Last night’s episode of Lost didn’t disappoint. At first I thought it would lose some of its luster, as many shows tend to do with the second episode, but then I had to remind myself that it was actually the 2nd half of the original 2-hour pilot. Guess the folks over at ABC didn’t think the viewing public could handle that much distress for 120 minutes straight unless the words “Official Presidential Debate” were mentioned somewhere in the title.

Yep. Still stranded.

The episode began with another flashback to the fateful moments before the crash, where we are shown that Charlie the Rock Star is not only a drug addict, but a rude and belligerent one, as well. Cute Dog isn’t technically The Devil, he belongs to the young boy, Walt. We learn Walt lived in Australia with his mother, who died two weeks ago after a long illness and is now en route back to the U.S. with dad Michael. Dad apparently doesn’t know his son very well because the guy can’t remember at first if his son is 9 or 10 when asked. Locke, who looks far too much like Jean-Luc Picard for me, sums it up pretty well, “You’re really having a bad month.”

Bitchy Blonde is really named Shannon, and her whipping-boy is actually her brother Boone, which explains the snottiness a little better. I’d like to smack her around though, as she’s sunbathing in her orange bikini, completely unaffected, while people lie around her…well, dead. Must be the shock, because eventually she breaks down, pulls her head out of her butt and realizes “they” aren’t coming to rescue her and take her to a day spa anytime soon.

Sayid manages to repair the transceiver, but can’t get a signal so he, St. Kate, Charlie, Boone, Shannon and Tough Guy Sawyer all trek to the top of the mountain to get a better signal. As you would imagine, “something” comes after them, and it’s a big cuddly wuddly polar bear! In the South Pacific. Now see, I saw this as a good sign that big game was around the island so no one would starve. No one else thought of that, all they could think about was the fact that a polar bear shouldn’t be on a tropical island. Yeah well, there he is. Tough Guy Sawyer shoots about half a dozen rounds into the Coca Cola Bear and seriously wounds it.

The poor thing just lies there as our Survivor castaways try to figure out how a gun got on board the airplane. Turns out it was strapped to the leg of a U.S. Marshal, which also explains the handcuffs Michael’s son found at the beginning of the episode. Everyone thinks Sawyer is the criminal being transported because he’s all scraggly and arrogant and shoots a gun rather well and that’s how all criminals look and act. Flashback. Ah ha…turns out St. Kate is the transported criminal. Wonder what she did. Since she’s asking for assistance in how to dismantle the gun, I’m guessing she ran her husband over a couple times with her Mercedes. Maybe not. She can’t be that big of a monster because (a) there’s not room enough on the island for two and (b) she did put the air mask on her jailer (”Secure the mask of those around you who may need help, before securing your own.”) as they made their rapid descent.

Through the flashback we realize that Shrapnel Guy is the U.S. Marshal., which explains why St. Kate is so concerned as to whether he’s going to live or die. Right now, he’s alive. Dr. Jack manages to get the shrapnel out of the U.S. Marshal, who then regains consciousness, grabs Dr. Jack and wants to know where St. Kate is…right now. Gulp.

Back on Mt. Creepiness, the gang is excited to have a bar (no, not that kind…but that would be cool, too) because now they can transmit a signal. But wait…what’s that you say? Something is already being transmitted? Its something in French, with a number spoken in English after each iteration, and its increasing incrementally. Shannon, who in addition to being the weepy, unstable blonde (shouldn’t she have been on an hour later on The Bachelor?) also speaks high school French and can translate for us. I don’t know about anyone else, but I wasn’t learning how to translate distress calls in my four years of high school Spanish. Maybe the Spanish are never in distress. Who knows. Anyway, it’s a woman’s sad, desperate plea for someone to come get her. She’s all alone…everyone else is dead. Now, movies and television shows don’t creep me out. Ever. This scene did and it was a little unnerving because it was dark outside and my husband hadn’t made it home from the airport yet. The dogs were providing no solace whatsoever so I was on my own. Sayid calculates that the distress call has been playing for 16 years. Shudder.

In other beach news, Claire (the pregnant one) hasn’t felt her baby kick since yesterday. However, once she eats some sort of sea delicacy served up to her by Jin (the Korean guy), the baby starts kicking up a storm. When did he get so nice? He demands his wife’s shirt be buttoned all the way up (although you can tell she’s getting sick of him ordering her around) and wants to isolate him and his wife, but now he’s serving food? Hmm. I detect a Richard Hatch move.

Regardless…on next week’s show I anticipate we will have more blood, more crying and more weird things happening. Yay. Wednesday nights are good again.