Lost: "Pilot, Part 2"

God damn, this show used to be hot! While the credits roll on the second half of the series premiere, and the airplane wreckage flames in the background, Shannon soaks up the sun in a neon red bikini. Man candy brother Boone comes over and they quarrel, instigating what would become a season of will-they-or-won't-they ickycest before Boone's flashback revealed that they already had. Cue Claire, or rather, Claire's legs, in a shot that captures everything ridiculous and sublime about this second hour.


Bare legs, washerboard abs, indifferent bikinis, abject devastation. Every member of the female cast shows off a little something. Pregnant Claire mentions to Shannon, in her jovial Australian manner that has always seemed so at odds with her hyperdramatic flashback plots, that she used to have a stomach. Kate takes an ocean bath and gets awkwardly checked out by Sun and even more awkwardly checked out by the camera. Sun, in a fit of demure rebellion, undoes the top button on her shirt.

Nothing about this second hour is subtle. If the first half of the pilot draws its energy from the neat little tease - seeing blood splatter over the windshield, hearing distant roars in dark jungles, what was Charlie doing in the bathroom - the second hour is all about taking it to the limit one, two, five, ten more times. Flashback Charlie gets chased through a plane and Mile-High-Clubs a couple gumrubs of brown sugar heroin; Walt finds a pair of handcuffs, which starts up some Agatha Christie paranoia among the castaways that seems forgotten pretty quickly; Sawyer shoots the first of the show's poorly animated polar bears (although here it's thankfully hidden behind tall grass and quick cuts); Jack tries to pull a piece of shrapnel out of the Marshall's stomach, leading Hurley to pass out right as the Marshal wakes up; and a French chick who's been talking on the radio for almost twenty years gives the show the first iteration of what remains its most powerful subplot - the endless suspicion that our merry band of castaways are not the only people on the island.

Three and a half seasons later, we've met the french chick, the others, and the freighter folk, but we still don't really know who's out there. I remember making a bet, back at the start of the season, that the "Natives" from Ben's flashback were going to be this season's answers to the Tailies and the Others - the mysterious new bunch of people we focus on. Well, then the freighter appeared, so I guess there's always season 5.