LOST: White Rabbit

I've decided to do something a bit different in the reviewing of further Lost episodes, mostly because by now the show has fully immersed itself into the flashback/island format. I'll simply be splitting up each of these reviews into two parts: the events that take place on the island, and the events that take place in flashbacks. The format will stay the same, although I'll be able to draw greater conclusions from looking at the flashback and island stories side by side, and hopefully unveil some things I missed the first time around.

Flashback:

This portion of the episode, in itself, contains two stories. The first one involves Jack as a kid. He is threatened by school bullies, but his father offers little consolation for trying to stand up against them for the sake of his friend. In fact, he does the exact opposite. His father, Christian Shepard, tells young Jack that he can do the difficult job of a surgeon because he "has what it takes." He has the ability to make decisions that determine whether a patient lives or dies, and claims that Jack ultimately does not.

"I know this airport gets crowded, but I really don't think you need that many escalators."

Despite this, it's clear that Jack cares for his father anyway. Years later as an adult, he travels to Australia to retrieve Christian, who died from alcohol poisoning(that is, severe levels of alcohol in his blood, not his drink being poisoned). He argues to get his coffin on the plane, so that he can take Christian's body back home and bury it.

Although we know what Jack was doing in Australia, the question this part raises is what caused him to argue for his father's proper burial in the first place. We will see on the island that this flashback works well for the episode, and it's certainly written well because of how well the kid and adult roles tie together, so I think this part was successful. Whether or not Jack's character appeals to you at this point, there's still a lot to ponder.

Island:

On the island, we see Jack's uncertainty with his leadership abilities be reinforced with "visions" of his father, being unable to save a woman from drowning, and some of the people in the group questioning his decisions. At various points throughout the episode he runs off chasing a "white rabbit", or sight that he's not even sure is real, and once nearly gets thrown off the edge of a cliff before Locke steps in to save him.

It's also noteworthy to point out the first time references to Alice in Wonderland. Obviously the title is a glaring one, but other instances include Sawyer reading the actual book(Not sure, but it at least it has a rabbit on the cover), Locke calling Jack's "hallucination" a "white rabbit", and Jack almost falling off a cliff while following the white rabbit. And we will see many more instances of these, especially in Jack's episodes.

Unfortunately, Jack couldn't see that his father was just trying to do his business

I really enjoyed the conversation between Jack and Locke in the middle of the jungle. It's the establishment of the "man of science, man of faith" debate that goes back and forth throughout the series, with Jack trying to explain away the sightings of his father as a hallucination, and Locke countering by saying things like "we all know that this island is special." I'm getting pretty deep here, but I think that almost falling off the cliff was sort of a halfway "wake-up call" for Jack. Synonymous with almost falling down the rabbit hole, he realized that something bigger was going on, but didn't want to deal with that at the moment. He needed to stop chasing white rabbits and memories of his father in order to deal with the rest of the Losties and the freshwater caves that they had just discovered. This mini revelation culminated in his speech at the end, where he finally let his leadership qualities shine through; "If we can't live together, we're going to die alone."


This might sound like I'm trying to analyze what happened to Jack's character in this episode, but that's only because there wasn't much to criticize. The episode's effectiveness may come down to your feelings about Jack or the way he's acted, but for me this episode has stood the test of time well even with a somewhat weak B plot about the water shortage.

Score: 8

Best Quote: "If we can't live together, we're going to die alone."

Best Moment: The conversation between Jack and Locke.

WTF Moment: Jack almost falling off the cliff.

LOST: Walkabout

As hinted at by the creepy camera turn around Locke at the end of the previous episode, this one attempts to uncover the shroud of mystery that surrounds the character this early in the show. And it does so brilliantly. In fact, this is the best character introduction so far in the series. Albeit this is only the fourth episode, but his character is portrayed so well, which is a combination of the great writing and acting.

Locke could have sworn that he was wearing a white sock before the crash

The Losties have entirely run out of food by now, and Locke takes the opportunity to emerge from the nameless group of extras in the background and lead a hunting party into the jungle. In some flashbacks, we learn that Locke has a job that he doesn't really enjoy. He is constantly aggravated by his coworkers, and all he wants to do is go on a walkabout into the Australian outback. This is where the main theme of this episode sets in. In his past, Locke has this feeling that he is meant to do something greater, but his condition, being in a wheelchair, prevents him from doing so. On the island, he has the ability to fulfill this dream, and he seizes it. But he does so almost too smugly, leaving the other Losties to doubt his abilities, and he comes face-to-face with the smoke monster, setting a limit on his abilities after all, and forcing him to question his faith in his destiny himself.

"You know the difference between me and Professor X?
I make this look cool."

This, like many of the season one episodes, is a character building one, so there wasn't much that was too crazy, except that Locke was somehow healed by the island. I assume that this has something to do with him being a candidate for Jacob's spot. After all, we will later see that Jacob came to Locke after he fell from the building and gave him his touch. It also makes sense that Locke was merely scanned by the smoke monster, because it is revealed later that the man in black apparently cannot harm any of the candidates.

Another weird thing was the man in black appearing to Jack at almost the same time that the smoke monster was chasing Kate and Locke. So, after he scanned Locke, he immediately ran back to the beach and appeared to Jack? How does that make sense?

Oh, and it was funny how the typewriter-type machine that Locke was using at his job sounded exactly like the smoke monster. It actually makes metaphorical sense, too. Locke ultimately meets his match on the island with the smoke monster, and is also troubled by his job in the flashback. Ahh, you clever Lost writers. Always have to throw in an easter egg here and there, don't you?

Score: 8

Best Quote: "Don't tell me what I can't do!" (Not particularly clever, it was just well delivered)

Best Moment: The revelation the Locke was previously in a wheelchair.

WTF Moment: The same moment.

LOST: Tabula Rasa

As the title suggests, this episode centers around the idea of tabula rasa, or "clean slate" as it's translated from latin. Now that the Losties are stranded on the island with people that don't know them very well, they all have a chance to start their lives over. This idea will remain central to the show for a while now as we see flashbacks from the points of view of other characters, but the story is focused more around Kate this episode.


As hinted at in the pilot, Jack discovers from the dying US Marshal that Kate is a former criminal. This information starts to leak out to some of the other Losties, most importantly Hurley and Sawyer, but we still don't know what it is that she actually did. Sawyer eventually decides to just put the Marshal out of his misery with his remaining bullet, but he misses the heart and causes the Marshal to have a longer, more painful death. Locke returns Vincent to Walt, and there's some hope that the relationship between Walt and his dad will be sustained.


There weren't many clues in this episode that I could find, but this is expected because it's an early season one episode. One thing that is interesting, however, is the fact that the plane was already far off course before hitting turbulence and crashing on the island. This might suggest that Jacob had something to do with the plane crash, although Desmond is the one who caused the system failure that caused the turbulence. This will definitely be something to think about as I watch further episodes.

Score: 8

Best Quote: "Three days ago we all died. We should all be able to start over."

Best Moment: The camera rotating around Locke's head at the end. It's a nice lead-in to the next episode.

WTF Moment: It's not a very big moment, but the Marshal surviving the gunshot was surprising.

LOST: Pilot

In addition to the other Science Fiction shows that I have started, I will be going through all the Lost episodes from start to finish. Especially since the series recently ended, I plan to look at each episode with a closer eye and catch some things that I didn't see the first time around. Because of this, these reviews will focus more on the mysteries surrounding Lost than the actual quality of the episodes. I will still be rating each one, but I won't necessarily be explaining why or be going into extreme detail. Instead, they will be more like lists of noteworthy things that can hopefully help answer some things that were never explained. I will obviously be going into this with knowledge of the whole show, so again, I won't be using discretion for spoilers.

In the first episode of Lost, Jack wakes up to find a chaotic scene on the beach, with people scrambling every which way in panic among the remains of the downed plane. The survivors start to get to know each other, and develop some hostilities over who was the criminal that was being escorted by the US marshal. Several members of the main cast go on a hike to get the radio transceiver from the plane working, but their call for help is hindered by a message transmitted from somewhere else on the island.

The first thing that caught my eye was the black piece of something lying next to Jack in the very first scene. The closest thing that I can think of is a telescope, but other than that, I have no idea why it's there. It's probably nothing, but I just wanted to point that out.


Upon second viewing, the monster, or "smokey", or the "man in black" snatching the pilot from the plane is more interesting. (By the way, I like the pun with this being the pilot episode and the dead pilot seen at the end of the first part). Now that we know more of what the man in black actually is, we can draw some conclusions about the attack. It's important to note that the man in black does not attack anybody but the pilot in this episode. Jack, Charlie, and Kate run for their lives, but there is never any clear indication that the monster is after them. I think the plane is the key. Perhaps the man in black wanted to see if the plane was still operational, and the pilot was in the way.



Score: 10

Best Quote: "Guys, where are we?"

Best Moment: Locke smiles at Claire with an orange in his mouth

WTF Moment: The Losties find a polar bear