“Pilot”

Lost season 1, episode 1
Original air date: September 22, 2004

When Jack wakes up in the middle of some kind of bamboo forest, he realizes he's been injured in the plane crash he just survived. He runs through the forest to the beach, where he finds the other survivors milling around, many screaming, surrounded by the wreckage of the plane and several people who did not survive. He helps a pregnant woman who is experiencing contractions, watches another guy get sucked into the still-whirring engine (which explodes and stops whirring), brings a woman back to life through CPR (after fending off the useless lifeguard who was improperly administering CPR to her), and then saves the pregnant woman again from some falling debris. Oh, yeah — Jack's a doctor.

Having stabilized the situation at the beach, Jack lumbers off into the forest again to take care of his own wounds. Kate encounters him, and he convinces her to sew up the gash on his back with a travel sewing kit he collected from his luggage. She's more than a little squeamish, but he talks her through it successfully.

When they return to the beach, the other survivors have built a fire to aid the rescue team they all believe must be looking for them. Overnight, they hear strange, loud noises coming from the forest, and the trees sway ominously as if a large animal were moving them around.

In the morning, Jack and Kate decide to set off for where they hope to find the cockpit and its transceiver. Charlie joins them, and as they venture into the forest, a heavy tropical rain begins to fall. The other beach folks huddle under a tent, although there are a few exceptions: the Korean guy shoos away anyone trying to come near him and his wife (?), and the weird guy (Terry O'Quinn) who has held himself apart from the group just sits, laughing, in the rain.

Kate, Charlie and Jack find the front end of the plane, and they crawl their way into the cockpit. The pilot is there, seemingly dead, but he revives while they're there. The pilot informs them that their radio went out not long into the flight, so they had no contact with the tower. They were turning around and heading for Fiji when they hit the turbulence that caused the crash, so they were more than 1000 miles off course, and no one knows that. In other words, there's no hope that any rescue team is even looking in the right area.

They all hear the strange noises again, and a shadow passes over the cockpit. They can't see out the steamed-up windows, and when the pilot crawls out to get a better look, he's ripped away with only lots of blood and screaming trailing behind him.

Jack, Charlie and Kate flee the cockpit, transceiver in hand, but they get separated while running through the forest. The Thing passes close by Kate, but she can't see it. She runs into Charlie, startling them both, and as she knocks him to the ground, the rain suddenly stops. Very suddenly. As if it simply turned off and the sun was turned back on. Kate notices the pilot's wings from his uniform in the mud, and as she glances up, she and Charlie see something in the trees. As Charlie asks what the hell it is, Jack rejoins them to say, "It's the pilot." Unfortunately, all the viewer can see is simply an unrecognizable, bloody mess perched high in the trees.