Lost/Recap/S01/E11 All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

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 lead to the woman's death.

"Jack: How many drinks did you have at lunch, Dad?"

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.

"Sawyer: So a tribe of evil natives planted a ringer in the camp to kidnap a pregnant girl and a reject from VH-1 has-beens? Yeah, fiendishly clever."

However, he also learns that Sayid has returned and goes to confront him. In the jungle, Locke and Foreshadowing 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: I know I have been hard on you, but that is how you make a soft metal into steel. That is why you are the most gifted young surgeon in this city. And this, this is a career that is all about the greater good. I've had to sacrifice certain aspects of my relationship with you so that hundreds and thousands of patients will live because of your extraordinary skills."

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.

"Walt: I'm just lucky. Hurley: No one is that lucky."

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.

"Ethan: If you do not stop following me, I will kill one of them. [He pushes on Jack's chest with his foot.] Do you understand?"

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.

"Jack: I need to revise my statement. I didn't come into the O.R. until well into the procedure. I was warned by one of the nurses that my father was operating under the influence. By the time I got there it was clear that my father was not only incapacitated, but that he had also severed the patient's hepatic artery, which, in my professional opinion, caused the crisis which led to her death."

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.

"Boone: What is that? Locke: That's what we're going to find out."