Lost ReWatch Week #1: Pilot, Parts 1 & 2, Tabula Rasa, Walkabout

I am finally ready to go, like a sailboat donated by a mental patient or a hot air balloon funded by a rich industrialist. So grab a glass of Dharma drugged orange juice, and prepare to submerge yourselves into the murky waters we've been swimming in for five seasons of Lost.

My Official Lost ReWatch Caveat

There are 8 sites participating in this project besides myself. In order to provide the most honest and fresh perspective here, I am not reading the recaps and analysis posted on my fellow ReWatch friends' sites until AFTER I have posted my own. We all have different writing styles and are bound to experience varying epiphanies throughout this process. So if you come across any similarities, keep in mind that we've all seen these episodes multiple times and have analyzed them under relatively kindred microscopes for five years.

Also...I am not perfect, nor is my memory; there are bound to be small mistakes here and there as I revisit and discuss all five seasons. So please excuse any errors in advance, and enjoy the ride!

All Four One

Rather than share my thoughts about each individual episode, I decided to format this first ReWatch entry by category and character, from all 4 episodes combined. Let me know what you think; I'm open to suggestions!

It is quite fascinating to watch the first few episodes of Lost now, keeping in mind what we just witnessed in the Season 5 finale.

We know exactly where Ben and the Others were when 815 broke apart above them, but I find myself wondering where Jacob was during that time...

Relationships & Foreshadowing

• Locke helps Jack move people away from the engine before it blows up; this is the first thing he does upon discovering that he's no longer paralyzed.

• Charlie is the first person that Sayid meets; they share a Nadia connection (unbeknownst to Sayid, Charlie had saved her from being mugged in London before Flight 815).

• Hurley collects and distributes the airline food. His issues with food and desire to be liked is established immediately.

• After Jack's tells Kate his 'count to 5' fear story, she says she would have run for the door. He tells her "you're not running now." But she did and she does.
  

• Charlie wants to prove his worth right away (or at least prove to himself that he's a viable helping hand even while high); he volunteers to accompany Jack and Kate into the jungle to look for the transceiver. He will later save Jack in the cave after it collapses.

• Locke is eating an orange on the beach; he eats a mango on the beach shortly after apparently reanimating after the Ajira 316 "crash."

• Sun looks at Kate with envy as she bathes openly in the ocean. Sun later dons that blue bikini and enjoys a similar moment of freedom.

• Hurley tells Sayid that he likes him. They later form an inadvertent team as part of the Oceanic 6, escaping bad guys in Los Angeles.

• Kate hides at the base of the Banyan trees while attempting to avoid an encounter with Smokey for the first time. She later hides with Juliet in a very similar base of trees when Smokey flashes and scans but spares them.

• Kate lies to Jack about her relationship with the Marshall, establishing a pattern of lies between them that continues forever.

• Jack first states what we later discover to be true about everyone who dies on the island, "any bodies we bury aren't going to stay buried for very long."
  

Shoes! Significant

We see what appears to be one of Christian Shephard's white tennis shoes hanging in a tree very shortly after Jack opens his eye after waking up on the island.

Regardless of whether or not you believe any of the Mobisodes to be canon, I think it is absolutely significant that Christian is wearing both of his white tennis shoes in So It Begins, when he says the following to Vincent:

"I need you to go find my son. He's over there in that bamboo forest, unconscious. I need you to go wake him up."

After Vincent takes off and approaches Jack (as we witness in the opening moments of the Pilot), Christian delivers the line that both Walt and Ben later say to Locke, "he has work to do."

Continuing with the prevalent Black and White theme that has permeated Lost since the beginning...we must now ponder the two pairs of Christian's shoes that seemingly play a very symbolic and noteworthy role in the entire series. Jack placed white tennis shoes on his father in the coffin before Flight 815, and he placed his father's black shoes on Locke in the coffin before Flight 316. Given Jacob in his white frock vs. Mystery Man/Not-Locke in his black frock...

CHARLIE

I just have to say that I noticed and loved the juxtaposition of blissfully ignorant Shannon painting her toenails while dark horse Charlie was writing in black ink on his taped up fingers.

There is a sad irony to Charlie's statement that "every trek needs a coward," given that he turned out to be anything but. And it was one of the first of many overt references to The Wizard of Oz that we've come to enjoy on Lost.

Those of you who are frequent readers are already familiar with (and probably tired of hearing about) my Crazy Charlie Theory. Long story short...due to the time travel elements which were introduced in Season 5, the possibilities are endless for connections on this show. My theory is that Charlie Pace is in fact Charlie Hume, son of Desmond and Penny. Why am I bringing this up again now? Because in "Walkabout," Charlie mentions that his grandfather used to take him fishing. IF my theory is correct, he would be referring to Charles Widmore. Although we've never actually seen Widmore fishing, he is certainly quite interested in boats (there is a model of one in his office, he sponsors a boat race around the world, he bought the original Black Rock ship journal). Worth contemplating, at least in my opinion.

CHRISTIAN SHEPHARD

Would a deceased passenger traveling in a coffin be listed on a flight manifest? This question occurred to me when we got a glimpse of Ghost Christian for the first time, in "Walkabout."

I am assuming the answer is no, because Hurley would have asked Jack about the relation if he saw another Shephard listed.

CINDY (Oceanic 815 flight attendant)

Her whereabouts on the island after the crash continues to be one of the main lingering questions that fans have for the producers and writers of the show. Early on in Season 1, I decided that there was an underground living space beneath the island, and then after she was taken I just assumed that she resided there with the two children from the 815 tail section (Zach and Emma).

When Cindy resurfaced out of nowhere in Season 3 to 'observe' Jack, Kate and Sawyer after they were kidnapped by Ben and the Others, I thought she might have been a former Dharma employee or child of Dharma; a plant, working for Oceanic and on 815 for a specific journey to the island.

We saw Jacob interact and make physical contact with Jack long before he boarded 815, designating that Jack was one of the chosen ones to come to the island. Before crashing, Cindy was the one who enabled Jack by secretly giving him extra bottles of alcohol. If she knew what was going to happen, then she probably knew who he was. Giving him that booze served a dual purpose; it soothed the about-to-be hero's nerves and cleaned the wound he obtained during the crash. Everything happens for a reason, yada yada yada.

One more strange Cindy issue - when the plane broke apart, she was in 1st class going after Charlie. So how and why did she wind up crashing with the tail section? Then again, Charlie was in 1st class yet wound up crashing with the fuselage...

HURLEY

Hurley mentions to Sayid that he had a buddy who fought in the Gulf War. We never find out who that was, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was Kelvin Inman. Inman, Desmond's former hatch buddy, served in the Gulf War and blackmailed Sayid into torturing Iraqi prisoners before setting him free.

JACK

Until now, I never paid much attention to Jack's admission that he'd taken flying lessons.

Will he be the one at the end of Season 6 piloting the helicopter that finally takes Claire & Aaron off the island, per Desmond's vision and Charlie's sacrifice?

LOCKE

We now know that Locke's destiny was to get to that island. IF the writers/producers want us to now ponder the possibility that Mystery Man took over Locke's body upon arrival after the crash of 815...the clues to support that are prevalent in the first few episodes. Locke is the one who finds Vincent and discovers the Swan hatch. Locke is the one with the hunting wherewithal, the one who provides a major food source for the survivors (boar). Locke was the very first survivor to actually see Smokey. Locke knows exactly when the rain starts and stops. Almost all of his early actions were demonstrative of a man who has been to the island before.

For those of you who are now convinced (after Season 5) that Locke IS Smokey, I recommend that you replay the very last scene in "Tabula Rasa." Turn up the volume high, because that episode ends on a very creepy close-up of Locke...accompanied by very distant yet audible sounds that are quite distinctly Smokey. This is the first time I noticed it, and it resulted in goosebumps.

Additionally, the very end of "Walkabout" features a disarming smile from Locke that fades into a shot of engulfing flames. I will refer you to my second S5 finale analysis (see: Theme Alert!), because I am rather enamored with and outline the significance of fire on Lost. Especially following Jacob's apparent demise/rise from the ashes.

RAY MULLEN (Kate's farmer con)

In Season 4, I wrote and published an article called Missing Limbs & Time Travel: A LOST Connection. Disregard the outdated information that has since proven me wrong, but take into consideration what we've seen in Season 5.

It now seems entirely possible that the man who turned Kate over to the Marshall was either stationed on the island during an earlier era or related to Dharma in some way. His statement to Kate sealed it for me, "everyone deserves a fresh start."

SMOKEY

Regardless of who or what summoned the Black Smoke Monster for the first time after Flight 815 crashed, it's intent seemed to establish territory and send a message to the survivors on the beach.

In the Pilot (both episodes), Smokey appears in the jungle, at the beach and at the nose of the plane to kill pilot Seth Norris. Are we sure that it is just one entity? Given the speed and distance it travels, and that we've seen it emanate from beneath the Temple...it would make sense that Smokey travels via the recently discovered tunnels that run underneath the island.

It still strikes me as odd that Smokey killed the pilot of Flight 815. We have only witnessed it actually kill 4 people: Norris, Mr. Eko, Nadine (Rousseau's crew mate) and Mayhew (one of Keamy's mercenaries). [Sidenote: indirectly, Smokey's actions have led to the deaths of many others.] If we are to believe that at least some of the 815 passengers were destined to wind up on that island, and that Smokey protects that island...why kill the man who brought the chosen ones there?

My strong belief that Rose's side comment about hearing Smokey for the first time ("that sound it made; there was something familiar about it") is significant is rarely met with anything but resolute disagreement. But after watching the Pilot episodes yet again, I am still convinced that her follow-up statement about being from the Bronx holds two possible clues. First: one of Smokey's distinct sounds is that of a taxicab receipt printout (very NYC). Second: Smokey's seemed to emanate from below the ground, and its metallic sound and sheer strength resembled a train (NY subway).

I mentioned this after the S5 finale and am still puzzled by the ramifications of it...only Locke and Juliet/Kate have seen Smokey as white light. It spared all of them. But we still don't know what Locke saw when black Smokey approached him for the first time in "Walkabout."

WAAAAALT

There were subtle hints about his abilities early on.

When his father Michael told him that he'd go look for his dog after the rain stopped, the rain came to an immediate halt...as if directed/willed by Walt.

You Know That I Can Use Somebody

It is interesting to note that Kate had Sawyer (at least attempt to) kill the Marshal, and Locke later has Sawyer kill Anthony Cooper. And here we thought that Locke was always the only one who was "amenable to coercion."

Then again, Mystery Man/Not-Locke has Ben kill Jacob...

A Question for YOU

If some of the Flight 815 passengers were specifically brought to the island, were the people who died in the process considered collateral damage to those who brought them there; were they mere casualities of the overall 'plan?

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And, scene. Phew! This is going to be quite a long yet very enjoyable project. I appreciate your patience in advance, and will attempt to remain on the set viewing and posting schedule along with my fellow ReWatch sites.

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By all means, please feel free to comment below about anything I have posted! As usual, I would only ask that any criticism you might have be offered in a constructive manner and tone.

I would like to thank those of you who are new to my site, visiting and reading for the first time, as well as returning friends! Your support is truly going to make this a more memorable and extremely worthwhile experience.

- Jo