Recap / Lost S01E23 "Exodus, Part 1"

Season 1, Episode 23:

Exodus, Part 1

The raft finally sets sail.

Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse.

Directed by Jack Bender.

Danielle: The baby and I were together for only one week when I saw black smoke, a pillar of black smoke five kilometers inland. That night they came, they came and took her — Alex. They took my baby. And now, they're coming again. They're coming for all of you.

Jack: Who's coming?

Danielle: The Others. You have only three choices: run, hide, or die.

In flashbacks, we see the final hours before the survivors board Oceanic 815. Walt and Michael argue over Walt watching TV too loudly. At the airport bar, Jack flirts with a woman named Ana Lucia, who is sitting at the back of the plane, and reveals that he is no longer married. Sawyer is brought to a police station, where he's told he is being deported. The Marshal explains to airport security why he needs five guns to deal with Kate. Sayid asks Shannon to watch his bag, for which Shannon reports him to security. Sun spills coffee on Jin, while a jerkass couple makes fun of them.

Danielle Rousseau arrives at the survivors' camp, and warns them that the Others are coming, with a pillar of black smoke as their signal, and their only options are to run or hide. Jack proposes hiding everyone in the Hatch, and Danielle tells them they can open it with dynamite from the Black Rock. Arzt insists on accompanying the "A-Team" on their mission, as he knows how to handle dynamite. Before they leave, Sawyer tells Jack about his encounter with Christian in Sydney, and Jack gives him a gun "just in case". Jack, Kate, Hurley, Locke, Arzt and Danielle head off on their mission into what Danielle dubs "Dark Territory", where they hear the sounds of the Monster. They arrive at the Black Rock, which is revealed to be an old ship which is stuck in the middle of the jungle.

Meanwhile, the rest of the survivors prepare the raft for launch. Charlie collects letters home from the people staying behind. Sayid provides a radar device he salvaged from the plane, and a flare gun, which has only one flare. Walt leaves Vincent with Shannon, saying he can help her mourn Boone. Sun and Jin tearfully reconcile. The survivors say their goodbyes, and the raft sets sail.

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Tropes in this episode include:

• Accidental Misnaming: Hurley repeatedly refers to Arzt as "Arnzt", much to his frustration.
  Hurley: Uh, where's Arnzt?
  Arzt: That's "Arzt", you idiot.
• An Arm and a Leg: Rousseau mentions that her teammate Montand lost his arm in the Dark Territory.
• Anachronism Stew: In a flashback to the day of the flight (September 22, 2004), Walt watches an episode of Power Rangers S.P.D., which did not first air until five months later.
• Arc Number: Jack and Ana Lucia's seats on the plane are 23B and 42F.
• Artistic License – Geography: Michael and Walt appear to be staying at a hotel near the Sydney Airport. When Walt opens the window shades, he has a lovely view of the opera house, Port Jackson, and the Sydney Bridge. The airport is 12 kilometers away from downtown Sydney.
• Bar Brawl: Sawyer gets into one offscreen with the Australian Minister for Agriculture, and it's revealed that this is why he was arrested in Sydney, as previously seen in "Hearts and Minds".
• The Big Damn Kiss: Jin and Sun, finally reconciling, share one before the raft is launched
• Bilingual Dialogue: Having developed a working knowledge of each others' language, Michael and Jin discuss technical details of the raft in their own native tongues.
• Black Comedy: When Jack gives him a gun "just in case", Sawyer jokes that he should put Walt out of misery should the raft crew run out of food and water.
• Blatant Lies: Rousseau claims that some scratches on her arm came from a bush; Locke doesn't call her on it, but he's obviously skeptical.
• Bratty Half-Pint: Walt turns on an episode of Power Rangers at 5am while sharing a hotel room with Michael. When he asks Walt to turn it down, he turns the volume up, and then storms out when Michael turns the TV off.
• Call-Back:
  • Ana-Lucia asks Jack why he was yelling at the girl at the check-in counter.
  • Sawyer tells Jack about meeting Jack's father in a bar in Sydney.
  • The Marshal taunts Kate with the story of Tom Brennan's death.
• Cannot Keep a Secret: Arzt learns about the plan from Hurley.
  "If you wanna keep a secret, don't tell the fat guy."
• Character Development: The season finale's flashbacks serve to demonstrate just how far each of the characters has come since the show began:
  • Michael and Walt's flashback shows their new relationship to be shaky and hostile, which cuts to Walt comfortably sleeping next to Michael and rushing to wake him when he notices Rousseau sneaking into the camp.
  • Sawyer's flashback shows him being deported while being reminded what a self-serving scumbag he is; on the Island, he's shown going to some effort to prepare a mast for the raft and compassionately telling Jack about his father's last hours of life.
  • Shannon humbly and gratefully accepting Walt's offer of Vincent as a companion is contrasted with her flashback of ignoring Sayid and whining to Boone about not getting into first class.
  • Sun and Jin's tense marriage before the crash is contrasted with their reconciliation before the launch of the raft. Notably, Jin, despite previously insisting that he and Sun had to look after themselves, now trusts Jack enough to tell Sun that sticking by him will keep her safe.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • During Shannon's flashback, Boone claims that she'll one day appreciate everything he does for her, which is immediately preceded by Shannon's present-day scenes of mourning for Boone after his death. She also callously reports Sayid, her future Love Interest, to airport security just to make a point to Boone.
  • A casually racist American woman assumes that Sun and Jin don't speak English, in earshot of the secretly bilingual Sun.
• Early-Bird Cameo: Jack meets Ana-Lucia, a passenger in the tail section of the plane.
• Embarrassing First Name: Leslie Arzt prefers to be known by his last name only. He even prefers "Arnzt" to his given name.
• Friendship Moment:
  • Sawyer telling Jack about his encounter with Christian, helping Jack make peace with his father's memory and making it clear that Christian was proud of Jack in his final hours.
  • The raft's launch features several moments that demonstrate how close the survivors have become; Shannon (who once callously manipulated Charlie) gratefully hands Charlie her message for home, Claire lets Jin have a moment with her baby, Michael and Sun share a mildly awkward hug, Charlie happily embraces Jin, Shannon gives Walt a big hug, Charlie and Sawyer (despite previous clashes) share a warm smile, and Michael shares a triumphant cheer with both Jin and Sawyer after the raft successfully launches.
• Given Name Reveal: Sawyer's real name is revealed to be James Ford.
• Hope Spot: The episode concludes with the raft successfully launching and heading out to sea with the promise of finding rescue.
• I Don't Like the Sound of That Place: Lampshaded by Hurley.
  Danielle: Dynamite, at the Black Rock, in the Dark Territory.
  Hurley: Well, that's three reasons to go, right there.
• Interchangeable Asian Cultures: In Sun's flashback a white American woman snarkily compares Sun cleaning up after Jin to Memoirs of a Geisha, implying that she thinks the couple are Japanese instead of Korean. Doubling down on the casual racism, she also assumes that neither Sun nor Jin speak English, despite only hearing them speak to each other.
• Internal Reveal: Both Hurley and Rousseau are shown the Hatch; Hurley's loose lips mean that at least Arzt finds out about it as well.
• Ironic Echo Cut: In their flashback, Walt tries to run away from Michael and angrily tells him that he's not his father. The scene then cuts to the two sleeping soundly side-by-side, having finally established a father-son relationship.
• Irony: Sawyer is deported and declared Persona Non Grata from the very country where he committed murder.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: Had a drunken Sawyer not head-butted (or been head-butted by) an Australian government official in a bar, and been deemed not worth the cost of incarceration, he wouldn't have been deported and wouldn't have been on the plane.
• It's All My Fault: When saying their goodbyes, Jin tells Sun that they're on the island because he's being punished for the things he's done, and that leaving is the only way to save her.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Detective Calderwood chews Sawyer out and bans him from Australia, but nothing he says about Sawyer is untrue; before coming to the Island, Sawyer was, for all his charm, a lowlife con artist who made a living off of cheating honest people out of their money, and it's hard to blame Calderwood for considering him not even worth the effort and cost of imprisoning him.
• Kick the Dog:
  • The Marshal taunts Kate over Tom's death, and makes her say his name. He then kicks the toy plane away from her when she tries to reach for it.
  • Shannon, in her flashback, reports Sayid to an airport security after he simply asked her to watch his bag for a moment (which she abandoned the instant Boone arrived) to make a point to Boone that she's capable of acting out of spite.
• Middle Eastern Terrorists: After Sayid asks Shannon to watch his bag, she reports him to airport security based on this stereotype.
• Missed Him by That Much: Kate looks for Sawyer before heading into the jungle, and he looks for her as he's loading the raft.
• No Social Skills: Rousseau's idea of warning the survivors about the Others is to walk into their camp at dawn, with nearly everyone still asleep, while armed. Justified, as any social skills she once had have no doubt atrophied during his sixteen years of isolation. She's visibly uncomfortable addressing the survivors' group, seldom looking anyone in the eye and addressing no one in particular until she's spoken to herself.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • Walt is understandably freaked out to see Rousseau, a total stranger to him, wandering into the camp before dawn.
  • Everyone, when they see a pillar of black smoke in the jungle, just as Rousseau described.
  • Arzt starts panicking when Rousseau describes her teammate Montand losing his arm in the Dark Territory.
  • The expedition party to the Black Rock, with the exception of Locke, is visibly freaked out to hear the sounds of the Monster.
• Persona Non Grata: When Sawyer is deported, he's told that he's banned from ever setting foot in Australia again.
• Pet the Dog: Despite their rivalry, Sawyer tells Jack about his encounter with Christian in "Outlaws", and that his father was sorry for their falling out and was proud of him. Having himself had a bad father, Sawyer understands just how much it means to Jack to hear that.
• Rage Breaking Point: Kate ignores the Marshal's taunting until he mentions Tom Brennan's death one too many times.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: During Sawyer's flashback, an Australian detective (identified in the credits as Detective Calderwood) chews him out for his less-than-honorable method of making a living.
  Calderwood: James Ford; assault, wire fraud, identity theft, bank fraud, telemarketing fraud—
  Sawyer: This going someplace?
  Calderwood: You're a blight, a stain, a scavenger. You're a con man who preys on the weak and the needy. Tell me something, James, how do you live with yourself?
  Sawyer: I do just fine.
  Calderwood: Do you? You're not even worth what it would cost us to incarcerate you. Which is why you're being deported. Your plane leaves this afternoon. And James? You're banned from ever setting foot in Australia again.
  Sawyer: Don't you worry. I ain't ever coming back here.
  Calderwood: Best not, mate.
• The Reveal:
  • Kate's toy plane was in a bank in New Mexico because the Marshal put it there as a lure for her.
  • The Black Rock is revealed not to be a geological formation, but a sailing ship in the middle of the jungle.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Arzt tries to walk away from the A-Team mission as they enter the Dark Territory, but soon rejoins it after the Monster attacks.
• Self-Serving Memory: Sawyer claims that Warren Truss head-butted him during the Bar Brawl that got Sawyer deported; Detective Calderwood points out that several witnesses attest that Sawyer was the aggressor. Notably, Sawyer only claimed to have not been the aggressor after Calderwood revealed that Truss was a government official.
• Shirtless Scene: Sawyer gets a scene were he, sweaty and hard at work, hacks up a bamboo tree while shirtless.
• Shout-Out:
  • During the final preparations on the raft, Michael yells at Jin "This one goes here, that one goes there!"
  • The US Marshal explains that, during the three years he was chasing her, Kate started to call him at his house, similar to Frank calling Carl in Catch Me If You Can.
• Shown Their Work: The man that Sawyer headbutted offscreen is Warren Truss, who was the actual Australian Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (as it was called then) at the time the episode aired.
• Single Tear: Kate sheds one while the Marshal torments her about the toy plane and Tom's death.
• Suspect Is Hatless: Shannon's rather unhelpful description of Sayid to airport security.
  Shannon: Hi, um, some Arab guy just left his bags in the chairs downstairs and then just walked away.
  Officer: Can you describe him, please?
  Shannon: Um, Arab?
  • Then again, it is post-9/11 airport security, and those of Middle Eastern descent have been known to be scrutinized for the most minor of suspicions.
• You Called Me "X"; It Must Be Serious: Just before the heartfelt moment where Sawyer tells Jack about his meeting with Christian, Sawyer calls him "Jack" rather than "Doc" as he usually does, highlighting his sincerity.

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