Lost ReWatch: The Other 48 Days
Season 2, Episode 7
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Hero of the episode: Ana Lucia, Mr. Eko, Libby Zero of the episode: Goodwin
Quote(s) of the episode: “You waited 40 days to cry.” –Mr. Eko to Ana Lucia
Music vibes: frenetic and dizzy as the tail survivors try to get out of the water
Little things: Mr. Eko comforting Ana Lucia
Episode notebook:
The tail section landed in the water on the other side of the island.
There were more children on the plane, they were in the tail section.
Bernard, Rose’s husband, landed in a tree still strapped into his seat. Why wasn’t he next to Rose when the plane crashed? Did he get up to go to the bathroom and get trapped in the back?
Goodwin claimed to be in the Peace Corps. Goodwin was sent by the Others as a spy.
The tail survivors seemed to struggle more for food and drink than the larger group.
The Others start kidnapping people from the beach. Nathan advocates for staying on the beach to keep the signal fire going, but does he have other motives?
After too many losses, the tail survivors head inland for safety.
Day 17 Ana starts digging the hole Michael, Jin, and Sawyer were later imprisoned in.
Day 23 Nathan is put into the hole. Ana-Lucia won’t let him out. She wants to know where the kidnapped survivors are. Nathan denies her claims.
Goodwin is revealed to be the imposter, he kills Nathan before Ana can begin torturing him.
Ana Lucia finally begins to suspect Goodwin, remembering that he wasn’t wet after the crash.
Day 27 Tail survivors find an abandoned Dharma station, using it for shelter. They find a radio.
Day 41 They hear someone talking over the radio. It was Boone from the Deux Ex Machina episode. I stand by my belief that Bernard says, “There were no survivors of Flight 815,” in that episode. But in The Other 48 Days, he clearly says “We are the survivors of Flight 815.”
Ana has a moment of vulnerability, crying in Mr. Eko’s arms. This was needed as Ana was getting annoying barking orders to everyone.
Day 48 Ana Lucia makes a huge mistake.
Episode recap: How was the other half living for the first 48 days? Right from the start, the survivors from the tail experienced a harrowing beginning much like those in the front. They didn't just land—they crashed into the ocean, just short of the shore. Battling strong currents and plane wreckage, more than twenty of them survived. Ana-Lucia and Mr. Eko took charge early, saving several people from drowning. Their survival is miraculous, yet it's merely the prelude to the dangers ahead.
On that first night, things took a dark turn when two people attacked Mr. Eko, but he swiftly turned the tables on them, fiercely defending himself and killing them. This is clearly traumatizing to Mr. Eko, as he begins forty days of silence. I suppose there could be some religious context behind this, Eko was living as a priest before the island. Yes, I said “living as a priest.” I know Eko’s flashbacks are coming soon, but I remember he was a criminal in the past and later redeemed himself by impersonating a priest. He lived a more religious life to atone for his criminal past. His silence on the island stems more from the scars of his past than purely religious motives. When he killed those two people on the beach, he saw glimpses of the violent person he used to be. He didn’t like what he saw and chose silence as a defense mechanism.
While Mr. Eko's prolonged silence might annoy his fellow survivors, there's no denying his value to the group—he's invested in protecting everyone. Ana-Lucia also wants to protect people, but how can she when someone keeps snatching people from their camp? Nathan and Goodwin advocate for staying on the beach to keep the signal fire going. Cindy, one of the flight attendants, echoes this as she heard one of the pilots saying they flew two hours off course. How will the search teams find them if they don’t keep the fire going?
Let’s hit pause for a moment. In real life, I don’t see how a commercial airliner can veer off course for two hours without the pilot or even air traffic control noticing. But let’s forget logic because this is fiction. This island has a lot of power. It can make people see and do things. Could it also have the power to bring down an aircraft? I certainly believe the powers of the island are a piece of a larger puzzle.
However, amidst numerous losses and threats to their safety Ana-Lucia persuades the group that it’s time to head inland for safety. She already suspects there is a traitor among them, someone who wasn’t on the plane. While Nathan seems the obvious suspect, having vanished for hours without a plausible explanation, it's often not the most apparent choice, right? Spoiler alert the show is twenty years old. It was Goodwin, like Ethan on the other side of the island, who was sent to gather intel on the survivors. But what was the point of that? That’s the missing piece for me. The larger goal of the Dharma Initiative is still a big blank for me. Some people purposely came to this island as part of an experiment. Why? And when outsiders set foot on the island, they're not just observed—they're eventually hunted. But why? The answers, or at least the start of them, are still a season away.
By the time Ana-Lucia sees through Goodwin’s facade, the group has been decimated by multiple losses. Goodwin meets his end at Ana-Lucia's hands, further fueling the group's distrust—especially when they encounter Jin, Michael, and Sawyer. That distrust and trauma led to Ana-Lucia being quick to fire the gun at Shannon. Was this all part of the island’s plan? Everyone worked so hard to stay alive, that they struggled to learn how to live. Seeing danger at every turn. How will the larger group learn to live after one of their own is ripped away? Please keep reading my recap for episode eight is posted.