The Lost Rewatch: 1x05 "White Rabbit"

Sorry that we're a week behind, but hopefully we'll be fully caught up by the end of this week, with eight new mini-posts that recap episodes five through twelve. This is the first one, for "White Rabbit," the first episode that shows us a glimpse into Jack's pre-Oceanic past.

We open with a scene from Jack's childhood, in which he and Marc Silverman are getting beaten up. Jack is given lenience if he'll just stay down, but he shows his need to fix things by trying to help Marc, which ends up resulting in his knockout. We'll see Marc again in season two as best man in Jack's wedding to Sarah. Jack comes out of his flashback to hear Charlie screaming at him, who tells him that Joanna's drowning in the ocean. Charlie ssays that he would go but he "can't swim." We now know that he can swim rather well, and that this is just another expression of his cowardice at this very dark point of his life.

Jack pulls Boone out of the ocean, but realizes that Boone was trying to save another woman who was drowning, Joanna Miller, another example of Boone's poor lifeguarding skills. Jack tries to save Joanna, but it's too late. She's drowned. After the Lost intertitle, Kate reveals that Joanna wasn't supposed to be on the flight, just like everyone else. Jack tells Kate he regrets his actions, and then he sees Christian standing in the surf. Now, who is this apparition of Christian? If you've read my earlier deconstructing blog, you'll know that I believe that this is "the monster," which is the same entity as Jacob's nemesis. To me, it just makes sense.

Kate thinks that Jack is overexhausted, but he refuses to rest. Sun watches Michael as he impatiently deals with Walt's questions, but she is interrupted by Jin, who stresses that they don't need anyone else. By three years later, in the DHARMA Initiative, however, he believes in team effort, speaking flawless English and working with Sawyer and Miles. Speaking of Sawyer, during his following confrontation with Shannon, he's reading Watership Down, the first literary reference we've had on the show. Saawyer will show his love of reading throughout the rest of the show, but it's fun to see it beginning now. But we also know that the book he's reading will cause him quite a lot of trouble with a certain Iraqi.

Hurley tells Jack that he looks "tired, brother." The nickname "brother" will later be used by a certain Scotsman, but without the last two letters. Hurley also tells Jack that they have a limited supply of water. Jack refuses to make a decision, something that he'll later come to regret when Boone steals the water. Jack walks out of his tent, and we get a wooshless flashback to his childhood. Christian berates him for trying to fix everything. Back on the Island, Jack follows his apparition of Christian, asking him "Dad?" when he sees his face, much like Locke will ask in "The Man From Tallahassee" when he finds Anthony Cooper being held captive by the Others. In a flashback, Margo Shephard tells Jack to go after his father, who has gone to Australia. Jack is unwilling to, but she forcefully tells him to go, after "what he did" (the events of the flashback in "A Tale of Two Cities").

After the water is stolen, Locke goes off into the jungle to find freshwater. He knows where to look, he says. Jack looks for his father in the jungle, meanwhile, but flashbacks to Australia, where he's looking for his father. Christian was in Australia to try and see his daughter, Claire. Christian is missing from his hotel room. But after the flashback, Jack finds him once again on the Island. Chasing after him, Jack nearly falls into a very deep ravine, grabbing onto a root at the last minute. He's then saved by Locke, but can only laugh hysterically. Charlie brings Claire some water, and stays by her side, cracking jokes and making her more comfortable. Hurley finds out that Sun has water, and Sayid asks her where she got the water. Kate insists Sun doesn't understand, but the ever persistent and intuitive Sayid insists that she does understand. And he's right, she does understand. Jin intervenes, and eventually tells them that Sawyer gave them the water. Sayid tells them to wait, so that Sawyer would lead them to their stash. However, he doesn't have the water, but he gives her the marshal's badge.

Locke tells Jack he must be a leader, and also cites his believe in destiny. Locke tells him that he's looked into the eye of the Island, and what he saw was beautiful. There was another reference to eyes. He was presumably talking about his experience with the monster, or the "bright light" that he saw. In a flashback, Jack goes to a morgue and finds the dead body of his father. Back on the Island, he sees Christian again, but this time he is led to the caves, where there is plenty of fresh water. There's a baby doll in the water, from an apparently shipment of them that fell outo of the plane. There's bits of the fuselage there at the caves as well. He finds his father's coffin there, but it's empty. A flashback shows him arguing with a ticket agent at the airport about the coffin. The disappearance of the bodyis distinctly different from what happened to Locke in season five, however. In season five, the body was left behind and a doppelganger tooks its place. It appears this time that Christian's body itself has been possessed.

Boone is revealed to have stolen the water, but Jack returns, giving his famous "live together, die alone" speech. Sun and Jin are shown to be growing closer once again. Jack tells Kate that his father died in Sydney, and that's the end of the episode.

You can discuss "White Rabbit" in this forum thread. You can find others' reviews of this episode at the Lostpedia hub. Look for my recap of "House of the Rising Sun" soon.