LOST- Episode 5: White Rabbit

   We open through the eyes of a young boy being told to stay down by a bully.  Apparently not wanting to lie there and watch his friend get beat up, the boy gets up and takes a beating of his own.  Bully: "You should have stayed down, Jack."

   Back to "live" action, Charlie, who is in a panic, wakes Jack up and points out to sea, where a woman is screaming for help.  Charlie would go himself, but he has little hobbitt legs...I mean, he can't swim.  Shirt torn off for the ladies, our hero, Dr. Jack scrambles into the water and pulls up, not the woman, but Boone who, turns out, is an even lousier lifeguard than we first imagined.  Making a life or death gametime decision, Jack decides to bring Boone back to the beach and then head back out to get the girl.  These people defer to the hero so much!  Is there no one else among the forty-plus who can swim?  Anyway, will Jack make it in time?  We won't know before commercials.

   Cue creepy LOST opening title.  We're back and Boone is on the beach looking depressed.  Elsewhere, Kate gives Jack the vital statistics on the woman he failed to save.  Yes, failed!  He regrets that he had never even spoken to her.  RIP, Joanna who liked to swim.  And we're down to the final 46.  Jack half-heartedly tries to justify his actions but is distracted by that guy in the suit again.  This time the guy is standing in the water, so we pretty much know that he's in Jack's head now.  Kate confirms this by not seeing him and asking when the last time the good doctor got any sleep.

   Sun has a subtitled conversation with Jin about how everyone is ignoring them and no one is coming to rescue them.  Jin assures her that they don't need anyone else and if she needs someone to tell her what to do, she's all set with him around.

  Elsewhere, Sawyer has opened up a shop where he barters all the stuff he stole from the wreckage.  One guess what he wants to trade Shannon his bug spray for.  To hammer home what Sawyer is up to, Claire complains to Kate that she can't find a hairbrush in anyone's luggage.  Such vanity in these women!  You're pregnant- shouldn't you be looking for vitamins or something?

   Hurley and Charlie come to Jack with Crisis #72- they are running low on drinking water.  Jack wants no part in the decision making process- a fact that is lost on the two knuckleheads who follow him around like puppies.  He finally has to yell at them: "I'm not deciding anything!"  This stuns the boys who respond with a weak, "Why not?"

Flashback time- this week we are obviously invading Jack's memories.  This one is post-bully fight and Daddy dearest is in his fancy study drinking and looking over his son with restrained disdain.  Dr. Dad relates the tale of how he came home today unaffected by the death of a small boy on the operating table as if this cold-heartedness is something to brag about.  His point is that if you can't handle failure, don't become a doctor- in fact, never even make decisions!  He thinks Jack doesn't have "what it takes."

   Boone wakes Jack from his thoughts and angrily tells him he should have left him and gone after the drowning Joanna.  Jack tries to walk away, but Boone follows, asking the question Jack has been asking himself- who made you the leader?  Jack ignores him and heads straight into the jungle to chase that wacky man in the suit again.  The realization that this is his father literally bowls him over.

   We head back to Jack's flashbacks where Mom informs a fully grown Dr. Hero that Dad has run off again.  Jack tries to beg off the job of bringing him back, but Mom insists.  In the Lost tradition of providing more questions than answers- Mom blasts her son by telling him "You don't get to say 'I can't'- not after what you did!"  Jack looks remorseful and reluctantly agrees to retrieve his father from, where else but, Australia.

   Back on the beach, Walt runs up to Kate with the terrible news that Claire has fallen down from the heat.  Since Jack is in the jungle, our replacement heroes of Charlie and Michael carry her into the tent.  All she needs is some water, but unfortunately, someone has swiped it all.  Kate, Sayid and Locke decide it may be time to look for a water source since things could start getting ugly.  Even in these extreme circumstances, sexist barriers remain solid as Sayid shoots down Kate's offer to go look, but agrees to let Locke go off alone.  Locke may know where to look, but after last week, one has to get a little nervous when people head into the jungle by themselves.

  Speaking of which, Jack is currently in a desperate state as he chases after his father who is staying one step ahead of him by simply walking or reappearing behind him.  Hmm, maybe that's a clue that he's not really there, Jack, old buddy.  Flashback to Australia, where a hotel employee informs the good son that Dad hasn't used his bed and has been in quite the drunken stupor when seen.  Jack confirms this by finding a lot of empty bottles of pills and alcohol.  Dad also left behind his wallet- never a good sign. 

  Now deep in the magic jungle, Jack is just about to catch Dad this time when he trips and tumbles down a hill, leading to him hanging precariously from a cliff.  I was filled with such fear that I could barely listen to Stuart Scott and Subway Jared telling me to buy their food.  My fears were groundless, however, since Mr. Locke knew exactly which way Jack went and arrives on the scene to rescue him.  When asked if he is okay, Jack cracks up laughing, because that is such a dumb question.

   In the tent, Claire wakes up and bonds with Charlie by making fun of Mr. Locke.  Could there be romance in the air?  Outside the tent, Hurley rats out Jin and Sun for having water.  Sayid and Kate try to break the language barrier and manage to get Jin to point at Sawyer.  Kate wants to confront the rat, but Sayid convinces her to wait and follow him to his stash.  They don't have to wait very long since Sawyer goes there in the next scene.  They tackle him and make accusations but of course, he is once again a red herring.  Water has no value to him since it's eventually going to rain- he traded his last bottle with Jin for a fish.  That should rejuvenate the struggling crashsite economy!  That sarcastic jerk tops things off by tossing Kate the Marshall's badge- she's the new sheriff in town!  

  Mr. Locke feebly tries to catch dripping water off a leaf while simultaneously giving Jack a much needed pep talk.  Neither works very well- Jack says he doesn't have what it takes (wherever did he get that from?)  Locke changes the subject by asking him why he's out there.  He assures Jack that he is notgoing crazy and that there is magic on the island.  Even though it is technically impossible for Jack's father to be there, he asserts, it might very well be possible in this special place.  I can't do this scene justice- here is a transcript of what the great Mr. Locke says:

      "I'm an ordinary man, Jack.  Meat and potatoes.  I live in the real world.  Not a big believer in...magic.  But this place is different.  It's special.  The others don't want to talk about it because it scares them, but we all know it.  We all feel it.  Is your white rabbit a hallucination?  Probably.  But... what if everything that happened here...happened for a reason?  What if this person you're chasing is really here?" 

Jack: "That's impossible." 

Locke:  "Even if it is- let's say it's not." 

Jack: "Then what happens when I catch him?"  

Locke: "I don't know, but I've looked into the eye of this island- and what I saw... was beautiful."

  Locke then goes off to find more water.  Jack would like to come but Locke insists that he stay out there to finish what he started.  "A leader can't lead until he knows where he is going."

Flashback to the morgue, where we learn that Dad's last drinking binge has killed him via heart attack.  Jack sheds a few tears both in memory and around the jungle fire he has somehow made.  He is stirred out of his thoughts by the sound of ice rattling in a glass... a familiar sound heard in the 'Dad's study' flashback.  Jack does some more jungle stumbling- this time in the dark and finds, of all things, a waterfall.  Oddly, there's a doll in the water- Jack follows a trail of dolls to more plane wreckage where sitting innocently in the mess is a coffin.

  This triggers yet another memory scene where Jack argues with the airline counter girl about getting his Dad's coffin onto the plane.  I think we can assume that he succeeds.  Back in the jungle, you get no prizes for guessing that the coffin is empty.  Jack wrecks the thing to pieces with a convenient pipe.

   At camp, Boone is busted as the one who stole the water.  Turns out he wanted to take Jack's place as the leader by rationing the water himself without bothering to tell anyone.  Nice plan, genius.  Before hecan be properly lynched, Jack emerges from the jungle to put a stop to the chaos.  Destroying the coffin being pretty good catharsis, Jack is ready to be a leader and gives a nice, inspiring speech about how they need to stop waiting to be rescued and start worrying about organizing and surviving.

  With peace restored, everyone drinks the rest of the water (tomorrow they'll get more from the waterfall).  Sun thanks Jin for getting her water and Jin tells her, "That's what husbands do," finally making their relationship clear.  Oh wait, maybe he could be reminding her that they were going to be married and aren't yet.  Change that to almost clear.  Sawyer asks Boone how it feels to be the new "Island's Most Hated" while Jack tells Kate that his father died.  And that is that.  We fade to black before they show everyone peeing from drinking so much water before bedtime.

Next week: Jin attacks Michael and vice versa, the speaking parts stumble across some skeletons and Locke knows who Charlie is and what he's after...

On another note, it looks like they are going to be steadily replaying the episodes on Saturday night from now on, which can only be a good thing.