Lost Re-Watch / Season 1 - Tabula Rasa

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

I am one of the few that always really liked Kate. She was always struggling with the angel and devil on her shoulder and I always thought that made her a more interesting character. You never knew what she was thinking or what she was going to pull next.


Thoughts / Tabula Rasa

"Tensions begin to rise among the signal party as they return from the mountains. At the beach, Jack becomes increasingly suspicious of Kate, the fugitive being escorted back to America by the marshal. Flashbacks center on Kate's time in Australia prior to the crash, where she lived with a farmer named Ray Mullen." - Lostpedia

In this episode we get our first ever off island flashback. Kate is sleeping in a barn and is woken up by a farmer named Ray Mullen. Kate explains that she just needed a place to sleep and eventually Ray offers her a job working on his farm. I'm glad Ray mentions how strange of a coincidence it is that she just happens to arrive at his farm, and he's in need of someone to help him work it. Lost is full of moments such as this. People thrown into odd circumstances at different times in their lives, which all inevitably lead down the path to the island.

Kate states that she has "trust issues" when Ray catches her in the pantry ready to sneak out and disappear. Trust issues was a theme of the episode actually, and I'll go into each moment in detail as I go through the episode.

Ray offers to drive Kate to the train station and the marshal meets them on the road in his truck. Ray is turning her in for the reward money. Trust issues indeed. He tries to get them to pull over but Kate takes control of the vehicle and they crash. She saves Ray from the burning truck, which helps give Kate a case as perhaps being arrested under false accusations, but eventually gets caught by Edward the marshal, and thus ends the flashback sequences.


Lots of short scenes happen on the island, which further help develop these characters. Sayid, Shannon, Boone, Kate, and Charlie all discuss what they heard on the transceiver the day before. "Hope is a dangerous thing to lose" says Sayid as they all decide to keep the french message a secret for the time being. Later that night, Boone decides to steal the gun off Sawyer and the ammo clip from Sayid but gets caught in the process. He tries to explain that he was going to keep guard but I really wonder. First of all, both of these scenes are the first of our Losties serious trust issues. Sayid and the group are keeping the french transmission a secret, and Boone tries stealing a gun? Interesting. Perhaps a set-up for his water stealing escapade later on this season.

They make it back to the beach camp and start to tell their story, leaving out the actual transmission they received and instead saying the transceiver failed to work. Sayid begins giving out jobs to people in order to keep track of food and water, while Kate notices that Jack has returned with Hurley. Kate gets a smile on her face and runs over to meet him. Jack has now seen Kate's mug shot from the marshal's pocket and is hoping for Kate to come clean, but he has no idea who he's dealing with here. She tells him about the transmission they received. Kate always seems to tell Jack everything. I remember in season 4, Kate telling Sun that she has to go tell Jack that Sun was leaving, like it was something she had no choice doing. I'm not sure if it's because she loves him or what, but she's always been about keeping Jack in the loop no matter what the situation. Strange.

Michael and Walt have a conversation as the rain starts. He wants to know all about this strange new friend of his son's, Mr. Locke. John Locke told Walt a secret and obviously this concerns Michael. "A miracle happened to him." says Walt after Michael pushes about Locke's secret. "A miracle happened to all of us." replies Michael. Michael then heads out to find his son's dog, Vincent. He gets chased by a boar, or at least I'm assuming that it was a boar, especially considering how the next episode introduces boars to the show. Michael runs through the jungle and stumbles upon a half-naked Sun. Which also sets up a future episode where Jin attacks Michael, further promoting theorizing in the show for the fans. Lost has to be the most re-watched show ever created. They make it so easy to go back to and find new things to theorize about.

The Marshal isn't doing so well and now Kate has his gun as well. The shrapnel that was in the marshal's bread basket has been already removed, but now the wound has been infected. Things aren't looking good for Edward. It's evening and Kate is trying to build a fire on the beach. Sawyer shows up and begins to perform his first con-job on Kate. He goes on about how he doesn't envy Kate because of the gun "sticking out of your denims."

Jack and Hurley are having a chat and Jack mentions that Kate is in the hut with the marshal. Hurley begins to freak out and explain to Jack that earlier he saw her with a gun. I absolutely love this scene because the writers pull something over on us. At first you're thinking that Kate's going to shoot the marshal, then Kate walks out of the hut. Jack breathes a sigh of relief, but then you hear the gun shot. You assume that she gave the marshal the gun, but then out walks Sawyer! You really see the guilt on Sawyer's face when the marshal begins coughing up blood, Sawyer missed the shot. Last bullet too. Definitely a hint that he seriously needs to find himself a pair of glasses or something.

"Three days ago we all died, we should all be able to start over." Says Jack near the end of the episode. I just like this quote personally. Sometimes there are immensely important events that happen in our lives, good and bad. These events could be the start of you taking a completely new direction in your life and that's exactly what happened to these 48 survivors. You just survived a plane crash, time to think a little differently about life.

John Locke also creates a dog whistle from a chunk of wood, which is pretty amazing actually. John finds Walt's dog and tells Michael that he should be the one to bring him back to his son. Vincent is reunited with Walt and there we see John Locke, staring mysteriously, almost diabolically, off in the distance. He clearly knows that Walt is somehow "special" and is just trying to get closer to him. Getting into his father's good graces is certainly a step in the right direction.

During this re-watch I'm definitely seeing John Locke in a different light. He's always been my favorite character but I think during this time through, I'll be cheering more for Jack, knowing how things turn out in the end. We'll see though. Thinking about it some more I think maybe John Locke was always selfish. He was always preventing anybody from doing anything they thought was right, and truly believing that he could do not wrong. No wonder he gets so frustrated during the second half of this season and forward into season 2. He must truly believe that because his legs were healed, which we'll see next episode, he is the most important person on the planet. I'm actually a little afraid that I won't like John as much as I used to as I go forward.