Lost: Season 1 Episode 3 "Tabula Rasa" Review

"I wish he would just die already."

-Shannon Rutherford

The first regular episode of Lost picks up with the group that went out on the transceiver mission: Kate (Evangeline Lilly), Sayid (Naveen Andrews), Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Charlie (Dominic Monaghan), Boone (Ian Somerhalder), and Shannon (Maggie Grace), who all agree to keep what they know a secret and lie to the rest of the survivors, though Kate does tell Jack (Matthew Fox).  After an argument about who should have control of the gun, everyone agrees Kate should have it.

As Jack tires to save U.S. marshal Edward Mars' (Fredric Lane) life, the marshal wakes up again and shows Jack a mugshot of Kate.  Soon after Hurley (Jorge Garcia) sees it and they both realize she was the fugitive being escorted back to the United States.  Jack decides not to bring it up to Kate and continues fighting to save the man's life.  Several other castaways are concerned that Mars is beyond saving and that Jack is wasting medication.

After the marshal attacks Kate, Jack saves her, but realizes he can't save the marshal.  Kate asks him to put Mars out of his misery.  Jack refuses and tells her he knows about her.  Later, after one final conversation with Mars, the marshal asks to be put down.  Kate gives Sawyer the gun and he shoots the marshal, but only hits him in the lungs forcing Jack to euthanize him to spare Mars an agonizing death.  The next day, Jack and Kate reconcile and give each other a clean slate.

Meanwhile, John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) tracks down Walt's (Malcolm David Kelly) dog, Vincent.  He gives the dog to Walt's dad, Michael (Harold Perrineau), so he can earn some good will with his son.

In flashbacks, we see that Kate was on the run in Australia and was hiding out at farm owned by Ray Mullen (Nick Tate).  After working for him for several months, Ray sold Kate out to Mars, which resulted in a car accident.  Kate stopped to save Ray's life, which led to her being caught and put on Oceanic 815.

What Works:

The highlight of this episode is the death of the marshal.  We get some really excellent acting from both Josh Holloway and Matthew Fox.  Sawyer does what he has to do and shoots the marshal.  We can see this traumatizes him as he walks out of the tent, but this is only made worse when he realizes he messed up his shot.  This the first time we've seen some emotional depth for this character and I love it.  We also get a solid moment from Jack, even if it's mostly off-screen.  He is understandably pissed when he realizes what Sawyer did, but then he is forced to kill Mars himself.  We don't see the act itself, only the aftermath of Jack leaving the tent, but it's a great moment for the character.

I really like the b-story of Locke finding Vincent.  We aren't quite sure what he is up to during this episode, but the pieces fall into place by the end giving us a really sweet moment for Michael and Walt, plus the final shot of Locke is very unnerving and a great way to end the episode.

"Tabula Rasa" also has a few funny moments, particularity with Hurley being awkward around Kate and Charlie flirting with Claire (Emilie de Ravin) about men being useless.  I may not be a big Shannon fan, but she has my favorite line of the episode where she wants the marshal to hurry up and die.  It's a great bit of dark comedy and the best use of Shannon so far.

Finally, I really like the montage sequence at the end of the episode.  It's a great song that matches the tone of the episode and gives us a few nice character beats with Michael reuniting Walt and Vincent, Boone doing something nice for Shannon, and Sayid tossing a piece of fruit to a still upset Sawyer.


What Sucks:

No one will ever accuse me of being a big Kate fan.  I typically don't like her episodes very much, but "Tabula Rasa" is one of her better ones.  However, I don't think Evangeline Lilly's performance is very strong is this episode.  I'm sure she was still figuring out the character, but there are a few moments where she is clearly lying and not doing a good job.  I didn't believe a word she was saying the for most of the episode and I have a hard time believing that anybody did.

The other problem is that Jack, our main protagonist, isn't super likable in this episode.  He comes off as somewhat self-righteous and is just kind of a jerk.  Granted, this will be part of a big character arc for him later on, but at this point in the show, we need to really like this guy.  He's our hero.  We have to be able to root for him, but some of his behavior rubbed me the wrong way here.


Platinum Polar Bear:

I will will be giving out an award every episode for the castaway who contributed the most to the group.  For "Tabula Rasa", the Platinum Polar Bear goes to Sawyer for stepping up and doing what no one else wanted to do in shooting the marshal.  Sure, he screwed up, but this also gave Jack a wake up call about the realities of island life.

Jack: 1
Sayid: 1
Sawyer: 1


Verdict:

Thought not as good as the pilot, "Tabula Rasa" is a solid episode of Lost with some nice character moments, some great acting, a sweet b-story, and some really funny moments.  I didn't love the main storyline due to Evangeline Lilly's performance and some of the development of Jack, but the show is still finding itself at this point, so I'm more willing to let it slide.  All in on, this episode has got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good