Episode Report Card Dan Kwa: B+ | 317 USERS: B- YOU GRADE IT Sucked In
By Dan Kwa | Season 1 | Episode 1 | Aired on 2004.09.22
Kate and Jack head out into the jungle with Charlie to find the cockpit, but not before Kate robs a corpse for some nice hiking boots. ["Typical Beckinsale." -- Wing Chun] This scene really works in deepening Kate's character, because I imagine that Kate Beckinsale typically has an assistant to do her corpse-robbing for her. She gets an orange-peel smile from the old ruminatin' guy, who first looks like a boxer wearing a mouth guard and then, while he finishes the orange, like an orangutan. For what it's worth, I didn't think there was anything creepy about the orange; I thought it was cute. Not like the dog. That dog is creepy.
Meanwhile, Hurley suggests they might want to do something about all the -- and here he looks nervously at Mercutio's son -- "B, O, D, Y, S." "What are you spelling, man, 'bodies'?" asks Mercutio, and the kid corrects Hurley's spelling. This is a nice bit.
Charlie, Jack, and Kate head up an extremely pretty Hawai'ian valley. Jack has a walking stick. Why does he feel the need to have a walking stick? There are only four plausible reasons to carry a walking stick, two of which enjoy a 100\% correlation with jerkitude:
1. Because you are employing the walking stick ironically. If this is the case, you are a jerk.
2. Because you want to appear rugged and outdoorsy. If this is the case, you are a jerk.
3. Because of distinct quirkiness. This may or may not signify jerkitude; in the case of my friend Catherine's husband Carl and his rosewood walking stick with a compass in the head, for instance, it did not. Carl purchased the walking stick because he was nervous about moving to Washington, DC, and thought that carrying around a walking stick might be an effective crime deterrent. Carl also has about him something of the air of a Victorian dandy. He eventually lost the walking stick when he left it leaned up against a hot dog stand on the campus of the George Washington University School of Law.
4. Because you need a walking stick to walk, due to polio or a wound.
I believe Jack's reason for carrying a walking stick -- or rather, the prop department's reason for outfitting Jack with one -- is 40\% #1 and 60\% #4. He is wounded, but not on the leg. Let's say the members of the Lost prop department think Jack is about 40\% jerk. I agree.