Category: Reviews

We start to examine Jack’s need to be a hero and his strained relationship with his father, his father believes that Jack rushes into situations beyond his control and doesn’t have the character to cope with failure.

Jack again glimpses his father once more and in rushing after him into the jungle he almost dies when he careens over a cliff to then be pulled to safety by Locke. We now know that Jack’s father Christian Shepherd (and there has to be some significance to that name surely) is really on the Island after a fashion. Whether he has been resurrected (like we now know Locke really hasn’t been) or is a ghost or some other supernatural creature is unknown, but we do know that whatever he is he does identify himself as being Jack’s father unlike say the manifestation that appears to Eko as his brother but states he is not. I’m still not certain which side Christian is on, is he an aspect of Jacob?

Locke asks “How are they? The others.” Different context to how the phrase The Others will be used later but again it is setting up a dualism the idea of them and us. There is a lot of conflict over the course of the series both between different factions and within factions.

As Jacob’s nemesis puts it “They come. Fight. They destroy, they corrupt. Always ends the same.”

Jacob’s response is “Only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

Whatever progress Jacob means it doesn’t seem to be an end to conflict as that seemingly has been going on right up to the present day.

Rose is of course correct about Bernard and the tail section but Jack et al are disbelieving. As Boone will pick up Bernard’s message via the walkie talkie only a few episodes from now it seems that the producers had intended all along for Rose to be reunited with her husband.

In the first major indicator that there is something supernatural about the Island Jack glimpses his father.

Locke has an encounter face to face with the monster and then lies about it.

Then with one of the most shocking revelations about a main character of the entire series we learn that Locke had been in a wheelchair just prior to crashing on the Island. There really is something supernatural about this place.

The first few episodes establish some of the significant themes of the series. The backgammon game with light and dark pieces and the idea of two opposing sides.

Having an Iraqi former Republican Guard as a sympathetic major character in 2004 on US television was a bold move and it reinforces the idea that we need to discard whatever notions we might have of who the enemy is in this show.

Sawyer starts off as a bit of a rogue who is somewhat of a tragic figure and who initially tries to do the right thing, but is soon diverted along a different path when people start thinking of him as an antagonist so he continues to act this part that has been foisted upon him.

And with Locke we seem to have come full circle over the series as he starts off in these three episodes as quite a sinister and potentially dangerous character.