Episode 2: Pilot, part 2

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1. ABC Episode Guide

   Shannon has found her belongings and retrieved a bikini to take advantage of the sun. Boone arrives to tell her that he and the other survivors are going through the wreckage and salvaging everything they can. She makes it clear that she has no intention of helping. What's the point, they're going to be rescued any minute, right?
   
   Jin wades through the tide pools gathering sea urchin. Sun is watching from the beach when Michael arrives to ask her if she has seen his son, Walt. Jin overhears the conversation and chastises Sun for having the top button of her sweater open.
   
   While searching the woods for Vincent, Walt stumbles across something lying on the ground. Michael catches up with him and scolds him for running off without telling him. Michael shows his father what he found — a pair of handcuffs.
   
   And as we're wondering where those cuffs came from, we catch up with Jack, Kate and Charlie who appear to have escaped…whatever was chasing them. Kate asks Charlie what he was doing in the bathroom of the cockpit. Charlie confesses he was throwing up, but we soon learn this isn't true. Charlie left something in the airplane bathroom just before the crash. Something he was desperate to get back.
   
   Back at the beach Sawyer and Sayid are in the middle of a brawl and it's all Jack and the others can do to break them up. Sawyer is convinced that Sayid is a terrorist and responsible for the crash. But when Kate asks if anyone can fix the transceiver, Sayid is the only one who is able to help. How? He was a military communications officer. Sayid goes off to fix the transceiver as Jack is called to tend to a horribly injured survivor who needs an operation to remove the piece of wreckage from his abdomen.
   
   Hurley learns that Sayid saw action in the Gulf War. Not in the Air Force or Marines, but The Republican Guard! He gets the transceiver working, but can't get a signal. He tells Kate he has an idea — If they can climb that mountain they might get a signal at high ground.
   
   Elsewhere, Boone lays into Shannon for being incredibly selfish. She lashes back at him and tells her brother that she is going on the hike to find high ground with the others. Knowing she won't change her mind, Boone goes along to look after his sister. Charlie and Sawyer decide to join the group at the last minute.
   
   As the Signal Party climbs the steep slopes of the mountain, Jack asks Hurley to search the luggage for antibiotics while he looks for a blade he can use to operate. Along the way Jack runs into Michael and tells him he saw Vincent in the jungle earlier.
   
   Walt, wandering alone, without his dog, comes upon Locke placing the pieces on his backgammon board. Walt's curiosity gets the best of him. After teaching Walt the history of backgammon, Locke asks Walt a very creepy question: "Do you want to know a secret?"
   
   Jin, who has been handing out the sea urchin he caught, finds Claire sitting alone writing in her. Soon after swallowing the food she feels her baby kick for the first time since the crash. In the joyful realization, Claire admits that she thinks of the baby as a "He."
   
   Meanwhile the Signal Party is walking through a new stretch of jungle. Just as Sayid and Sawyer are about to go at each other again, they discover that they have bigger problems. Something big is out there and it's coming their way. They all turn to run; all except Sawyer that is who pulls a gun out of his belt and fires at the charging animal until it falls dead at his feet. We get our first good look at what came at them. But there must be some mistake. We're on a tropical island…and that's a polar bear!
   
   Jack begins his operation to remove the piece of metal from the belly of the survivor. Hurley tries to help but faints at the first sight of blood.
   
   Back in the jungle, Sawyer explains that he got the gun off on one of the bodies. And guess what, he took the guy's badge too. There was a US Marshall on the plane and that would suggest a prisoner was being transported. But who was it? As Kate takes the gun apart and divides the pieces among the group we get to see her memory of the crash. And in the process we learn that Kate is keeping quite a secret herself.
   
   In the middle of his primitive surgery, Jack's patient regains consciousness. He is consumed by one question: "Where is she?"
   
   At high ground, the group is finally able to get a signal, but they can't transmit because something else is already transmitting. It's difficult to hear, but…it sounds French. It's a distress signal that has been playing over and over for a very long time. Shannon spent a year "studying" in France and is called upon to translate. But what they learn is more terrifying than anything they could have imagined…

2. Live Notes taken during episode

   • Charlie says he was puking in the bathroom. . .well, he appeared happy when he came out of the bathroom so maybe he enjoys it or something (or he's just an aweful liar)
   • Would he have really flushed his stash?
   • Maggie Grace (Shannon) is very attractive
   • Well, actually, all the girls on this show are
   • I find it funny that Michael always seems to be looking for Walt (not just up to this point but pretty much throughout the whole season)
   • Ah yes, the handcuffs (that Kate picked?)
     
   • 
   • Yeah, Kate has seen them before
   • Hurley didn't deserve that. . .stupid Sawyer
   • "Any survivors?" good question Boone, especially considering they didn't come back with anyone else. . .
   • Sayid is great. . .despite being Middle-Eastern, he's so open to anyone and about his own past, takes a lot to do that in this day and age I think
   • And again, all the girls on this show are babes, especially Kate!
     
   • I wonder if Jack's two, nearly identical (shape, size, angle etc)face scrapes have any significance. . .they almost look too perfect
   • Jin. . .man of few words, fan of slapping Sun's hands
   • Hurley doesn't like fish
   • Hmm. . .a polar bear in the comic book. . .
   • Good job Michael, give up all hope of finding Vincent after 1 day of not really searching
   • Oh Charlie, didn't you ever hear that "Drugs are bad, mmmkay"
   • Sawyer and the note. . .first time (but not the last) we see what makes him tick
   • Locke: "Two players, two sides. One is light, one is dark."
     
   • And Jin shares his first experience with Claire and her baby
   • Hmm. . .a polar bear in the jungle. . .
     
   • "Hurley, dont even think about it. Hurley, HURLEY! DAMMIT!"
   • -Where'd that come from?
     -Probably bear village, how the hell would I know?
   • What's the backstory with Kate and the marshall?
   • In the extra's, the marshall says that they did the take of him getting hit in the head a lot
   • -You spent a year in Paris!
     -Drinking, not studying!
   • Good thing Shannon did come along since she was the only one who knows french, apparently
   • 17294535 is the last itteration
   • "It killed them all". . .sounds peachy!

I didn't find this second part of the pilot as strong as the first part. This one does, however, dive into the past of a few more characters so we have a better idea of who these people are (keeping in mind that the other survivors don't receive the same knowledge). This comes into play in many more episodes later in the season so at this point, its not too big of a deal, but the first two episodes have sort of set the mood in terms of us, the viewers, having a better idea of who these people are than they do.

This episode also introduces us to a few more of the main characters. While Jack, Kate, and Charlie really stole the first episode, I think that Sayid and Sawyer steal this one. Sawyer is shown as almost the bad-guy on the island, in terms of accusing Sayid of destroying the plane only because he's Middle-Eastern and admitting that he has taken things from the bodies (the marshall's gun and badge). However, when he's reading the letter, we can almost see a softer side of him, or at least visually see that whats written really hits him in his core. As the season progresses, Sawyer is a head-strong character that seems to pretty much brush people off, but that letter really means something to him and breaks his inner wall down.

Sayid is an asset to the survivors. He's a very strong character that can take care of himself and also proves that he can contribute to the group in a way no one else can (by fixing or reparing electronics). It may not seem at first that having an electronics expert may be helpful, but throughout the season Sayid proves that his skills are very valuable, even to the point of saving his life. More on that in a few episodes.

I want to talk about the polar bear. Obviously, a polar bear should not be on a south-pacific (?) island. BUT, in the jungle was not the first time that we saw a polar bear in this episode. In the comic book Walt was reading, there was a polar bear. Could the two be related? Hard to say at this point in the series but once they explain a bit more about Walt's backstory, who knows. Maybe he was somehow responsible for "spawning" a polar bear on the island.

To wrap things up, the french transmission. In this day and age, its very tough to believe that a message being transmitted on Earth could be playing for 16 years and no one has ever picked it up. Now, I'm not saying that the plane crash took them to some strange planet or a parallel universe or anything. I'm guessing that the writers just made the transmission play for that long because it shows how very little hope there actually is about anyone coming to get them. The context of the message, with the french woman saying that something killed everyone really brings up a lot of questions at this point. Obviously, most will assume she was talking about the "monster" or whatever is knocking trees down and making loud sounds in the jungle. But what if she was talking about something else? I don't want to write anything more about that at this point because it is discussed in greater detail in a later episode.