Episode Report Card Daniel: B+ | 1 USERS: A YOU GRADE IT Desmond's got a gun
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 1 | Aired on 09.20.2005
Jack reaches the bottom of the pit, examines the mirror, and starts exploring the corridor. It's clearly been there a while; the pipes are rusted and dripping. As he moves from the part-rock/part-manmade area of the corridor, he decides to pull out his gun. He notices a pair of hiking boots set neatly side-by-side against one wall. There's some sort of breaker box. There's also, curiously, some sort of painted mural on the wall. An almost child-like style of painting, but what's interesting is (and it's not clear whether Jack notices it or not) that Hurley's magic numbers are scattered throughout, with the addition of the number 108 (painted in the middle of the sun), which is the sum of all the other numbers.
Jack continues on. Filthy buckets full of god knows what. Debris scattered everywhere. As Jack inspects a wall, the key on the strap around his neck is drawn towards a metallic object in the centre. A magnet that powerful certainly could make compasses go screwy…ah, who am I kidding. I don't know from compasses or magnets. But that's going to be the explanation anyway.
Jack notices a camera lens whirring in the corner, but as he approaches it, Mama Cass starts bellowing again. Several quick cuts of Jack, open-mouthed in surprise, spinning around, pointing his gun, fully prepared to take down any Mamas and/or Papas coming his way. A bright light also comes on at the end of the hallway, blinding him and forcing him to duck into a nook on the side, which he then notices opens up into what looks like the inside of a dome made out of triangular windows, you know? He also appears to be used to the music, which is still going, but this is just a really good song, so maybe he's groovin' on it by now.
Machinery is whirring. Some fairly old-school technology, too. Tall computers with tape reels spinning. Clunky boxes with oscilloscope thingies on them. Banks of lights flashing. And an old-timey computer like the one the guy was using in the opening scene, complete with the >: prompt, which I'm told was never actually used on computers like these, which has to be the first implausibility ever on this show. The camera slowly zooms in on the computer as Jack approaches it, and it looks like he's about to press the Execute button for whatever reason, but the needle scratches on the record again, like, whoever owns that LP is going to be plenty pissed, and Locke says, "I wouldn't do that." He's standing over in the entrance to the room. Jack points the gun at him. "Where's Kate?" Locke doesn't answer. "What the hell did --" says Jack, but he can't finish the question before someone -- we can't see who, even if we know who it's going to be -- points another gun at Locke from the side. So yeah, this probably wasn't Locke's best-case scenario going down into the hole. And am I nuts or does Locke actually look scared?
When we return from commercials, we flashjack to Muskrat Jack sitting in Sarah's hospital room, waiting for her to wake up. When she does, she asks if she's alive. She's alive, uh-huh, so alive. He scootches over in his chair, and she tells him he smells. Well, at least she'll be able to smell at her wedding (Stinky Jack might no longer be invited, though). Jack does have a bit of a sweat ring around his OR scrubs, and he explains that he just went running. "You smell like you ran far," she says, and she has this look on her face like she's a little upset about it, which I found funny. He says he showered, but apparently it didn't take. Then he goes into this whole thing about how a tour de stade is when you run all the steps in a section of a stadium. Hey, Dr. Jack, are there any other things you can do with your legs that you can describe to Sarah, who can't do that anymore? Do you have a kickboxing class later? Do you like to make your own wine by stomping grapes in a tub? Did you stub your toe earlier and want to complain about how much it throbs because of the way your nerve endings all annoyingly connect? Maybe you should keep this to yourself. Sarah just wonders why Jack would run around a stadium. Jack says, I swear to god he says this, that he's "intense." She asks him if he finished, and he says he hurt his ankle. "That sucks for you," says Sarah, with just a twinge of pointed anger, and Jack takes the hint. She asks if her fiancé -- Dickwad, I think his name is -- is here, and Jack says as nonchalantly as possible that he didn't see him. "I'm sure he'll be back," says Sarah, clearly not actually believing it and likely not unaware that Jack doesn't believe it either.