1.11 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
Day 16 Jack Shephard

Survivors wonder why Charlie and Claire have been abducted - and by whom - and a search party ventures into the treacherous jungle to look for the pair. Suspicions focus on Ethan Rom (guest-star William Mapother), who, it was recently discovered, was not a passenger on the doomed flight. Jack battles inner demons relating to his father, while Boone and Locke discover another island mystery.

Hurley reveals to everyone that Ethan wasn't on the plane! They then rush to find Charlie and Claire. Locke finds Claire's luggage bag and footprints showing a struggle. They then find signs showing that someone was dragged off, and Locke believes that Ethan is one of \"The Others\" that Sayid mentioned. Locke then points Jack in the direction that Ethan went. As he runs after Ethan, he has a flashback of trying to resuscitate a patient in the OR but inevitably loses her. As a search party is formed back at the cave, Jack has another flashback about arguing with his father, who accidentally cut the dead patient's artery during surgery because he had apparently been drinking. Locke, Kate, and Boone catch up with Jack as Michael heads south to search. As Jack tells Kate that he feels guilty for not believing Claire, Locke finds one of Charlie's finger-wrappings. The group then finds two trails and splits up, Kate with Jack and Boone with Locke. After Kate tells Jack that she got her tracking skills from tracking deer with her father, he has a flashback of reluctantly signing a document that states that the patient died of injuries from her car crash and excludes his father's error. Elsewhere, Walt mentions to Sawyer that Sayid is back, and Sawyer confronts him. Sayid tells him that he left the camp because he was ashamed of what he did but returned after he was captured by the French woman, who mentioned \"The Others\". Back in the jungle, Locke, after accurately predicting rain, tells Boone to go back to camp. Boone, however, refuses. Jack then hears Claire's screams, and he and Kate climb tree roots to get to her. However, Jack slips and hits the ground hard. Ethan then appears and warns Jack that he will kill Charlie or Claire if he and Kate continue to follow him. Jack attacks him, but Ethan easily knocks him out. After having a flashback of seeing the dead patient's husband talking to his father and threatening to sue, Jack is awakened by Kate. He chases after Ethan and has another flashback of his father lying to a committee. When he learns that the patient was pregnant, he then revises his statement, revealing the truth about what happened. As the flashback ends, Kate and Jack find Charlie was hanged! They cut him down but he is not breathing. Jack tries multiple times to resuscitate him but is unsuccessful. Not wanting the same thing to happen again, Jack tries again and Charlie starts breathing. That night at the cave, Jack promises Charlie that they will look for Claire when the sun rises. Charlie then says that \"all they wanted was Claire\". Meanwhile, Boone and Locke, still looking for Ethan, find a mysterious object buried in the ground and begin to dig it up.

Something i noticed while just rewatching several epis of Season 1 (this being one obviously): Isnt it weird that Boone and Locke walk for hours on end, right into the middle of the night seemingly, before they come across the hatch, and yet in season 2, people seem to pop from the hatch to the beach in seconds. I mean i know its like "tv-land time", so they dont have hours for them to walk from one place to another, but still, the gap doesnt seem anywhere near as exaggerated at any point after this one time with the hatch. Probably just a "its part of the story, so its let slip" thing ( i mean ive watched the series several times, and ive just let it slip till now, but it does sorta seem weird now thinking about it. ALSO: Anyone think Juliet was with Ethan when he took Claire/Charlie? Heres my reasons: 1) Locke says: "AT LEAST 3 sets of footprints" <-- Why would they bother writing in "AT LEAST" if there wasnt someone else with him. 2) Charlie says: "THEY only wanted claire" <--- once again, plural usage for APPARENTLY only one person. 3) Juliet is lying about being "one of the losties now", so its very possible that shes lying about Ethan being working on his own. 4) Juliet was the one who wanted the pregnancy experiment to work, not ethan, so it is entirely possible that she would be trying anything and everything possible to make it work, including going and administering the drug/serum/whatever, and getting claire back with her. I Love looking back on the old seasons now that we know what follows, coz you just notice so dam much that just doesnt occur first time round!

Hey jrg! I actually want to rewatch all the epis after the season is over. I wonder if before they found th hatch, Locke and Boone were walking in circles? It's how you would search for an area right? Not sure though, will have to pay attention on the rewatch! I remember a lot of chatter about Juliet being in the Swan in ML. Here is a LINK to the picture. It looks like Juliet and Ben.

I still don't trust Juliet.I'm sure she does want to get home to her sister very badly, but she also may have adopted(or been brainwashed) into the Others Master Plan - whatever that may be.I wouldn't take my eyes off of her for a second,and I don't think Sayid or Sawyer will,despite what she said about them.Jack, eh, who knows what's up with him,does he trust her completely, or only up to a point, or is he just putting on a show, waiting for her to slip ? Only time will tell, I guess.

-Charlie and his finger bandages. First it was "fate",then it was "love" and now in this epi we see several shots where they said "late".Why late ? Indicating that he would be too late to save Claire from Ethan ? -When Walt was telling Sawyer about Claire and Charlie he said"...maybe they were taken by the people who were here before us." Sayid only said that they were not alone,that's a pretty big leap for a 10 year old, yes Walt is smart,but is this more of his "gift?" -In the fb Christian said to Jack "this career is all about the greater good" Jack certainly learned that lesson well from Dad,since all of his actions were for the greater good of the group. -When Walt was playing backgammon with Hurley, and kept winning,he said"I'm lucky" Hurley said "No one is that lucky." and Walt replied that his step-dad Brian said that Walt was the luckiest person he ever met. More foreshadowing about Walt's gifts? -Boone and Locke in the jungle looking for Claire,Locke predicting it would start to rain in one minute and it did. I have a real hard time accepting that than other a very lucky guess.Yes,Locke did some hunting and tracking with his Dad before he gave up the kidney,but the man was an office worker for most of his life. Did he learn weather forecasting while he was on the commune ? Even the best of them can't predict rain to the minute ! -In the fb,Jack decided to revise his statement after hearing that the dead patient was pregnant. Then after Jack gets the beating by Ethan,he gets up to go after him again and says "I'm not letting him do this. Not again." I see this as a reference to dear old Dad causing the death of the pregnant patient,Jack was not going to let another pregnant girl die. -I also think Ethan must have had some helpers when he was taking Claire and Charlie. How did he get Charlie up in that tree by himself and still contain Claire ? I agree with jrg1990,Charlie said "they" only wanted Claire,had to be more than just Ethan.

Just a couple of quick points on this epi: Locke says to Jack, “You’re asking the wrong question, not how, why?” Is this of significance to us? Are we asking the wrong questions? The issue of letting pregnant girls die foreshadows the fertility issues that Juliet is supposedly working on. This connects to my previous comment though, why? I know I spent a lot of time wondering how. How were the women effected, how were the babies effected, how was Juliet’s research not working. But I didn’t spend a long time on why it was all happening. I think this all points to the need to look at everything that is going on on the Island. The clichéd “big picture” that I like to talk about. I really disliked Shannon at this point in the show. She really was nasty to Boone and lazy beyond belief. Locke stated that he never noticed anything “off” about Ethan (which Lou mentioned and I agreed last epi that Locke would be the one to notice). Locke even stated that Ethan was a better tracker then Locke himself. Where would he have learned such seasoned tracking skills? If it is unbelievable that Locke is so good, isn’t it just as unbelievable that Ethan is better? Ethan was a doctor. I wouldn’t expect a doctor to be great at tracking. Walt said to Sawyer, “It’s stupid to lie about your name.” This is really funny now knowing that Sawyer is in fact lying about his name at this time. Don’t know if it means anything but Locke has a working watch in this epi. Was Ethan really fighting Jack or was it just a hallucination? Kate didn’t see Ethan but I have expressed doubts about Kate’s truthfulness and involvement in things already. If she is some how connected to the Others she would easily lie about seeing Ethan. I’m not sure how much I believe she is actually with the Others though. These earlier epis do have moments that lead me to believe she is but S3 events tend to negate this idea. Did the Island heal Charlie? Was he not quite dead and it was the Island that revived him? Was it just “luck” that caused Locke and Boone to find the Swan? What are the odds of them stopping in just that spot and the flashlight hitting the hatch?