"Lost" Rewatch - Episode 1x03, "Tabula Rasa"

"Tabula Rasa" Summary:
Jack tries to save the Marshal, but has to kill him after Sawyer shoots him in the lung. We find out in flashbacks that Kate was on the run.
(OAD 10/6/04) "Tabula Rasa" Synopsis

And So It Begins:

Sawyer calls Kate Freckles. She doesn't look too pleased about it, but will come to like it.

Already, Jack, Kate, and Charlie don't tell the others about what happened to the pilot, and now Sayid says they shouldn't tell them about the French woman.

Farmer Ray has a prosthetic arm. This is the first of many prosthetics we will see in the show, including Pierre Chang.
Charlie starts hanging out with Claire. He finds out she doesn't have a husband.
At the end of the episode is a musical montage, where people seem considerably happy.

This is the first flashback that covers the same character throughout the episode and that is not on the plane.

It Will Come Back Around:

The French woman on the transmission will later capture Sayid, and even later they will become friends.

Questions Raised by "Tabula Rasa" Answered:

What did Kate do to be pursued by a US Marshal? She blew up her mother's house with her father inside.

I Wonder:

I always thought that there was more to the relationship of Kate and the Marshal than prisoner and captor. I thought at some point we would find out that they had been married or had some sort of physical relationship. I still wonder if that's true, although in a future episode we'll see the first time they meet in a flashback and it's after Kate's crime and he is arresting her.

Character Masks:

Sawyer, seen as the bad guy, is caught hoarding the fuselage.

Real Character Shows Through:

Kate tells Jack about the French woman's transmission that the group had agreed to keep a secret.
In a flashback we see Kate save Farmer Ray, which causes her to be caught. We also see her put an oxygen mask on the Marshal. And on the island she is genuinely upset about the Marshal suffering.
Jack has an obsessive need to "fix" the Marshal.
Kate wants to be sure that Farmer Ray gets his reward for turning her in.
Sawyer feels bad about not killing the Marshal with his one bullet.

Previous Episode "Pilot Part 2" | Next Episode "Walkabout"