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WWW | LOST: What Kate Did and The 23rd Psalm

If you do not mind, I will begin at the beginning. No, not the beginning beginning. Just the beginning of “What Kate Did.”

— Today is an Eko-heavy day here on the Watching With Wigler rewatch of LOST. We begin with the aforementioned Kate Austen episode, which finally reveals the real reason why our favorite fugitive on the island is on the run … and also sheds some light on the most intriguing new character on the series to date.

— Let’s focus first on Kate. After almost a season and a half without an answer, well, here it is: Kate blew up her step-father, Wayne. The reason: Kate learned that Wayne was her actual biological dad, and because he’s an abusive drunk of an asshole, she saw his continued survival as a constant reminder that she would never amount to anything good in her life. Hrm.

— It’s a little wobbly if you pull too hard on it, but the origin of Kate’s criminal behavior is fine by me. I mean, what did you want? Did you want her to be a mass-murderer, or a Heisenberg-esque drug-dealer? Few options would work better than what we’re ultimately presented with. Besides, it adds Kate to the long list of cowboys and cowgirls who have daddy issues on LOST. It’s an important recurring theme, made all the more poignant when you read Lindelof’s recent comments on how the death of his father was a huge creative inspiration for the show.

— “What Kate Did” is a strong episode, even if Kate’s on-island story is a little goofy. She sees a horse running through the jungle, and it looks like the horse that created a diversion and helped her escape the marshal’s clutches oh so many years ago. She thinks that the feverish Sawyer is secretly possessed by the spirit of her dead step-father. And she goes off running into the jungle, forgetting to push the button, inspiring Jack to go on a crusade of his own to find out just what the hell is up with his island crush. 

— Aaaand then they make out.

— It’s funny to watch this kiss now. Team Jate waited a long time for this. But it’s not a sexy moment. It’s a creepy one, if for no other reason than the creepy Giacchino score. It’s not the epic, romantic music the composer is quite often fond of. It’s a score that isn’t out of place with the Benjamin Linus scenes of the future. It feels like a cautionary signal. Like, “Hey, Jack/Kate fans, take a good look, because it’s the last time you’re going to see this for a while.” Maybe even more sinister than that. Go back and watch this scene if you can; it’s very strange, especially considering where the characters wind up in the end.

— That’s not to say “What Kate Did” isn’t a sexy episode. One of the first things we see is a shirtless and insanely muscular Jin-Soo Kwon emerge from his tent, followed closely by Sun; looks like they had a nice reunion. And Sawyer is straight-up in his underpants for most of the episode, so count that as a win. 

— But for me, the real meat of “What Kate Did” involves Eko. He joins John and Michael as they watch the DHARMA video. The camera closes in on his concentrated face as John and Michael debate the merits of the video, and talk about the “splices” left on the cutting room floor. When Locke finally asks Eko what he makes of the orientation video, Eko just stands up and leaves. Later, he’s waiting for Locke in the breakfast nook, with something he’d like to show him, and a story to tell.

— EKO: “If you don’t mind, I will begin at the beginning. Long before Christ, the king of Judah was a man named Josiah.”

— LOCKE: “Boy, when you say beginning, you mean beginning!”

— EKO: “At that time the temple where the people worshiped was in ruin. And so the people worshiped idols, false gods. And so the kingdom was in disarray. Josiah, since he was a good king, sent his secretary to the treasury and said: ‘We must rebuild the temple. Give all of the gold to the workers so that this will be done.’ But when the secretary returned, he had no gold. And when Josiah asked why this was, the secretary replied, ‘We found a book.’ Do you know this story?”

— LOCKE: “No, I’m afraid I don’t.”

— EKO: “What the secretary had found was an ancient book — the Book of Law. You may know it as the Old Testament. And it was with that ancient book, not with the gold, that Josiah rebuilt the temple. On the other side of the island we found a place much like this, and in this place we found a book. I believe what’s inside there will be of great value.”

— And sure enough, it is: a piece of film from the orientation video. And immediately, Locke is taken with Eko. Here’s a man who understands. Here’s someone who recognizes the special quality of the island, of the situation. When Locke is splicing the footage back together, he enthuses about how awesome it is that he and Eko have found each other. But Eko is cautious.

— EKO: “Do not mistake coincidence for fate.”

— That’s an extremely telling line for both of these men. For Locke, it speaks to his whole arc: after being a loser his entire life, Locke believes it’s his time to become a winner, and he’ll embrace anything that even remotely resembles a cosmic sign supporting his beliefs. That’s a dangerous philosophical standpoint … a fatal one, as we’ll eventually see.

— But it’s telling for Eko, too. The more we get to know Eko (as soon as the next episode in fact), the more we realize that he’s someone who came to spirituality late in life. Indeed, he’s someone who maybe hasn’t really come to spirituality at all.

— Let’s cut into “The 23rd Psalm.” The episode begins with Eko and Claire’s first meeting. They start by talking about the origin of Baby Aaron’s name, but the conversation quickly takes a dark turn when Eko realizes Charlie has one of the Virgin Mary statues filled with heroin. That gets Eko all riled up, and he all but physically forces Charlie to take him to the jungle where he found the statues.

— You could argue that “The 23rd Psalm” is something of a breakup episode. It’s Charlie breaking up with Claire. It’s Eko letting go of Yemi. It’s Eko taking one last look at his old ways of the past, finally ready to forgive himself for the life he lived before. There’s even a sense that Jack knows he’s losing the war for Kate’s heart, as the way she’s hanging out with the newly-energized Sawyer speaks loud and clear for itself.

— But there’s more than breaking up here. There’s first encounters, too. Charlie meeting Claire for the very first time as a truly suspicious drug addict. Charlie introducing one more Virgin Mary statue to the secret stash of statues he has in the jungle. Most importantly, Eko meeting the Monster for the first time.

— The Monster sighting in “The 23rd Psalm” is our best look at the creature yet, in all of its glorious black-smokiness. It’s also a sign of things to come with Eko. This is the Monster sizing Eko up. This is the Monster taking the man into account. Until now, the Monster has been invested in Locke as a vessel for everything it has planned. But in walks another man of faith. Here, in Eko, is a stronger-bodied soldier of devotion. If Eko can just pass a few tests, perhaps he’s the man the Monster is really looking for.

— Getting ahead of myself. But maybe you’re starting to see the shape of my Eko theory.

— Anyway, “23rd Psalm” is a great episode, from Charlie singing The Kinks to Eko’s emotional reunion with Yemi’s corpse. It’s also the second stop on what I called the Charlie Pace and the Three Philosophers tour, all the way back in “The Moth.” In that episode, Locke taught Charlie how to strengthen himself by withholding the thing Charlie desired most. In “The 23rd Psalm,” Eko puts the choice directly in Charlie’s hands, handing him one of the Virgin Mary statues, “for the one I broke.” Those are two very different ways of treating an addict: Locke tries to teach Charlie a lesson, while Eko doesn’t take it upon himself to intercede at all. In Eko’s eyes, Charlie will sink or swim (heh) on his own choices, no outside interference required. It’s an interesting dichotomy, isn’t it?

— Before we run, a quick shout-out to Michael Dawson. These last two episodes, and the first one tomorrow, “The Hunting Party,” are the last sightings of Good Guy Mike. At least, it’s one of the last times we’ll see Michael, and pretty much everyone can agree that he’s a sympathetic figure. If you’ve been reading these past few weeks, you know how much I love Michael, and how much I empathize with his plight. Still, I recognize that we’re at a moment where the Michael we know is about to become a much more frightening and violent version of the character. I’ll miss the Michael of the first season and a half. But I’m ready to get into the rest of his story.

NEXT: “The Hunting Party” and “Fire + Water”

PREVIOUSLY: “The Other 48 Days” and “Collision”

WWW | LOST: The Other 48 Days and Collision

Two days without LOST blogs. That’s like forgetting to push the button. Sheeeeit. Well, we’re back now with a great double-feature: “The Other 48 Days” and “Collision.”

— I really love “The Other 48 Days.” I mean, what’s not to love? From the opening shot — a haunting look out at the ocean from the beach of the island, watching in terror as the tail section of the plane crashes into the water — it’s a gripping episode, start to finish.

— It’s like watching a complete season of LOST on fast-forward. New characters, new threats, new milestones. 

— You feel for these characters. Up until now, these folks have been skin-deep, not revealing much about their personalities or backstories. But here we get Eko and his 40-day period of silence, initiated because he brutally killed two Others. Here we get Libby, the “clinical psychologist” who dropped out of med school after one year, proving her medical know-how by snapping Donald’s broken leg back into place. Here we get Cindy, the flight attendant from Oceanic 815, not doing a whole hell of a lot, but she’s a great callback to the origin of the series nonetheless.

— But the episode really hones in on two people: Ana-Lucia Cortez, and Goodwin Stanhope.

— It’s cool how they set these two up as the Jack and Kate of the Tailies world, except that one of them is secretly working for the other team. It’s fun to watch Goodwin in this episode, knowing that he’s not going to make it out alive. It’s even more fun to watch Goodwin in this episode, when you’ve already watched the show, and you know why he’s in with the Tailies: because Benjamin Linus is a greedy, self-important, spiteful little shit. It makes for very compelling replay value. On your first watch, cold and unknowing of the show’s future, you root like hell when Goodwin’s impaled. When you’ve seen Juliet’s season four flashback and know that Ben sent Goodwin to the Tailies because he hoped he’d die and that would leave Juliet wide open for the taking, it makes Goodwin’s story really rough to look at. Fun stuff.

— Then there’s Ana. I still don’t love this character, and I think that’s because there’s something about Michelle Rodriguez that’s just so grating to me. But even with that aside, you feel for her in this episode. She has her moments. “If I were a savage, I would have cut off his finger already. That’s tomorrow,” is a wonderful line. 

— There are great scenes here. The Others storming the beach and taking nine of the Tailies. Goodwin and Ana’s final scene together, sizing each other up, passing the knife back and forth between them, a literal shifting of power dynamics. 

— You also just have to appreciate this episode’s place in LOST history. It’s the first time the show really fucks with the flashback format. Rather than flashing to the present and back to someone’s story off the island, the entire episode is a catch-up of the time we’ve missed with the Tailies, not returning to the present until the very final moments. I love when LOST screws around with the format. The flashbacks can get very old and very stale if not done properly, so it’s always a welcome sight when they try to do something new.

— The one thing that kinda blows about “The Other 48 Days,” and the Tailies story in general, is … well, it never really amounts to all that much, does it?

— (I guess I should say SPOILERS ahead, but honestly, this blog is filled with spoilers; it’s intended for people who’ve seen the series already, or people who don’t care about spoilers. You read at your own peril.)

— Bernard is really the only one of these guys we’ll have sticking around for the long haul. If you can look at the episode and the Tailies plot as extra window-dressing, just another coat of paint that makes the whole picture look even prettier, then I think you can enjoy the episodes that focus on these characters. If you’re the type of LOST fan who is only in this thing for the overall mythology and getting some damn answers, then this one probably feels like a waste of time. I guess I’m more the former than the latter.

— One quick thing: this episode introduces the lists. The Others have lists of names of people to take. The vast majority of the Tailies either die in the crash, or are abducted by the Others. It’s interesting; the Tailies we get to know and “love” all wind up dead or forgotten, but the ones we really don’t see all that much are all carted off to Others territory. I would love to see an episode focusing on the Tailies who were abducted, through a Cindy flashback perhaps, but c’est la vie; it wasn’t mean to be.

— Also, it’s heavily implied that Eko was on the list. This is from Ana’s final conversation with Goodwin before she outs him as an Other.

— ANA: “Why do you think they take some of us and not the others?”

— GOODWIN: “That first night, they took the strongest of us. Our quiet friend, three other guys. They’re all athletic, tough, threats.”

— ANA: “They didn’t take you.”

— GOODWIN: “Guess they changed their plan after two of them got killed.”

— I think that’s very interesting, and it’s a detail I didn’t pick up on until just now. I’ve teased in the past that I have a theory about why Eko’s death is totally awesome and a great set-up for one of the show’s best reveals … namely, who/what the Monster really is. I don’t know if this exactly fits into the picture, but let’s take Goodwin at his word. The Others were originally targeting Eko, and they gave up, because the dude’s just too strong to be taken down. Eko being on Jacob’s list makes sense if he wanted to get him out of the Monster’s path. I’ll have much more on this theory when we get to Eko’s death (or perhaps I’ll wait until the Monster is revealed … I don’t know, I’ll explain more at one of those junctures), but this is a cool little piece of the puzzle that I didn’t have before.

— Yeah! Cool! 

— Into “Collision,” an episode I really love. Yes, even though it’s an Ana flashback. In fact, I actually love the flashback. Not just because Staind’s “I’m on the Outside” is playing in the bar before Ana kills her shooter, even though that’s fucking amazing.

— The flashback does a great job establishing why Ana is so cold, so dead inside, as she puts it. It sets up her pregnancy, and her attachment to children as seen in “The Other 48 Days,” really nicely. Plus, it has SOUTHLAND rock-star Michael Cudlitz (even though I’ll always think of him as awesome dude from BAND OF BROTHERS) and TOTAL RECALL badass Rachel Ticotin. Hard to go wrong with either of those two.

— There’s just a lot to like about this episode, the Ana stuff notwithstanding. First of all, it has golf, and you know how I feel about LOST’s golf episodes: they are automatically awesome. But the golf isn’t just fun for fun’s sake: it’s fun because it establishes a tone on the beach that’s so radically different from the deadly happenings deeper in the jungle.

— Sawyer is dying. Shannon is dead. Sayid is tied to a tree in a jungle of mystery, and Ana has taken everyone hostage. The stakes are high. Stress is high. Danger exudes from every pore of this episode. And all the while, Jack and Kate are flirting with golf clubs. It’s a great dichotomy. 

— Plus, this episode features one of the best first meetings between any two characters on this show. After Eko brings the injured Sawyer to the Hatch, he’s just standing in the halls, observing the DHARMA logos. John comes out and sees him in the hall.

— JOHN: “Hello.”

— EKO: “Hello.”

— That’s it, and that’s enough. The Locke/Eko relationship is one of my favorites on the show. So excited that we’re finally in that territory.

— There’s more greatness in the Hatch. Jack and Kate trying to help Sawyer, with Kate implementing the whole “whisper in the ear” treatment that Jack never learned in medical school, makes for some great fodder for the love triangle crowd. Also, when Locke asks Jack what happened to Sawyer, the clock hits the four-minute warning. Jack reminds Locke he needs to go push the button. The scene continues, with the countdown signal still blaring through the halls, until you hear the timer flipping back to 108. You don’t even see that happen; you just hear it. Pushing the button is already such a common part of the survivors’ lives, that it’s presented as an equally common part of the show itself. I think that’s a wonderful detail.

— Now, I’m not a fan of the Sayid/Shannon romance, and I’m happy it’s over, but a couple of things: (1) Maggie Grace is already relegated to “special guest star” status in the credits. That was fucking fast. Seriously, no respect! And (2) Tortured Sayid is the best Sayid. I’d argue that Sayid is always tortured Sayid, but this is aggressively tortured Sayid. He’s at a low-point. And that makes for some weeny Sayid moments coming up in the near future. But it also puts him on the path to become the Sayid we see in “One of Them” just a few episodes from now, and that episode, and that version of Sayid, is fucking tremendous. So, if it took killing Shannon to get Sayid to that place? I’m for it.

— Still doesn’t mean Shannon and Sayid should end up together in the church. That’s some bullshit.

— One last quick shout-out to the episode’s closing montage. Emotional reunions and connections with no sound other than a blissful Giacchino score to guide you … that’s the bread and butter of LOST right there. Bernard and Rose finally finding each other again. Jin and Sun reunited. Sayid cradling Shannon’s lifeless body as he walks past Jack. Jack and Ana finally connecting, long after their promise to drink together on Oceanic 815. All wordless. All Giacchino. It’s sublime.

— Okay! We’re back in the groove! I went a few days without work-outs and LOST in my life because of my New Mexico work-trip, but I’m fully back in the swing of things now, with a one-day buffer between the blogs. Feeling good, feeling motivated, thanks to today’s great double-feature. Tomorrow brings us our first and only Kate episode of the season, which I’m honestly kind of dreading … but it’ll even out with our first Eko flashback, and our fullest look at the Monster yet.

NEXT: “What Kate Did” and “The 23rd Psalm”

PREVIOUSLY: “…And Found” and “Abandoned”

WWW | LOST: …And Found And Abandoned

The Others are coming, the Others are coming! Let’s see what they’re all about (or not really) in today’s LOST blog.

— First, we discover “…And Found.”

— I think that after “Everybody Hates Hugo” and now “…And Found,” you kind of have to be on board with the rhythm of season two, or not. It’s a slower season. The high-points are super-high, but they’re spread out. Not every episode is a revelation, like the first season. This year is a slower pace, and sometimes that pace produces some truly snooze-worthy episodes.

— “…And Found” is not snooze-worthy. It’s actually pretty terrific. But does it advance the plot in any super-huge way? Not really … that doesn’t mean it’s not a good time if you’re open to it.

— For starters, the flashbacks show us the first time Jin and Sun met, and it’s only after a series of How I Met Your Mother-esque almost-connections. It gives us our first taste of Jae Lee, a character we’ll see again under … awkward circumstances, let’s say. It’s another reminder of the pure soul Jin was before he came under Mr. Paik’s employ. And it’s another reminder of how Sun has had close to zero control over her own life, until she fell in love with a poor fisherman. It’s a great, touching story, and a nice contrast with what we’ll see from them next time.

— Their story on the island is pretty sweet, too. Sun loses her wedding ring and spends the whole episode looking for it. Jack tries to talk her through it, reliving his own failed marriage in the process. Hurley tries to get Vincent to poop it out, thinking the dog must’ve eaten it. Locke tells Sun he’s not lost anymore, and he got found the same way anything else does: he stopped looking. Finally, it’s Kate who teams up with Sun to look for the buried bottle of messages from the raft, because she misses Sawyer but can’t bring herself to admit it out loud to anyone else … and the two of them discover the ring with the bottle; it must have fallen off Sun’s finger while she was digging. Yunjin Kim’s range of emotion throughout “…And Found” is a testament to why Sun is such a strong, beautiful character. Really loved watching her again in this.

— Compliments to my man Jin-Soo Kwon as well. His portion of the episode is basically a buddy-cop romp through the jungle with Mr. Eko. It’s an unlikely combo: former Korean hitman teams up with former African drug lord. But it works fantastically, even if you have to forgive the ease with which Jin translates Eko’s poor charade skills. 

— ”…And Found” gives us more of Michael’s Wah-ha-haaaalts, and your mileage may vary on how much you dig that, but I dig it. The more strain and sorrow and pain you can put on Michael’s shoulders this season, the more it makes sense that he does what he does later on.

— But let’s talk about the Tailies. We got a taste of them in “Hugo,” but “…And Found” is our biggest bite yet. Eko, of course, is an insane badass. Immediately you see him as a guy who is going to have a lot to talk about with John Locke. And I always love seeing Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje interact with Harold Perrineau, since I’m a big Oz fan.

— Libby gets some nice moments as a clinical psychologist, trying to speak to Michael with the even temperament that the job demands. Then again, we have strong reason to believe that she’s not what she says she is … though we also don’t really ever get a firm answer on that one because, hey, who cares about resolving that story? 

— (If I think about the Libby ball getting dropped too hard, I’ll get mad, so let’s skip along.)

— As I mentioned yesterday, I just don’t like Ana-Lucia, and these two episodes are really not helping her case. Her conversation with Sawyer (“You single?” “You gay?”) is so grating. Every time she tells one of our heroes to shut the hell up and keep moving, I want to reach out and punch her. Not that she deserves what’s coming, but gotta say, I don’t lose any sleep over losing Ana from the show in just a few more weeks.

— Finally, let’s dive into the Others: we get some interesting clues as to who these guys are, because at this point, that’s still very much a mystery. Very little is known about these island natives. They’re organized enough to send a monster like Ethan to infiltrate the Oceanic survivors. They’re teched up to the extent that they have a boat that can leave the island, intercept the raft, and kidnap a little kid. Other than that, we can only go on what Rousseau has told us so far, and her observations should be taken with a few healthy pinches of salt.

— But in “…And Found,” we get two cool bits of information. The first is the body of Goodwin. Jin stumbles upon Goodwin’s spear-skewered corpse in the jungle, looks at Eko and asks, “Others?” Eko merely nods. The show does a great job burying a cool future reveal here, dangling it right in the audience’s face without us even knowing it.

— The other Others reveal is the sight of their legs as they stalk through the jungle. Their dirty, mud-covered, shit-caked legs. And we see a child with them, holding a teddy bear. The sense we get here is, man, these guys really are savages. Definitely no way that they’re secretly sleeping in houses somewhere in the middle of the island, nooooo sir.

— I need to run, so let’s quickly talk about “Abandoned.” 

— I hate to rush this one, because I think “Abandoned” is an important episode on a few levels. For one, it makes you actually like Shannon Rutherford. Depending on your tolerance level, this might be the first time you ever have sympathy for Shannon. Her flashbacks reveal a young woman who has had a difficult road in life, loved by very few except for her father and her step-brother … both of whom leave her in their own time. It’s fostered a feeling of worthlessness, a feeling that, honestly, never really gets resolved.

— Shannon spends her time on-island looking for Walt. She’s seeing visions of him again, in her tent, in the jungle … and she knows she’s not going crazy, even if Sayid doesn’t believe her. With the help of Vincent, Shannon treks off through the jungle, eventually into a rain storm, where she slips and falls and Sayid tells her they should go back.

— SHANNON: “Why don’t you believe me? I need you to believe in me!”

— SAYID: “I do believe in you.”

— SHANNON: “You don’t! No one does. They think that I’m some kind of joke. They think I’m worthless.”

— SAYID: “Shannon, you are not worthless.”

— SHANNON: “You say that now, but you don’t … you’re just going to leave me. I know as soon as we get out of here, you’re just going to leave me.”

— SAYID: “I will never leave you. I love you. And I believe you.”

— And then they both see Walt in the jungle, Shannon runs off after him, and gets shot and killed by Ana-Lucia for her troubles. The end!

— It’s kind of a twisted joke. Shannon calls out not only the Oceanic survivors, but the audience and probably even the writing staff when she says everyone thinks she’s “some kind of joke.” It’s a cathartic moment, and a tease of hope that this is a character who can have some redemption, that this is a character who is about to rise above her prior reputation and become someone very interesting and worthwhile.

— AND THEN THEY JUST SHOOT HER.

— I really think Shannon had more potential than she was allowed to explore. It’s a shame, because Maggie Grace actually has a lot of range and brings a lot of depth to the character when given half a chance. She’s not even given half a chance on LOST. She’s given, like, a 1/12th chance. Pretty shitty.

— I also still do not buy for a second that Sayid is in love with Shannon, that he would “never leave [her],” even if they got of the island and he could finally track down Nadia. Yeah, he’s going to give up seven years of searching for his long-lost love for the blonde bimbo he just spent 40 days with on an island. I believe that. NOT.

— I’m ragging on the episode, but I actually do like “Abandoned.” I just think it also represents some missed potential with the Shannon character, even if her death does yield some interesting results in the coming weeks. But as Daniel Faraday will helpfully remind us a few seasons from now, whatever happened, happened. The past can’t be changed. Shannon’s dead, and no amount of complaining about lost opportunities on this LOST blog will change that.

— I’m totally out of time. This week has been crazy; if you follow me on Twitter, you know I’m in New Mexico for the AFTER EARTH junket, held at the Virgin Galactic Spaceport. (A freakin’ SPACEPORT!) I’m all caught up on my blogs and have nothing in the reserves. I’m hoping to sneak a work-out in tonight when I get back to my hotel, but it’s very possible that it won’t happen, which means you probably won’t get another blog until Sunday. Stay tuned, true believers.

NEXT: “The Other 48 Days” and “Collision”

PREVIOUSLY: “Orientation” and “Everybody Hates Hugo”

WWW | LOST: Orientation and Everybody Hates Hugo

“We’re going to need to watch that again,” he says. Couldn’t agree more, John.

— Our season two rewatch continues today with “Orientation.”

— If I was a better man, I would have grouped “Orientation” with “Man of Science, Man of Faith” and “Adrift.” Those three work best as a group. But I did the three-part “Exodus” just a couple of days ago, so forgive me if I don’t want to toss myself immediately into another 120-minute workout sesh. Still, I feel like I would have been even more forgiving toward “Adrift” had I snuck an “Orientation” viewing into the mix.

— Even still, “Orientation” is just an intense episode of LOST all on its own. There’s so much to discover, so much to unearth. This is our first time watching one of the DHARMA videos starring Marvin Candle, the one-armed man of many names. The video tells us the basics of what the DHARMA Initiative is and who its leaders are (the mysterious Alvar Hanso among them, though we get a disappointing lack of in-show information on this shady character as the series progresses; you have to participate in an ARG to get all of the answers, and I think that’s a pretty shitty way of handling what looked to be a major reveal at the time of “Orientation”), and with that, a whole new chapter of LOST begins.

— As much as getting inside of the Hatch was a big deal, knowing what the Swan Station is — or at least what it claims to be — changes the game in a monumental way. Here we are, at the start of a very long work-shift where every 108 minutes, our heroes have to push a button, in order to save the world. A stupid button. You can almost forgive Jack for being so stubborn about the whole thing.

— Of course, our heroes almost don’t get the chance to hit the button and save the world. When Jack and Kate rescue Locke from Desmond, gunfire goes off and breaks the all-important computer. They have less than 100 minutes to fix the thing. When it looks like all hope is lost, Desmond tears off into the jungle (even though he has the flipping failsafe key but OH WELL CONTINUITY ERRORS AND STUFF), and Jack goes after him. After some awkward reconnecting involving Jack’s revelation that he married the girl he talked to Desmond about so many years ago — and the implication that that marriage is no longer a thing — Des tells Jack the numbers, wishes him luck, and pledges to “see ya in another life, yeah?”

— And so goes Desmond David Hume, my main man, until the end of season two. I’m thinking it’s going to be a long wait.

— Jack returns to the Hatch with the numbers pumping through his brain, arriving just in time to stop Locke from inputting the wrong numbers into the system. But before Locke hits enter, he demands Jack step in and finish the job. The two resume their philosophical argument about believing in destiny and accepting fate, and it gets heated very quickly.

— JACK: “It’s not real. You want to push the button? Do it yourself.”

— LOCKE: “If it’s not real, then what are you doing here, Jack? Why did you come back? Why do you find it so hard to believe?”

— JACK: “Why do you find it so easy?”

— LOCKE: “It’s never been easy!! … I can’t do this alone, Jack. I don’t want to. It’s a leap of faith, Jack.”

— And Jack, as if finally resigning himself to fate (or at least deciding the risk of not pushing the button isn’t worth the possible cost), complies. The timer, at 0:01, resets to 108:00. John settles into his seat of destiny and declares, “I’ll take the first shift.”

— Locke has a great flashback in “Orientation,” complete with the introduction of the first Helen, played by Katey Sagal. She’s a great guest star, and I appreciate her even more now that I’ve powered through all of SONS OF ANARCHY. It’s nice to see some happiness in Locke’s life here, even if you know it’s all going to fade away before long.

— I’m a bit pressed for time today, so let’s skip straight into “Everybody Hates Hugo.”

— The fantasy at the top of the episode is so weird and so fun. Hurley chows down on all of the food in the Swan Station’s pantry, and he’s visited by Jin, who suddenly speaks fluent English. Jin’s joined by the Mr. Cluck’s mascot. He declares to Hurley: “Everything is going to change.”

— Dream-Jin isn’t wrong. “Everybody Hates Hugo” doesn’t exactly move and shake the Earth, but it sets the tone for how season two is going to play out. A big new piece of the puzzle has landed in our survivors’ laps in the form of the Swan. With it comes new responsibilities that our heroes never expected to take on. Jobs are created. Locke needs to convince the others to agree to his button-pushing shifts. Jack and Sayid take it upon themselves to explore the Hatch and its super-strange properties. And Hurley is in charge of inventory … specifically, food.

— It’s maybe not the best job to give to the island’s biggest resident, but it is a big job. So big, in fact, that Hurley enlists the help of another: Rose. He confides in her his fears that everyone is going to hate him when they find out what’s in the Hatch, and that Hurley is the guy in charge of rationing out all of the food. 

— The flashbacks reveal where Hurley’s fear stems from. We see his final day on Earth before everyone finds out he’s the big lotto winner. He pals around with his buddy Johnny (played by Road Trip crazy-person D.J. Qualls) and asks out his longtime crush Starla (played by Wet Hot American Summer hottie Marguerite Moreau) and punks his ex-boss Randy (played by Billy Ray Gallion, and … whoa, that’s Locke’s Randy from “Walkabout”! LOST, you so crazy!), and it’s a glorious day. But everything changes for Hugo when he and Johnny pull up to the gas station where Hurley bought his lotto ticket, and his big secret is out, ending his normal life in the process.

— Hurley doesn’t want history to repeat itself. He thinks he’ll be better off if he just blows up all of the food. Clearly, that’s a crazy dude’s solution, and dude, Hurley isn’t crazy. So he wises up, with some urging from Rose, and comes up with a solution: since the rations are only enough for one person to eat three meals a day for another three months, and the Oceanic crowd has 40 people, it’s decided that they’ll all enjoy a big feast on the beach that night. And it yields one of my favorite ending-montages of the series.

— I love it when our heroes win. It doesn’t happen often enough, especially the deeper we go into the story. The end of “Everybody Hates Hugo” is an absolute win for our guys. Claire finally gets her peanut butter. Jack and Kate have a good time. Despite the title, everybody loves Hugo.

— But all isn’t well for everyone on LOST. Earlier in the episode, the bottle of messages from the raft washes ashore, leading Sun to believe that something’s happened to her husband. She’s not wrong on that. Rather than telling the rest of the group, Sun buries the bottle in the sand … losing something very precious in the process. More on that tomorrow.

— I haven’t mentioned the Michael, Sawyer, Jin and Tailies storyline because the next several episodes yield more than enough opportunities to dive into that side of things. But I’ll quickly say that, wow, Ana-Lucia is as annoying now as she ever is. “COMINGOUT” is one of my least favorite lines on LOST. Almost everything Ana says is one of my least favorite lines on LOST. I’m a pretty forgiving fan most of the time, but I am just not an Ana man.

— I do love me some Mr. Eko, though, and his introduction to the series — using his “Jesus stick” to beat the snot out of Michael, Sawyer and Jin in just a few deft moves — is so badass. 

— And I love me some Bernard. His introduction at the end of “Hugo,” telling Mike et al that he’s Rose’s husband, is such a touching moment, finally proving that Rose’s faith wasn’t delusional or wrongly-placed. Great happy-times are happy.

NEXT: “…And Found” and “Abandoned”

PREVIOUSLY: “Man of Science, Man of Faith” and “Adrift”

WWW | LOST: Man Of Science, Man of Faith and Adrift

Blast that Hatch door open and come on in, brotha. Don’t mind the broken ladder. And ignore the crazy Scottish dude with the gun. He’s actually pretty cool.

The WWW rewatch of LOST: Season Two begins right here, right now.

— “Man of Science, Man of Faith.” Not just a saying anymore, but a full-fledged episode, a genuine horror show.

— The episode launches what ends up being a recurring gag for the rest of the LOST premieres: presenting you with a situation that seems like one thing, but very quickly proves itself to be something else entirely. It’s a gag that doesn’t always work. But this one works marvelously. 

— Maybe it’s because I’m dense, but I had no idea what I was looking at the first time I saw this episode. All I saw was a long-haired dude playing around on a computer, blasting Mama Cass, using an exercise bike like a boss, guzzling down protein shakes, and shooting shit into his arm.

— That’s right around when I started putting the situation together. And just as the thoughts were coming together, an explosion rocks from outside, and it’s now very clear what’s going on. And it’s all confirmed when the camera pans through the rest of the Swan Station, up and out of the Hatch, returning us to the final shot of season one: Jack and John staring down the long, mysterious tunnel of the Hatch.

— With very few exceptions, the premiere and finale episodes of LOST are always fantastic. I don’t think it’s fair to compare them to the other episodes; these ones are almost like movies in and of themselves. “Exodus” certainly felt that way upon rewatch. And “Man of Science, Man of Faith” is no different. It’s razor-focused on the Hatch, what’s inside it and what’s the aftermath of opening it. These ideas manifest in John and Jack’s continued bickering over the nature of destiny and their purpose on the island. In Hurley opening up to Jack about his millions of dollars and his experience with the cursed numbers printed on the side of the Hatch. In Kate being just as drawn to whatever’s inside the Hatch as Locke is, even if she won’t come right out and say it. In Jack’s unwillingness to let Kate do anything dangerous without him. In Locke’s inability to wait even one more night to go inside of the Hatch.

— That’s a big part of the episode, actually. The title refers to Jack and John, respectively. And some very important parts of who these people are gets explained to us in plain English. For Jack, it’s as Hurley calls it: he has a sucky bedside manner. It shows in his initial approach to Sarah in the flashbacks, and it shows in his reaction to Hurley’s concerns over the Hatch. Jack doesn’t know how to keep up a poker face when his emotions are getting riled up. He doesn’t know how to just let Kate go off on a mission all on her own. (Good thing he doesn’t, since he shows up to help save the day.) He doesn’t know how to talk Locke down without making fun of him. That’s a recurring theme of the guy: he’s just got a shitty bedside manner.

— (He also points out another thing about himself during the flashback: he tells Sarah that he ran up and down every set of stairs in the stadium because he’s “intense.” Hell yeah he is.)

— As for Locke, he says something very revealing about himself, too. When Jack gives his speech about everyone needing to stay in the caves for the night, Locke tells Jack he’s still going off to the Hatch. Jack asks him if that’s the wisest idea.

— LOCKE: “I doubt it. In fact, you’re right. The safest thing is to stay here, wait for morning, wait for these Others to see if they ever show up, wait for the brave folks on the raft to bring help. But me? I’m tired of waiting.”

— “I’m tired of waiting.” That says so much about the weakness of John Locke. For all of his strengths as a hunter, as a wise-man, as a spiritual leader who feels deeply connected to the island … he’s also a sad, scorned, lonely old man who has lived a sad, scorned, lonely old life. The island healed him and gave him a purpose. And in his eyes, that purpose is now wide open and his for the taking, quite literally. Nothing can stand in the way of him and destiny. And that’s a huge piece of why he’s going to get so immensely frustrated throughout the coming season.

— So many crucial pieces of the LOST puzzle drop into our laps here in “Man of Science, Man of Faith.” The Swan Station, for one, a set piece that’s critical to season two, and a place that holds great importance in season five as well. The introduction of the DHARMA Initiative, even if we don’t really know what that is and what they’re all about quite yet. And, of course, the introduction of Desmond David Hume.

— Desmond. David. Hume. A man we know very little about at this point, aside from the fact that he’s the man inside the Hatch, and he’s someone Jack encountered at a low point in his life. A man we’ll come to know very well in the coming seasons. But who at this point in watching the show could have predicted that Desmond would graduate from weirdo in a basement to becoming one of LOST’s most important players? 

— We’re going to have a lot of time to dissect Desmond in the coming weeks. I just want to put this out there first. I have a lot of fondness for most of the characters on LOST, even the ones who aren’t all that popular, the ones who don’t seem all that necessary in the grand scheme of things. It’s hard for me to come up with a top ten list of favorite characters because there are just too many. Locke is my clear-cut favorite. But after that? Man … Desmond comes pretty close. 

— Desmond is a big reason why “Adrift” works for me. I don’t have a lot of love for this episode. It’s scatter-brained and doesn’t know exactly what it wants to be. The scenes with Michael and Sawyer out in the ocean aren’t the show’s proudest moments. The replay of the Hatch events from the points of view of Locke and Kate are informative in some ways, but definitely feel repetitive. I think I enjoyed the episode much more this time around because I went straight into it from “Man of Science, Man of Faith.” But as a weekly watcher, I think this one’s a bit of a bummer.

— But it has a lot of Desmond. Great Desmond. Paranoid Desmond. Desmond with his “What did one snowman say to the other snowman” test. (The answer to that question, revealed in the season two finale, is so fucking amazing.) We have one more dose of Desmond this season before his grand finale in “Live Together, Die Alone,” so I’ll take as much of him now as I possibly can.

— I’m also willing to give “Adrift” a bit of a pass because it helps show the arc of the season. I used to subscribe to the belief that Lindelof and Cuse knew exactly what they were doing and where they were going with LOST. I’m not that naive anymore. But I really think they had a sense of how season two would start and end. There are a lot of clues here if you know what’s on the way. For example, Desmond’s reaction to hearing Locke say that his plane crashed “44 days ago.” That sets some bells off in his head, even if he doesn’t come right out and say it here. And there’s some nice foreshadowing about what Michael’s going to wind up doing later in the season, with him shooting the shit out of that shark. It’s not the last time we’ll see poor Mike use a handgun this season.

— The flashbacks … I understand their point, and I think it helps give the season some symmetry. Michael is in a desperate place with Walt on the island, and was in a desperate place with Walt in his past. He’ll be in an even more desperate place with Walt in the future. Michael tells Sawyer at one point that he has “no idea” what it’s like to care about someone else. What I really think he’s saying is, “You have no idea what I’m going through.” And I really respond to that in Michael’s character: his journey with his son has covered so many years, so many injuries, that this latest incident — losing Walt to a bunch of crazy bearded violent people — is a very serious breaking point for his sanity. It’s easy to make fun of all the “Waaaaa-ha-ha-haaaaalts” and to judge him for what he does to Ana-Lucia and Libby. But this is a guy pushed past his limits. This is a guy who needs to protect his son no matter the cost. The seeds of that are planted in “Adrift,” in Michael’s flashbacks, and in his behavior on the broken remnants of the raft.

— Still, the structure of the episode is so strange, and if you know the history behind it, you can understand why. “Adrift” was originally supposed to be a Sawyer episode. Flashback scenes were shot and ultimately scrapped in favor of a new narrative centered on Michael giving up his rights to Walt. Maybe it was the lesser of two evils in the end. But it still makes for a very strange episode.

— “Adrift.” Not a bad episode of LOST. Not a great one. It’s not “Whatever the Case May Be,” but I do think it’s the second-worst of the series, as far as what we’ve seen on the rewatch so far. 

— That said, this episode introduces the short-lived DHARMA Shark and the Apollo bars. It has a scene where Sawyer pulls a bullet out of his shoulder with his bare hands, and it ends with the very quick introduction of Mr. Eko and the Tailies. It has a lot of Desmond and that does not suck. So saying that “Adrift” is the second-worst episode of the series up to this point, really speaks volumes about how great early LOST is.

— We return to the Hatch tomorrow to learn all about the DHARMA Initiative in “Orientation,” and to eat a shit ton of peanut butter in “Everybody Hates Hugo.”

NEXT: “Orientation” and “Everybody Hates Hugo”

PREVIOUSLY: Season One in Review

WWW | LOST: Season One

Okay. LOST: Season One is officially in the books. What did I learn on this latest rewatch? 

— Not much I didn’t know before, really. The rewatch just confirmed a lot of what I’d already believed: season one is pure meth.

— This is LOST in its purest state. There are Others, but there are no Barracks. There’s a Monster, but he doesn’t look like Jimmy O. There are Hatches, but there are no DHARMA logos. Heck, there isn’t even a Desmond, unless you count the “Deus Ex Machina” light.

— And I’m not saying those things are bad. I mean, I wouldn’t conspire to name my first-born son Desmond David Wigler if I didn’t love me some Desmond David Hume.

— It’s just that there’s something so magical about watching LOST when it’s still a skeleton starting to form muscle and organs. Granted, when the show arrives, it arrives in healthy form: things like Sawyer’s letter exist in the pilot, John’s disability is teased from the get-go, Hurley’s multi-million dollar bank account is set up with several episodes to go before “Numbers.” Even from its earliest days, LOST had strong ideas about who these characters are and what they’ve done in the past and what they’re going to do in the future.

— But in these early days, the series isn’t focused on the higher-concept ideas that some would argue bogged everything down in the later seasons. Existential debates and questions of destiny most certainly abound during season one of LOST. But instead of testing our heroes’ faith with the literal push of a button, their hope and courage and ability to survive and weather storms comes more from true-blue survival scenarios. Getting rescued is the priority. Finding proper shelter and abundant sources of food and water are high on the mind. There are no convenient underground bunkers with bunk-beds and Apollo bars and pool tables and a crazy armory packed with assault rifles and fully-stocked bathrooms. Instead, we have the beach. We have the caves. We have five guns. We have a box of knives. We have boar. We have sea urchins. We have fruit. We have leaves for TP.

— And it’s more than enough.

— Season one has a near perfect record. I’ve written more about “Whatever the Case May Be” than I’d like to on this blog, but that’s only because it’s the one episode of the first season that actively sucks. Every single episode other than that has redeeming qualities at worst. At best, they are all fantastic.

— There’s a reason why LOST was can’t-miss TV in the early days. There’s a reason it was such a lightning rod. And that’s because it was just fucking beautiful, and unique. It came equipped with a diverse cast featuring Americans, Australians, black people, white people, Korean people, Middle-Eastern people, fit people, fat people, smart people, stupid people, funny people, frustrating people, happy people, sad people, good people, bad people. All kinds of people. At least one kind of people pretty much anyone can relate to. 

— And then there’s the island. That beautiful Hawaii location. The setting is so essential to the success of the series. Everything good stems from the lush jungles and gorgeous ocean views that weave through each and every episode of season one. As the series progresses, there are times when breaking away from the island is necessary for the story. And sometimes, yes, it’s the notes you don’t play that matter most. But season one established the crucial notes, and one of ‘em is the island … and that’s why when you have a season of LOST that’s so firmly and resolutely rooted on the island, it’s bound to stand out as the show’s purest and, arguably, its best.

— I said in my original list of LOST statements that when season three gets going, it’s the best season of the bunch. Having gone through the season one experience again … I don’t know. Season one is just so close to perfect. It’ll be hard to top.

— Alright. The Hatch is open. We’re going down the tunnel and meeting our boy Desmond in just a little while. I know some people aren’t wild about season two. Just looking at my list of pairings for the coming season, I’m definitely wincing at having to revisit “Fire + Water” and “Dave.” There are some clunkers here. I hope they prove better on the rewatch, but I’m not optimistic. That said, I hold true to what I originally wrote about the show’s second season: it has frustrating moments, but it has tremendous payoff. And as much as I love the jungle, I really do love the Swan Station. It’ll be nice to get back down there again.

— As of this writing, I’m about to tear into “Man of Science, Man of Faith” and “Adrift.” As I wrote the other day, I’m trying to give myself a bit of a buffer between work-outs and blogs, so you won’t get my take on these episodes until tomorrow. Hoping this strategy helps me avoid burnout. We shall see.

— Either way … see you in another LOST blog, brotha.

NEXT: “Man of Science, Man of Faith” and “Adrift”

PREVIOUSLY: “Exodus”

WWW | LOST: Exodus

Okay. The three-part “Exodus” is in the books. Season one is done. I am the sweats. Let’s talk LOST.

— “Exodus” is massive. I mean that in every sense of the word. It’s a massive undertaking from a writing perspective: three episodes spanning one single chaotic day. It’s a massive undertaking from a production standpoint: the raft scenes, the Black Rock, the biggest Monster sequence since the pilot, the detonating of the Hatch. It’s a massive undertaking on an emotional level: our heroes go through such joy and catharsis, pain and suffering, and beyond.

— It. Is. Massive.

— And that’s not even to speak of my massive experience watching the episode this time around. The rules of Watching With Wigler state that I can only watch any given episode if I’m exercising. I chose to watch all three parts of “Exodus” in a single work-out session. That amounted to two hours on the treadmill, 40 minutes of which was spent on maximum incline. It’s the hardest I’ve pushed my body in years. It was awful. It was awesome. 

— I haven’t used this blog project to pat myself on the back to much because you people (whoever you are) are here to read about LOST, not to read about my struggles in getting my chubby ass back in shape ahead of my wedding this summer. (That sounds superficial; the wedding is the end of the first leg of the marathon, but the goal is to get myself into a regiment that will keep me physically and mentally healthy for the rest of my life.) But I’m going to take a second to give myself some kudos. I have skipped only two days since I started WWW. Every episode I’ve watched, I’ve watched on the treadmill, two episodes in one session, 80 minutes, every single time. Two weeks have passed. One season is done. I’m noticing significant weight loss already, thanks to the work-outs, and also thanks to diet stuff that’s too depressing to get into. (I miss pizzas.) I’m feeling exhausted, but I’m feeling motivated, and I’m feeling great. I don’t say it often, maybe not often enough, but I’m proud of myself. 

— YAY ME.

— Alright. “Exodus” is way too big to spend yammering about myself for half of the blog. But it’s also so big that I don’t know how the hell to go about diving into it. I spent a decent amount of time while watching the episode wondering how to break it all apart on the blog. Like I said: it’s massive.

— So, what I decided is this: I am going to name my top ten moments from “Exodus.” That’s a hard enough task, because “Exodus” is easily one of the greatest episodes of LOST. I say that a lot (see also: my feelings on hyperbole) but in this case, I mean it. “Exodus” is easily a top ten episode of the series, and quite frankly, it might just be the best.

— Let’s get into it then. The top ten moments from “Exodus,” in descending order.

10. “The Others are coming.”

— Here’s how “Exodus” begins. Rousseau enters the Oceanic 815 camp for the very first time, armed to the teeth, stalking slowly, noticed by no one but Walt. He alerts the other survivors to her presence, and a crowd starts to gather. Michael tries to talk her down. “Hey, hey, hey, stop, slow down. Stay right there.” Sawyer stares her down. “Gotta be the French chick.” Baby Aaron (still unnamed at this point) is howling. Danielle and Claire share a knowing look. Sayid approaches. “Danielle?” he whispers. “What are you doing here?” She turns to look at him. “The Others are coming.”

— Smash to credits.

— The very next scene, Danielle explains who she is and what’s happened to her on the island, as a way of letting the survivors know what’s coming next.

— DANIELLE: “Our ship went aground on this island 16 years ago. There were six of us: my team. At the time, I was already seven months pregnant. I delivered the infant myself. The baby and I were together for only one week when I saw black smoke … a pillar of black smoke, five kilometers inland. That night, they came. They came, and they took her. Alex. They took my baby. And now … they’re coming again. They’re coming for all of you.”

— JACK: “Who’s coming?”

— DANIELLE: “The Others. [Pauses, looks at the group.] You have only three choices. Run. Hide … or die.”

— Well, that certainly sets the stakes pretty damn high, don’t it?

9. “This is not going to be pleasant.”

— Fast-forward to “Exodus, Part 3.” Danielle’s true colors are revealed: she kidnaps baby Aaron (now with a name) and runs off into the jungle, God knows why. Sayid and Charlie tear off after her, taking lead on the episode’s C-plot. On their way through the jungle, they come upon the Beechcraft, and Charlie discovers the heroin. Further along, Charlie, eager to get Aaron back no matter the cost, stumbles into one of Rousseau’s tracks and gashes his forehead open. The wound is too deep for him to continue on untreated. Charlie begs for Sayid to do something.

— SAYID: “I’m not a doctor!”

— CHARLIE: “You’re a soldier! What do people do when you get wounded?”

— You really want to find out? Well, alright. Sayid opens up a bullet, removes the gunpowder, pours it on Charlie’s wound, and lights a match.

— SAYID: “This is not going to be pleasant.”

— And it’s not. Charlie’s howls echo throughout the jungle as the scene fades away. It’s an awesome moment that showcases Sayid’s unmatched MacGuyver skills and Charlie’s moth-like ability to push through pain and get to what’s important. 

8. “We’re here. The Black Rock.”

— Flash-back to “Exodus, Part 1.” We’d heard about it all season. Its name is always mentioned, but what it means, and what it is, has remained a mystery … until now. Near the end of the first part of “Exodus,” we finally see it: The Black Rock. The first time I saw it, my head went spinning, brimming with all of the same questions swimming in the minds of Jack and friends. “How’d it get there?” “Must’ve been a tsunami!” There were no obvious answers.

— The Black Rock is one of those LOST mysteries that actually has a terrific pay-off. Its full reveal leads to one of the highest-rated episodes of the series. But even at this nascent stage, where we really don’t know shit about the thing aside from the fact that it’s a big old ship, it has dynamite, and it really shouldn’t be in the middle of the jungle, it’s a great reveal: the Black Rock, something we surely thought would be a cave or a legit rock or something, but nope, it’s a ship. It’s a question answered with another question. Loved that then, love it now.

7. “Let me go!”

— The first time John encountered the Monster in “Walkabout,” he walked away a changed man. He looked into “the eye of the island” and what he saw was “beautiful.”

— His second run-in with the Monster, in “Exodus, Part 3,” is not beautiful.

— There is horror on John Locke’s face as the Monster, now revealed for the first time in its smokey glory, descends upon him. This is not the same benevolent creature he met so many weeks ago; at least, its purposes have changed. And that’s not lost on Locke, who picks himself up and runs through the jungle, as far and as fast from the thing as possible.

— Locke isn’t fast enough. The Monster latches onto him and drags him along the jungle floor, bringing him down toward the darkness. He’s about to fall into the pit when Jack slides in to save the day, grabbing John by the arms, propping his legs against the pit, playing tug of war with the Monster. Kate joins. Jack tells her he needs the dynamite. She starts taking her backpack off. “No, it’s in my pack,” he tells her, revealing that he double-crossed her; but there’s no time for hurt feelings, and Kate runs off to get the pack.

— LOCKE: “Let me go! Just let me go, I’ll be alright.”

— JACK: “NO!”

— LOCKE: “Let me go! I’ll be alright!”

— Jack doesn’t let him let go. Just as John saved Jack from falling off the cliff back in “The White Rabbit,” Jack saves John here. John has all the faith in the world that if he’s meant to go with the Monster, well then, that’s just destiny. But knowing what we know about what happens to Locke, what the Monster really is and what its purposes are, it is more than likely that Jack really saved Locke’s ass here. That’s some nice replay value.

— Plus, it’s our first sighting of the Monster. Our first sighting of what Rousseau calls “a security system.” Like the Black Rock, this right here is a question answered with another question. We know what the Monster looks like now. It’s not a T-Rex. It’s not a dragon. It’s a flippin’ cloud of smoke. How dangerous can that really be? 

— VERY FLIPPIN’ DANGEROUS.

6. “I’m going to save you.”

— Flash-back to “Exodus, Part 1.” The raft is about to launch. Sun has tried to stop Jin from leaving. She tried to poison him. It failed. She failed. Now she’s trying something else: accepting fate. She approaches Jin, knowing that his decision’s already made. She gives him a notepad.

— SUN: “This is for you.”

— JIN: “Star… star board.”

— SUN: “Starboard. It’s a list of simple English words spelled out phonetically. I thought this would help you … so I made it for you.”

— Jin starts to crumble. It’s the most emotion we’ve seen from the man all season long, on the island at least. 

— JIN: “I’m sorry.”

— Sun starts to crumble.

— SUN: “I am too. You don’t have to go.”

— JIN: “No. You don’t understand, Sun. I’m in this place because I’m being punished. I made you suffer. You don’t deserve any of this.”

— SUN: “Jin …”

— Jin starts to pull himself together.

— JIN: “I have to go … because I’m going to save you. Stay with Jack. He’ll keep you safe.”

— Sun’s tears well up.

— SUN: “Who will keep you safe?”

— They hug. They cry. They tell each other they love each other. They tell each other how sorry they are. And then they kiss, passionately.

— AND IF THIS DOES NOT MAKE YOU CRY YOU ARE A ROBOT.

5. “Dude.”

— Fast-forward to “Exodus, Part 2.” Leslie Arzt knows how to handle dynamite, but he does not know how to handle ghost ships. He wants nothing to do with the Black Rock. Neither does Hurley. So the two of them hang out outside the ship and have themselves a chat. Arzt is telling Hurley all about his third wife. Hurley isn’t paying attention, and Arzt knows it.

— ARZT: “What… am I boring you?”

— HURLEY: “Huh?”

— ARZT: “You know what? I’m, I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I’m not cool enough to be part of your merry little band of adventurers. I know a clique when I see it. I teach high school, pal-y. You know, you people think you’re the only ones on this island doing anything of value. Well, I’ve got news for you. There were 40 other survivors of this plane crash, and we’re all people, too!”

— HURLEY: “Dude, this is all in your head.”

— ARZT: “Oh, really? Then explain to me why Kate gets the best pieces of wreckage to build her shelter? And the Korean guy — does he catch fish for everybody on the island? No, he does not! And some of us have actually lost weight while we were here. Now, would you mind telling me where you’re hiding the carbs? Because I can’t figure …”

— And then he sees it: Jack, John and Kate leaving the Black Rock with a big crate of dynamite. And it launches us into the funniest scene of the episode, and one of the greatest gags of the series: Arzt explaining the nature of dynamite.

— ARZT: “Do any of you have any idea what happens to dynamite in 90+ degree heat? It sweats nitroglycerine. [Jack starts moving forward.] Whoa, hey, what are you doing? Did I ask you to come closer? [He picks up a stick of dynamite.] Dynamite is nitroglycerin stabilized by clay. Nitroglycerin is the most dangerous and unstable explosive known to man. Hey, Kate, give me your shirt. NOW, princess, give me your shirt! I need to wrap the dynamite! Just throw it to me, right here. Be careful. Come on, hurry up! [He gets the shirt and starts putting it in the mud, and starts wrapping the dynamite.] Okay, good. Now back up. Back up back up, just back up, get out of my way. Any of you hear about the guy who invited nitroglycerin? Probably not … because he blew his freakin’ face off. His lab assistant came into the room, saw that his mentor detonated, and he said, ‘Huh. I guess this stuff does work.’”

— Arzt successfully wraps the dynamite. He holds it in his hand and breathes a sigh of relief. He looks to the group.

— ARZT: “Alright. We’re not going to take any more of this stuff than we need, because nitroglycerin is extremely temperamental. So we …”

— And then Arzt blows up.

— And when Arzt blows up, that leads us to great Hurleyisms such as “DUDE” and “You got some Arnzt on you.”

— And it’s so, so good. Kudos to Daniel Roebuck for being such a good sport about the whole thing. He sells poor Leslie so well. I would’ve loved to see more of the character (and thankfully we do get some more of him in flashbacks and sideways and whatnot), but at the same time, his exit is about as perfect an exit as anyone gets on LOST. Just so great.

4. “You’re a Man of Science … I’m a Man of Faith”

— Fast-forward to “Exodus, Part 3.” Jack, John, Hurley and Kate get closer to the Hatch. Jack does not understand why John wanted to be taken by the Monster. And it leads to one of the show’s most important conversations. 

— JACK: “I need for you to explain to me what the hell’s going on inside your head, John. I need to know why you believe that thing wasn’t going to …”

— LOCKE: “I believe I was being tested.”

— JACK: “Tested?”

— LOCKE: “Yeah. Tested. I think that’s why you and I don’t see eye to eye sometimes, Jack. Because you’re a man of science.”

— JACK: “Yeah. And what does that make you?”

— LOCKE: “Me? Well, I’m a man of faith. Do you really think all of this is an accident? That we, a group of strangers, survived, many of us just with superficial injuries? Do you really think we crashed on this place by coincidence? Especially this place? We were brought here for a purpose. For a reason. All of us. Each one of us was brought here for a reason.”

— JACK: “Brought here? And who brought us here, John?”

— LOCKE: “The Island. The Island brought us here. This is no ordinary place. You’ve seen that. I know you have. The Island chose you too, Jack. It’s destiny.”

— JACK: “Did you talk with Boone about destiny, John?”

— LOCKE: “…Boone was a sacrifice that the Island demanded. What happened to him at that plane was part of a chain of events that led us here. That led us down a path. That led you and me to this day, to right now.”

— JACK: “And where does that path end, John?”

— LOCKE: “The path ends at the Hatch. The Hatch, Jack. All of it happened so we could open the Hatch.”

— JACK: “No … no, we’re opening the Hatch so that we can survive.”

— LOCKE: “Survival is all relative, Jack.”

— JACK: “I don’t believe in destiny.”

— LOCKE: “Yes you do. You just don’t know it yet.”

— What’s great about this scene is how right Locke is, and how wrong he is. He’s very right about Jack: he’s a man of science, and one day, he’ll have to take a leap of faith. He’s right that Jack will one day believe in destiny. But he’s wrong, dead wrong, about the Hatch. That everything is leading there. That the answers to all of his questions and problems and insecurities will be answered by whatever is inside of the hatch — “hope,” he believes, is down there. And yeah, it is. But that’s not all that’s down there. There’s also frustration down there. There’s pain. And there are errors just waiting to be made. 

— Take a good, long look at the John Locke of this scene. The confident mystery man who knows everything about everything. The hunter who was born to come to this island. The man of faith who wholly embraces his destiny.

— We won’t see that same man again for a very long time.

3. “The thing is…”

— Fast-forward to the end of “Exodus, Part 3.” Everything about this scene is incredible. The blip on the radar. The blip fading away. The panic as Michael tries to determine whether he should listen to his own instincts or listen to Sawyer’s advice and fire off the signal flare. The “Please God” he mutters as he blasts the flare off into the night sky. The deafening silence as the blip leaves the screen. The swirling of adrenaline as the blip returns and comes closer and closer. The sheer joy when the lights go on and it’s another boat and everyone’s rescued.

— The absolute horror as the reality of the situation settles in.

— MISTER FRIENDLY: “The thing is … we’re going to have to take the boy.”

— MICHAEL: “What? What did you say?”

— MISTER FRIENDLY: “The boy. We’re going to have to take him.”

— MICHAEL: “Hey … what the hell’s going on here? Who are you people?”

— MISTER FRIENDLY: “Just give us the boy.”

— The others on the boat straighten up. Sawyer’s brow furrows, his gun tucked into the back of his pants. Jin, without knowing a lick of English, beginning to understand the tension. Walt … poor Walt. Michael, defiant.

— MICHAEL: “I’m not giving you anybody.”

— MISTER FRIENDLY: “Well, alright then!”

— The light’s off. Sawyer’s gun’s up. He’s shot. He’s in the ocean. Jin calls out for him, dives in after him. The Others board the raft. Michael swings at one. Michael gets pushed off the raft. Walt is taken. A bomb is thrown on the raft. The raft explodes. Michael treads water, watching in terror as his son is taken away, calling out for his dad. There’s nothing he can do except scream.

— And then we get the first of what’s about to become one of the show’s most oft-repeated, iconic lines.

— MICHAEL: “WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAALT!”

— The pacing of this scene is out of this world. The range of emotions. It’s so intense. Everything about it is so wrong and so right. And look, if you watch this scene knowing what Michael’s going to do a few episodes down the line … you really can’t understand that this is a man having a psychotic break? Cut the man some slack, people.

2. “Good luck, Jack.”

— Flash-back to “Exodus, Part 1.” The raft needs a new mast. Sawyer is out in the jungle cutting bamboo to make it happen. Jack comes out and meets him. He gives him one of the guns. “Just in case.” Sawyer says this is probably goodbye. Jack agrees. “Good luck, Sawyer,” he tells the man he had tortured just a few weeks earlier, a man who has been his chief rival on the island for a full month now. A man who has shown him little to no kindness in all of that time. A man he really can’t stand.

— And now, that same man pays Jack the greatest kindness of them all.

— SAWYER: “Jack. About a week before we all got on the plane … I got to talking to this man in a bar in Sydney. He was American, too. A doctor. I’ve been on some benders in my time, but this guy, he was going for an all time record. Turns out this guy has a son. His son’s a doctor, too. They had some kind of big time falling out. The guy knew it was his fault, even though his son was back in the States thinking the same damn thing. [Pauses] See, kids are like dogs: you knock ‘em around enough, they’ll start thinking they did something to deserve it. Anyway, there’s a pay phone in this bar. And this guy — Christian — tells me he wishes he had the stones to pick up the phone and call his kid. To tell him he’s sorry. That he’s a better doctor than he’ll ever be. [Jack looks away at that part; that’s just too much to bear.] He’s proud. And he loves him. I had to take off, but, something tells me he never got around to making that call. Small world, huh?”

— JACK: “Yeah.”

— SAWYER: “… good luck, Jack.”

— All the best cowboys have daddy issues indeed. What more needs to be said? Josh Holloway and Matthew Fox at the very top of their games.

— It’s one of the greatest scenes in all of LOST.

1. The Raft Launch

— This is the greatest scene in all of LOST.

— I know I’m Captain Hyperbole. And maybe I’ll think differently when I get deeper into the rewatch. But I can tell you this much: anytime anyone asks me what my favorite moment on all of LOST is, the launch of the raft is always my answer.

— It has everything you need: sweeping, building Giacchino score. Our favorite characters saying goodbye to one another. Hope high in everyone’s hearts. The raft successfully setting out to sea. Charlie and Sayid jumping for joy and woo-hooing at the sight of the raft actually working. Vincent wading out into the water to follow Walt, because he can’t stand to be away. Walt willing the dog to go back. Jin and Sun looking across the water at each other with so much uncertainty, and so much love for one another. The camera panning out to show the size and scale of the ocean and the island as the raft cruises forward. It’s the most hopeful, uplifting moment of the series to date.

— And it all falls apart as the episode cuts to the billowing black smoke in the distance. Winter is coming, as they say on another show.

— The raft launch is everything I love about LOST.

— That’s going to do it for the “Exodus” recap. Quick shout-outs to the episode’s flashbacks, going back to Sydney Airport to show the final hours and minutes before the lives of Oceanic 815’s passengers changed forever; to Hurley’s hilarious numbers-filled misadventure as he tries to make his flight; to Rousseau lying through her teeth about how she’s “never seen anything like” the Hatch; to Walt giving Vincent to Shannon and yielding one of Maggie Grace’s most likable moments on the show; to Sawyer singing “Redemption Song” and getting called out by Michael because “who doesn’t like Bob Marley?”; the dark territory, “where Montand lost his arm”; Jack warning Kate that they’re about to have “a Locke problem”; Hurley trying to stomp out the fuse because “the numbers are bad”; the episode-ending view down into the Hatch; and so much more.

— “Exodus,” you guys. “Exodus.”

— One season down. Five more to go. I’m beginning season two tomorrow, but I won’t blog about it until Wednesday. I want to give myself a bit of a buffer between the work-outs and the blogs, because writing these blogs takes a lot of time and energy; as much as I love doing WWW, I don’t want to risk burn-out, so this is the best solution I can think of.

— Instead, tomorrow, I’ll be giving you a brief season one retrospective: what I’ve learned in my latest revisit to the very first season of one of the very best stories ever told. 

NEXT: Season One In Review

PREVIOUSLY: “The Greater Good” and “Born to Run”

WWW | LOST: The Greater Good and Born to Run

There’s only been one bad episode of LOST so far in this crazy rewatch project called Watching With Wigler. With only two episodes to go before the three-part season one finale, will we find another dud? Or is season one close to flawless? Let’s dig into today’s blog and find out.

— Short answer: season one is close to flawless.

— Longer answer so that there’s actually a blog here: “The Greater Good” and “Born to Run” are much better episodes than I remember. I’m guilty of remembering these episodes as filler in the run-up to “Exodus.” Episodes that kind of just had to be there, rather than episodes that actually accomplish things for the characters and the story. I was wrong.

— “The Greater Good” is Sayid-centric. His flashbacks concern the business that brought him to Sydney ahead of Oceanic 815’s crash. Specifically, he was in Sydney to infiltrate a terrorist cell due to his connection with one of the terrorists — an old college friend of his named Essam Tasir. (He’s played by Donnie Keshawarz, who played the all-too-short-lived operative Yusuf Auda on season two of 24; a really great character who deserved a better-written exit than he ultimately received on that show. I digress.) In exchange for foiling the terrorist plot, and taking Essam down in the process, Sayid will be provided with the thing he’s sought for the past seven years: the whereabouts of Nadia.

— (Seven years he’s searched for Nadia … and we’re supposed to buy into Sayid casting all that aside and falling in love with Shannon? Not me, no way!)

— It’s a vicious flashback. Sayid doesn’t want to damn his friend, especially when he realizes Essam is in over his head, that he doesn’t want to go through with the plot. But if he wants to reunite with Nadia — heck, if he wants to keep the authorities from arresting Nadia — he needs to go through with his mission.

— And go through with it he does. He infiltrates the cell, lives with them for what appears to be a significant amount of time, and ultimately sells Essam down the river when the time comes. He tries to give Essam some time to escape, but Essam feels so betrayed by Sayid’s revelation, that he takes his own life, shooting himself in the head, right in front of Sayid.

— Sure, Sayid has put his past behind him; he’s no longer a torturer. Not a physical torturer, at least. Sayid absolutely tortures this man on a deep emotional level, to the extent that he commits suicide. The act sickens Sayid. He’s disgusted with himself for what he’s done to an old friend who lost his way. And it’s just another body added to the high-stacked pile Sayid has created in the years past and the years yet to come.

— The island story is even more compelling than the flashback. The episode picks up in the wake of Aaron’s birth and Boone’s death. It’s the day of Boone’s funeral. Jack, still sick from blood-loss and still obsessed with finding the “murderer” John Locke, asks grief-stricken Shannon if she wants to say any words about her departed brother. She doesn’t. Sayid does.

— SAYID: “I didn’t know Boone very well, and for that, I am sorry. On our sixth day here, a woman named Joanna died. She drowned. Boone was the first one into the water. I didn’t know him, but I remember his courage. And I know he will be missed.”

— A nice eulogy for sure. Certainly nicer than the next one: John Locke shows up after being gone for the whole night, his shirt soaked with Boone’s blood. Locke, easily Boone’s closest companion on the island outside of Shannon, delivers a speech that is so very unlike the Locke these people know; the hunter with the sage-like wisdom, the mystery man who always has a quote or an ancient anecdote to share when a puzzle needs decoding. The speech Locke gives is really, really far from that. 

— LOCKE: “It was my fault. We found a plane. A Beechcraft. In the jungle. It was lodged in the canopy, so … I would have gone up, but I … my leg was hurt, so he … there was a radio inside and he thought he could … his weight must have made the plane shift and it fell. And … it happened because he was trying to help us. He was a hero.”

— And wow, that’s awkward. The only way it could get more awkward is if someone decided to beat the ever-loving shit out of John right there, right then, in the middle of Boone’s funeral. Good thing Jack is around to give his eulogy.

— JACK: “Where were you? Where were you? Where the hell were you you son of a bitch? What did you do to him? Where were you?? You left him to die! YOU LIED TO ME!! WHERE WERE YOU??”

— Remember what I said about the John/Jack break-up? Yeah. It’s ugly.

— Jack eventually stops wailing on John when he’s pulled off by his fellow survivors. He’s sick with blood-loss, and he’s forced to take it easy. But he knows John’s lied about something. And that’s causing the others, Sayid especially, to get suspicious.

— Sayid is further convinced to look into Locke when Shannon makes it clear that she thinks Locke killed her brother. Why does she think that? Well, it certainly doesn’t help that Locke tries to comfort her in a one-on-one conversation WHILE HE’S STILL WEARING A SHIRT SOAKED IN BOONE’S BLOOD. LOCKE WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU THAT’S NOT HOW NORMAL PEOPLE DO THINGS JEEZ. For what it’s worth, it’s a reminder that Locke is a bit of a dweeb when it comes to social interaction, and has been pretty much all of his life. 

— Anyway, it’s enough to convince Sayid to go off into the jungle with John to find the Beechcraft that killed Boone. It’s a great scene filled with great back-and-forth dialogue about lies and half-truths, the two men feeling each other out. It’s Sayid’s job to sniff out the truth. It’s Locke’s job to give him just enough to keep himself in good standing with the Oceanic crowd while still not revealing anything about the hatch. Ultimately, Locke decides the best way to convince Sayid that he’s on the level is to let him in on a big secret: all the way back in “The Moth,” when Sayid was knocked unconscious by an unknown assailant … “that was me,” Locke admits.

— That answer doesn’t go over well. It earns Locke a gun pointed in the face. Locke ultimately convinces Sayid it was for the greater good (get it?) of the group, that leading everyone to the French woman’s signal could have endangered the survivors, and that no one was ready yet to have a reasonable debate about the nature of the island. The explanation works for Sayid, at least to the extent that he knows John’s not lying about wanting to protect the group, and that he didn’t kill Boone.

— That’s not satisfying enough for Shannon. She steals Jack’s keys to the gun case, grabs a gun, and holds John at gunpoint. As a literal and metaphorical storm rages and rains upon her, Shannon pulls the trigger on John, but misses the target (er, grazes the target) because Sayid pushes her out of the way. And so ends the Sayid/Shannon romance, at least for the time being.

— By the way, as we’ll learn next week … Shannon + Rain + Guns = NOT GOOD.

— When Locke later asks Sayid why he saved his life, Sayid gives a hell of an answer.

— SAYID: “I did it because I sense you might be our best hope of surviving here. But I don’t forgive what you did. And I certainly don’t trust you. And now? You’re going to take me to the hatch.”

— LOCKE: “Hatch? But I already showed you the …”

— SAYID: “John. No more lies.”

— Remember what I said about Sayid being a human bullshit detector? Case in point.

— There’s a lot of other greatness in “The Greater Good.” Like Sawyer snapping into hero mode on multiple occasions: he yells out for someone to go get water when Jack passes out after beating up Locke. Sawyer, looking out for Jack? Well, how about that! Later, Sawyer factors into the episode when Charlie is trying to get Claire’s baby (nicknamed “Turnip Head” at the time) to fall asleep, but the only thing that’ll calm him down is the smooth sounds of James Ford’s voice. Great stuff.

— Another fun little moment is when Walt asks Michael about the dangers of setting sail on the raft. “What if a shark attacks?” he asks. Michael dismisses that entirely. BUT WE KNOW BETTER.

— As much as I enjoyed “The Greater Good,” it was “Born to Run” that really surprised me today. After “Whatever the Case May Be,” I was kind of dreading this one, to be honest. My memories of this episode before today were few and far between … and that led to some wonderful surprises.

— For one, it’s the introduction of Doctor Leslie Arzt, one of the finest red-shirts that LOST has to offer. It’s just a quick scene where Arzt schools everyone on the dangers of setting off to sea this season; he says they need to wait three to four months, because they should’ve set sail “yesterday.” It’s a funny and necessary scene to set up the amazing role Arzt plays in the finale.

— But it also sets up the sense of urgency and excitement and dread in the air of season one’s final few episodes. The raft needs to launch, like, now. Which means that for better or worse, the group’s first real shot at getting rescued is about to get underway. Some people, like Charlie, believe the raft will lead to salvation; he’s writing a brand-new Driveshaft record to debut upon his return to civilization.

— For others, like Kate Austen, the raft is quite literally a last chance. Kate knows that if the raft is successful and it brings rescuers to the island, she’s going directly to jail. Her only way to avoid that one-way ticket is to get on the raft and hit the road before a larger rescue party shows up with handcuffs at the ready.

— Kate’s desperation to get on the raft arouses Michael’s suspicion, but it’s Sawyer who puts two and two together when his place on the raft is threatened. He knows who Kate really is. He knows she’s the prisoner. And he wants her to know that there is absolutely no way she’s stealing his place on the raft. 

— KATE: “Hey Sawyer. I want your spot? I’ll get your spot.”

— Fighting words! And that leads to a whole new round of suspicion when Michael winds up poisoned. Michael accuses Sawyer, and Sawyer takes that as a cue to call out Kate, who he believes is the real poisoner. Just as Sun was outed as an English-speaker a few episodes ago, Kate gets outed as the prisoner. And with that revelation goes Kate’s chances at getting onto the raft.

— While I was watching the episode today, I kept remembering that, yep, Kate really is the person who poisoned Michael. At some point, I can’t remember quite when, the real revelation hit me: it was Sun, not Kate. She was trying to keep Jin from leaving on the raft, trying to keep him on the island with her, to protect him. I was so amazed that I’d completely forgotten about that. What a great surprise. And then I was surprised even more when Sun talks to Kate at the episode and you realize that Sun was the person who poisoned Michael but the idea came from Kate. Triple-whammy. It’s not often that the early seasons of LOST are able to surprise me at this point, but I really didn’t remember this episode well. Lots of fun.

— And the flashbacks! Now, this is what we should’ve seen instead of “Whatever the Case May Be.” These flashbacks are totally worthy of Kate. She returns to her hometown to check in on her mom, who is very sick with cancer. She leans on her childhood pal Tommy, now a doctor, to get her closer to her mom. She and Tom reconnect for a brief moment when they dig up an old time capsule and listen to a tape from their youth, swearing that one day they’ll be married and have nine children together. They kiss. They stop. Tommy gets Kate to her mom. Her mom cries out for help. It’s brutal. It’s not as brutal as Kate hijacking Tommy’s car, Tommy refusing to get out of the car, Kate driving off with him still inside, the car getting shot up by a police officer, and Tommy dying as a result. She didn’t pull the trigger, but there’s no question that she killed the man she loves.

— All of that feels true to Kate and the overwhelming guilt she’s placed upon herself, and the guilt that she’s earned, during her time on the run. All of that feels right. None of the flashback portion of “Case” feels right. Wholly unnecessary. That episode straight-up should not exist. I think if it didn’t exist, and we only got “Tabula Rasa” and “Born to Run” as Kate’s season one episodes, she’d be a much more loved character than she is today.

— Okay! Taking tomorrow off, but after that, we embark on a crazy-epic three-part viewing of “Exodus.” That’s 120 minutes on the treadmill. I think I might die but I’ll try to stay alive long enough to write about the experience. And then! We’re done with season one! Crazy that we’ve gotten this far! Plenty more to go!

NEXT: “Exodus”

PREVIOUSLY: “Deus Ex Machina” and “Do No Harm”

WWW | LOST: Deus Ex Machina And Do No Harm

Two sides. Two players. One is Jack. The other is Locke.

— With the possible exception of the pilot, “Deus ex Machina” and “Do No Harm” is easily my favorite double-feature of the LOST rewatch so far. In fact, I think these episodes are best discussed in tandem, so we’ll weave in and out a bit here.

— These episodes are the Jack/Locke breakup episodes. Sure, it’s “The Greater Good” where Jack makes things physical. And it’s “Exodus” where their clearly opposed philosophies come in to play. In fact, there isn’t too much shared screen-time between Jack and John in today’s two hours … just a little bit near the end of “Deus” when Locke returns to camp with a bloodied Boone around his shoulders.

— But that’s enough.

— The death of Boone is brutal in every sense of the word. Locke’s premonition early into “Deus,” with bloody Boone muttering “Teresa falls up the stairs; Teresa falls down the stairs” over and over, is our first clear signal that whatever spirit journey the bald man is on, it probably doesn’t include his wedding-planning pal, at least not for the long haul. Even Locke probably understands this; he’s selective about the information he decides to share with Boone, and he absolutely omits the part about Boone looking super-gnarly in the vision. 

— And so Boone sticks with Locke, because at this point, his eggs are in the Locke basket, and he’s hooked by the Teresa connection. And it’s his undoing. Locke, whose legs are not working, cannot climb the cliffside and enter the plane, so it’s Boone’s job to go up there instead. And all he finds is statues filled with heroin. And a radio. A radio that works.

— BOONE: “Hello! Hello! Can you hear me?”

— RADIO: “Repeat your transmission!”

— BOONE: “Hello! We’re the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815! Please copy!”

— RADIO: “We’re the survivors of Oceanic flight 815!”

— Of course, those of us who have seen further know who is on the other end of the radio; but when you’re hearing it for the first time, and even to this day, it sounds like another Boone talking back to our Boone, and that shit is creepy.

— Anyway, you don’t have long to think about how creepy all of that is, because the plane falls, Boone’s still in it, and he’s crushed beyond repair. Locke brings him to the caves, and Jack gets to work.

— And boy, does he get to work. “Do No Harm,” a Jack flashback, is all about how the good doctor Shephard is the most committed man on earth, but doesn’t know how to let go. And that’s all over his approach to Boone. At first, it’s impressive, even if it’s tough to watch and think about: fixing Boone’s collapsed lung, resetting his crushed leg, donating more blood than he reasonably should to a dying man … and the coup de grâce, enlisting Michael to turn part of the plane wreckage into a makeshift guillotine, to amputate Boone’s dead leg.

— But that’s where even Boone draws the line. He knows he’s all messed up inside. Even if Jack amputates the leg, he’s a goner. And besides, “look where we are.” Boone lets Jack off the hook. And it’s not long before he sputters out his final words:

— BOONE: “Tell Shannon … tell Shannon …”

— Tell Shannon what? He doesn’t say. He’s gone. But it’s what he says before his death, before the almost-amputation, that puts things on an irreversible course.

— JACK: “Don’t try moving. Can you breathe okay?”

— BOONE: “It fell on me.”

— JACK: “What fell?”

— BOONE: “A plane. It was a plane.”

— JACK: “Boone … Boone. Locke said you fell from a cliff.”

— BOONE: “No … it was … it fell … the plane. It’s because of the hatch. We found a hatch. Locke said … John said … John said not to tell … about the hatch.”

— JACK: “… What did Locke do? What hatch?”

— Cat’s out of the bag. Jack knows Locke lied about something, and as we’ll learn later, he blames Locke because had he just stuck around and told him the truth, he could have tackled Boone’s injuries with a proper diagnosis. Jack’s fury is made clear at the end of the episode when Kate tries to console the doctor.

— KATE: “Want to talk about it?”

— JACK: “Talk about what?”

— KATE: “Boone died, Jack.”

— JACK: “He didn’t die. He was murdered.”

— KATE: “What? Jack, where are you going?”

— JACK: “To find John Locke.”

— And thus the show’s most important rivalry is born. You thought Jack and Sawyer’s constant posturing was something? You haven’t seen anything yet. 

— The death of Boone is intense and difficult, and it connects “Deus Ex Machina” and “Do No Harm” and Locke and Jack in great and powerful ways. But it’s not the only reason these episodes are so, so, so fantastic. A quick-hit list of some other great things that happen:

— The long con of Anthony Cooper, a man of many aliases, and a man of many bad deeds. What he does to Locke is so loathsome, it’s unfathomable. Kevin Tighe is awful and amazing as Cooper. He’ll get his, but it’ll take a long time before that happens.

— The long con against John Locke. The biggest cosmic joke of them all. If any of these Oceanic survivors is caught in a game of MouseTrap, it’s John, and maybe he’s starting to put it together.

— The trebuchet. “Why do they call it a trebuchet? It looks like a catapult.” “It’s called a trebuchet, Boone, because it’s a trebuchet.” Good enough for me! Also, I’ll never forget how to spell trebuchet. “There’s a ‘t’ on the end.” Thanks, Mr. Locke.

— Sawyer’s headaches. Jack’s examination. “Have you ever had an STD? Going to take that as a yes.” Sawyer storming out, Jack smiling and telling Kate, “He needs glasses.” Sayid making the glasses, his one scene in the entire episode, one of the silliest MacGuyver moments this side of MacGuyver. Sawyer getting the glasses and looking like what Hurley describes as “steam-rolled Harry Potter.” 

— Eko’s plane. The drugs. The bodies.

— The final scene of “Deus Ex Machina,” with Locke in his flashback (with amazing flashback hair) raging at the gates of Anthony Cooper, raging inside of his car, blood staining the back of his shirt where his kidney was just removed. Locke in the present, raging against the hatch, roaring out one of the most heart-wrenching lines of the whole series:

— LOCKE: “I’ve done everything you wanted me to do, so why, are you doing this, TO MEEEEEE?”

— The light in the hatch going on. Hello, Desmond Hume.

— The Nurses Kwon. Both Jin and Sun are instrumental in the birth of Aaron and the care of Boone respectively, and both are amazing in these roles.

— Sawyer immediately moving into hero mode when Kate demands alcohol to fix Boone. He doesn’t give her any snark. Asks zero questions. Just forks it over. In the moment, when the going’s getting tough, we know the man Sawyer really is.

— Kate in the zone. If you’re a Kate hater, watch “Do No Harm,” watch the bravery she displays in delivering Claire’s baby, watch how she talks and calms Claire down, watch the joy on her face when Aaron is born. It’ll wipe the bad memories of “Whatever the Case May Be” away. She’s perfect here. 

— Sad Shannon being sad at the sight of Boone’s body. The sobbing is silent because the Giacchino score needs our full attention, but you don’t need to hear anything else anyway, because you can hear Shannon’s despair just fine.

— Jack’s flashbacks and the introduction of his past as a married man. The way that’s introduced, a total fake-out, making you think Jack is the best man, not the groom. The vows. Jack struggling with those damn vows. Talking things through with Christian in what is easily the most pleasant, downright positive scene the two of them have shared up to now. Also, drunk Jack, and piano virtuoso Jack. And by piano virtuoso I mean he’s really good at “Heart and Soul.”

— “Don’t tell me what I can’t do,” Jack says when Sun tells him he can’t save Boone. SOUNDS FAMILIAR DON’T IT.

— And there’s so much more I can’t even recall off the top of my head. “Deus Ex Machina” and “Do No Harm.” Such terrific episodes. Such great hours of LOST. Revisit those two as a pair and you will be rewarded tremendously.

— We’re closing in on the finish line of season one, believe it or not. Tomorrow brings us Sayid and Kate in “The Greater Good” and “Born to Run.” The day after, it’s all of “Exodus,” one of a few triple-features planned for the rewatch. That’s going to be a humbling experience. The day after that, we will enter the hatch and go straight into season two with “Man of Science, Man of Faith” and “Adrift.” Some very fun days coming up.

NEXT: “The Greater Good” and “Born to Run”

PREVIOUSLY: “…In Translation” and “Numbers”