Sea. 1, Ep. 17: ...In Translation

Wow. It's hard to believe, but we're nearing the end of the first season. Before we know it, we'll be meeting Desmond, Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko and seeing what's inside that mysterious hatch. But for now, we have to deal with a Jin-centric episode. "...In Translation" fills in some of the missing pieces from the Sun-centric episode we reviewed earlier (House of the Rising Sun).

In the beginning, the survivors on the beach are awkward onlookers as Jin berates Sun for wearing a two-piece bathing suit that reveals a whole lotta skin. He forcefully covers her up and knocks her down to the sand in his efforts, sparking Michael to step in and break up the couple. Michael thinks he's doing the just and noble thing until Sun slaps him 'cross the mouth. Ouch. Sun later apologizes to Michael (in English, of course), but he ain't havin' it. His pride's been hurt.

But Michael's not sweating it too much (well, not 'til later on). We can see that he's made a tremendous amount of progress on the raft. I've always had a little problem with how nice and neat the raft looked, but what can I do? It's just a minor complaint. The raft is big enough to accomodate four, and Jack is disheartened to learn that Sawyer has secured one of the spots.

It looks like the raft will be ready to go in a few short days. But that night people come running from all directions to see the conflagration that was Michael's vessel. Someone has set it ablaze, completely ruining it. Naturally, Michael fingers Jin as the culprit because of what happened between them that morning. An irate Michael demands Sun to tell him where Jin is. She doesn't reveal his whereabouts, but Sawyer finds him in the jungle.

Cut to the beach again the next day. The survivors are ready to lynch Jin because they're certain that he destroyed the raft. Of course, he can't defend himself due to the seemingly indomitable language barrier. I say seemingly because this is the huge turning point where Sun reveals to everyone--Jin included--that she can speak English. She is able to translate for a stunned Jin so that the others can hear his side of the story. Everyone is quite flabbergasted by this revelation ('cept for Michael and Kate) and it threatens to destroy Jin and Sun's relationship. Jin packs up his belongings and moves it to the beach, giving Sun the proverbial cold shoulder.

Things are in disarray. Namely the raft and some of the relationships on the island. In a mildly interesting final scene we learn who the true culprit was. Locke and Walt play some backgammon (black and white again!) and have a friendly chat. Then Locke asks Walt why he torched the raft. Walt's cornered, and he tells Locke that he doesn't want to move anymore. He's done it all of his short life and he's sick of it. You sorta feel for the little dude.

The flashbacks in this episode pair up nicely with those seen in "House of the Rising Sun" because we get to see some of the events that transpired in that episode from Jin's perspective as opposed to Sun's. We see that Jin takes a job working for Sun's father Mr. Paik (a veddy, veddy bad man) and that he's forced to do some unpleasant things to earn his keep. Remember how the Kwons' relationship devolved in "House of the Rising Sun" as Jin was sucked into his job? And recall that he stumbled home one evening with another man's blood on him? Well, we see where that red, red kroovy came from. Mr. Paik makes Jin "deliver a message" to someone with whom he's not pleased. Jin doesn't understand that this is the universal code of mafia types and that it means "kick the living snot out of that fellow."

So Sun's father is indirectly responsible for her tumultuous relationship with Jin. They're in need of counseling. But they don't go together. Jin pays a visit to his father to talk things over. Earlier in the episode, we were under the impression that Jin's father was dead. But Jin only makes it seem that way because he's ashamed of his father's lowly livelihood as a fisherman. And, oh, the irony is so rich. Jin's father offers him some sagely advice: don't work for Mr. Paik anymore! What genius!

Other things of note:

• The blossoming romance between Sayid and Shannon. Blech. I'm thoroughly convinced that this development in the storyline coincided with the writers' decision to kill Shannon off in the second season. If Sayid hadn't entered the picture romantically, there would've been no one on the island who cared a lick about this awful, awful character (remember that Boone will be dead by the time Shannon kicks the bucket).
• Locke serves as the voice of reason in this episode. First, he tells Shannon that she ought not to worry about what Boone thinks because his only goal is to win her attention (he sells out his hatch partner!). Secondly, at the beach he lectures about the real threat on the island. He reminds them that they all know there are others on the island and it's futile to pick fights within in the group when they should unite against the other unknown presence on the island. Right on, John Locke.
• The episode ends on a humorous note when the batteries in Hurley's CD player finally quit on him. You'll remember that his CD collection has provided the music for several of the episode-ending musical montages. Does this mean there'll be no more after this? I can't recall, but I think it might be.

Join me next time for the awesome Hurley-centric "Numbers."

Sea. 1, Ep. 16: Outlaws

Judging by the title of this episode, you can probably make an educated guess that it's going to revolve around either Kate or Sawyer. If you chose the latter, then you've won some sort of grand prize. Not from me, though. I don't have anything to give you.

But it really is a Sawyer episode, and it opens up in a most heartbreaking fashion: we watch the young Sawyer hide under his bed while his father shoots his mother and then turns the gun on himself as he sits on the bed above the boy. It's quite tragic, but it provides us a narrow window into James Ford's psyche.

On the island Sawyer is reliving this memory as a nightmare, and when he wakes up in his tent on the beach, he's surprised to find someone (something, rather) rustling around at the opposite end of his tent. It turns out to be a boar, and it makes off into the jungle with some of Sawyer's things. He gives chase and ends up in the jungle, surrounded by ominous whispers. It's those damned whispers again! I have trouble understanding exactly what they say, but the entry for this episode on Lostpedia asserts they're saying, "it'll come back around." I suppose that makes sense seeing as how Duckett (the man Sawyer shot in Australia) says it as he's dying.

So Sawyer spends most of episode tracking the boar that did him wrong. It attacks him on two more occasions. The first time it chases him, and the second time it ransacks more of his stuff. All of this leaves our tough guy thoroughly pissed. Kate's also trying to help him, but doing it for reasons of her own. Earlier, Jack told Kate that Sawyer still had a gun, which he claimed he was okay with. But Kate is confident that she can get it back from Sawyer. She subsequently offers her tracking skills to help him find the boar in return for "carte blanche," which she'll obviously use to get the pistol back. It's all quite complicated and yet another time in the series where this lust triangle creates all sorts of problems. As I've said before, I couldn't care less about their three-way melodrama. Just give me the science-fiction, thank you very much.

Somewhat related to the lust triangle is the game of "I Never" played between Sawyer and Kate. I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention that they played it. It provided them the opportunity to trade barbs with each other, and at the end of it all you can tell that there are some bruised egos and hurt feelings. The scene actually takes quite a chunk out of the episode, which I didn't recall it doing. Oh, well. Outlawzzz bein' outlawzzz, I guess!

All right. The majority of what I like to think of as the episode's "filler" has been covered. What's really cool about this episode is the flashbacks. We've already mentioned the scene that changed young little Sawyer permanently. What of the others? The past few chapters have concentrated on character development, and there's nothing wrong with that. But in "Outlaws" we're witness to the chance meeting that Sawyer and Christian Shephard had in a bar down under. The two knock back liquor like it's water and Sawyer gets to learn a little bit about the good doctor before he even meets him. It's a great instance of the interconnectivity between the survivors of Flight 815. It's great because it's one of the first times we see how these strangers are inexorably tied together. And, judging from the fifth season finale that showed Jacob selecting these people off of the island, we certainly must ponder why destiny brought these disparate personalities together (do I sound like Locke here?).

We can also further observe how Sawyer wrestles with his demons via the other major flashback. We learn that Sawyer was in Australia because he had information about the man who had ruined his parents' lives. The guy now runs a shrimp stand in the Outback, and Sawyer pays him two visits. The first one allows Sawyer to meet the man he's been hunting all of his life face-to-face. The two engage in some strained yet mundane conversation, and then Sawyer vanishes. The next time he comes, he puts a bullet in the man (lo and behold, two consecutive episodes with shootings!). Of course, we don't learn until the third season that Sawyer has killed an innocent man. Well, he may not have been innocent, but he wasn't the "Sawyer" that James was actually seeking. That S.O.B. actually fathered another one of the 815 survivors (the interconnectivity again!), and the two become a strange pair of allies as they team up to kill him. If you don't know of whom I speak, then I'll just let you remain in the dark for now. But seasoned Lost fans should remember this.

And so, those are the main highlights of this excellent episode. One of my favorite parts of the flashbacks is having my opinions of the characters altered, and I feel that takes place for me here with Sawyer. Sawyer's a changed man after he kills that man in Australia. After that, brother can't even shoot a boar that wronged him.

Sea. 1, Ep. 15: Homecoming

"Homecoming" is the episode that features the return of Claire (remember the end of the previous installment?). Only there's a problem: she don't remember nothin' 'bout what done happened to her! But even though "Homecoming" seems like it'd be billed as Claire-centric, most of the emphasis (including the flashbacks) is placed on Charlie, who's still torn up about his sweetheart's abduction and his inability to set things straight (tuck that last nugget of info away for later).

So, here's the gist of what goes down: Ethan confronts Charlie and Jin in the middle of the jungle and demands of Charlie that Claire be returned to him. Sheesh. It appears that Ethan's more obsessive than one of Driveshaft's groupies. He claims that if he doesn't get Claire back by the end of the day, he'll kill one of the 815 survivors. And if the holdout continues, he'll keep offing them one by one on a daily basis 'til they're all dead. The icing on the cake is that he'll kill Charlie at the very end.

Of course, this means that the survivors have to spring into action to save their own. Now it's not the first time we've seen it, but this development in "Homecoming" leads to another instance of the emerging conflict between Jack and Locke. After learning about Ethan's demands from Charlie, the two debate about the best way to ward off Ethan's threat. In the end, Jack bends to Locke's will and follows his approach. They will set up a few sentries around the beach during the night and keep the rest of the people in the dark about what might happen. It appears that all is going to plan until Boone dozes off in the dark. He wakes sometime during daybreak when the alarm (a bag with bottles and cans set off by a trip wire) rattles and clanks, and he jumps into action. He's too late, though, because Ethan has made good on his threat and eliminated one of the survivors (a dude named Scott Jackson). Fortunately for us, it's no one we recognize. [Editor's Note: Although it looks like Boone is to blame, Kate remarks that Locke said Ethan came in from the water, meaning the perimeter setup was pretty much useless. I'll continue to blame Boone, though. He's a young guy. He shouldn't have fallen asleep so easily!]

In light of Ethan's success, the survivors change up their game plan. Jack tells Locke about the Marshal's guns, which will obviously provide them with a tremendous advantage. They scheme to cast Claire out as bait so that they can jump Ethan and apprehend him. Despite Charlie's protestations, they go ahead with the plot. It works perfectly. A number of them surround Ethan, and after a fist fight concludes it looks like they'll be able to bind him up and extract information from him. But then Charlie impetuously shoots their captive. Way to go, sport. Save for Sawyer's shooting of the Marshal, this proves to be the first of many deaths-by-gunfire on Lost. And I doubt that any of us would've pegged Charlie to be the first shooter.

Oh, one last note: that scene with Ethan's capture and death plays out in the pouring rain. It's the leitmotif that remains inexplicable.

Charlie's flashbacks show us that the washed-up rock star was a low-life junkie with a heart of gold. In need of cash to maintain his flow of smack, Charlie preyed on a young woman whose father had a load of dough. The plan was to steal valuables and pawn them for quick cash before disappearing for good, but Mr. Crooked Jaw fell for the lass. He even took a job selling photocopiers for her father so he could impress her. Too bad he'd already stolen from her. Otherwise he could've set things straight! Huh?! See the parallel between the on-island happenings and the flashbacks? Pretty clever writers, eh?

So that's a straightforward assessment of the episode. Doesn't look like Ethan has superhuman strength after all, otherwise those bullets might've bounced off of him. Other than that, I think the largest thing to take away from this episode is the opposing forces of Jack and Locke. They don't clash too badly here, but it's definitely an prelude of things to come as they both vie for positions of leadership.

Thanks for reading!

Sea. 1, Ep. 14: Special

For a number of reasons, I've been eager to review this episode ever since I began the Rewatch a couple of weeks ago. Firstly, I only remember having seen this episode once before. I had spun through each of the first season's installments at least twice, but for some reason I think I only watched this one during my initial introduction to the series. Maybe I passed it over because I had written Walt and Michael off for the most part, but that leads me to another reason why I've been looking forward to documenting "Special." I want to know why the writers created all the hype around Walt and his "special" qualities only to remove him from the show, for all intents and purposes, during the second season. I understand that Malcom David Kelley, who portrays Walt, was on the precipice of puberty and that his real-life growth wasn't going to mesh with the timeline established on the show. I'm sure the writers were cognizant of this, too. So why did they devote a whole episode to emphasizing how unique Walt is if they didn't plan to flesh it out further? Is there going to be some sort of payoff for Walt fans in the cataclysmic sixth season? And will the litany of questions about this show ever cease?

But what of the episode itself, you ask? Okay. Let me get to it.

On the island, Michael searches for Walt. He's furious to find that his son is once again hanging out with the mysterious John Locke. Walt's learning how to throw knives like a circus pro, but Michael ain't havin' it. Locke tries to stick up for the boy, telling Michael that he should treat his son like an adult because the plane crash and the subsequent survival has given him a whole host of life experience. He also stresses that Walt is "different" somehow, the episode's first reference to Walt's vague powers.

Stewing over his confrontation with Locke, Michael declares that he will build a raft and try to sail away from the island. He feels that everyone has become too complacent and that no one's attempting to get back to their regular lives. He baldly tells Walt that he wants to control their destiny. It's another mention of that oft repeated concept.

Troubles continue for Michael, though, as he gets Walt to help him assemble materials for a raft. Walt wanders off under the pretense of procuring water, but Michael later finds him chumming around again with Locke (even though Locke is admonishing the boy to respect his father's wishes and stay away from him). The ensuing fight causes Walt to storm off. Michael needs to search for his son, and Locke assists him. It's a good thing he does, because Walt has run afoul of another one of the island's polar bears, and Michael and Locke need to work together to rescue the lad. Ultimately, they do, and everything is peachy keen and hunky dory after that.

The flashbacks in "Special" shed light on the reasons for the turbulent relationship between Michael and Walt. Just when you think that Michael is somewhat of an obnoxious, overbearing father, you get to see his side of the story and realize that Walt's mother treated him very unfairly. The witch even intercepted all of Michael's correspondence to his son. Walt had been living with his lawyer mother and lawyer step-father in Australia when she suddenly took ill and passed away. With Walt's mother removed from the equation, Walt's step-father wanted nothing to do with the young boy. He laid it all on Michael and essentially said that Walt weirded him out. A livid and reluctant Michael did the noble thing and flew to Sydney to take custody of his biological son. And we all know what happened on their return flight over the Pacific.

Other notes:

• I had forgotten that Michael nearly suffered the same fate as Sayid's beloved Nadia. After learning on the phone half a world away that Susan was with another man, an angered Michael recklessly storms into the street and his hit by an oncoming car. Was this Jacob's will? Or Jacob's adversary's will? If it was Michael's destiny to end up on the island with Walt, then it makes sense that he would survive this accident. We also see in the fourth season that Michael couldn't even kill himself when he drove a speeding car into a wall because Tom tells him that he still has business with the island. This wouldn't be an earth-shattering revelation. I'm just noting the coincidence of two characters being hit by cars in busy streets.


• Walt's powers are further scene in a flashback episode involving his mother and step-father. Droning on about birds he's learning about in school and angered that Susan and Brian are ignoring what he's saying, he shouts at them. In the same moment, a bird crashes into one of the room's windows and plummets to the ground, apparently dead. As the camera switches from the dead bird to Walt's book and zooms in, we see that the bird featured on the open page is the same one that just pulled a kamikaze into the window. So this means that Walt can will creatures toward him if given the proper motivation? We don't know for certain. Again, it appears to be a vague power and one that still has yet to be addressed by the show.

The final scene of the episode neatly presents a segue to the succeeding one as a bewildered Claire stumbles out of the jungle and greets Locke and Boone. Boy, howdy. At this point in the first season, things're gettin' good.

So, as usual, we've recapped an entertaining episode. I still have that bone to pick with the writers and their emphasis of Walt's unique abilities, though. I'm hoping that I've forgotten some of Walt's more specific talents and that further progress into the Rewatch will jerk the rusty chain that's attached to the lightbulb in my head.

Sea. 1, Ep. 13: Hearts and Minds

The first episode on the agenda for the fourth week of the Lost Rewatch is the Boone-centric "Hearts and Minds." If you've forgotten about this particular episode and you're groaning because it centers around Boone, let me remind you that it's a sordid tale of semi-incestuous relations, psychedelic head-trips, and screwy compasses. That's right. This episode nearly has it all!

In the beginning, we revisit Locke and Boone and the hatch that they've discovered somewhere in the jungle. Locke has plans to patiently devise a scheme to break into the hatch, but he wants to test Boone before he takes on the young Padawan as his hatch-cracking apprentice. Locke knocks Boone out cold and ties him up in a complicated fashion. One of Boone's arms is in front of him, and the other is behind. Whenever he leans forward, a tremendous amount of pressure is placed on the shoulder of his rear arm. It looks like torture. Locke applies some strange paste that he concocted earlier to the fresh wound on the back of Boone's head, and then he plants a knife just out of his reach, telling him that he'll be able to cut himself free once he finds the "proper motivation."

That motivation comes in the form of Shannon's screams. He calls to her and learns that she's also been bound to a tree by Locke. He forces himself forward to barely grasp the knife and proceeds to cut himself free. Then he goes after his step-sister, in whom Smokey has apparently taken interest. He frees her and they run off. They evade the Smoke Monster for a while, and Boone spills the beans about the hatch (precisely what Locke didn't want him to do), but their luck eventually runs out and Shannon's snatched and mutilated by Smokey.

Boone seeks vengeance that night, finding Locke and attacking him for what he did. But wait a second! None of it happened! It turns out that Locke is somewhat of a shaman, and that strange paste that he placed on the open wound on Boone's head had some hallucinogenic properties. 'Twas all imagined in Boone's head. But he passed the test, because he tells Locke that he felt relieved when he came across Shannon's shredded corpse. For Locke, this means that he can trust that Boone will no longer desire to gab about the hatch to his step-sister. It appears that the young Padawan is ready to become a full-fledged Jedi.

Of course, I've neglected the flashbacks in my synopsis. They show what the two step-siblings were doing in Australia. Boone was there to rescue his cherished step-sister from an abusive boyfriend, something that he had apparently done on two other occasions. Why did he keep doing it? Boone had been "in love" with Shannon from an early age. And that's where the semi-incestuous part comes into play: they consummate their bizarre relationship by bumping uglies shortly before they get on the doomed flight.

We also hear a small bit about how Boone's mother (Shannon's step-mother) had gipped her out of a nice chunk of change. It's just a little piece of information to tuck away for now, because we'll later learn about the troubles that followed Shannon after her father died in a car accident.

Other notes:

• The first mention of a strange magnetism on the island. Locke gives Sayid a compass (saying he doesn't need it anymore) and Sayid soon finds that the directions are skewed. He shares the information with Jack, saying that only a large magnetic disturbance could cause such an aberration. Looks like the writers knew what would be contained in the hatch before we even got past the door!
• Kate learns of Sun's secret English abilities. While gardening with the Korean, our fugitive notices something in Sun's body language as she listens to Kate talk. Kate calls her on it, and Sun realizes that she can no longer keep it a secret from her. Of course, we still have to wait a little while for Jin to get wind of this.

Even though these early episodes follow a lot of different characters, I just can't shake my funny feelings about Locke. They continue in this episode. How does he know how to make his strange drug? How can he navigate the jungle without needing a compass any longer? The questions linger without any solid answers. I keep beating this dead horse, I know, but I won't be surprised to find out that Locke has never been the John Locke we thought we knew. Or the John Locke with whom we became acquainted through his flashbacks. Something's been odd from the beginning, and they might drop a larger Locke bomb on us next season than the one we saw at the end of the fifth season.

Thanks for reading. Please, comment away! It'd be a tremendous help to know how many people (if there are any) are stopping by to read my Lost thoughts!

Sea. 1, Ep. 12: Whatever the Case May Be

The Lost Rewatch's third week closes with the Kate-centric episode in which she and Sawyer find the case that had belonged to the U.S. Marshal on Flight 815. But it's no ordinary case. It holds some sort of special significance for our feminine fugitive.

Kate and Sawyer liberate the case from the bottom of a small lake they find in the jungle. The two explore the depths and spot two bloated corpses still fastened into their plane seats. (Let me just add here that these two corpses, which I'm sure were supposed to look disturbing and/or frightening, are just comically unrealistic. Well, I've never seen any waterlogged corpses, but I'm sure they look a lot more disgusting than the two featured here.) Underneath them is the case that becomes the object of Kate's affection.

We witness how shifty and sly Kate is, as she tries to convince Sawyer that she's not very interested in the case when he believes the opposite. Later on, she tries several times to lift it from him, betraying the cool and collected indifference she once professed about the case's contents. When she's unsuccessful in getting the case from Sawyer, she tries to pull one over on the good doctor. She tells him the unadulterated truth about the case, its contents, and how to open it. They have to exhume the Marshal's body, because the key was in his wallet. When they dig the guy up, Kate attempts to earn another Academy Award nomination by sneaking the key out of the wallet and then pretending to be upset that it's not there. But Jack knows better and demands to inspect her hands. Tsk tsk, Kate.

Eventually they open the case together, and in addition to all of the Marshal's guns and ammunition there's a small green envelope. As the suspense builds for the audience (what the hell's in there?!), Kate slowly withdraws a miniature toy airplane from the envelope. Um, what? Jack, like us, thinks there's more to it, and demands to know what's so damned important about it. All she can tell us is that it belonged to the man she loved. When pressed further by Jack, she exclaims that it belonged to the man she killed. She then breaks down, and we think, Oh, right. She was a fugitive. We don't know any better at this juncture, but we'll learn later that it actually belonged to a guy who indirectly died as a result of Kate's actions. It was her childhood friend Tom. She didn't actually murder him. She murdered her father.

Reinforcing this outlaw image, the flashbacks show us how Kate duped a whole bunch of people to get her hands on the plane in the first place. Some dude that she was with at the time orchestrated a bank heist, and she played the foil. She acted as a helpless victim so that the bank manager would allow the robbers access to the bank's vault. But once they were back there, she turned it all around on her beau so that she could get into a safe deposit box (GASP! She wanted access to box #815!). She put a bullet in each of the bad guys and then coerced the manager to open the box. Inside was nothing but an envelope, which I would guess held the plane that she so desperately wanted.

Other things of note in this episode? More of Maggie Grace's atrociously awful acting skills. When Shannon gets upset by Sayid's frustration, I always burst out laughing at what terrible range Ms. Grace possesses. I know that Shannon was written as a whiny, spoiled brat, but you'd think that Maggie could have some sort of two-dimensional whininess rather than the one-dimensional version she delivers. It's really, really bad.

Oh, and Rose rains on Charlie's self-pity party. A bit of tough love, and it seems to slightly help the recovering junkie as he worries about Claire.

This episode doesn't strike me as terribly deep, especially since Locke is absent. It's simply an opportunity to learn a little more about Kate's past. But even then, we don't learn too much. Just that she's an outlaw with a heart of gold.

Sea. 1, Ep. 11: All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

We've made it to the fourth week of the Rewatch, yet I'm still finishing up the third week's episodes. I've spent a lot of time in the car during the past week shuttling myself between two family vacation spots, so I've fallen behind in the schedule. But I'm now back in front of my computer for the foreseeable future, and productive I shall be.

At the beginning of the previous post, I marveled at how many different characters there are on the show and how the writers kept centering on a different man or woman in each episode. Well, I spoke too soon, because today's episode is a character's first repeat episode: "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" is the second Jack-centric tale. But that's okay, because we always learn a bit more about the Losties through another 40-minute installment. And Jack's deep. And layered. He's a well. He's an onion. Actually, strike that. Jack and his father are both wells and onions. Drs. Well and Onion M.D.s.

Joking aside, this episode has some heavy stuff. Let's get to it.

On the island, everyone's in a mad scramble because Hurley's census revealed that Ethan--who had been living amongst the survivors of Flight 815--was not on the flight's manifest, which means that he had already been on the island. They're also scrambling because Charlie and Claire have gone missing. Oh, and they also remember that someone or something has been trying to harm Claire during the night. They're all in a tizzy over it, 'cept for Sawyer.

Conveniently, Jack and Kate are experienced trackers. Jack and Boone join them as they tenaciously tail the missing Brit and Aussie through the jungle. Jack and Kate are a pair, and Locke takes the young Boone under his wing. The former find Ethan and the moribund Charlie, but no Claire. The latter find something else entirely, and it'll keep 'em busy for many episodes.

Before I tackle what each pair finds, allow me to gloss over the flashbacks. They're quite good, but there's no need to recap them in great depth here. They simply involve Jack and his father Christian, who struggled with an alcohol problem. Christian botched an emergency surgery because he had a few cocktails with his lunch while he was on call and it resulted in the patient's death. He tried to coerce Jack into covering for him, and Jack nearly did 'til he had a crisis of conscience. He wound up telling a review board that his father was a boozer, and it presumably led to Christian's termination as Chief of Surgery. And that's probably why he went on the bender down under that killed him.

There. Now back to the island.

Jack and Kate follow the trail of tape that Charlie left for them. Remember how Charlie wears tape around his fingers? And he writes letters on them? L-A-T-E? Well, he hung them on different branches as a trail. It leads Jack and Kate to a rain-soaked showdown with the all-powerful Ethan, who proceeds to beat the living snot out of Jack, threatening that he'll kill either Charlie or Claire if they don't stop following him. Of course, Jack and Kate don't listen and proceed the chase. They come upon Charlie, blindfolded and hanging from a tree. They take him down and, in a bizarre scene, Jack tries to resuscitate the rock star to no avail. It looks as though Dominic Monaghan's run on Lost is a short one, because the sad music's playing and he's not showing any signs of coming back to life. Then, in a fit of frustration, a sobbing Jack beats on Charlie's chest as Kate has to turn away in disgust. Inexplicably, Charlie gasps back to life after Jack pummels his chest for what seems to be the thirtieth or fortieth time. After a moment of exultation, they get him back to the beach and beseech him to tell them what happened. Charlie can't remember, except that "they" only wanted Claire.

One of the greatest questions surrounding this scene is Ethan's apparently gargantuan strength. I know others have speculated on it, but I have to say that I don't really see any superhuman strength here. I mean, there's the comment about how he can whisk a grown man and a pregnant woman away into the jungle by himself. I suppose that's impressive. But he doesn't appear to have ungodly strength when he fights Jack. He just gets at him and gets at him good, I say. But if Ethan were to have super strength, the best explanation would involve his birth on the island, which we see in the fifth season. That would also explain why he was so enamored of Juliet when he met her in the third season (since she successfully delivered him in 1974), but, once again, I'm getting ahead of myself. Let's just say that Ethan's strong. Maybe not incredibly ultra-strong, but strong.

In the other search party, Mr. John Locke continues to mystify us. This is the episode in which he finds the fabled hatch with Boone, a plot development that will consume the majority of his actions for the remainder of the first season. Before that, though, we would be wise to examine the scene in which he predicts the onset of rain with uncanny accuracy. As he marches along with Boone, he turns and announces that it will rain in "one minute...give or take a few seconds." And, like clockwork, the skies above Locke and Boone open up about 60 seconds later. Seeing as how Locke remains an enigma, even in these early episodes where we think we should know him better, I'm hard pressed not to attribute this prediction to some special resonance with the island. When first viewing this episode, I think I counted this talent among his many survival skills (boar hunting, tracking). But dude's way too good, right? It's just a bit too convenient. We're going to have to remember that ambiguous interaction Locke had with Smokey and not be surprised when we learn in the sixth season that he's never been the John Locke we thought we knew. I'm just saying...

Further proof is shown in one of the final scenes of the episode. As night sets in, Boone thinks they should call it a day and head back home. But Locke ain't havin' it. Here's their brief little exchange:

Boone: Are we lost?

Locke: No, Boone. We're not lost.

Boone: Sorry. It's just...I don't see how you can still be following this trail. I think we should go back, man.

Locke: Don't you feel it?

Boone: Feel what?!

Locke: It!

At this point, Boone throws in the towel, telling Locke that he's headed back. Locke's okay with it, and even turns around to give Boone his flashlight. He tosses it to the younger one, but it falls through his grip and lands with an odd, metallic clunk. Lo and behold, it's the hatch.

So, again we're faced with a question about Locke. What was the "it" he was referring to? Is the finding of the hatch more evidence of his special commune with the island, or was it simply dumb luck? Maybe the electromagnetism contained in the hatch was pulling at the fillings in his teeth? Again, it's hard to say definitively, but I'm gonna lean toward the special commune. Looking back on these episodes, it becomes clearer and clearer that the writers had something special planned for Locke from the very start. All of these incidents can't all possibly be coincidence.

Look, that last line rhymed. That means I should wrap this up and hit the hay. I'll be back at it tomorrow with "Whatever the Case May Be."

Thanks for reading!