White Rabbit

WHY AM I WATCHING WHITE RABBIT?

A sci-fi TV character with daddy issues? The devil, you say! Wait, that might be a spoiler.

Also, Jackface. So much Jackface.

Either he's sad, or someone farted.

THE FLASHBACK

So much of the main story plays off the flashback, so we're doing that first this week. And we are flashing waaaaaaay back to start, all the way back to 1979 as a young Jack Shepard watches his friend get beat up by a bully. Jack, being the heroic type, gets a black eye for his trouble. That night he explains what happened to his dad over a whiskey on the rocks. Well, Papa Shepard has the drink. Jack probably only drinks warm milk after 8 PM. Nerd. Anyways, Jack's dad is all drunked up and for whatever reason decides that Jack standing up to a bully is a perfect example of him not having "what it takes" He does this by telling Jack how he killed a kid a few hours earlier. No, seriously. That's what happens. It's fucked up.

Flashforward Fast forward to 25 years later, Jack's mom is guilting him into looking for his dad, telling him "You know what you did." (Women, AMIRITE?) Jack's dad got hella crunk and somehow made his way to Australia. I try to keep my benders confined to one borough. This guy managed to wake up on the other side of the planet. That's impressive.

In Sydney, Jack's dad hasn't been in the hotel for a few days after an "incident" in the hotel bar. Seeing as how his room is full of empty liquor bottles and pills, it's pretty easy to figure out what the hotel manager is implying. But Jack gets all hyper defensive and makes the guy spell it out, because Jack. Turns out the reason his dad hadn't been staying in the hotel is because he's been staying in the morgue. Yup, the alcoholism finally popped his heart, and now Jack's got to fly back to LA with a rotting corpse stuffed in his suitcase. Oceanic Airlines won't let him check the body, and I guess the overhead bins are full, so Jack makes an impassioned plea to let him take his father home,which seems pretty pointless until Jack finds the coffin on the island and it's empty.

It's like the stick up his ass goes all the way up through his skull.

THE ISLAND

Meanwhile, back in the South Pacific, Charlie wakes Jack up with yet another emergency for him to fix. A woman is drowning, so Jack runs into the ocean with his pants on to save her. But he finds Boone instead. Fucking Boone. Dude was a lifeguard at his parent's country club for a summer and thinks he's qualified for all water rescues. But he's Boone, so he's actually pretty terrible at it. Fucking Boone. Anyway, the woman drowns and Jack does not take it well. Luckily, he keeps seeing a mysterious man in a suit skulking around the jungle. That should keep him nice and distracted.

Boone is pissed because Jack saved him and not the woman. Jack is ignoring him because he's Boone and decides to chase after Suit Guy instead. When Jack catches up to him, he sees that the man is the splitting image of his dead father. Jinkies, Hurly! It's a g-g-g-ghost! He chases after the specter, but slips on a banana peel and falls off a cliff. He's able to grab on to a root and hangs there like so much Beetle Bailey. Luckily Locke is there hunting water and is able to pull him up to safety. They have a brief science v faith conversation, and Locke talks briefly about his religious experience last week. Jack doesn't know what to make of it (You can tell because he makes a confused face. Or a constipated one.) but decides to keep on looking for the ghost, just to figure out what is going on.

That night, he's sitting at his campfire when he hears the tell tale sounds of ice clinking in a glass of whiskey. His father has led him to a large cave, where the survivors have shelter, and fresh water, and food, and maybe a White Castle? Also, he finds the aforementioned empty coffin and just beats the shit out of it.

Back on the beach, the water supply is running low. Claire takes ill, and that's when they find out that someone has kidnapped the last of the water. Naturally, they blame Sawyer. Kate and Sayid go to get it back, but it turns out it wasn't him. The fight with Kate and Sawyer doesn't really have the sexual tension they want it to, but it does have pretty, sweaty people rolling around, so it gets the job done. Of course all the good potential in the scene goes out the window at the end. Sawyer names Kate the new sherrif and tosses her the dead marshal's badge. And all Kate can do is stare at it with those sad sad eyes of hers. Goddamn Kate ruins everything. And climbs trees.

Turns out it was Boone. Boone stole the water. Because it was just sitting there, so he's going to take it and keep it somewhere safe. Impeccable logic. Fucking Boone. He ran a business, you know. Everyone lines up to punch Boone in the gut, but Jack gets back just in time and tells them "Guess what? No one is going to save us! Let's go live in this sweet cave I found!"

duhhhhhhhhhhhh

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• There is all sorts of set up and world building going on in this episode. Some of it I remember, most I probably don't. I hope I included all the important stuff.
• Fucking Boone.
• I love the caves. It's one of my favorite locations on the show.
• Seriously, though. Look at these faces. It's madness.

How does he make his mouth do these things?

THE CATCHPHRASES

• We gotta go back!
• We live together or we die alone.
• Locke refers to the rest of the survivors as "The Others". I'm not sure if this counts as a catchphrase or not.