That was one of the reasons why I wanted to know now. Get it over with and out of the way. I don't need the big revelation during sweeps be that she had an abusive boyfriend that she killed in self defense or whatever. Since the farmer already mentioned that possibility I'm going to assume that's not it and it will be something a little more creative, but I'm not very ooptimistic beyond that.

If Terry's John Locke reborn, then he's cool.

If his name was Gobineau...that would be bad.

It's certainly interesting the way this show is playing out. With the large cast they have, presenting a backstory in every episode just writes the entire season.

Hmmm, I also was going with the purgatory theory with the ones in an unrestful state being stuck on the island until they were able to put beat their demons and then 'dying' again to continue on.

Good episode again though, I just hope at the end its not a total bust like 'it was all a dream!'

The background music is probably a little too ambitious for the "scary/uncertain" scenes when the adrenaline level is sky high.

TiVo smacked me down too :(

I also thought the dad was going to find a bloody rope where the dog was supposed to be. I think whatever was chasing him in the jungle earlier was actually a wild boar, not a monster, even though we didn't see it. That's what it sounded like to me anyways.

Some character predictions:

I don't think Whatsherface is 'dangerous' as in "armed and dangerouse" or serial killer dangerous, but dangerous in a manipulative way. I think between the car ride and the airplane crash she convinced the dead marshall that she really was innocent of whatever it was she did. I think she's going to end up being a con artist of some sort.

Locke isn't going to be a bad guy, like the Koreans we're seeing only a certain aspect of him right now that is trying to lead us into thinking one thing instead of another. I'm guessing Locke is going to have been a CIA/Military type guy who is/was dangerous in a serial killer way but now sees the crash as his redemption. He'll use his knowledge to help everybody survive.

The jerky guy who fouled up the mercy killing by shooting the marshall in the chest instead of the head is going to turn out not to be so jerky, just insecure and inadequate. He will also turn out to be a good guy that can be counted on.

Fat guy is going to be a bad guy. He's likeable enough now, but will soon show that he'll take the path of least resistance and will follow whatever evil/bad side comes up because they will offer him the easier life on the island/isthmus/peninsula.

The pregnant lady is driving me crazy, she looks like she's got a beach ball tucked under her skimpy outfit, doesn't look really pregnant at all. It seems ABC could've at least made it look more realistic.

Actually my wife is a labor and delivery nurse and is amazed how realistic the pregnant woman looks. For eight months along, it can look like a beach ball in a small person. My wife averages 100 lbs, and looked this way when she was pregnant.

I was surprised they already went into Kate's backstory so much. It is kinda remniscient of Riddick and Johns in Pitch Black. I was also surprised they already revealed Locke's secret. Thought it would be held at least another episode.

As for the commercials, I don't like 'em either, but if you think about how much it cost to shoot this show it is understandable that they want to re-coup that in the first few episodes in case it does tank and get cancelled.

Loved the episode. Can't wait until next week.

As for the peninsula idea, if indeed that is true, it TOTALLY leaves open a guest spot for the Globetrotters in season 6.

The previews for next weeks show has them running out of food. Hopefully we'll get to se some cannibalism.

Noticed they added subtitles to the Koreans. I think I actually preferred not knowing what they were saying. When you didn't know what they were saying, it kind of put you in the same place as the characters, and the frustration/confusion they were feeling. With the subtitles, you are getting additional information that the characters are not, so it pulled me out of the show a bit.

Not a big deal really, just something I noticed.

Perhaps this is just my poor memory, but I thought the previous shows gave subtitles when they were speaking to each other. If they were talking to any of the other characters, no subtitles were given.

Therefore, if my memory is correct, last night was in line with that. :)

Regarding the scenes for next week: was it just me, or were those the same scenes we were shown last week? Maybe I'm just psychic.

Gasspasser, my fellow Illinois RateBeerian, here is a brief synapsis of the episode:

- The hikers set up camp on their way back from the mountaintop. They decide to lie to the group about hearing the French distress call so that they don't cause a mass panic. The lifeguard guy takes the gun in the middle of the night to stand guard, but everyone objects and decides that Kate should be the one holding the gun.

- The Doc finds the mugshots of Kate on the marshall, who keeps saying that Kate is dangerous and cannot be trusted. Hurley sees the mugshots as well.

- Flashbacks show Kate nomadically wandering through Australia. She stays with a widowed farmer for 3 months and helps him around the farm. They befriend each other, but the farmer discovers that she is wanted, and turns her in to get the reward money so he can pay off his mortgage. He tells her this when he is driving her to the "train station" when she notices that they are being followed by the marshall. She causes an accident in which the farmer is knocked unconscious. Instead of running and saving herself, she drags the farmer to safety and is captured by the marshall.

- The father, when looking for his son's dog, is chased by the "monster" and ends up running into the Korean woman when she is bathing. Uncomfortableness ensues.

- Locke carves a whistle out of wood and uses it to attract the dog, Vincent. He ties Vincent up and tells the father so that he can bring the dog to his son.

- The marshall isn't doing too well, and will surely die. Kate wants to put the marshall out of his misery so that he won't suffer for days. Doc won't let her. The crazy wildman redneck guy ends up shooting the marshall because he wanted to die, but he shot him in the chest, not the head. The gunshot didn't kill him - it punctured his lung. Off camera, it is assummed that the Doc ends the marshall's life.

- Kate tries to tell Doc what she did to get in trouble, but he doesn't want to know. He says that everyone died on the planecrash, and everyone is starting fresh.

I probably missed something, but that is a general breakdown of what happened.

Is Hurley on drugs or something? Why was he wasting the batteries in his CD player when Sayed had just said they needed all the leftover batteries they could find to run the transceiver? :rolleyes:

I thought it was a great touch that Kate is CANADIAN, not American, especially since she (Lilly) is.

It was a contrivance that the marshall didn't tell us what Kate did and that Jack doesn't want to know, but I am willing to overlook it. Obviously, everyone's secrets are going to come out over time. I read an interview with JJ yesterday and he said they had the first two seasons mapped out already.

The hillbilly guy is a little too cartoonish for me at this point. I'm sure his backstory will flesh him out later, but right now it's a pretty silly character.

I think bralph is right, last night was the first time they had any subtitles.

Wrong. They had subtitles in the pilot episode, when the husband told the wife to stay with him.

I am worried they will wimp out on the Kate story line.

TV has a habit of making us sympathetic towards attractive women accused of doing evil. Only to later find out she was the victim of a brutal white male dominated society. She was just defending herself *sigh*. Usually involving a rape.

So far they are doing a good job of painting her.

Anyone else making the mistake of ASSUMING that Michael is the Walt's father? I wondered that during the pilot, but last night Michael's general reactions made it pretty clear that he is NOT the boy's father. See the scene about finding the dog in the rain and when Locke shows up with the dog.

I have padded my TiVo for this show. Nothing worse than missing that show title card "GASP!" moment of a J.J. Abrams episode - LOST! :D:up:

BTW - the Koreans have always been subtitled when talking to each other. What would be the point of seeing them converse for more than an exchange if the audience can't understand what they're saying?

Yeah - WTF is up with that? :hscratch: Couldn't understand that and why that idiot didn't shoot the Marshall in the head. Otherwise, a solid episode.

All good news to me. I don't want another show about dead people. I want people stranded on an island. Perhaps the polar bear in the comic book was just foreshadowing?

And at first I was like "GET ON WITH IT!" about telling us with what Kate did, but I don't care any more. Just feeds back into the episode's theme that it doesn't matter what they did before the crash.

So, last week Walt looks at a comic book, sees a polar bear - then suddenly a real polar bear shows up

Last night, Walt

Coincidence? Beats me.

Also, when the hot pregnant girl (whose character name I can't recall) was asked if her husband was with her on the plane only answers Could this feed into the

This didn't bother me all that much. The dad mentioned that the kid didn't live with him at all so I'd be more suspicious if they're relationship was all happy.

I'm in the camp that doesn't want to know what Kate did. Whatever it is, it won't live up to our expectations so if we never find out I won't be mad.

The commercial breaks are driving me nuts but I understand ABC has to make $$$. There's got to be a better way of handling this. If not, I might have to TIVO the eps and watch them later.

Hmmmm. Sounds like

I find it interesting that the hiking group decided not to tell the rest of the survivors about the message, but they didn't make any decisions about the polar bear. Are they going to tell the group about the polar bear or not?

Also, why haven't they thought of using the dead bear as a food source? Its probably too late now, though.

Watch what her stomach does when she moves though. It's totally not realistic.

She's not really Canadian, she was just telling the farmer that. They don't send US Marshalls to find and extradite Canadians.

I'm not looking at her stomach :eyebrow:

Yeah, I wondered about that too. Seems fairly stupid. The bear should still be OK to eat.

It didn't really show how far away they were from the beach, but it seems there was a good chance that the rest of the survivors would've heard the gunshots when they killed the bear.

Interesting point ... couldn't kill the marshall with him lying there yet was able to stop a HUGE CHARGING POLAR BEAR by shooting it in the head. Odd...

Not really a spoiler... it was discussed rather well in the Pilot - NO SCI-FI ALLOWED. It has been discussed extensively. I think it was a coincidental joke thing since Michael said he look when it stops raining and it suddenly did. Rainfall in that part of the world is really like turning a faucet on and off.

Totally. It was just supposed to be funny as Michael didn't really want to wander in the "haunted jungle" and look for the dog.

Well, one of my theories from the pilot was shot down last night when Michael saw Sun topless. (When her husband told her to button her shirt, I thought she might have some kind of mark or tattoo on her body that he wanted to keep hidden.) So take these with a grain of salt...

1. The Monster.

2. Locke. At certain times, he seems kind, yet at other times he gives off a degree of malevolence. If he didn't have something to do with these people being stranded on the island then he might

Josh - that was my first thought as well on the monster.

I'm going to jump to a conclusion and figure that was one of the typical JJ fake clues tossed in.

Don't you think Polar Bears on a tropic island(assumed) is SCI-FI? I think how fantastic it is will be controlled. The "not knowing" factor has given the show a certain Twilight Zone feel.

Agreed about the rainfall. That was just used as comic relief. The father (figurative) was just trying to delay going out to look for the dog. What I didn't get is Why he didn't want to look for the dog originally? Was he scared or lazy or both. The whole dog whistle thing is kind of suspect as well.

Are you sure you want to do that? You'd be the first person in a "Lost" thread to do such a thing.

I had the same problem with my ReplayTV. Damn ABC for ending the show at a screwy time. And something was up with the commercials. I couldn't skip them the way I normally do. I had to fast forward. This show is making me consider dumping cable and going to Dish Network since they just added my locals. There isn't an ABC affiliate locally, so the reception on the one I get on cable is shitty.

Maybe there's a really short summer and a really really long winter. ;)

They do if the Canadian is fleeing from a U.S. crime. Canadians who commit murder in the U.S. don't get a free pass.

So they never explained how a Polar Bear got on the island? Is there still a creature out there somewhere?

Also, are the "scientific possibilities" J.J. discussed ones that play by our world's rules, or the worlds he creates?

She must be some rather NOTORIOUS con artist for them to offer $23K AUD and pursue her from North America to Australia then extradite her. Whatever Kate is in trouble for, it is unlikely that it is small potatoes or a simple "misunderstanding".

As far as "clean slates" go, we can't wipe everything away. I still think that some event ON THE PLANE involving one or more of the passengers caused the crash.

It will be tough to fill an hour without flashbacks. Those flashbacks will reveal why everyone is who they are and where they came from. This show is going to need lots of backfill otherwise it will be about as boring as backgammon.

Kate included. I just worry that they will cop out on her character for fear of audience reaction. She most likely killed a corporate power or politicians son, because she was raped. Or maybe she had a brother or sister that was murdered and revenge was the reason. The writers have already positioned her as a protagonist. She has already demonstrated she has a conscience and I don't think the writers will let go of the sympathy to make her a villian.

I am willing to bet that the "clean slate" comment was a setup to do the reverse. You are a product of your history and you cannot escape it ... even on a remote island.

I'm pretty sure that the amount of time for commercials is the same as other shows, what really pisses me off is the frequency of the commercial breaks.

Sure the breaks are shorter than usual, but I would rather have 3 breaks of 4 minutes each rather than 5 breaks of 2 1/2 minutes each (approx).

Oh well, back to my Tivo next week and seeing this 2 to 3 hours earlier.

Chris