So earlier this year, I started a show called Watchmen on HBO. I was actually a huge fan of the movie when it came out in 2009, and was really excited to see what HBO was going to do with that property. And I was really excited to find out that it wasn’t going to be a remake of the movie but more of a continuation of that story in the same universe. From the opening scenes I was hooked and after I watched the last episode, I wanted to find out who created it.

And that’s when I was introduced to Damon Lindelof. And as I have nothing else going on I did a deep dive back into his credits to see what else he has done.

Tomorrowland, never saw it, The Leftovers, never heard of it. World War Z, didn’t like it. Star Trek, Into Darkness, loved it. Prometheus, never watched it. Cowboys and Aliens, didn’t like it. And then I saw Lost in his credits. And then I saw that along with J.J. Abrams, Damon co-created and wrote more episodes than anyone else and served as the show-runner because J.J. was busy doing other things.

Full disclosure, I’m not a huge J.J. Abrams fan. I think he single-handedly destroyed what little bit of love I had for Star Wars left after The Rise Of Skywalker. And though the re-make of Star Trek was okay, I thought Into Darkness was by far the stronger movie. And I think like most people, I was introduced to the highly over-rated Benedict Cumberbatch, in this movie.

After finding out that Lindelof was the co-creator and prolific writer of Lost, I was intrigued to see how Lost would hold up to Watchmen. Judging by his age, and when Lost came out, I figured the writer that wrote Watchmen would be more mature, more confident, then the writer who wrote Lost. But Lost was a cultural pheromone back in the late 00’s, and I only missed it mainly because I didn’t have TV back then and streaming shows weren’t invented yet.

And again full disclosure, I have seen a few episodes of Lost way back in 2004 and have heard the debate about the last two seasons, but I hadn’t really ever watched the show from start to finish much to the chagrin of one of my closest friends who figuratively eats and breaths this show even after it’s been almost ten years since the finale episode was shown. (Side-note, IMDB TV started streaming Lost for free May 1^st, 2020 to mark the ten year anniversary of the finale)

And since I’ve been out of work since March 18^th, 2020, and rarely leave my condo in the hills of Twin Peaks in San Francisco, and the fact that I am pretty much bored with anything else on Netflix, Hulu, and/or Amazon Prime, I contacted my friend and asked if I could borrow the first season of Lost to finally see what the fuss is about.

You would have thought I asked him to be god-parent to my non-existent kids he was so happy. He started rambling on how we can finally talk about Lost and how excited he was to go on this journey with me as someone who never watched the show.  Like he could finally see it for the first time again through my eyes.

And since my husband and I are really taking the shelter in place seriously, it was decided that my friend, “O” and I would watch the show together via face-time every day. Because I wasn’t going to allow him to come to my condo, I’m not sure he even knows what Covid 19 is much less that he’s suppose to stay inside his house. But that’s another topic.

So on an infrequent trip to Target, I bought the first season of Lost and we picked a date to start watching the show together. I’m not sure if you ever watched a show before with a super fan, but it wasn’t more than 15 minutes into the episode before “O” started spouting off things that were foreshadowing later episodes down the line. I quickly realized watching it with him was not going to work so we came up with a new system. I would watch the show, make a few notes, and then afterwards we would discuss the episode and talk about where I thought it might be heading and so on. But only if he would refrain from answering any of my questions I might have or guesses of the future.

And that lasted about ten minutes after I was finished with the two part pilot episodes. So now, I’m watching season one alone, but I continued to make notes of the show and what will be following, is my take of Lost Season One, episode by episode.

I am trusting that anyone who is reading this, will refrain from making spoilers in the comments, or correcting any of my guesses on where I think the story is going.

And when it was going to be “O” and I watching together, we came up with a few rules that I continue to follow. I won’t refer to any of the actors by their real names, only their character names. And anything I say about anyone on the show is directed to their characters and not the actor portraying said character. During the course of this first season, I went back to earlier episodes and either watched it again or added to my notes as certain things stood out to me in later shows that didn’t occur to me during my first watch along. Any added comments will be in bold so you know when they were written.

For the first several episodes, many of the main characters were never mentioned by name so I made up names for them until they were formally introduced on the show.

And though I probably shouldn’t have to say this, I will be spoiling each episode as I post these Blogs.

 

Lost Season One: Pilot Part One: (Jack Centric)

The show opens with a close up of someone’s very blue eye. Blue eyes is wearing a suit and tie and is in the jungle. A yellow dog runs past and Blue Eyes gets up and runs through the jungle until he comes out on a beach. The sound seems muffled until the camera pans to the left and we see completely chaos and the screaming and noise from one of the engines comes blasting into the scene. Littered down the beach is wreckage from a plane crash.

Blue eyes frantically looks around until he hears someone yelling and sees a man trapped under a wheel strut. As he runs down the beach, the camera focuses in on several actors on screen who I assume will become the protagonists of the show. Black Man is screaming out for Walt several times,

Blue Eyes calls for a few people to help him and together they lift the wheel strut and pull the man to safety. Blue Eyes sees a very pregnant lady and rushes to help her. Claire has the most annoying Australian accept I ever heard, and I’m assuming it’s not a real accent.

Blue Eyes realizes that Claire is fine and instructs Big Dude to take her somewhere out of the way and if the contractions come faster than three minutes apart to come find me. That’s when we are first introduced to Jack.

Jack sees Pretty Boy trying to give a black lady CPR and tells him he’s doing it wrong. Pretty Boy is clearly panicking so Jack sends him off to find a pen, more to get rid of him than for any reason.

After he saves Black Lady, he sees the wing of the plane is starting to fall down, and wouldn’t you know it, its right over the very pregnant lady and Big Dude. He rushes over and saves them in the nick of time when the wing crashes down and explodes. (I’m assuming because of the gas?)

Jack goes into the jungle and takes off his coat and shirt, he has a deep gash in his side. He has found a sewing kit, and from his coat pocket, he pulls out a small bottle of Vodka. Then a beautiful lady from the Hobbit movie comes out of the jungle and after a few words, sews up Jack’s side.

Jack tells her a story when she asks why he isn’t afraid. He tells her a story of his first lead surgery where he cuts something near the spinal cord, and he knew that he had to do something. So he allowed the fear to flood him but only for five seconds. Then he would get back to work. Pretty interesting story and gives the viewer a lot of information about this doctor that is going around helping everyone so doggedly. 

I loved how he helped everyone else before he took a moment to fix what I can only assume is a very painful cut on his back.

Later that evening, the whole camp is suddenly aroused when something is heard crashing in the jungle. It looks massive as whole trees are knocked over and it seems to move very fast, and it has the most eerie sound. We don’t get a chance to see it but it’s big and menacing.

Flashback, Jack is sitting in his seat and flirting with the flight attendant, he makes a joke about the weak drink and we see why he had vodka bottles in his suit pocket, pretty cool call back. Across the aisle from Jack is the Black Lady he saved on the beach by giving CPR. She mentions she doesn’t like to fly and that her husband is in the bathroom. Jack says he’ll keep her company until the husband returns. Right before the turbulence started, the one where I’m assuming was the reason they crashed, Merry from Lord of the Rings runs past being chased by the same flight attendant that gave Jack the Vodka. The turbulence became so violent the little masks fell down and someone behind Jack who didn’t have his seat belt on was thrown up into the air. Pretty cool.

Jack, Kate, Merry decide to head off into the jungle looking for the nose of the airplane. Jack thinks that if they can find it, that all planes carry a transceiver that will allow them to contact any rescuers that will be looking for them.

They see the nose of the plane resting against a tree so they go inside and climb up the aisle way. Its pretty gruesome, at one point Merry almost falls down and he grips the leg of one of the dead bodies.

Once at the cockpit, Jack breaks open the door and one of the pilots falls out and down to the ground. Jack asks if Kate was okay, and Merry replies, “Charlie’s okay too.

One of the pilots is alive, but pretty banged up in the crash. But he informs Jack and Kate, that a few hours out of Sydney, the radio went dead so they turned back around to head back. They are at least a thousand miles off course and no one will know where to look for them.

He shows them the transceiver and Jack asks, where is Charlie? Kate goes looking for him and he comes out of the bathroom. Moments later, the unknown/unseen monster is back and after a moment, rips the pilot out of the plane. Jack, Kate and Charlie run out into the jungle, the monster seemingly right behind them. Its pouring rain and they get separated, with Kate hiding in the middle of a few trees. She is frantically looking around and thinking back to Jack’s earlier story, she starts counting to herself, one, two, three, four, and she says boone, which is weird.

The rain stops and she finds Jack and Charlie who look up, and the body of the pilot is high in the trees and fade to black.

 

Lost Season One: Pilot Part Two (Charlie and Kate Centric)

Opens on Jack, Kate, and Charlie walking in the jungle trying to operate the transceiver. And for no real reason, except for plot, Kate asked Charlie why he went to the bathroom in the plane. Conversations like these usually have some significance later on in movies and TV shows. Charlie says that he was so scared he had to throw up, does a throw-away comment about being a coward.

Flashback, Charlie is running past Jack and Black Lady but this times follows Charlie as he searches in vain for an open bathroom. Once he finds one, he locks the door behind him and pulls out some yellow looking powder from his shoes. He takes a bit of the powder and eats it and quickly relaxes a bit. So Charlie is an addict. Turbulence starts and he drops the bag of drugs into the toilet. He struggles for a moment before leaving the bathroom to find a seat and straps himself in just as  the plane lurches about violently.

Blonde Chick is sun tanning herself on the beach while everyone else seems to be doing something. Pretty Boy asks her for some help and she implies that she’s going to wait until rescue. Pretty Boy is her brother and the two start arguing.

Pretty Boy leaves and Claire, the pregnant chick, is talking to Blonde Chick and Claire confides that she hasn’t felt the baby move since the day before right after the crash.

Black Man is once again yelling out for “Walt”.

For those of you keeping track, mainly me, this is four times thus far Black Man screams out “Walt”.

But Walt is out looking for his dog, which I’m assuming is the one Jack saw in the opening moments of the show. Walt is screaming out Vincent and finds a pair of handcuffs in the jungle. Black Man finds him right after and in a very angry tone says something like, I told you to stay on the beach. Walt replies back as only an adult writing for a child would, and we realize that Black Man is Walt’s dad. I kind of get the feeling that Black Man doesn’t really like his son much. I’m sure its suppose to come across as worried, but I feel like Black Man is not a good person.

Middle Eastern and Blonde Southern Guy are rolling around the ground fighting. Southern Guy is accusing Middle Eastern man of being a terrorist and Middle Eastern is accusing Southern Blonde for being the prisoner that goes with the handcuffs. They are pulled apart by Big Dude and we find out Middle Eastern name is Sayid, a former Republican Guard during the Iraq War as a communications expert. Big Dude is named Hurly, and I really like both of these characters right off the bat. Something about Sayid tells me he is very confident and extremely intelligent. Plus he has cool hair.

Sayid informs Hurly that the transceiver is working but they need to get to high ground to get a strong signal to be able to broadcast their position. He points to a high point in the distance.

There is a man with a piece of metal sticking out of his stomach that will die if something isn’t done soon. Jack is trying to figure out what he should do and gives a rundown what will happen to the man if nothing is done.

Lost now gives us a moment to focus on some of the other survivors, one couple is Asian, and from the looks of it, they are married, but the way Husband talks to Wife, they are extremely conservative and Wife looks about crestfallen while Husband tells her to button up her shirt. Though I found it funny that the moment Husband turned around Wife defiantly unbuttoned it again.

Husband is preparing what looks like sushi, and tries to go about getting people to eat it. Hurly makes a joke that as hungry as he is, he won’t be eating it.

Lost again goes out of the way to imply that Black Man and Walt do not really get along at all. But Black Man speaks in clichés and comes across as angry all the time.

We find out that Blonde Chick is named Shannon. Pretty Boy and Shannon are again arguing about who knows what, but that prompts Shannon to approach Sayid, Kate, Charlie, about going out with them to higher ground. Pretty Boy goes along as well, presumably to protect his bitchy sister.

Southern Blonde Man is reading a letter with a look of concern on his face and smoking a cigarette. This is the first time I’ve wanted a cigarette since I stopped two months ago when I went into Shelter At Home. He sees the group heading out so he decides to come with them. We find out that Southern Blonde Man is named Sawyer.

An Older Bald Man, who we’ve seen in the background until now, and really the only time we see him fully is when it was raining and he was sitting in the rain with a look of glee, is sitting on the beach playing with a game of Backgammon.

Walt approaches Bald Man and without turning his head, Bald Man says, Backgammon is the oldest game in the world. Two players, two sides, one is light, one is dark. Then he looks at Walt and says cryptically, “Do you want to know a secret?”

This struck me as important, because normal people wouldn’t say one side is light, one side is dark, they would say black or white. Something is being set up with this character and his mysterious declarations, so I know to pay attention with this guy.

Sayid and company are walking in the middle of the jungle and Sawyer keeps pressing Sayid to try the transceiver but he doesn’t want to, to protect the batteries when all of a sudden a crashing sound is heard and what I know to be for a fact a bear due to hours of playing Red Dead Redemption 2, comes crashing out of the jungle at the company. Everyone runs away except Sawyer who stands his ground with a look of determination on his face. Once the bear is close enough, Sawyer raises a gun, where the hell did he get a gun, and shoots the bear several times before it drops down almost at his feet.

It’s a polar bear, in the middle of this jungle…now that was badass.

Jack has settled on a course of action for the man with the metal sticking out of his body, and has enlisted Hurly to help him find any antibiotics that will help with his infection.

Flashback, we see the man before he got a piece of metal inside his stomach, sitting on the plane flirting with the flight attendant, and we see Kate sitting next to him. After a brief conversation between the two about juice, we see Kate is the one that was handcuffed and she is this man’s prisoner. Now we know where the handcuffs came from and who they belong too.

Kate takes the gun from Sawyer and in a comical scene, asks how to take the gun apart. She takes out the clip and the bullet in the chamber, and then gives it to Sayid. Sawyer makes a crack about giving it to the terrorist so everyone decides that Kate should have it. She takes the gun but Sayid has the bullets. Kind of funny, that they trust her for some reason, not knowing that she is the prisoner. Though the way she was acting with the gun, maybe murder wasn’t her crime.

Sayid figures they are high enough, so he turns on the transceiver and gets a few bars but can’t broadcast because there is a stronger signal somewhere on the island that is broadcasting already. He tunes into the signal and a French Lady’s voice who is on a looping broadcast. Pretty Boy says Shannon can speak French so she translates the message, Everyone is dead, I’m all alone now on the island.

Sayid figures out that the message is on a loop, and has been broadcasting for 16 years and 5 months. The camera pans back and then for a close up of Charlie’s face who asks, “Where are we?” Fade to Lost Logo.

Wow, some pretty cool characters, a few mysterious ones, a criminal, a polar bear, and some kind of pre-historic monster stalking around the jungle. I’m hooked for now, can’t wait for the next episode.