Lost from the Start » 1×14

1×14 – Special

ON THE ISLAND - DAY TWENTY-SIX

Michael looks for Walt, stumbling across Charlie – looking for Claire’s bags, Jack – hauling firewood, Hurley – organizing golf. Hurley says to Jack that he seems to hate being a dad.

Jack’s observation to Hurley – that it’s hard being a dad – is something that comes back to haunt him in the flash-sideways world¹.

FLASHBACK

This episode has more flashbacks than the usual five in order to completely flesh out Michael and Walt’s relationship. It’s also the first of only two pre-island flashback for Michael (who later has an on-island flashback² and a flashback to his time after he gets off the island³ ), and the only flashback for Walt.

Michael – in a very bad hat – and Susan shop for a crib for their upcoming son’s birth, even though money’s a little tight. Michael tells her that he’s taking some construction work to get some cash – but not abandoning his art – while Susan finishes law school.

He also tells her that he’s decided that he’d like his son to be called Walt after his dad. She agrees, but the baby is having her last name, Lloyd, since they’re not married – even though he’s asked her before.

ON THE ISLAND

Walt’s practicing throwing the knife with Locke and Boone. Locke tells him to visualize the knife hitting a knot in the tree before he throws it – and he does, burying the knife right on target.

Michael arrives, none too happy to see Walt playing with the knife, and sends Walt and Vincent back to camp. He stomps off, leaving Michael to angrily confront Locke.

When things get heated, Boone decks him and holds the knife to his throat, only to have the situation reversed in a matter of seconds. Locke pulls them apart, reclaiming the knife and telling Michael that Walt bonds with him because he doesn’t treat him like a child.

Boone’s almost worship-like devotion to Locke has really moved along since his experience with the hallucinogen⁴. In a way, Locke’s got his own little cult of one – which may be why a backstory of him briefly being part of a cult-like commune is added later⁵.

When Michael points out that Walt’s only ten years old, Locke tells him that he’s different – something that hits a nerve with Michael – and that he should be allowed to realize his potential. Michael tells him to stay away from him and Walt.

FLASHBACK

Michael and Susan argue over her going to Amsterdam with her job, and she plans to take Walt with her. Michael’s understandably against this, even if they have talked about taking some time apart; their relationship has clearly deteriorated.

Michael’s all for trying to save their relationship, but she’s already taken the job – she can provide for him while Michael hasn’t worked in months. When he brings up the courts she points out that they’re not married and she’s steadily employed, so they’ll side with her.

She promises him that it isn’t goodbye, but she needs some time. Michael barely listens, watching baby Walt.

ON THE ISLAND

Michael watches Walt as he sleeps. He tells Sun what Locke said about not treating him like a child, but that it’s difficult since he missed his whole childhood. He just doesn’t want him growing up on the island.

Sayid, Shannon and Jack pore over Rousseau’s maps – Sayid pointing with his creepily long nails at a location he thinks he’s found on the island, except that he’s not entirely sure where it is. Or, as Jack points out, that it’s even on the island.

One of the maps that Sayid layers on top of each other suggests a smaller island off the coast of the main island – this could represent the island which houses Hydra station⁶.

A frustrated Michael suggests that they need to build a raft. In spite of Sayid’s pessimism, Michael’s determined to build it – anything to get them off the island.

Michael’s real determination to get off the island begins here -he will eventually betray his friends⁷ and kill⁸ to get off the island so that Walt doesn’t grow up there.

DAY TWENTY-SEVEN

The next day, Walt reads the spanish Flash/Green Lantern book he found, lingering over the page with the polar bear. Michael starts to pull him away, but tries to bond with him over art. It doesn’t go very well.

FLASHBACK

Michael calls Susan on a payphone from New York, wanting to talk to the 21-month old Walt. He hears a man’s voice in the background and Susan tells him that she’s been seeing the man who hired her.

Michael angrily tells her that he’s coming to Amsterdam to get Walt back, hangs up, and crosses the street – where he’s hit by a car.

Michael isn’t the only character to get hit by a car in the show; Sayid’s wife Nadia is killed when she’s hit by a car after he leaves the island⁹, and Desmond runs down a wheelchair-bound Locke in the sideways world¹⁰.

ON THE ISLAND

Kate finds Charlie on the beach, looking through Claire’s bags for her diary. He think someone’s taken it.

Elsewhere, Michael and Walt look for materials for a raft, although he’s not telling his son what he’s working towards and Walt thinks it feels like punishment.

Charlie and Kate come to Sawyer looking for the diary. He teases Charlie, pretending he read it, and Charlie slugs him in his wounded arm, grabbing the diary. Sawyer punches him back, but Kate intervenes before it goes any further. When she asks him if he really read it, he says he hadn’t gotten around to it yet – but Kate gives him a small smile like she knows better.

Walt surveys the jungle while Michael works and sees Locke and Boone. He follows them, saying he’s going to get some water.

Boone and Locke arrive at the caves. Shannon and Boone talk, but he doesn’t take her on at all, even when she suggests that they could work on Michael’s raft together. He just isn’t interested.

Walt finds Locke by a fire, but Locke tells him that he needs to show Michael some respect and not try to spend time with him. Michael arrives and flies off the handle, threatening to kill Locke if he catches him with Walt again, ignoring everything they say.

Michael’s threat to kill Locke is deadly serious, and gives a hint of just how far he will go for his son¹¹.

Locke nods and leaves, as Walt rips into Michael. He doesn’t think that he cares about him – he only showed up after his mom died, and he didn’t even hear from him before. He tells Michael that he isn’t his father, and Michael lays the law down, throwing the comic on the fire and telling him that he’ll listen to him.

FLASHBACK

Michael sketches a card for Walt while he’s sits in the hospital in a wheelchair, leg in a cast and arm in a brace. Walt’s going to be two the next week.

Susan shows up unexpectedly. Michael hadn’t told her about the accident and she came over when she heard, leaving Walt with Brian. She tells him that she’s covering Michael’s medical costs, including a year of physical therapy. She and Brian are getting married and moving to Italy at the end of the month, and he wants to adopt Walt. Michael can’t believe it – but she asks him if he’s holding on to Walt for Walt’s sake or for his own.

ON THE ISLAND

Hurley tells Michael that Walt’s gone, taking off with Vincent – and Michael stands, saying that he knows where he’s gone. Michael finds Locke and Boone and demands to know where Walt is, but he’s not there. Worried, he can’t quite bring himself to ask for help – but Locke offers to find him.

Charlie and Kate bring the bags back to the cave, and he tells her how much he misses her even though he barely knew her. When Kate leaves, he pulls the diary from her bag and tries very hard not to read it, eventually leaving the bags alone to remove temptation.

In the jungle, Vincent starts barking at something that Walt can’t see. He breaks his leash and takes off, Walt in pursuit.

FLASHBACK

Walt, at home with Susan and Brian, lies with Vincent on the floor in their new home in Australia. Susan doesn’t feel too well, but Walt’s kind of oblivious.

When he tries to show Brian a bird in the book, he gets angry and tells him he’s not looking – and then a bird flies into the window and dies.

Walt seems kind of unaffected by it, but Brian watches him with an uneasy look.

ON THE ISLAND

Walt calls for Vincent as he hears noises in the jungle – but it doesn’t sound like Vincent.

FLASHBACK

Michael opens the door to his New York apartment to find Brian, unshaven and looking tired. Susan died the previous day from a blood disorder, and was only sick for about a week.

Michael can’t believe Brian left Walt with a nanny just when he lost his mother, but he tells him that Susan had said she wanted Michael to have custody before she died.

He doesn’t buy it – but Brian tells him that he didn’t want to adopt Walt; it was what Susan wanted. He offers Michael plane tickets and traveling money. Michael’s furious – Brian is the only father Walt knows – but Brian tells him that he’s a wreck but more than that, there’s something about Walt.

He tells Michael that there’s something different about him and when he’s around, ‘things happen’.

There’s more on Walt being ‘special’ in the episode Q&A and the Season One’s Abandoned Plots page.

ON THE ISLAND

Locke and Michael find the leash Walt dropped and then hear his shouts. They run towards them, shouting his name.

FLASHBACK

In Sydney, the housekeeper at Brian and Susan’s gives Michael a wooden box that she thinks Walt should have. When Michael opens it, he pages through unopened envelopes.

This is the same box that Michael found when he finally recovered his luggage¹².

Walt arrives home from school, and Michael starts walking down the corridor towards his voice.

ON THE ISLAND

Michael runs towards the sound of Walt’s shouts – he’s trapped in some bamboo being attacked by a polar bear. Locke holds Michael back, and sees a way to get to him – by going up.

FLASHBACK

Michael finds Walt playing with Vincent, but his son has no idea who he is. He introduces himself and tells him how sorry he is about Susan. Walt asks where Brian is, but Michael tells him he’s not there and he’s come to take him home with him.

Walt says he’s not going anywhere with him and asks where Bryan is. Michael tells him that Brian loves him and wants him to stay, but it’s Michael’s choice as his legal guardian. He tells him that he’ll still have his dog, but when Walt says that Vincent is Brian’s, Michael says that he said he could have him.

Vincent’s ownership passes from Bryan to Walt to Shannon¹³ to virtually everyone, then finally to Rose and Bernard¹⁴.

ON THE ISLAND

Michael and Locke walk across a branch on the way to Walt’s hiding place, over the top of the bear, Locke catching him as he trips at one point.

Michael drops the knife down to Walt, telling him to use it if the bear gets through, then climbs down to him. Walt stabs the bear as he does, and when Michael arrives he loops the rope around him and has Locke haul him back up, leaving Michael alone as the bear renews its attack.

Michael lunges at the bear, stabbing it again as it attacks and it flees, wounded. He climbs up to Walt and hugs him – and they both apologize. When Walt frets over Vincent running off, Locke tells him that he found his way back to him once and he will again; he and Michael exchange a look, the hatchet apparently buried.

That night at the beach, Michael gives Walt the wooden box since he likes to look at pictures – its every card and letter he sent over the past eight years, that Susan never gave him. Michael tells him he didn’t know why Susan didn’t, but the fact she kept them meant she wanted him to have them some day. He shows him the card he drew while he was in the hospital and they finally start to bond.

At the caves, Charlie reads Claire’s diary, and he finds out that Claire really liked him, thinking he was adorable and sweet and that even in a scary place she made him feel safe.

He tells Jack and Sayid that Claire was having dreams about a ‘black rock’ – maybe the same black rock that Rousseau told Sayid about. They realize that it could be the place marked on the map, or even where Claire was taken, but Jack tells him there’s no point running off into the jungle in the middle of the night.

The Black Rock is a 19th century ship which sits inland; Claire wasn’t taken to it, but to the Dharma Initiative’s Staff Station¹⁵.

Meanwhile, in the jungle in the middle of the night, Locke and Boone blow Locke’s homemade dog whistle, hoping Vincent will hear it. They hear a noise in the jungle, but it’s not Vincent that emerges as Locke draws his knife, ready – it’s Claire.