Season 1, Episode 3:

Tabula Rasa

As the survivors sort through luggage from the plane, Jack tends to the US Marshal, who warns him that "she" is dangerous and not to be trusted. Jack checks the Marshal's pockets and finds Kate's mugshots. Hurley asks Jack questions, some stupid (could "the Monster" be a dinosaur?) and some not (is the Marshal going to die?), and Jack answers "no" to both. While Jack is distracted, Hurley sees Kate's mugshots. On the high ground, Sayid decides that the group should make camp rather than travelling at night and risk running into the Monster. They decide not to tell the others about the Frenchwoman's message. As they sleep, Boone tries to take the handgun and the ammo. An argument breaks out over who should hold them, and everyone decides that it should be Kate.

FLASHBACK! In rural Australia, a farmer catches Kate sleeping in his sheep pen. He offers her some food. She says her name is "Annie" and that she's a Canadian graduate backpacking around Australia. The farmer offers her room and board in exchange for work around the farm.

The group return to the beach, and Sayid tells the other survivors that the transceiver didn't work. He asks them to gather cell phones and laptops so that he can try and boost the signal, and to start rationing supplies. Kate tells Jack what really happened; he prods her to admit that she's the fugitive but she doesn't, and he lies about whether the Marshal has said anything. Later, Jack goes looking for stronger antibiotics in the overhead compartments in the fuselage, where all the bodies are, and finds Sawyer looting the dead. They talk, and Sawyer questions whether it's worth using valuable supplies to try and save the Marshal. Charlie helps Claire to carry luggage by using an abandoned wheelchair; she admits to being unmarried. Jin tells Sun to take a break from looking for his luggage to go clean herself up. During a storm, Kate is able to get into the tent where the Marshal is recuperating.

FLASHBACK! Three months later, Kate tries to sneak off in the middle of the night but gets caught by the farmer. He offers to give her a ride to the train station the next morning. He also claims to "get it", and tells her that "everyone deserves a fresh start."

The Marshal wakes and tries to strangle Kate, but she's saved by Jack. The Marshal passes out and Jack admits that his injuries are too severe: he's going to die, and it's going to be a long, painful process. Kate asks if they can put him out of his misery and Jack replies by admitting that he saw her mugshots and won't murder the Marshal.

FLASHBACK! The farmer is giving Kate a ride to the train station, but she notices an SUV following them and realises that the farmer is turning her in to the authorities for the $23,000 reward. The SUV pulls alongside: its driver is the Marshal.

Michael asks Walt about the secret that Locke told him.

He forbids Walt from spending any more time with Locke, and promises to look for Vincent as soon as it stops raining: moments later, it stops raining. He searches through the jungle and stumbles onto Sun bathing. The Marshal spends all day screaming in pain and Sawyer asks Kate to use the handgun's last bullet for a Mercy Kill. As Jack tends to the Marshal, he tries to find out what Kate's crime was; the Marshal asks to speak with Kate alone.

FLASHBACK! Kate grabs the truck's steering wheel and runs it off the road. The engine catches fire and Kate pulls the farmer out of harm's way, losing her chance to escape in the process.

The Marshal wants to know what favour Kate was going to ask for on the plane before it crashed: she wanted to make sure the farmer got his reward money. Knowing that he's dying, the Marshal asks Kate to put him out of his misery. Hurley warns Jack that Kate has a gun; he runs to the tent and sees her emerge a few seconds before a gunshot goes off. Sawyer leaves the tent with the gun, telling Jack that he did what needed to be done, only to discover that Sawyer's shot missed the heart and the Marshal will spend the next few hours dying of a collapsed lung. After Sawyer leaves the tent, the screaming stops and Jack exits in a cold sweat. The next morning, Locke uses a whistle he's spent the episode crafting to call Vincent to the beach, then tethers him up and lets Michael know so that he can return the dog to Walt. Kate talks with Jack and says she will reveal what her crime was; Jack says he doesn't care and that everyone on the Island is entitled to a fresh start. In a Medley Exit, we see Jin watching over Sun while she sleeps, Boone finding Shannon's sunglasses, Sayid offering Sawyer some food and Michael bringing Vincent to Walt, watched silently by Locke.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Actor Allusion: Kate, as "Annie", claims to be Canadian; Kate's actress, Evangeline Lilly was born and raised in Canada.
• All for Nothing: Jack's efforts to save the Marshal only prolong the inevitable; the treatments don't prevent his wounds from becoming infected, and after Sawyer's botched Mercy Kill, Jack, who had been steadfast in his refusal to do so, is forced to euthanize the Marshal anyway.
• Bad Guys Do the Dirty Work: Subverted; Jack is unwilling to euthanize the Marshal and Kate can't bring herself to do it, so Sawyer steps up to do the deed, but he botches it, forcing Jack to end the Marshal's suffering himself.
• Chekhov's Gun: Ray Mullen's "hell of a mortgage"; it's why he betrays Kate to the law.
• Cigarette of Anxiety: Sawyer tries to light up after failing to kill the Marshal, but his lighter has run out and he throws it away in frustration.
• Cue the Flying Pigs: Michael has reservations about going into the "haunted jungle" to look for Vincent, but promises Walt he'll look for him when the rain stops. Then the rain stops.
• Didn't Think This Through: Sawyer tries to euthanize the Marshal by shooting him in the heart, assuming that it'd be quick. He didn't take into account that he might miss.
• Early-Installment Weirdness: Kate's flashbacks lack the "whoosh" sound effect that would become standard for such transitions on the show.
• Epic Fail: Sawyer's attempted Mercy Kill on the Marshal, as he misses his heart from point blank range and hits him in the lung, ensuring an even more painful death as he takes hours to bleed out.
• Everyone Has Standards:
  • Kate may be a criminal, but she's not willing to abandon Ray to die (despite causing the wreck that injured him) or euthanize the Marshal.
  • Sawyer is visibly shaken after shooting the Marshal, and upon realizing that he failed to end the poor man's pain quickly, looks like he might be sick.
• Flashback: Kate becomes the first proper viewpoint character for the flashbacks, which show her living in Australia as a fugitive and ultimately getting captured by the Marshal.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Charlie and Claire find a wheelchair in the wreck, with him joking that whoever used it doesn't need it anymore. Turns out they don't need it for an entirely different reason.
  • Walt seems to make the rain stop when he wants it to. This was probably a foreshadowing of Walt having mystical abilities, a plot point which was never fully explored.
• Good-Times Montage: The episode ends with one as the survivors start to settle in to living on the island, accompanied by Joe Purdy's "Wash Away" via Hurley's CD player. Jack admits that their pasts don't matter now. Jin gently caresses Sun's face as she sleeps. Boone finds Shannon a pair of sunglasses. Sayid tosses Sawyer an apple that he found. Charlie scribbles on his finger bandages. With Locke's help, Michael returns Vincent to Walt.
• Hero Antagonist: The Marshal is an antagonist to Kate, but she's a wanted criminal and he's just doing his job, even if he is a bit smug about it.
• Heroic BSoD: Sawyer can only gape in horror to see that he failed to euthanize the Marshal properly.
• Hypocritical Humor: Charlie (a man) jokes to Claire that men are "bloody useless".
• I Did What I Had to Do: Sawyer's defense for trying to Mercy Kill the Marshal.
  Jack: What did you do?!
  Sawyer: What you couldn't. Look, I get where you're coming from, being a doctor and all, but he wanted it. Hell, he asked me. So I don't like it any more than you do, but something had to be done.
• Instant Death Bullet: Averted; Sawyer shoots the Marshal in the chest, but misses his heart and hits his lung instead, which would have taken hours to kill him if Jack hadn't finished the job.
• Internal Reveal: Jack and Hurley discover that Kate was the Marshal's prisoner, which the audience learned in the previous episode.
• Jerkass Has a Point: Although he's mainly saying it to taunt Jack, Sawyer is right that the Marshal is too badly hurt to be saved; Jack's best efforts only prolong the Marshal's suffering, and even the man himself is left asking to be put out of his misery.
• Mercy Kill: Sawyer tries to give one to the Marshal, but it fails spectacularly. It's implied that Jack finished the job offscreen.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Sawyer is horrified to learn that he failed to Mercy Kill the Marshal.
• No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Kate gives up her chance to escape from the Marshal to save the man who turned her in from his burning car.
• Oh, Crap!: Jack, upon hearing that Kate, whom he just left alone with the Marshal, has a gun.
• One Bullet Left: Sawyer comments that the gun has only one bullet after he emptied the clip into the polar bear in the last episode.
• Pet the Dog:
  • Despite the fact that he turned her in, Kate wanted to make sure that Ray got the $23,000 reward for it, and was even willing to ask the Marshal to see to it before the plane crashed.
    Kate: I wanted you to make sure Ray Mullen got his 23 grand.
    Marshal: What, the guy who ratted you out?
    Kate: He had a hell of a mortgage.
    Marshal: Kate... you really are one of a kind.
  • Locke uses a whistle to find Vincent, but lets Michael take the credit for finding him so that he can be the hero to his son.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Jack gives Kate a brief one for suggesting that the Marshal be euthanized:
  Jack: I saw your mug shot, Kate. I am not a murderer.
• Shout-Out: The episode title is a philosophical term coined by English seventeenth-century philosopher John Locke, meaning "Blank Slate", which refers to the idea the individuals are born free of any pre-existing knowledge. In the context of the episode, it refers to Jack offering Kate a clean slate by deciding he doesn't want to know what crime she was accused of.
• Toplessness from the Back: Michael runs in on Sun taking a shower.
• What You Are in the Dark: Kate drags Ray out of his burning truck when she could have left him and ran.