Lost: The Rewatch Thread - Page 2

I'm fairly certain that the shape was just plane debris, and that its been confirmed by Lindelof and Cuse. Couldn't tell you where I've read/heard that, though.

My favorite exchange:

What a different show that would have been.

I'm not trying to be dickish or sharp with you. At all. But we're technically on Season one right now, and we're exactly four episodes in. Could you try to focus on the season at hand, and (if you are so inclined) some of the things you may have enjoyed about it? Some of the things you've noticed in retrospect? Anything, really, relating to the beginning of the show? I understand that you've got grievances, but they're several seasons away from us at this point.

I'm thinking I'll start doing more eps. I'm through the first four and anxious to keep going. Any objections to picking up the pace for a bit?

Good to know. Thoughts/comments on White Rabbit and House of the Rising Sun tomorrow.

I wanted to ensure that anyone here wanting to participate could, and thought the four-eps a week would be enough to discuss, but also allow flexibility in people's schedules.

But since I'm the only one who's actively re-watching Season One I don't see any reason to do that now. Full-steam ahead!

Nice catch. I think you're right, in that we don't see anyone directly communicate this info to Boone. I didn't notice this at all when I rewatched. I guess I'm still not prone to spotting these things, but at least its not a conscious blindness.

As you'll see in House of the Rising Sun, Lost is a gift that keeps on giving. Oh, you wonderful, dangerous, naughty bees.

It's definately the most impressive overall to me. But it's got some fine competition. I'd forgotten just how Jin and Sun's arc begins. Knowing how it's ended up so far, watching them in these opening episodes is kind of revelatory. They used to be my least-favorite flashback/storyline characters. Now, they're right at the top of my nonexistent 'best-of' list.

White Rabbit

White Rabbit (ep 5)

This was a great episode.

Boone continues to prove himself excellent Monster-fodder with his bookending idiocies. He gets a drowning woman killed by almost drowning himself, and he decides to quietly take the entire camp's water without, you know, actually telling anyone he's doing it - despite the fact that several people run around all day looking for it in a panic.

The brief shots of Christian from Walkabout are expanded on and we witness the origin of Jack's Legendary Daddy Issues.

How wonderfully strange/eerie is that shot of Christian, fuly dressed in a suit, standing knee-deep in the surf?

In the Pilot, we learned that Claire's baby hadn't moved since she'd woken on the Island. Given what we know now about the fertility issues on the Island I'm assuming that was the first hint of the problems to come. We get (potential, uncertain) hints again in this episode. Claire gets suddenly, alarmingly sick. It's attributed to heat-stroke/dehydration, but Kate makes that call, not Jack. It's left ultimately ambiguous. She recovers, so it could easily have been the heat. But it could also have been a symptom of the Island-hates-preggers-chicks plague.

We learn Claire is into astrology. She asks Kate for her sign. Kate's answer: Gemini, a sign associated with the Roman figures of Castor and Pollux, who were twins. Twins and twinning play an important part in the subtext of this show, and this is the first mention of the concept, albeit a veiled one.

We see John Terry (who looks wildly younger in this episode than he does in any other) tell Jack that his son 'doesn't have what it takes,' but it's not clear what this means. Christian claims to be able to walk away from work at the day's end, and that this means he has what it takes. Only, as he's saying this, he's drinking and pouring several whiskeys at the same time, explicitly showing the lie of that claim. Jack's inability to let a problem go is painted as, and arguably is, a real liability. But Christian's expressed ability to let the same problems go is painted as, and arguably is, a falsity.

And speaking of Christian, Jack spends much of the episode running around pursuing his 'ghost.' The same ghost that will later tell Locke that he's Jacob's emissary. I like that Jack is chasing his father in multiple senses throughout the episode. (1) while in the jungle, looking for his apparition, (2) all the way to Sydney, in order to bring him back after what Jack 'did,' and (3) professionally and personally, as if to prove and disprove his father's opening judgments all at once.

White Rabbit lends serious credence to the notion that Risen Christian is the MiB. As a result of following him through the jungle, Jack comes close to plummeting from a cliff and dying similarly to the way in which 'Dave' comes close to tempting Hurley off a cliff in Season Two. Then again, Risen Christian also ends up leading Jack to the caves - a locale I haven't thought about in years.

It's interesting to note that Locke is the one who saves him. Locke further gives Jack a pep talk on leadership, and at this moment in the show it really does appear as though Locke is untainted by the notion that he's 'special.' Locke will spend later seasons increasingly convinced of his own self-worth, but where he's happiest, most in-tune with the Island, and most sure of himself is in these first episodes, where his own ego is abandoned almost carelessly in the face of the miracle he's recieved. In a microcosmic sense, Locke here seems content to be Jack's Richard - advising, but not in control. Then again, this is the same man who wandered off for boar while his companion was bleeding from the leg, so I'm not going to claim that he's perfectly balanced here either.

Great Locke Line#1: "Crazy people don't know they're crazy. They think they're getting saner."

Jack and Locke talk very briefly about the Island itself, adn about what Locke saw. He looked into the eye of the Island, and what he saw...was beautiful. Did Smokey recognize Locke from 'the past'? Did the Monster 'read' something in Locke that was useful? If the Monster is the MiB or a servant of the MiB, did it recognize an instrument essential to the MiB's apparent 'master plan'?

At the end of the episode, Jack finds his father's coffin and it is empty. We know that Anti-Locke didn't actually possess Locke's corpse because we see it at the end of Season 5. So what happened to Christian's body? Did it land elsewhere?

That actor does 'seedy and untrustworthy' really well. He's got a great face.

There's some evidence to support this in later seasons, even if its completely circumstantial/tangential. I'm thinking specifically of Richard wanting the Dharma body this past season.

House of the Rising Sun

House of the Rising Sun (ep 6)

Another solid, if less propulsive, episode. We've gotten three flashbacks thus far: Kate, Jack, and now, Sun and Jin.

As I mentioned, I'd pretty much forgotten (or the impact had faded) just how heartbreaking and redemptive the Sun/Jin arc is. The economy of the flashbacks in this ep is really impressive. In what amounts to minutes, the show sketches the arc of their relationship from discreet tryst to forbidden marriage to the triumph of their love in the face of a powerful unseen father, to the degeneration of Jin's innate goodness as a direct result OF that goodness, to Sun's desperation and desire to escape and finally, to the fragile wordless hope that floats to the surface with the reappearance of the flower Jin initially presented Sun with. It's a bravura piece of emotional, effective writing.

Jack's tattoos get their first mention! Clearly, the producers had that Bai Ling episode planned from the very beginning.

Most of the Jin/Michael conflict was less-than-compelling for me, mostly because I’d remembered the reason for Jin’s sudden, unexplained violence. The actress playing Sun even mimes the reason for us right after Jin is cuffed. She points to her wrist and indicates Michael, who is wearing Sun’s father’s watch (A watch that, to my knowledge, shouldn’t even be there. What are they doing with Paik’s watch? Does Paik give it to one of them?

This is also the episode where Locke and Charlie begin their contentious struggle over Charlie’s sobriety. Locke appears to believe that being present on the Island will help you overcome your setbacks/demons as a result of his physical healing, but he’s ignoring or unaware of the demons he still harbors – resentments and emotional pains that won’t come full circle until season 3.

Because Charlie the hophead (thanks for the fun word, Mattioli) can’t just do his smack in the open he’s got to insist on a little alone-time in the jungle, only Locke won’t give it to him – choosing to follow him around in a creepy/funny fashion that quickly reveals his gift for insight into the emotional lives of his fellow survivors. But first: BEEHIVE!

After Charlie’s endearing junkie-antics crack the hive, the resulting swarm drives Jack, Kate, Charlie and Locke to the caves, where three other pieces of mythology slot into place. But first, Evangeline Lily simply must remove her shirt again. Because of the bees, you see. When her shirt is returned to her, she explains:

Kate: “It was, um, full of bees…”

Great Charlie line #1: “I’d have thought C’s actually.” (sees Kate’s expression) “…Sorry.”

As for the mythology:

1&2) Adam and Eve – I’d falsely remembered the survivors discovering these unidentified bodies wrapped in an embrace. Actually, they’ve been laid to rest in separate locations. Jack comments that it looks as though someone else, a third party, has placed the bodies there. People have speculated that the Adam and Eve corpses are, variously, Bernard and Rose, Sawyer and Juliet, Jack and Kate, but there’s nothing in this episode to give us clues even now. What we do know/can infer: Jack states that it would take ‘at least 40-50 years for the bodies and clothing to have deteriorated to their current extent. Assuming that he knows what he’s talking about, this means that Adam and Eve died somewhere around the 1950s or 1960s. If the tropical environment makes things deteriorate even more quickly (shades of Montand’s arm!) then we’re looking at, potentially, their death in the 70’s.

3) The B&W stones – they recall Locke’s backgammon pieces of course. Not much more to go on here. They’re kept in a leather pouch, which indicates a few things: (1) the bearer did not have the resources/access to carrying cases and made a bag for themselves, (2) the stones could hold personal significance, or could simply be pieces in an old version of backgammon.

And here’s where we get a weird, inexplicable moment, where Charlie and Locke walk in on Jack and Kate examining Adam and Eve:

Charlie: (looking at Adam) “Are these the people who were here before us?”
Locke: (approaching) “What are you talking about?”
(Charlie and Jack exchange a strange, seemingly-meaningful look that, to me, makes absolutely no sense in the moment)
Charlie: “Well, just….there could’ve been people here before us.”

Am I missing something? View that moment for yourselves and weigh in, please. As it’s presented, it looks as though Charlie and Jack are wordlessly exchanging knowing glances, which makes no sense considering that neither of them know anything about the situation. For a brief moment (a very brief moment) I found myself wondering if this exchange is in fact significant in the mythology of the show – some moment that connects the Charlie and Jack who’ve just crashed on the Island with the Charlie and Jack they’d later become.

Watch it. Tell me I’m insane.

This line, uttered by Jack, stood out to me: “We don’t need to bring water to the people – we need to bring the people to the water.” He’s talking about the caves, and his desire to move people into them, but it also sounds quasi-mystic to me in the same vein as that ‘teach a man to fish’ koan. I’m reaching, I know.

Hurley again ends the episode playing his cd player. We get a montage. Can’t wait for that thing to run out of batteries.

That sounds plausible. It's still a weird moment, though. And that intent doesn't really come across, given the people involved in the conversation (why would Locke care if these other people were never rescued? He seems in love with the Island).

Still, the simplest explanation is probably the correct one.

This confuses me also. I'm going strictly by the show and it's self-generated hints/clues. Jack's estimate may be completely off, but it's what we've got to work wih so far.

And yeah, the Bai Ling episode is a water-treader alright. I do like the translation of Jack's tattoo though, via Ms. Ling. Despite the water-treading appearance of the episode as a whole, I believe that this translation is directly commenting on Jack's life and eventual fate on the show/the Island.

No worries about gun-jumping. It's only natural - I'd just prefer to keep the general conversation as a whole pointed in the direction of the season in question. The earlier seasons are now informed by the later ones so it's only natural to connect these threads as they come along.

And I agree. I made reference to the Mousetrap game in the season five thread after the finale. It's an instance where the writers crafted a pretty terrific, simple metaphor for what was coming wayyyy down the road, and it's touches like that that make this rewatch so much fun. Thanks for pointing it out.

But that story wasn't written around fan reaction alone. The show wanted to cover Fox's tattoos at first, then concluded that they wanted to work them into the story somehow. Was there some kind of online demand to know their origins, separate and apart from the plan on the part of the show to explain one of them?

I'd assumed before I started watching that I might be bored by some of the relationship issues or the day-to-day stuff around the 'mythology.' I've quickly discovered that I remember broadstrokes (Charlie tries to kick heroin! Locke helps!) but verrrry little of the details. This is where the good writing on this show really pays off. These episodes sustain interest without relying on our insatiable need to solve the 'mysteries.'

And we now have an answer to the question 'Where have all the bees gone?' In retrospect, it's so obvious: They're hiding in Evangeline Lily's shirts.

Huh.