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!

Sea. 1, Ep. 10: Raised by Another

The tenth installment of Lost's first season offers us a series of flashbacks centering on yet another character. Man, the breadth of personalities on this show is nothing short of amazing, and, as I've said before, it's one of the myriad reasons that people get hooked on the series.

"Raised by Another" shines the spotlight on the adorable Aussie and mother-to-be Claire. It opens with her in the midst of a terrible dream. She wakes in the middle of the night and hears a baby's cries. She wanders around, finding Locke sitting at a table. He's dealing cards (probably tarot cards) and he tells her that "everyone pays the price now" because she gave her baby away. As he looks up at her from the card table, we see that his eyes are two different colors: his right eye is black and his left eye is white. And like good Lost students, we'll take note of that. Departing from here, she continues to follow the cries of the baby. They lead her to a bassinet in the jungle which contains bunch of blankets. She sifts through the blankets to get to the baby, but there's nothing in them except blood. She screams, and her shrieks in the dream carry her back into reality where she continues to scream. Charlie tries to console her, but he's not very effective. Now, here comes the twist: the blood she had on her hands in the dream is present in reality, too! Spookiness, right?

The haunting dream sets the tone for the remainder of the episode, which has some other freaky-deaky stuff. On the island, it mainly has to do with Claire getting attacked by some unidentified assailant with a long syringe. Sadly, we won't find out who the culprit was 'til season two. But of course, we should know that it was Ethan. Remember? He was tryin' to make sure Claire delivered a healthy baby, 'cause it probably would've been the first one delivered on the island since Juliet delivered him in 1974 (season five).

Ah, yes. Ethan. He's another freaky-deaky part of the episode. Good ol' Hurley decides to keep a record of everyone on the island, and his episode-long efforts culminate in the discovery that Ethan wasn't on Flight 815. In the final scene, Ethan's got Charlie and Claire alone and cornered in the jungle. Viewing this for the first time, we don't know what's gonna happen. We don't even know if Ethan has bad intentions. But we find out soon enough!

So, someone's trying to do something to Claire's baby, we just don't know much more than that. What of the baby, though? I thought you'd never ask, dear reader! That's where the flashbacks come into play. And, you guessed it: more freaky-deakiness.

Turns out Claire got pregnant when she wasn't expecting it. Baby-Daddy was all about it in the beginning, but then he decided he didn't want any part of it, so Claire was going to deliver the child and give it up for adoption. That is, until she visited some Australian John Edward who kept giving her different stories regarding the future of the baby. At first he declined to give her any reading because something he saw spooked him (he later claimed that he saw a "blur," which was a bad sign). At a later reading, he told her that she couldn't give the baby up for adoption and that she was the only one who could raise the child. According to him, the baby needed Claire's good energy incorporated into its life. Disregarding the psychic's admonitions, she attempted to give the baby up to some lucky couple. She reached an agreement with a husband and wife and was about to sign the child away when some greater force intervened. The pen with which she was prepared to sign the contract didn't work, nor did a second pen. Holding a third pen, she hesitated and backed out of the deal, going back to the psychic who had told her that he had some sort of a solution to her problem.

Get on the plane to Los Angeles, was the solution the psychic offered. He told her that there was a willing couple there, but that she had to take a specific flight. Oceanic 815 to be exact. While recounting the story to Charlie, Claire realizes that the psychic probably foresaw the crash of the plane on the island and told her about the Los Angeles plan so that she'd be stranded halfway there with no alternative but to raise the child herself.

So, the big questions posed in this episode about Claire and her baby (Aaron) are yet to be answered. There's been no sign of Claire since the fourth season, but the producers have said that the mystery surrounding her will be addressed in the final slate of episodes. I have to say that it's a storyline that I'm looking forward to for next year. Claire's not among my favorite characters, but everything with her has been so weird since Keamy's troops attacked her island house in the fourth season. She up and left Aaron and then was chillin' out in Jacob's Cabin with the specter of Jack's father. Awesomely spooky, if you ask me.

And why's Aaron so important? What's happened to him since Kate left him with his grandmother before returning to the island? Why was it so important that he not be raised by anyone else but Claire? Has he been imbued with special powers because he was born on the island? And what was the blur in the psychic's vision? Smokey?

The questions, my friends, pile up. And there'd better be some good ones about Claire and Aaron in the sixth season. I'm sure there will be.

Sea. 1, Ep. 9: Solitary

Hello, gang.

I'm a little behind this week. It's Thursday and I'm finally getting to my first episode. In some countries, that's an offense that's probably punishable by death. Fortunately for me, I'm in the good ol' U.S. of A.

"Solitary" is our first Sayid-centric episode. Remember how he went off on a self-imposed exile at the end of the previous episode? Well, this one picks up that thread of the story, and we learn how the lovable Iraqi stumbles upon Danielle Rousseau (A.K.A. the French woman from the repeating distress call) and her hideout.

The episode begins with Sayid sitting alone on a beach, studying a snapshot of his love Nadia. Turning his gaze down the beach, he notices something odd in the sand. He approaches it to get a better look and finds that it's a cable running through the sand. It's coming from the jungle, and it goes out into the swells of the ocean. Naturally, Sayid follows the cable into the jungle, which leads him to a trap. Strung up like one of Locke's boars, Sayid dangles upside-down from a tree 'til someone comes along and cuts him down. Sayid loses consciousness and later wakes up tied to mattress-less bed with someone asking him "Where is Alex?" in several different tongues. Sayid hasn't the foggiest idea of what the voice is talking about, so he gets a nice jolt of electricity.

So, as stated earlier, the captor turns out to be Danielle Rousseau. And through the conversations between her and Sayid, we glean the following:

• Rousseau was part of a science team whose ship crashed into the island during a storm.
• Someone took her child Alex from her. Little do we know that it's a female rather than a male. Tricky unisex names!
• Her lover Robert gave her a music box for their anniversary. It hasn't worked for a while, so Sayid fixes it.
• She's the only survivor from her team. "The Others" carried something which the other Frenchies presumably caught. She had to kill them because they were "sick." Oh, and "the Others" can be heard to whisper in the jungle.

Not a terrible amount of information, but we're accustomed to that on Lost. Sayid manages to escape from her shelter, but they later run into each other again in the jungle. And guns are involved. More on that a little later.

The flashbacks in this episode show us more about Sayid's stint as an interrogator in Iraq's Republican Guard. Basically, Sayid was a BAMF. That is, until he was forced to interrogate an Iraqi cutie from his past named Nadia. She sorta breaks him down, and he tries to buy time to keep her alive. Eventually, Sayid's bosses press for her execution because she won't divulge any of the information that they're trying to extract from her. Torn about what to do, he orchestrates her escape, and she vows to see him again, whether in their current lives or in an afterlife. It's all quite sentimental, you know, but seasoned veterans of the show know how it all goes down.

"Solitary" is also notable for the first appearance of Ethan, about whom we'll soon learn more. He's only on the screen for about 30 seconds here, chumming about with Locke and delivering luggage to Hurley which contains golf clubs. Oh, that's the other thing: Hurley builds a golf course for the survivors. A bit of lighthearted fun that's all fluff and no substance.

Back in the jungle, there's a standoff between the escaped Sayid and Rousseau. Sayid pulls the trigger of the rifle he stole from Rousseau's place, but it doesn't work because she had removed the firing pin. She had done the same to her lover Robert several years ago and was forced to shoot him. The Iraqi and the Frenchwoman have a heart-to-heart, and Sayid asks her to join him and the other survivors because he feels they have the best shot to get off of the island, but she declines. As Rousseau and Sayid part ways, the former admonishes the latter to watch the 815 survivors closely. This makes a whole lotta sense after we see in the fifth season how things played out between the French team. As we now know, it turns out that the sickness was caused after the Smoke Monster dragged Robert and others down into the Temple. After that incident, they had subtly changed, and were somehow evil, which is why the pregnant Rousseau had to fill 'em full o' lead.

The episode closes with Sayid making his way back to the beach. Upon reaching some clearing in the jungle, he hears the whispers that Rousseau talked about surround him. As with the other mysteries of the island, there's been speculation about the significance and origin of the whispers. I wish I could take credit for it, but the most interesting theory I've heard so far is that the whispers are the voices of others who have inhabited the same area at different points in time. Now that we know how significant time travel has been in the history of the island, one can't help but wonder about time travelers running in and out of scenes that they weren't originally a part of. To clarify my muddied idea, indulge me in this example:

In season five, there's a scene in which the Losties left on the island are bouncing around in time, not sure of where they're going because the frozen wheel is skipping on its axis. During one of these time skips, Sawyer walks into the scene in 2004 where Claire gave birth to Charlie. Sawyer had been on the island in a different spot during that time, but as a time traveler he's embedded in the jungle and watching Kate serve as midwife. If there are any whispers during this scene in season one (and I don't think there are, but we'll see) then one could theorize that the whispers belong to the future Sawyer who's skipping around to different points in time.

Got it?

Well, if you don't, I don't blame you. Hell, that theory might not even be right. I only include it here because, as I said, I think it's pretty darn good. If you've anything to add about the whispers, feel free to leave some comments.

Thanks for reading!