This article contains episode summaries for the first season of Lost.
In addition to the twenty-four episodes in season one, a special, "Lost: The Journey", was aired on April 27, 2005 to put the mysteries of the island and the characters in perspective in the lead-up to the season finale. The original airdates U.S. are listed here for each episode. For airdates on other networks and in other countries, see Airdates of Lost.
See Also: Lost Season 2
Season One Episodes
|
01 "Pilot, Part 1" |
10 "Raised by Another" |
19 "Deus Ex Machina" |
|
This article or section has been nominated for a cleanup The content on this page may be out of place, overwritten, and/or contradictory. You can help Lostpedia by cleaning it up. |
|
Pilot, Part 1
- Original air date: September 22, 2004
- Directed by: J.J. Abrams
- Written by: Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
For a full synopsis of this episode click here
Pilot, Part 2
- Original US air date: September 29, 2004
- Directed by: J.J. Abrams
- Written by: Jeffrey Lieber, J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
For a full synopsis of this episode click here
Tabula Rasa
Ray Mullen in episode Tabula Rasa
Beginning with this episode, the development of the ongoing story is accompanied by an explanation of the origins of one of the principal characters — in this case, Kate. At the end of the pilot, it was revealed that she is a fugitive; in this episode it is revealed through flashbacks that she has been on the run in Australia, and we learn how the federal marshal with her on the plane captured her. Meanwhile, Jack, a medical doctor, fights to save the life of her escort.
Walkabout
About four days after the crash, the survivors discover that their food is exhausted, and wonder what to do; John Locke, a menacing presence in the background of the previous stories, flings a combat knife at an abandoned plane seat, narrowly missing the head of another castaway, and announces that they should go hunting in the jungle. While the survivors deal with mundane tasks of survival, Locke's background is set forth.
Locke is revealed to have been paralyzed and wheelchair-bound prior to the plane crash. Locke had planned on participating on a walkabout tour of the Australian outback, but was turned away when the tour guide discovered that he was in a wheelchair. Locke had offered a woman who may be a phone sex worker a ticket to travel with him; this woman, Helen, rejected the offer and cut off communication with him. Locke is shown to have been a lonely, frustrated man, constantly belittled by his much-younger boss in the cubicle farm where he worked as a regional sales representative for a box company.
Some mystery is also infused into his character as the audience is made to wonder why exactly he gets called "Colonel Locke" and why he receives a mysterious phonecall speaking of a target being identified, and using military time to identify a time to "rendezvouz" and the "usual place". A later scene reveals the caller to be a co-worker, confirming their lunchtime game of Risk.
This episode also explains Locke's comment about it being a 'miracle': the crash gave him back the use of his legs.
In the jungle, Locke is separated from his companions, who believe the Monster is closing upon Locke; however, he returns to the camp with a slain wild boar, and the other survivors believe that he has killed it himself. Locke seems to have directly encountered the mysterious Monster, but we do not know what he saw.
White Rabbit
- Original air date: October 20, 2004
- Flashback: Jack Shephard
Joanna, a character who had not been previously mentioned, drowns in the ocean, despite Boone and Jack's best efforts to save her. They hold a makeshift funeral for her, with the few bits of information they can glean from her few recovered possessions.
Delirious from a lack of sleep, Jack believes he sees his father stalking him from a distance, and forsakes the leadership role the others have thrust upon him in order to follow the apparition and determine whether he is hallucinating. While flashbacks explain why Jack was in Australia, Boone gets himself into trouble with the others. Jack's search for his father results in finding a source of fresh water for the survivors, as well as a cave that will afford shelter.
House of the Rising Sun
All are shocked when Jin attacks Michael without warning; Sayid is forced to handcuff him to a portion of the plane wreckage to keep the peace. While the survivors argue whether to stay on the beach — where a rescue party could see them — or move to the cave in the jungle near fresh water, the story of Jin and Sun is revealed in a series of flashbacks. Jin went to work for Sun's father in order to gain his permission to marry her. After working years for her father, Jin returns home late one night, his clothes and hands covered with blood. Horrified by the violent life that Jin apparently has taken up, Sun plotted to run away from Jin — but at the last minute decided to join Jin on the fateful flight. Sun reveals to Michael that she can speak English, but Jin does not know. She says Jin attacked Michael over her father's watch, which Jin had been keeping, and which Michael had found after the crash and been innocently wearing.
The Moth
Charlie begins a painful journey of withdrawal from drugs, surprisingly aided by Locke, whose true motive for helping Charlie is a mystery. Meanwhile, survivors—especially Charlie—struggle to find and free Jack when he's buried alive in a cave collapse, and someone might be secretly thwarting Sayid, Kate, and Boone when they enact a plan to find the source of the French transmission.
In flashbacks, Charlie recalls his glory days playing with his band, Drive Shaft, with his brother, Liam. Both were unprepared for the phenomenal success of their band, and got caught up in anonymous sex and drug abuse. The band eventually splits due to the ego-warring between the two brothers. Charlie attempts to recruit Liam for a reunion tour, but by this time Liam has settled down with a family in Australia, though Charlie is still using drugs.
In the end, Charlie, who's sense of self-worth has been increasingly diminished, finds new confidence after rescuing Jack, and choosing to toss his drugs into a fire.
Confidence Man
When Shannon's asthma becomes a problem, everyone becomes convinced that Sawyer is hoarding some inhalers from the wreck. Jack and Sayid torture him, but he agrees to give up the inhalers in return for a kiss from Kate. She agrees, and he says that he doesn't have the inhalers after all. Sun helps Shannon by making a eucalyptus salve to clear her bronchial passages.
In flashbacks, we learn that Sawyer is a confidence man. His parents were ruined by another grifter named Sawyer, whose name he took as an alias when he entered a similar life of crime to pay some debts. He hates himself for this, which explains why he seems to go to such great lengths to make everyone else hate him. We do not know his real name. (Later episodes revealed that his name is James Ford.)
After the torture incident , despite a plea from Kate, Sayid sets off alone to explore the island's shoreline, disgusted with himself for breaking a vow never to do anything like that again. Charlie convinces Claire to move to the caves; they seem to be striking up a close relationship.
Solitary
On his own, Sayid finds a cable running out of the ocean and into the jungle. He follows it, is captured, and tortured by a mysterious woman who identifies herself as Danielle Rousseau (Mira Furlan). It is her voice on the automatically repeating distress call; she seems mentally unbalanced. She claims to have been stranded on the island when a "science expedition" ran aground there. She also claims to have killed most of the other expedition members after they became "infected"—controlled by some sort of disease or mind control (this is very vague). She also warns him to keep an eye on the others.
In his flashbacks, we learn of Sayid's career in the Republican Guard, and how he conspired to help a childhood friend, Noor (nicknamed Nadia), escape execution and developed feelings for her.
Meanwhile, Hurley builds a golf course (site of "the first — and hopefully only — Island Open", in his words) to improve morale among the castaways, and Locke agrees, without Michael's knowledge, to teach Walt (Malcolm David Kelley) some woodcraft. Another new character, Ethan (William Mapother), helps Locke hunt.
Sayid eventually escapes from Rousseau's bunker, but he hears the whispering voices in the jungle of which she spoke.
Raised by Another
Two nights in a row, Claire wakes up screaming; on the second, she insists that someone held her down and stabbed her stomach to hurt her unborn child, although no physical marks support this. Jack questions her and learns that the baby is due in just over a week; concerned that stress could trigger early labor, he says Claire is having anxiety nightmares, and that an attack would have been unlikely with so many other people around. But Charlie — who has been doting on Claire — isn't so sure, and the alleged attack prompts Hurley to begin a census of the islanders.
Angered by Jack's suggestion that she wasn't really attacked and his advice to take a mild sedative, Claire leaves the cave alone and heads for the beach. Charlie catches up to her shortly before she is overcome by contractions; on the way to get Jack, he finds Ethan and tells him to relay the message. Charlie manages to calm Claire down, and the contractions end.
In flashbacks, we learn that Claire was flying to Los Angeles on the advice of the psychic Richard Malkin who had initially warned her not to let anyone else raise the child, but claimed he'd found a "good" couple in the U.S. to adopt the baby. Claire was encouraged to see the psychic by her friend Rachel. After she tells Charlie her story, the two conclude the psychic's insistence that Claire take the doomed flight indicated he'd known about the crash.
An ailing Sayid returns to camp and tells the others he found the woman on the recording, and Hurley reveals that one of the island's inhabitants (apparently Ethan) was not listed on the flight manifest as one of the plane's passengers. Simultaneously, Ethan ominously accosts Claire and Charlie in the jungle.
All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
Haunted by flashbacks to his relationship with his alcoholic father (particularly one episode where he vainly attempts to perform CPR on a patient on the operating table after his father fatally botches the surgery), Jack follows Locke into the jungles in pursuit of Ethan, who has kidnapped Claire and Charlie. The good doctor soon splits off on his own, against Locke's suggestion to follow quietly. Eventually, Jack returns and two parties form up: Jack and Kate follow a trail left behind by Charlie, while Locke and Boone track a series of footprints.
During an episode of rain, Jack and Kate get separated. Jack stumbles down an embankment after hearing the Monster let out its unearthly bellow, and when he comes to at the bottom, Ethan is standing over him. The two men struggle, but the mysterious outsider gets the upper hand, and he warns Jack that if he continues to follow, he will kill one of the hostages.
Kate soon comes to Jack's aid, and the pair follows Ethan's path until they come across Charlie, blindfolded and hanged by his neck from a tree branch. They cut him down, and Jack furiously performs CPR — despite Kate's pleas that it's a lost cause — until Charlie coughs his way back to life.
The episode ends at nightfall, with Jack, Kate, and Charlie back at the caves, where Charlie reveals that it was Claire that Ethan wanted all along, and with Boone and Locke somewhere in the jungle, where they discover a piece of metal embedded in the ground — which is not shrapnel from the plane.
Whatever the Case May Be
- Original air date: January 5, 2005
- Flashback: Kate
- Written by Damon Lindelof
- Directed by Jack Bender
Hearts and Minds
- Original air date: January 12, 2005
- Flashback: Boone
- Written by Carlton Cuse and Javier Grillo-Marxuach
- Directed by Rod Holcomb
Special
- Original air date: January 19, 2005
- Flashback: Michael
- Written by David Fury
- Directed by Greg Yaitanes
Homecoming
- Original air date: February 9, 2005
- Flashback: Charlie
- Written by Damon Lindelof
- Directed by Kevin Hooks
Outlaws
- Original air date: February 16, 2005
- Flashback: Sawyer
- Written by Drew Goddard
- Directed by Jack Bender
... In Translation
- Original air date: February 23, 2005
- Flashback: Jin
- Written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Leonard Dick
- Directed by Tucker Gates
Numbers
- Original air date: March 2, 2005
- Flashback: Hurley
- Written by David Fury and Brent Fletcher
- Directed by Daniel Attias
Deus Ex Machina
- Original air date: March 30, 2005
- Flashback: Locke
- Written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse
- Directed by Robert Mandel
Do No Harm
- Original air date: April 6, 2005
- Flashback: Jack
- Written by Janet Tamaro
- Directed by Stephen Williams
Lost: The Journey
Flashbacks of the core characters illustrating who they were and what they were doing before the crash, a look at the island itself, and a preview of the big season finale.
The Greater Good
- Original air date: May 4, 2005
- Flashback: Sayid
- Written by Leonard Dick
- Directed by David Grossman
Born to Run
- Original air date: May 11, 2005
- Flashback: Kate
- Written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach
- Directed by Tucker Gates
Exodus: Part 1
- Original air date: May 18, 2005
- Flashbacks: Walt, Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Sun, Shannon
- Written by Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof
- Directed by Jack Bender
Exodus: Part 2
- Original air date: May 25, 2005. Part 2 and 3 of the Exodus episode aired back to back in the US with no delineation, and are summarized as one episode here.
- Flashbacks: Jin, Charlie, Sayid, Michael, Hurley, Locke
- Written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse
- Directed by Jack Bender