Lost Re-Watch / Season 1 - Pilot Part 1

*If you haven't seen Lost, don't read further, go out and watch Lost. Major spoilers ahead for the newbies*

I just had the strangest feeling in my gut. I just finished watching "Pilot Part 1", and as I was going through it, it totally hit me. Lost is over. Some part of me wasn't ready to let go. I guess I didn't fully understand it, despite the series finale airing months ago, until I re-watched that first episode again. Our favorite characters are long gone, there's no more Lost music from Giacchino, no more comic-cons with Damon and Carlton. Lost is over.


JJ Abrams, one of the creators and executive producers of Lost, talked on TED.com in 2007 about the beauty of mystery and the unknown. When he was a child his grandfather took him to a small magic shop. There they bought a Mystery Box. A box that JJ Abrams has yet to open even after all these years.

"Mystery is more important than knowledge"

He goes on to state that it represents hope and potential. Imagining what could be inside that box is always going to be better than what is actually inside. Some mysteries are best unsolved. I agree with his statement 100% and that will always be why I can go back and re-watch Lost from beginning to end, probably several more times, for the rest of my life. This is the type of show that only comes around once in a lifetime. Lost has forever changed my life and although I may latch onto other shows like The Event and Fringe, if I'm truly honest with myself, nothing will ever come close to what Lost has achieved from beginning to end.

Thoughts / Pilot Part 1

"Jack Shephard, a doctor from Los Angeles, finds himself one of forty-eight survivors of a plane crash on a mysterious island. With the help of other survivors, he begins to treat the injured and attempts to find the cockpit of the plane in the hope of contacting civilization." - Lostpedia







Jack Shephard awakes in the bamboo jungle in shock. Rushing to the beach, despite the injury he's sustained to his side. I could really see that Jack was more worried about everyone else rather than himself, once he calmed down and took in the plane crash situation. He quickly scans the area and figures out who needs help the most. First is the man pinned under some wreckage. I don't ever think I could keep it together during a crazy situation like this. Not this quickly. Your plane just crashed, your bleeding, people are screaming all over the place. Pure chaos.

Even from the very first moments of Lost we see that Jack has it beat into his head to fix things himself. I realize that's been said so much it's literally cliché at this point, but I noticed it right away. He goes out of his way to make things the way he wants them to be. It's no wonder why Jacob chose him to come to the island. He's a guy that knows what he wants and that could definitely be useful as a leader figure. Jacob needed people with different skills, but he also needed people with heavy flaws so they wouldn't want to leave so quickly in the end.

During Jack's run around the wreckage to save everyone, we meet some of our Losties. Boone, Rose, Hurley, and Claire. The awesome Giacchino music kicks in and we're given an excellent scene of our Losties beginning to slowly settle into their soon-to-be new home on the beach. The music alone reminded me of everything that was about to happen in the next 100+ episodes. I kinda had my own Flash-Forward for a second and it totally gave me goosebumps.


Afterwards, Jack heads into a secluded area and we have our first reveal. Jack has been injured fairly badly all this time. He's found himself a needle and some thread and somehow plans to stitch himself up. Out walks Kate grasping her wrists and Jack calls out for some assistance. He gives her the famous speech about fear in this scene. It obviously made an impression on her because it comes up later when she's alone and terrified. Counting to 5 to relax yourself and take control of your emotions.

It begins to get dark and Sayid is already building a giant fire to hopefully attract overhead planes. Something that Sayid tries to do for the rest of this season if I remember correctly. I remember Sawyer saying "I kept your fire burning" when Sayid returns to the camp after "Solitary." Lost doesn't really have any throw-away scenes do they? I think we can (and have) picked apart anything and everything these characters have done and said.

We finish up Jack's fear story now with Kate saying "If that was me, I woulda run for the door." Jack replies, "No, I don't think that's true, you're not running now." Oh Lost, I love how you foreshadow stuff. Jack fixes things while Kate runs. Two things an amateur Lost fan would know.

Next on the list of dangerous things to do is find the transceiver from the front of the plane. Kate says she saw "smoke through the valley" so they decide to go in the morning to track it down. Jack and Kate exchange names just as they hear loud mechanical noises coming from the jungle. While I was watching I really thought it sounded like stomping, but we know Smokie doesn't really do stomping, does he? He's probably just pulling up trees out of the ground I think. Or at least that's what the writers were going for later on in the show so I'll assume that's what Smokie is doing. What was Smokie doing on the edge of the jungle though? Knowing how things play out, I believe he was seizing them up. Testing them maybe. Checking out how the survivors react. Or just simply, seeing what the hell that noise was on the beach when the plane crashed.

We now get our very first Flash-Back of the series and I love how it starts out. Jack is strangely looking out of his window in seat 23A on Oceanic flight 815. I wonder what he was thinking about. Perhaps he had a feeling something bad was about to happen. Cindy, the flight attendant, then gives Jack his little alcohol bottles and Jack throws back his extra-strong drink. Charlie rushes past Jack who had just stood up, most likely about to head to the rest-room himself, but that's where Charlie is headed. Rose and Jack begin talking and the turbulence begins. Jack tries to tell Rose that everything is normal but the turbulence gets worse and the oxygen masks come down. I absolutely love how Jack doesn't take his eyes off of Rose during all of this.

It's most likely just my head playing tricks on me, but this entire episode I felt that Jack knew what was going on. I'm not making a crack-pot theory or anything like that. Just pointing out something I noticed. Jack wakes up in the bamboo forest and rushes to help everyone, rather than react how everyone else was, standing around and screaming. Jack's staring out the window on the plane, perhaps thinking about crashing moments later. Then as the turbulence starts he puts his mask on and keeps an eye on Rose to make sure she's okay. Just some random and crazy thoughts.

Back on the beach, it's morning and the sun is very bright and I'm guessing by the looks of it, quite warm. The Losties are discussing what the noise was the other night in the jungle while Jack is daydreaming again. Staring out at the ocean. Jack and Kate gear up to go on the hike to find the transceiver, Kate needs better shoes. This sets up my favorite scene of "Pilot Part 1". Queue the eerie Giacchino music as Kate takes the shoe off of the deceased passenger, she looks up to see John Locke. John smiles with an orange peel in his mouth and it is one of the most surreal moments in the show. A strange and fascinating introduction to my favorite character in all of television. I can't wait to get into the future stories of John Locke.

Charlie joins the transceiver expedition and we all know why. Through the valley Kate keeps eying Charlie, "Can I ask you something?" Charlie responds with "I've been waiting." Turns out she apparently recognizes him from his band, Drive Shaft. I'm sure back when this show first aired (I began watching in the middle of Season 3 when the show had already collected a rabid fan-base) Kate asking how she recognized Charlie could have let to some pretty interesting theories. I really wish I took notice of Lost from the very start. I literally thought it was a scripted survivor though, from watching previews. Oh well, glad I didn't miss it entirely. Oh yeah, Dr. Giggles wasn't the least bit impressed by Charlie singing bits from "You All Everybody".

Vincent watches the trio while hidden in the bushes, day turns to night and the downpour begins. We get the exploration type music for the first time as Kate, Jack, and Charlie head for the cockpit. Back on the beach we see John Locke sitting cross-legged on the beach as the rain pours down heavily. John firmly believes that he has been given a second chance in life with the healing of his paralysis and so he welcomes the storm with open arms and a smile. We suddenly get more loud mechanical noises from the jungle.

Season 1 feels so different than any of the other seasons in my opinion. It's so slow moving and eerie, but definitely in a good way. Actually, the rest of this episode is downright scary. These three characters are traveling out into the unknown with nothing more than the clothes on their backs. They have no idea what's really out there and what is most likely watching them. The Others are out there somewhere and there's a good chance Ethan has already infiltrated their group of survivors. Not to mention there's a freakin' Smoke Monster.


After Kate and Jack find Seth Norris, the pilot, Charlie disappears and every freakin' time I watch this episode, I totally forget about Charlie. It's just suddenly "Where's Charlie?" and Kate goes out to where all the bodies are and he's nowhere to be found. Of course we see shortly that he's in the loo finding his heroin stash.

It's not long after the pilot explains that flight 815 was 1000 miles off course that he's yanked from the cockpit up above the jungle to be torn to shreds by the "Monster" that's been storming through the jungle. Apparently Seth Norris wasn't on Jacob's list eh? Oh wait, of course he wasn't... Frank Lapidus was supposed to be flying Oceanic 815 on that day. Making Frank a candidate and not Seth.

After lots of running randomly through the wet and muddy jungle, Jack, Kate, and Charlie get separated for a short time. Kate ends up in a small bamboo hiding place and is absolutely scared to death. I remember seeing somewhere, perhaps on the DVD's bonus features, that Evangeline Lily's trembling in this scene was genuine because she was actually freezing cold. She screamed for Jack to come to her rescue but the only thing that seemed to pop into her head was Jack's story of calming your fears. She began to count to 5.

Charlie scares the hell out of her as they run into each other and immediately she asks where Jack is. Charlie explains that Jack went back to help him up but has no idea where he is now. Kate and Charlie wander back to find Jack and stumble across the pilot's wings. Looks like Smokie dropped the pilot off up in a tree. Jack shows up explaining that he simply jumped into a bush to avoid being detected and I'm sure that raised some suspicions back in the day. Just the first part of the Pilot episode had a handful of stuff for people to theorize about. And so ends this "Pilot part 1" episode.

I can't wait until tomorrow night when I get back to the second half of this awesome episode. I think I'll have a simple rating system after each episode, which of course will just be my personal thoughts and in no way is it an overall fan rating of any kind. For just the first part I'll give this a 10/10 easily and now that I think about it, I'm sure a lot of Lost episodes will get a perfect rating. There isn't much I despise about Lost, from the epic Hawaii location, the music, characters, story, mythology, mysteries, podcasts, comic-con panels, Lost fans, and I could probably go on forever, all of it is top notch awesome. Thanks for reading!