Saturday, June 22, 2013

Rewatching Lost: The First 20 Episodes

Previously on Rewatching Lost:
Rewatching Lost

There are 25 episodes in season 1, and I am through 20 of them. I guess it would make more sense to write about the end of season 1, but I don't know, I just kinda feel like doing it now. I just watched the episode where Boone dies and Claire's baby is born. It was a really good episode. The episode before that one was the one where they introduce the numbers.

Random shit:
* Charlie dies early on in the series when he and Claire get kidnapped by Ethan. Ethan leaves him hanging in a tree and then Jack CPRs him and he doesn't wake up. And then like a minute later he wakes up. I want to call that foreshadowing, but I also feel like it would be a stretch.

* People who have killed someone so far include Kate (they haven't said who yet, but she's admitted to murdering someone. Spoiler alert: it's her dad.), Sawyer (the guy who he thinks conned his parents, but it was the wrong guy), Charlie (kills Ethan when everyone else wants to take him alive for questioning), Jack (kills the federal marshal in more of a euthanasia than a murder after Sawyer shot him in the lung instead of the heart), and I want to say Sayid, although maybe he's just about torture up until now, though that won't be true for the entire series. I mention this just to ponder the idea that Michael is not allowed into heaven because he shot somebody. I feel like it's Shannon (God, I hope it's Shannon) or maybe it's Analucia. Anyway, that shit's mad racist.

* Walt is magical and possibly evil. This subplot never goes anywhere.

* Twice so far Jack has made promises to people and they've used the line, "I know you promised, but I'm letting you off the hook." First was Rose, when Jack promised he would stay with her until her husband came back right before the plane crashed. Second was Boone, who Jack promised to heal, but then he died. Fun fact: Jack's (ex)-wife is Julie Bowen from Modern Family. This whole thing is a running theme where Jack is too committed to shit once he decides to do something. I'm not sure how this plays out in the end based on my memory, but I'll keep an eye on it. (Get it? An eye. As in at least 5 episodes have started on a close up of some character's eye.)

* John Locke is named after an Enlightenment philosopher who was very influential in developing the idea of empiricism. Short version, you are born a blank slate (tabula rasa) and you learn only through experience and rational thought. He was the first guy to write about man's right to life, health, liberty, and possessions, which was converted into the phrase you recognize from the Declaration of Independence. I don't think the writers wanted a super deep exploration of Locke's ideas, I get the sense more that they were interested in the "blank slate" that the island's John Locke got when he ended up there. Although it's also worth mentioning that John Locke was one of the first guys to deal with social contract theory.

* The French lady is named Rousseau, another enlightenment thinker who wrote a book called "On The Social Contract." Fun fact, Jean Jacques Rousseau was not actually French, he was from Geneva. Also, he wrote a famous book about the importance of education (Emile) but the five kids that he fathered were raised in orphanages. Anyway, the French lady is sortof the anti-social contract person of the island. She killed all of her colleagues on the island after having gone crazy or maybe they all went crazy, or maybe both. But both Locke and Rousseau are enlightenment thinkers and both dealt with social contract theory and I guess there's something to that.

* Jack's name is Jack Shepherd. Get it, shepherd?

* I assume Sawyer is supposed to bring to mind Tom Sawyer, known rapscallion, but ultimately pretty good guy. Also, I still have no recollection of the Sawyer story line. The only thing I remember about him were addressed in his one flashback episode this season, through episode 20 anyway, and even then there was stuff I didn't recall. I know he was there the whole time, but I don't recall what role he plays in any of the events that transpire.

* The Sun and Jin story line is much deeper than I remember. I recall by the end being really into their subplot, but that must have been the case from the beginning.

* I feel like this first season was set up for them to have been in purgatory all along, but then the writers changed their minds. I know they said that wasn't true, but I still can't shake that feeling.

* My memory says that the single best episode ever was the first episode of the second season. And I'm almost up to that episode. Also Desmond might be the best character, so I'm excited for that.

* This first season is super tight. There are no plot lines shooting all over the place. One solid through line about where are we, how do get off, are we alone on this island? The back stories blend perfectly with the episodes. It's just really well done.

On the next episode of Rewatching Lost:
Season 2, Episode 3

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