2024 LOST Rewatch

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Chaplin

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Yeah I found it pretty appalling that the main characters seemed to instinctually treat Sawyer with disdain and disrespect.
Never once did they, "hey Sawyer...this chick lost her inhaler and is having an asthma attack...did you happen to find any inhalers in your travels?"
Treating him as a human rather than as an animal would have gone a long way in smoothing that road.
That’s true, but by that time, had he earned the benefit of the doubt? I don’t think he did.
 

oaken1

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That’s true, but by that time, had he earned the benefit of the doubt? I don’t think he did.
It wasn't just that though. They treated the guy like trash from the beginning. While everyone else got the benefit of ,"being in shock"

I mean, hell... Kate...gets reprieve after reprieve and never does anything but make stupid decisions and make bad situations worse...but is excused time and time again .Sawyer ain't a bad dude. Just a self loathing hustler who likes to play word games...but he is easy to deal within
 
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Chaplin

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It wasn't just that though. They treated the guy like trash from the beginning. While everyone else got the benefit of ,"being in shock"

I mean, hell... Kate...gets reprieve after reprieve and never does anything but make stupid decisions and make bad situations worse...but is excused time and time again .Sawyer ain't a bad dude. Just a self loathing hustler who likes to play word games...but he is easy to deal within
Well his first action on the island was being a racist and fighting Sayid. And stealing and concealing a gun. Not exactly the hallmarks of a guy that is accepted.
 
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Chaplin

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S1E9 Solitary

The previous two episode posts were more a rehash of each of those plots, so I'm not sure if I will continue to do that, or make these posts more like the first few episodes where it was talking about the major plot points and giving my opinion. I'm going to try that with this episode, one of my favorites of the whole series. Sayid is such a great character and this episode solidifies him as one of the truly "good" guys on the island.

We learn so much about Sayid in this episode. Up until now, we know a few things about him, but no a lot of details. He's an Iraqi who served in the Republican Guard, he is technology-savvy and has a history of torture in his background. He also has a mysterious woman named Nadia in his life, although in this episode he says that she died. He has a miltary background, and because of that hasn't completely bought into Jack's leadership, although we do see him defer a bit in this (and the last) episode.

We do see Sayid as a member of the Republican Guard, who gets promoted in the ranks because he is good at getting information out of insurgents, i.e. he's a master torturer. The flashback sequence centers on a person that is brought in to be "questioned." And it's Nadia! To me, that was a nice reveal and not what I expected when I first saw the episode. Naveen Andrews, being the great actor he is, is masterful at showing his doubt about what he is doing, especially to a childhood friend. Being a torturer isn't easy -- I mean, how can you just say, "Talk or I'm going to hurt you," to a woman you loved? The end of the flashback is a true cliffhanger, having Nadia escape at the end even though Sayid does say that she died in the present. So there is a lot more to the story.

In the previous episode, Sayid left the survivors, not being able to live with himself for the torture of Sawyer. His excuse is that someone has to map the island. On the island we first see him looking at his photo of Nadia, but out of the corner of his eye he notices something. An electrical cable is buried in the sand leading from the ocean into the jungle. This is the first man-made item that we have seen on the island. Of course, following it gets him trapped. He gets cut down and tied down to an electrical bed in some kind of underground bunker. WHAT?? A woman keeps asking, "Where is Alex?" in various different languages. Sayid explains about the plane crash, but the woman doesn't believe him. It is now when it is revealed that the woman, Danielle Rousseau, is the woman on the recording. Danielle is taken aback, marvelling that it has been 16 years. It is here that we start hearing the word "Others," a term that will gain importance as the series moves on. Is Danielle crazy, or are there other people on this island?

In order to gain some favor, Sayid repairs an old music box for Danielle, another scene which shows his technical savvy. Danielle provides a LOT of information here -- which can or cannot be a good idea in a show like this. I think in order to keep the mystery going, it's better to have her talk about it than show it because we still are not convinced she's not a crazy person. She arrived on the island with a team of researchers, all of which died -- detailed in the recurring message as "it killed them all." She says that the "OTHERS" are the carriers, though she has never met them. She says they whisper in the jungle. Sayid doesn't believe her.

He fixes the music box and while grateful, she isn't grateful enough to let him go. A roar is heard outside and Rouseau leaves, saying "there's no such thing as monsters." She obviously knows a lot about this island and like Sayid, it is frustrating to not get more about it. While she's gone, Sayid escapes his chains, grabs a rifle and a bunch of maps, and leaves. They cross paths again in the jungle, where Danielle reveals she killed her husband Robert becuase he was infected. She didn't want Sayid to leave because she is lonely. He now believes that his friends are his way off the island, so he asks Danielle to join him. She says no and they part. Sayid asks who Alex was, and it's revealed that Alex is her child.

A lot goes on during Sayid's island journey -- and all of it contributing to the growing mythology. Since Part 2 of the pilot, no episode has left with more questions than this one.

Back with the survivors, the B-Story finds the group playing a makeshift 2-hole golf course that Hurley created to let off some steam. People take to it, and Hurley once again proves to the guy who has the pulse of the survivors. We see some interesting character moments between Jack and Michael, Kate and Jack and especially Sawyer with the rest of the group, as he shows up and puts a bet on the proceedings. People are silent at first, but a few take him up on it -- this is the first real time we see some of the others accepting him.

Want to note that early in the episode, in the caves Locke returns after hunting with Ethan, another survivor. As we all know, Ethan becomes an important figure in the ensuing episodes.

And of course, the episode ends with Sayid walking in the jungle. All of a sudden he hears the monster, and then whispers.
 
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Chaplin

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S1E10 Raised by Another

This particular episode feels like the first of a 2-parter, with "All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues." The A-Story links them together with the inevitable reveal of someone who isn't part of the survivors.

The episode starts off with Claire having nightmares about someone trying to hurt her baby. She is utterly convinced that the nightmares are real, but nobody really believes her. Charlie acts like he does, but we know he doesn't based on the fact that he understands what it's like to believe something that isn't there.

The flashbacks center around Claire when she and her boyfriend Thomas find out they are pregnant. While cliched and predictable, it does provide some needed backstory for Claire, whose pregnancy had been a mystery throughout the first 10 episodes of the season. At first Thomas is thrilled, then of course he leaves her when the responsibility is too much.

What really stands out in the flashbacks is Claire's visits with Richard Malkin, a self-proclaimed psychic. Malkin is one of the many open-ended mysteries of the show that the creators never botthered explaining. They have since said in interviews that Malkin was a conman and not a psychic, but IMO that doesn't jive, especially in this episode. We'll never really know what made him have his premonitions about Claire, her son and Flight 815 (this is the first episode where the flight number is revealed).

Meanwhile, back on the island, Hurley decides that since they really don't know the rest of the survivors, he'll start a census. Makes sense and he starts interviewing the castaways. The best interaction is with Locke, who simply says he was a Regional Collections Supervisor at a box company. WHich sounds ridiculous based on his history so far.

Another of his interviewees is Ethan Rom, a passenger from Ontario. Ethan immediate evokes suspicion when he asks what it's for. We of course know why he's asking it, and William Mapother does a great job oozing menace behind his genial interactions with the group.

Luckily, Boone tells Hurley to just use the manifest to cross off everyone's name. And guess who has the manifest?

Hurley approaches Sawyer and pretty much demands the manifest. To me, this is one of the best scenes of the episode. I love it when characters that don't normally interact have an entertaining scene. Without any argument, Sawyer gives Hurley the manifest, no price necessary. The back and forth is great and it does show a hint of Sawyer's reintegration to the group. After all, he could use the points.

Meanwhile, Sayid finally stumbles into the caves revealing his meeting with Danielle Rouseau and claiming that they are not alone. Of course, this is where Hurly stumbles in, alarmed. He's found one person who he interviewed who was not on the manifest -- he wasn't on the plane. We already know who that is. The final shot of Ethan Rom staring down at Charlie and Claire is the stuff of nightmares.

NOTE: one thing that is interesting is why isn't Sawyer questioned? Did he use his alias to get an airplane ticket? If he used James Ford, then Sawyer would be unaccounted for as well. We just have to assume he used some variation of Sawyer to get on the plane.
 
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Chaplin

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S1E11 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

At the end of episode 5, "White Rabbit", Jack's mom tells him to go to Australia to fetch his father. Jack says, "No," but his mother angrily tells him that he isn't allow to say No after what he did. In episode 11 of Season 1, we get to see what he did.

This episode is a direct continuation of "Raised by Another." Yes, this is a serialized show and every episode is pretty much a continuation of the previous one. But while episode 10 was the lead up to Charlie and Claire getting kidnapped, episode 11 is the survivors' attempts to track and save them -- pushed on by a guilty Jack.

Guilt is a heavy theme of Jack's story -- guilt that he didn't believe Claire when she said she was in danger, guilt that he basically ruined his father's career, guilt that he never got to say goodbye to Christian before he drank himself to death.

The flashback centers on a single patient that dies on the table under Jack's watch. Thing is, he wouldn't be there if an anonymous nurse hadn't fetched him because his father's hands were shaking from a liquid lunch. Jack struggles in this episode in more ways than one. He struggles with the death of the patient, he struggles with supporting his father and lying about what really happened in the operating room, he struggles during his pursuit of Ethan and his hostages. In the end, he does the morally right thing, but ruins his father's life in the process when it's found out that the patient was pregnant when she died.

The bulk of the episode on the island is the search for Clarie and Charlie. After Hurley's bombshell that Ethan Rom wasn't a passenger on the plane, Jack, Locke, Kate and Boone head out to try to track them. On a side note, Michael is further alienated when Locke tells him not to come with them and Michael decides to go off on his own.

Jack is increasingly impatient leading to clashes with Locke about how to track down their quarry. Locke seems to know what he's doing, and in the course of the trek, it's revealed that Kate has some experience at tracking. Along the way, the group finds Charlie's finger bandages showing them the path. Eventually the path splits and the group splits as well. Kate goes with Jack and Locke takes Boone into the jungle.

A quick side scene, but a good one, is Sawyer, having being told by Walt that Sayid was back, goes to the caves and finds his torturer with a bad leg wound. Sayid is understandably under guard here and confesses to Sawyer that he felt ashamed for what he did. One funny part here is Walt saying that it's "stupid to lie about your name." Sawyer chuckles along with the rest of us that know that Sawyer is not his real name. There seems to be a very slight bonding between Sayid and Sawyer, without Sawyer taking any revenge.

Jack and Kate hear screams and hurry up an embankment. It's tough going and Jack slips and falls down the hill. When he looks up, Ethan is standing over him telling him to stop following them or he will kill one of them. Jack instead attacks and Ethan easily bests Jack, knocking him out. Kate wakes him later, but dazed, Jack gets up and runs off into the jungle. "Not again" he says.

They find Charlie hanging from a tree, unmoving. They cut him down and Jack desperately tries to resuscitate him. After several minutes, Charlie wakes up coughing.

Back in the caves, Charlie claims he doesn't remember anything, but it's hard to take that at face value considering he is probably suffering from PTSD. It's through Shannon that we realize that Locke and Boone still haven't returned.

Out in the jungle, Boone says they are lost. Locke tells him to go back to the caves, if he went now he can probably make there before dark. He tosses him a flashlight, which Boone misses and we are introduced to the single biggest cliffhanger of the show until now. The flashlight lands on something metal and hollow. They try to clear the mud away and it is clear that there is something man-made in the middle of the jungle.

- this is the first time we have a flashback from someone that has already had a flashback in an earlier episode
- Emily de Ravin (Claire) does not appear in this episode, although you can hear her screaming when Jack and Kate are searching. She was not credited in the opening credits
- This is the only episode of Season 1 that Yunjin Kim (Sun) does NOT appear in.

- There are some pretty famous music cues in this one -- the exploration motif during the search and the Life and Death them when Charlie was "dead." Both would be used a lot more in coming episodes and seasons.
 
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Chaplin

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NOTE: I'm not really that happy with the quality of my writing and I'm still trying to come up with a good format -- It's hard for me to NOT do a recap, which is why they have been so long. I'm liking the format of the last episode above, though, with some facts/trivia at the end.
 
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Chaplin

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I've got at least 4 episodes I need to recap, so hopefully those will come in the next day or two.
 

Bada0Bing

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Thanks. I was wondering if anyone was still paying attention.

I'm following along as well...just nothing to add. This is the perfect show to do a deep dive like this! I'll probably rewatch this show sometime down the line and this will be a handy guide.
 

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