

Back on the beach we have Jack’s speech which is the second highlight of the episode. After recovering from what he found in the jungle, he steps forward after realising where he is going as a leader. Here’s the speech:

Leave him alone! It’s been six days and we’re all still waiting. Waiting for someone to come. But what if they don’t? We have to stop waiting. We need to start figuring things out. A woman died this morning just going for a swim and he tried to save her, and now you’re about to crucify him? We can’t do this. Everyman for himself is not going to work. It’s time to start organizing. We need to figure out how we’re going to survive here. Now, I found water. Fresh water, up in the valley. I’ll take a group in at first light. If you don’t want to go come then find another way to contribute. Last week most of us were strangers, but we’re all here now. And god knows how long we’re going to be here. But if we can’t live together, we’re going to die alone.

Jack, thankfully has given up most of his hope of rescue. He knows it’s time to act and most importantly, to survive. The water gave him hope of surviving until whenever and if it hadn’t have been for Jack then the water crisis would still have been a big issue. He knows it’s better to tell the survivors straight rather than watering it down for them. He knows someone has to lead and he seems the one to do it. The importance of “Live together, die alone” is that it holds its purpose throughout the show right up until The End. The term “live” definitely spells out Jack’s thoughts on the topic of rescue and he knows that so easily people could die, just like earlier in the episode. Inspiration never seems to be Jack’s strongpoint, but he nails it perfectly this time!

Walkabout

Don’t tell me what I can’t do

So for some reason the fact that Locke wakes up on the Island and can move his toes and can stand up without any aid is big news to him! For us however, we don’t have a clue about the significance of Locke waking up among the burning wreckage and chaos. Just give it time guys. Now one thing you don’t want in a camp while you’re trying to sleep is a herd of wild boar. Damn no! Now what have we learnt after experiencing pissed of boar? They don’t like bright light that’s what. Thanks to Sawyer the camp gets rampaged by boars that once again causes Charlie to trip over and be saved by Jack. Sounds familiar…good old Jack! Must be Charlie’s drugs making him particularly unsteady on his feet I bet. Moving on, I thought Jack’s idea to burn the fuselage the best idea anyone has had so far. As he rightly points out, working out everyone’s God isn’t relevant. If they still have hope of being rescued then they need a big ass fire. What’s better than burning a massive chunk of a plane! I still think that Jack has given up most of his hope now though but clutching at straws is better than nothing.  On the subject of hope, I don’t see why it’s so surprising that the food the survivors were surviving on has gone. All but a bag of peanuts of course which Sawyer insists are his. It’s been five days! Since when does a plane have enough food for five days. Sawyer no doubt has more food secretly stashed away but Hurley sure isn’t happy about him holding on to the peanuts. So Sayid tries to revive the dampened mood by making a trek into the jungle to hunt for coconuts and pineapples a walk in the park. Obviously not what Locke has in mind though. Locke does have some awesome entrances during LOST but this has to be one of my favourite. It sure makes Sawyer think twice about his comments towards Sayid’s idea. The knife slamming into the chair next to Sawyer certainly makes Locke seem even more dangerous than he already looks. Put it this way, he certainly gets everyone’s attention. So he suggests hunting boar with his surprising variation of hunting knives. Does he also think that his knives which look capable of butchering someone, will help him protect himself about whatever is in the jungle? Probably. He also seems to know a lot about boars. Kind of makes him sound boring after his grand entrance. Or should I say boaring! His flashback definitely suggests so. In his flashback we see that he works in an office. Nice. Sarcasm intended by the way! Now all that’s worth mentioning about the first part of his flashbacks in this episode is something I never realised myself until reading about it in a LOST forum a couple of years ago. Locke’s piece of equipment (I don’t know what it is to be honest) that he is using at his desk makes a sound that we soon learn sounds like the monster. Not that we should be able to notice that yet because we haven’t heard the monster make a noise like that yet.

Back on the Island, I understand Jack’s unhappiness at being treated like a leader. I hate being questioned for everything and being the one to choose what to do for everyone. It’s a bitch. So it  begins with Claire asking Jack if they should have a memorial to pay respects to the dead while burning the fuselage. Jack of course has better things to do than pay his respects to the lost passengers like saving people etc. The second example is where Boone mentions to Jack about Rose. But although he seems bothered about why Boone came to him, he can’t resist the urge to go and check on her. He is helping her so he should feel like it’s the most important thing to do.  So off Jack goes and tries to comfort Rose. Her lack of acknowledgement of his presence is a bit extreme considering she believes her husband, Bernard, is still alive. If she thought he was dead then I could understand her post-traumatic symptoms. Maybe Locke’s ‘staring out at the ocean’ attitude has caught on. After all, Rose does share a similarity with Locke which may suggest why they both have a habit of sitting on the beach like a statue. So they’re both reflecting on what the hell is going on with their sudden change in abilities and feelings. Sounds legit enough.

Switching to the start of the hunt, Locke appears as even more of a boar freak by describing in detail about the behaviour of a boar. I even feel sorry for Michael. Thanks to Locke’s tracking skills which I will proudly give him credit for unlike his knowledge on boars, the threesome find a boar lurking in the jungle. It may be the same boar from last night because it sure was not happy. As it charges them and knocks Michael to the ground, Locke also somehow gets taken out. How I don’t know. As for Michael’s “injury”, even the marshal made less fuss than he did. As Locke recovers from being ‘knocked over’, we slip into his flashback which Locke himself seems to experience. There seems no need to go into detail about this part of his flashback apart from the mention of his walkabout which is the focus of the flashbacks. Also, the excellent way the flashes are set still give nothing away as to the significance of Locke moving his toes on the beach on the first day. The flash understandably motivates Locke to get up after a brief shot of him appearing to struggle with the movement of his legs. After randomly saying “Helen” in reply to Kate, we see how much Locke slipped into the flashback. After getting up we see how much Locke believes in his destiny that he should fight against his disability. He almost seems terrified of the flashback where he couldn’t walk and was being told what he can’t do. He feels he is haunted by the disability and by arriving on the Island, he has been given a chance to walk and he is going to make the most of it. After all he has his walkabout to make up for. During the scene where Kate and Michael aim for the beach where Kate see’s the monster heading for Locke while setting up the aerial, it’s obvious that the monster’s intentions are to find and observe Locke. Why not attack Kate and Michael? Goes to show that the monster has reasons for finding Locke and staring him out. At the scene where Locke faces the monster, I thought Locke’s reaction was a bit…bad considering this is the first time he sees the monster himself. Even though he has already realised that the Island is somehow different, as for the monster he has no idea of its capabilities. So why not run? This scene as you will all know caused a level of controversy as to what Locke actually saw. Did the monster show itself differently to how we see it? After all, Locke does say “What I saw…was beautiful”, so maybe he did see the monster in another way. It might also explain why he didn’t run. But his facial expression does show that something crazy did occur between them.

Back on the beach and at my favourite part of the episode for the reason I am about to mention, we now get to focus on Jack in a way which symbolises the start of his centric focus even before the next episode. Having obviously seen LOST all the way through, it’s obvious who we actually see when Jack sees his father stood on the beach. Yet at my first viewing, it really added a new spark to the episode. Not even knowing who the man in a black suit was at the time influenced more interest in this moment. Jack obviously knows who he saw so he runs towards him only to see him turn and walk away. After watching this a few times I read into it more and more until I realised something that this moment symbolises. Jack sees who we learn is his father but as Jack approaches him, he walks away.  Just like he did to Jack metaphorically in the past, and as Jack ‘gets close’ to his father, he disappears and later on, walks away. This is an unknown indication to him and his father’s relationship and it worked really well. Especially because Jack’s centric episode comes next after Walkabout. After running after the figure as he is known as at the time, Jack runs into a blood stained Locke, dragging a boar behind him. Make what you want of Locke’s appearance now from what we last saw of him. I don’t know what to think either.

Reaching the memorial, the event is dwarfed by another important key point in the episode. During the memorial, Michael asks Locke if he saw the monster. Locke tells Michael that he didn’t see anything. There could be many reasons for why Locke denied seeing the monster. However, I think Locke denied seeing the monster because he didn’t want to tell anyone what he actually saw. What I think Locke saw was something that symbolises fate or Locke’s destiny. Like the monster appeared as Jack’s father earlier, I think it appeared as something that convinced Locke about the Island and/or the monster. What exactly I have no idea. But he wanted to keep it a secret. More importantly, we see Locke’s final part of his flashback and it really is an eye opener to the episode’s meaning. Finding out Locke was disabled in a wheelchair is a shocking revelation and begs the reason why he wanted to go on a walkabout even though it is blatantly obvious after we see Locke shouting “It’s my destiny!”. It also opens up more questions of why can he walk now and how can he walk etc. A bit crazy but it explains Locke’s communion with the Island. Finishing the episode we see Locke stare at his wheelchair in front of the burning fuselage, yet we do not actually see it burning. Locke smiles in a way that suggests he feels he has defeated his disability. Symbolising an end to his disability in a way. On the subject, he also seems keen to not tell anyone of his disability. Maybe it’s because he doesn’t want anyone else to know of the Island’s power if he has got to this point in his theoretical  development of the Island.  Who knows.