Season 1, Episode 11:

All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

It's been moments since Hurley dropped the bombshell that Ethan Rom, the friendly, helpful Canadian guy, was not a passenger on Oceanic 815. Jack and Locke realise that Ethan was last seen going in the same direction as Claire and Charlie, and run out into the jungle. They find Claire's belongings, signs of a struggle and tracks that indicate both she and Charlie were taken. Jack wonders how one man could carry two people, but Locke poses a more important question: why? He wants to go back to the caves, get supplies and organise a search party, but Jack is impatient and runs off in the general direction of the tracks.

Jack is operating on a woman. She flatlines and he starts giving her CPR, but it's not doing any good. Christian Shephard is also present, and he tells his son to "call it", but Jack angrily tells Christian to call it himself.

Locke is getting supplies for the search and Kate tells him that "I'm coming with you." Boone volunteers to go as well. Walt wants to help too and Michael shoots him down, only to have his own offer to help with the search shot down by Locke, who says that any extra people will slow the group down. In the jungle, Jack realises that he's completely lost.

Jack and Christian are left alone in the operating room with the woman's dead body. Christian is angry that Jack interrupted his surgery and took over; Jack tells his father that a nurse called him in because Christian's hands were shaking during the procedure and because he made a mistake that led to the woman's death.

Locke, Kate and Boone catch up to Jack, who's been walking in circles. Locke tells Jack to head back to the caves, to treat Sayid and so that nothing happens to the survivors' only trained physician: "Be the doctor," Locke says, "and let me be the hunter." Jack insists on coming with them anyway. At the caves, Michael is complaining about getting the brush-off from Locke and how anyone not part of the survivors' "A-Team" gets treated like a second-class citizen. Walt overhears and tells Michael that they should all listen to Locke, since he's the one who can hunt, track and help them all survive in the jungle. Angry, Michael tells Walt not to talk to Locke anymore, and takes a group of survivors to search in the opposite direction that the other group went. In the jungle, Locke and Boone tie strips of red cloth to trees to mark their progress and the way back to camp. Jack is angry that Locke wants to take a quick break, since there's only a few hours of daylight left in which to search. Kate talks to him, and Jack admits he feels guilty for not believing Claire's claims that she was attacked. Locke finds one of Charlie's finger-bandages, and Jack thinks it's Charlie's way of leaving a trail. They follow it and find another bandage, but Locke finds another trail and Kate, revealing that she can track too ("You Didn't Ask"), suspects the finger-bandages were left by Ethan to throw them off. They split up, with Jack and Kate following the bandages and Locke and Boone following the second trail. At the caves, Walt fills Sawyer in on the situation.

However, he also learns that Sayid has returned and goes to confront him. In the jungle, Locke and Boone talk about redshirts and their lives before the plane crash; Boone doesn't believe Locke's claim that he worked for a box company, instead guessing that he was "either a taxidermist or a hitman". Elsewhere, Jack and Kate follow their trail, though Kate is less confident in her tracking skills than Locke. She tells the increasingly obsessive Jack that she picked up her skills from her father, an Army Ranger, when she was a child, and asks if there's anything he wants to tell her.

The day after the botched surgery, Christian calls Jack into his office to sign a report that clears Christian of any wrongdoing. Jack is unwilling to sign it, even though not doing so would destroy his father's career. Christian tries to talk his son around.

Christian's pleading that losing his job would destroy his life convinces Jack to sign the report.

Sawyer confronts Sayid at the caves, intending to get payback, but he gets distracted by Sayid's revelations about Danielle Rousseau and the "Others" on the Island. On the beach, Walt and Hurley play backgammon, with Walt getting one perfect roll of the dice after another.

After losing again, Hurley leaves, promising to pay Walt the $20,000 he just won. In the jungle, Locke and Boone have long since lost the trail, instead following Locke's gut feelings. He tells Boone to head back to the beach, since it's about to start raining and there's dangerous terrain ahead, but Boone refuses to leave. It starts raining exactly when Locke predicted it would. Elsewhere, Jack and Kate find another of Charlie's bandages. Jack hears a scream coming from over a hill and tries to climb it, only to fall down into the mud and come face to face with Ethan.

Jack tries to fight Ethan and gets curb-stomped.

Jack discovers that the husband of the dead woman is threatening to sue the hospital.

Kate revives Jack in the jungle and says it's time to call it quits: the rain has washed away the trail. Nonetheless, Jack keeps going.

At a hearing to determine whether the hospital is responsible for the woman's death, Christian testifies that there wasn't anything he could've done to save her. Jack is content to go along with Christian's version of events until he learns the woman was pregnant.

Running through the jungle, Jack and Kate find Charlie, hanging by his neck from a tree. They cut him down and Jack attempts CPR for several minutes, until Kate drags him away, trying to force him to accept that Charlie is dead. But he doesn't, and keeps going, and miraculously, Charlie comes to. When they bring Charlie back to the caves, he's completely catatonic. The only thing he remembers about the ordeal is that "all they wanted was Claire". Shannon goes to Kate, worried that Boone and Locke aren't back yet. In the jungle, Boone wonders whether it's time to go back, but Locke is too caught up in following "it". Eventually Boone decides to return to the caves, and Locke tosses him the flashlight... which falls to the ground and hits something. Something metal. Something that's not plane wreckage. Something that's been on the Island since before the crash.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Action Film, Quiet Drama Scene: Amidst the tension and action, Jack asks Kate about where he tracking skills came from, and Kate tells a story about going hiking with her father, giving Jack an honest look at what her pre-fugitive life was like.
• Actor Allusion: Boone asks Locke if he ever watched Star Trek, to which he says "Not really." Terry O'Quinn appeared in an episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation.
• Ambiguous Situation: While searching for Ethan, Jack hears what sounds like a woman screaming in the distance, but Kate claims to have heard nothing; it's not clear if Jack actually heard Claire screaming or if he simply imagined it.
• Arbitrary Skepticism: When Walt theorizes that Ethan was already on the Island before the plane crash, Sawyer laughs and comments on Walt's imagination, despite having seen and heard plenty of unusual things on the Island himself (and knowing for a fact that at least one person was on the Island before the crash at some point). That said, a conversation with Sayid seems to convince Sawyer that it's at least a possibility.
• Artistic License – Medicine: When Jack does CPR, he goes way too slow. Current guidelines for CPR call for a rate of around 100 compressions a minute- 30 compressions, a pause to check for signs of life, then right back to chest compressions. Jack would be lucky to hit 1/3 of that, plus the fact that he stops frequently.
• Aw, Look! They Really Do Love Each Other: Despite her endless snarking at him, Shannon is clearly worried sick about Boone when he and Locke have yet to return by nightfall.
• Battle in the Rain: Ethan ambushes Jack during a downpour, leading to a quick, one-sided fistfight that Jack loses.
• Cassandra Truth: Locke honestly tells Boone that before the crash, he worked at a box company, which an incredulous Boone dismisses as a joke.
• CPR: Clean, Pretty, Reliable: Averted and played straight.
  • In Jack's flashbacks, he attempts CPR on the patient even while she's flatlining and it's quite clear they didn't save her.
  • After finding Charlie, Jack again tries CPR to save him. When it doesn't work, he resorts to violent precordial thumps until he starts breathing again.
• Curb-Stomp Battle: Ethan vs Jack. Ethan effortlessly dodges every single one of Jack's attacks and floors him with a few well-aimed strikes.
• Didn't Think This Through: Unwilling to let Ethan get any more of a lead than he already has, Jack charges off into the jungle in a general direction pointed out by Locke. He ends up finding nothing, and according to Locke, he wound up going in circles.
• Disney Death: Charlie is hanged by Ethan and passes out. A very lengthy scene of Jack trying and failing to perform CPR and eventually resorting to just punching him in the chest repeatedly follows, with tragic music playing, before Charlie finally miraculously recovers.
• Dramatic Irony:
  • When Jack starts asking about Ethan's whereabouts, Michael asks if Ethan is all right, unaware that Ethan himself, not his condition, is the cause for concern
  • Walt comments that "it's stupid to lie about your name" to Sawyer, who has yet to tell anyone (except, implicitly, Hurley) his real name.
• Everyone Has Standards: In the flashbacks, Christian convinces Jack to sign a statement about the patient's death, even though he knows his father's drinking was directly responsible. However, when he learns that the patient was actually pregnant, Jack tells the truth to a committee hearing.
• Foreshadowing: After Hurley loses multiple times at backgammon, Walt claims he now owes him $20,000. Hurley nonchalantly replies that he'll pay him.
• Forgiveness: Despite claiming to be "fresh out of forgiveness", Sawyer does nothing to an injured Sayid and leaves by saying that, despite the torture he suffered at Sayid's hands, he kept the signal fire burning for as long as he could.
• Freudian Excuse: The script makes it more clear why Jack is so determined to find Claire and how it ties in which his flashbacks. After learning that the patient was pregnant, he realizes that his father's negligence destroyed an entire family before it could begin. He tries to find Claire because he doesn't want to lose another pregnant woman in his care.
  Jack: I'm not letting him do this. Not again.
• Going in Circles: Jack ends up doing this until he's found by Locke, Kate, and Boone. Locke tells him that it's not much of a search pattern.
• Hand Signals: As Jack screams for Charlie and Claire, Locke makes the shush gesture to tell him to be quiet.
• Hidden Heart of Gold: Even after getting tortured by Sayid, Sawyer mentions that he kept the signal fire burning after he left.
• Honor Before Reason: Jack insists on going after Charlie and Claire despite his lack of tracking skill and the fact that he is the survivors' only doctor. He ignores Locke's practical advice to go back in favor of pushing on, determined to rescue Charlie and Claire.
• It's All About Me: Christian is more angry at Jack taking over his operation than he is about the patient dying on the table, and he pressures Jack into lying on the record to preserve his reputation and keep his medical license. Even worse, Christian was aware that the patient was pregnant, and is still more concerned with his career than with the fact that he got her killed.
• It's All My Fault: Jack and Locke both blame themselves for Claire and Charlie's abduction, Jack for not believing Claire that someone attacked her, and Locke for feeling that he should have sensed something "off" about Ethan.
• Little "No": Jack utters a horrified "no" when he and Kate find Charlie hanging by his neck.
• Medal of Dishonor: Hurley is baffled when he keeps getting beaten by Walt at backgammon.
  Walt: It's okay, I wasn't very good when I first started playing, either.
  Hurley: I didn't just start playing! I took 17th in a tournament once!
  Walt: 17th is not very good.
  Hurley: No, 17th is very good.
• Never My Fault: Christian refuses to accept responsibility for his patient's death, despite knowing that his state of inebriation was the cause, and he's fine with convincing Jack to lie on the record to avoid the consequences for his negligence.
• Nothing Is Scarier:
  • The way Locke tells Jack to be quiet as they realize Charlie and Claire have been abducted. The hunt is on and Ethan can be anywhere around them.
  • It's heavily implied that Ethan had help abducting Charlie and Claire, but none of his accomplices are ever seen, and it's never made clear just how many "others" there might be.
• Odd Friendship: Zen Survivor Locke and Pretty Boy Boone start to develop one of these.
• Oh, Crap!:
  • When Jack and Locke realize that both Claire and Charlie are in danger from Ethan, they share a horrified look and the next shot has them racing through the jungle to try and find their friends.
  • Sayid is startled when he wakes up and sees Sawyer standing over him.
• Red Shirt: Discussed. Boone, while carrying a red shirt, talks to Locke about how the Red Shirts always died in Star Trek: The Original Series. Locke's response? "Sounds like a piss-poor captain."
• Shout-Out: Boone lampshades the Red Shirt trope, explicitly mentioning Star Trek: The Original Series.
• Stealth Hi/Bye: Ethan is a master of these, popping up out of nowhere to ambush Jack and disappearing almost as quickly.
• Tough Love: Christian frames his harsh treatment of Jack as this, claiming that his rearing is why Jack is such a talented surgeon. As he's saying this while pressuring Jack into lying to save Christian's own license and reputation, it's not clear how sincere any of it is.
• Ungrateful Bastard: Despite the fact that he was drunk during the procedure, Christian is incensed that Jack came to try and take over to save the patient. He even tries to get the name of the nurse who alerted Jack to Christian's condition, implying that he would get her in trouble for fetching Jack.
• Wham Episode: This episode is a major turning point for the show, with the survivors' first encounter with the people who will become known as the Others and the initial discovery of the Hatch.
• Wham Shot: Locke throws his flashlight to Boone, who drops it onto something metal buried beneath the ground, leading to the discovery of the Hatch.
• You Have GOT to Be Kidding Me!: Hurley says this when Walt gets the exact roll he was hoping for twice in a row.