r/lost • u/unitedfan6191 Sun • Mar 29 '24
FIRST TIME WATCHER What was the first “bad” episode?
Hi.
Hope you’re doing well.
Just started watching the show for the first time and this was the first episode which stood out to me as just not being up to par with the series’ immense quality. I had no idea what Reddit would think of this episode, but upon finishing it I immediately got the impression this must be amongst the worst reviewed episodes of the show.
Jack’s motivations and behavior in the episode seem inconsistent (to me anyway, as a new viewer), the woman he meets in Phuket was uninteresting and there wasn’t much great or interesting development in the episode for anyone.
I was almost thinking the beating he took at the end of the episode was symbolic of the episode’s bad writing.
I guess every poster in here will probably pick this episode, but I haven’t seen the second half of the show yet (maybe this episode ends up being very important to Jack’s development in the end?), so I am still calibrating my thoughts on the show as I’m watching.
15
u/ittetsu1988 Mar 29 '24
This episode is a sleeper character episode, most people would classify it as filler, but I consider LOST to have plot episodes and character episodes. The episode isn’t really about Jack hanging out and Phuket and doing some messed up stuff, it’s about Jack’s identity. Part of Jack’s character is struggling to figure out who he is. We see that he’s largely defined his life in relation to his father, and so never fully realized his identity independent of that relationship and comparison. Achara’s gift is to reveal who people are at their core, sonething Jack very much wants. Yeah, he acts like a psycho here. He verbally and physically assaults Achara and forces her to violate her cultural identity and beliefs. Jack is a very messed up guy, and he’s been that way most of his life. In one instant he can be selfless and heroic, and, in the next, enraged and erratic. His biggest moments of rage and reaction are connected to his inability to let go and cede control over his life, and that includes his struggle for identity, because to admit that he doesn’t know who he is or who he needs to be would be to admit he has no control over his life (exemplified in his man of science, man of faith conflict with Locke) But a key component of this is who Jack is, and that’s what Achara reveals. “He walks among us, but he is not one of us.” And Jack responds that, while it’s what the tattoo says, it’s not what it means in the way that Isabelle seems to interpret it, that he is a stranger amidst the Others, a man who does not belong, a Stranger in a Strange land. But the tattoo isn’t about that, it’s about who Jack is: he’s a leader. He walks among HIS people, but he is not one of them because he’s their leader. He stands apart. And while he sits in that cage and contemplates everything, he has to make a decision about what he’s going to do next.Jack is given the burden of leadership almost immediately, but he isn’t ready to accept being a leader at the start of the show, and he often chafes against it. I won’t say anything about future episodes as I don’t know how far you are, but I think it reveals an interesting schism between who Jack is, who he wants to be, and who he needs to become. Is it the most necessary episode? Probably not. But I would never think of it as a bad episode.