Adrift (Lost)
Encyclopedia
"Adrift" is the second episode of the second season of Lost
and the 27th episode overall. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams
and written by Steven Maeda
and Leonard Dick
. It first aired on September 28, 2005 on the American Broadcasting Company
. In the episode, flashbacks depict Michael Dawson
's struggles for the custody of his son Walt Lloyd
. The realtime events show Michael and Sawyer, who have just had their raft destroyed, becoming hostile towards each other as they drift back to shore, while Kate Austen
and John Locke
enter the mysterious hatch and encounter Desmond Hume
.
The storyline picks up the raft storyline which was left hanging after season one's finale, "Exodus
", and also revisits the events seen in the previous episode, "Man of Science, Man of Faith
". Originally envisioned as a Sawyer episode, the episode was rewritten to focus on Michael. The sea scenes were shot on the Hawaii
an shoreline. "Adrift" had 23.17 million American viewers and stands as the second largest audience on the series' run, but had negative reviews, receiving criticism on the flashbacks, the raft scenes, and the lack of plot advancement.
(Harold Perrineau) struggles with his ex-girlfriend Susan Lloyd (Tamara Taylor
), who has asked Michael to sign away his paternal rights to their son, Walt
. Though Michael initially resists, suing in order to keep his custody, he eventually relents as Susan persuades him to doubt his own motivations and whether he is pursuing his own desires or Walt's best interests.
After the raft was attacked and destroyed
by the Others, Sawyer (Josh Holloway
) surfaces in the ocean. Michael is heard screaming for Walt repeatedly, and Sawyer screams for Jin-Soo Kwon
(Daniel Dae Kim). Sawyer decides to rescue Michael first, and swims over to him, dragging him onto a piece of flotsam
and performing CPR
. Michael then wakes up, and blames Sawyer for making him fire the flare
, drawing their attackers to them. Shortly after, the two notice a shark
is encircling them; Michael believes the sharkwhale was attracted to Sawyer's bleeding wound, and the two have continuous arguments.
Back at camp, after Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lilly
) disappears into the hatch, John Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
) descends as well, and finds her unconscious in the computer room. An armed Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick
) walks up behind them, and asks Locke if he is "him." Locke at first claims to be the person whom Desmond is seeking, but fails to correctly answer a riddle he poses. This failure prompts Desmond to round up the two and orders Kate to tie up Locke. However, Locke convinces Desmond that Kate be tied up instead. Desmond agrees, and Locke slides her a knife before locking her in a dark room. Kate frees herself and finds she is in a large pantry
filled with foodstuffs, all in boxes bearing a strange marking
. Kate then climbs into a ventilation shaft.
The plotline converges to the same point at the end of the previous episode, "Man of Science, Man of Faith
". An alarm klaxon begins to sound. Desmond walks Locke at gunpoint to the computer terminal, and forces him to enter "the numbers" into the computer, which resets a 108 minute timer. Soon after, Desmond detects Jack Shephard
(Matthew Fox
), and after channeling him to the computer room, forces Locke to greet Jack as seen in the previous episode.
Back at the raft, Michael and Sawyer see one of the raft's pontoons, and they decide to board it. Sawyer swims to the pontoon, giving Michael his gun in case the shark appears. When it does, Michael fires several times, apparently injuring the shark. Michael then joins Sawyer on the pontoon, and when the morning breaks, he cries, realizing that he should not have brought Walt with him on the raft, and blames himself for his son's kidnapping. At this point, Sawyer notices that they are back near the island. When they wash ashore, they meet Jin running toward them, hands tied behind his back, shouting the word "Others", and fleeing a group holding him captive.
Season one's final episode
finishes with two cliffhanger
s, the opening of the hatch and the attack of the Others on Michael's boat. When production of season 2 started, the writers decided that season premiere "Man of Science, Man of Faith
" would focus on the hatch, leaving the raft for the second episode. To avoid bloating the first episode, some of the hatch storylines, such as Locke's incursion, were left to be revealed in "Adrift". The episode was originally going to be Sawyer centric, and was to feature actress Jolene Blalock
as a guest, but this was rewritten "at the proverbial last minute" and changed to a Michael-centric episode.
Director Stephen Williams
described filming at the sea as challenging, since the waves caused cameras, lighting and the scenery where the actors were standing to be "moving out of sync with one another". Williams however thought that the scenes became more realistic due to the location. The aquatic scenes took three nights to complete, and Harold Perrineau received swimming lessons in preparation. When Sawyer is getting ready to swim to the other platform, a shark swims past, and in an underwater shot a DHARMA Initiative
insignia can briefly be seen near its back fin. This was an inside joke or "easter egg
," which turned out to be more visible than had been intended. While a mechanical shark which required three puppeteers was built, the shot of Michael being attacked was done with a shark fin being held by an underwater crew member.
.
Reviews were mostly negative. Mac Slocum of Filmfodder.com said the flashback storyline "wasn't all that interesting". Entertainment Weekly
' s Jeff Jensen called the flashbacks "among the poorest and most clumsily integrated flashbacks we've seen so far", as he felt nothing new was learned, and also disliked Michael's on-Island storyline, noting he "got the sense that the actors and directors weren't quite sure what to make of these scenes". Jensen however complimented the Hatch scenes, considering that Terry O'Quinn's performance and his interaction with Henry Ian Cusick were "salvaging the first mediocre episode of the season". Ryan Mcgee of Zap2it
thought that revealing the Hatch events through different perspectives a "fresh narrative approach", but complained about the lack of plot advancement, and considered the raft storyline "three times as long as needed, with a really fake shark attack to boot". IGN
's Chris Carabott gave the episode an 8.2 out of 10, praising Perrineau's performance and the flashback, but the website later ranked "Adrift" 80th out of the 115 Lost episodes, jokingly saying that the shark should have eaten Michael "and save us a lot of 'Waaaaaalt!' and 'They took him. From my hands!' shout fests". A similar list by Los Angeles Times
ranked the episode as the fourth worst of the series, describing it as "boring". New York magazine
listed "Adrift" in its "Twenty Most Pointless Episodes of Lost", complaining about "grinding the story to a halt" and the "plodding" flashback, and saying that the episode would have been improved if Sawyer and Michael reached land faster.
Lost (TV series)
Lost is an American television series that originally aired on ABC from September 22, 2004 to May 23, 2010, consisting of six seasons. Lost is a drama series that follows the survivors of the crash of a commercial passenger jet flying between Sydney and Los Angeles, on a mysterious tropical island...
and the 27th episode overall. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams
Stephen Williams (director)
Stephen Williams is a Canadian film and television director. Williams has directed several modern day television programs including work as a regular director on the ABC drama series Lost, where he was also a co-executive producer...
and written by Steven Maeda
Steven Maeda
Steven Maeda is an American television writer and producer. He has written episodes of television series such as Harsh Realm, The X-Files, CSI: Miami, Lost, and Day Break. He has also served as a supervising producer on Lost and CSI: Miami...
and Leonard Dick
Leonard Dick
Leonard Dick is an award-winning television writer and producer who is currently writing for The Good Wife .Leonard was born in Toronto, Ontario, and attended high school at Upper Canada College, where he was elected head of Howard's House, and thus served on the Board of Stewards.Leonard attended...
. It first aired on September 28, 2005 on the American Broadcasting Company
American Broadcasting Company
The American Broadcasting Company is an American commercial broadcasting television network. Created in 1943 from the former NBC Blue radio network, ABC is owned by The Walt Disney Company and is part of Disney-ABC Television Group. Its first broadcast on television was in 1948...
. In the episode, flashbacks depict Michael Dawson
Michael Dawson (Lost)
Michael Dawson is a fictional character played by Harold Perrineau on the ABC television series Lost. After losing a custody battle with Susan Lloyd , Michael does not see his son Walt for almost ten years. They reunite when she dies, but on their journey home, their plane crashes on a mysterious...
's struggles for the custody of his son Walt Lloyd
Walt Lloyd
Walter "Walt" Lloyd is a fictional character portrayed by Malcolm David Kelley in the American ABC television series Lost. The series follows the lives of over forty survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Walt is introduced in the pilot episode as one of the survivors aboard the plane, which...
. The realtime events show Michael and Sawyer, who have just had their raft destroyed, becoming hostile towards each other as they drift back to shore, while Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
and John Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
enter the mysterious hatch and encounter Desmond Hume
Desmond Hume
Desmond David Hume is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost portrayed by Henry Ian Cusick. Desmond's name is a tribute to David Hume, the famous empiricist author and philosopher. Desmond was not a passenger of Flight 815. He had been stranded on the island three years prior to...
.
The storyline picks up the raft storyline which was left hanging after season one's finale, "Exodus
Exodus (Lost)
"Exodus" is the first season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd through 25th episodes of the first season and the show overall. The episodes were directed by Jack Bender, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. "Part 1" first aired on May 18, 2005 and "Part 2"...
", and also revisits the events seen in the previous episode, "Man of Science, Man of Faith
Man of Science, Man of Faith
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" is the first episode of the second season of Lost and the 26th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof. It first aired on September 21, 2005 on ABC. The flashbacks focus on Jack Shephard's struggle to heal Sarah, who...
". Originally envisioned as a Sawyer episode, the episode was rewritten to focus on Michael. The sea scenes were shot on the Hawaii
Hawaii
Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...
an shoreline. "Adrift" had 23.17 million American viewers and stands as the second largest audience on the series' run, but had negative reviews, receiving criticism on the flashbacks, the raft scenes, and the lack of plot advancement.
Plot
In the flashbacks, Michael DawsonMichael Dawson (Lost)
Michael Dawson is a fictional character played by Harold Perrineau on the ABC television series Lost. After losing a custody battle with Susan Lloyd , Michael does not see his son Walt for almost ten years. They reunite when she dies, but on their journey home, their plane crashes on a mysterious...
(Harold Perrineau) struggles with his ex-girlfriend Susan Lloyd (Tamara Taylor
Tamara Taylor
Tamara Taylor is a Canadian television actress.Born in Toronto to a black Canadian father and a Scottish Canadian mother, her most famous role is that of Dr. Camille Saroyan, head of the Forensic Division, on the forensic crime drama Bones...
), who has asked Michael to sign away his paternal rights to their son, Walt
Walt Lloyd
Walter "Walt" Lloyd is a fictional character portrayed by Malcolm David Kelley in the American ABC television series Lost. The series follows the lives of over forty survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Walt is introduced in the pilot episode as one of the survivors aboard the plane, which...
. Though Michael initially resists, suing in order to keep his custody, he eventually relents as Susan persuades him to doubt his own motivations and whether he is pursuing his own desires or Walt's best interests.
After the raft was attacked and destroyed
Exodus (Lost)
"Exodus" is the first season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd through 25th episodes of the first season and the show overall. The episodes were directed by Jack Bender, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. "Part 1" first aired on May 18, 2005 and "Part 2"...
by the Others, Sawyer (Josh Holloway
Josh Holloway
Joshua Lee "Josh" Holloway is an American actor and model from Free Home, Georgia. He is best known for his role as James "Sawyer" Ford on the American television show Lost.-Early life:...
) surfaces in the ocean. Michael is heard screaming for Walt repeatedly, and Sawyer screams for Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon
Jin-Soo Kwon, better known as "Jin," is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Daniel Dae Kim.- Prior to the crash :...
(Daniel Dae Kim). Sawyer decides to rescue Michael first, and swims over to him, dragging him onto a piece of flotsam
Flotsam and jetsam
In maritime law, flotsam, jetsam, lagan and derelict describe specific kinds of wreck.The words have specific nautical meanings, with legal consequences in the law of admiralty and marine salvage....
and performing CPR
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation
Cardiopulmonary resuscitation is an emergency procedure which is performed in an effort to manually preserve intact brain function until further measures are taken to restore spontaneous blood circulation and breathing in a person in cardiac arrest. It is indicated in those who are unresponsive...
. Michael then wakes up, and blames Sawyer for making him fire the flare
Flare (pyrotechnic)
A flare, also sometimes called a fusee, is a type of pyrotechnic that produces a brilliant light or intense heat without an explosion. Flares are used for signalling, illumination, or defensive countermeasures in civilian and military applications...
, drawing their attackers to them. Shortly after, the two notice a shark
Shark
Sharks are a type of fish with a full cartilaginous skeleton and a highly streamlined body. The earliest known sharks date from more than 420 million years ago....
is encircling them; Michael believes the sharkwhale was attracted to Sawyer's bleeding wound, and the two have continuous arguments.
Back at camp, after Kate Austen
Kate Austen
Katherine Anne "Kate" Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly. She is the de facto female lead...
(Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly
Evangeline Lilly is a Canadian actress, best known for her role as Kate Austen in the ABC drama, Lost.-Early life:...
) disappears into the hatch, John Locke
John Locke (Lost)
John Locke is a fictional character played by Terry O'Quinn on the ABC television series Lost. He is named after English philosopher John Locke...
(Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn
Terry O'Quinn is an American actor, most famous for playing John Locke on the TV series Lost. He made his debut in a 1980 television movie called F.D.R.: The Last Year. Since then, O'Quinn has had minor supporting roles in films and TV movies such as Young Guns, All the Right Moves, Silver Bullet,...
) descends as well, and finds her unconscious in the computer room. An armed Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick
Henry Ian Cusick is a Scottish-Peruvian actor of stage, television, and film. He is well-known for his role as Desmond Hume on the United States television series Lost, for which he received a Primetime Emmy Award nomination....
) walks up behind them, and asks Locke if he is "him." Locke at first claims to be the person whom Desmond is seeking, but fails to correctly answer a riddle he poses. This failure prompts Desmond to round up the two and orders Kate to tie up Locke. However, Locke convinces Desmond that Kate be tied up instead. Desmond agrees, and Locke slides her a knife before locking her in a dark room. Kate frees herself and finds she is in a large pantry
Pantry
A pantry is a room where food, provisions or dishes are stored and served in an ancillary capacity to the kitchen. The derivation of the word is from the same source as the Old French term paneterie; that is from pain, the French form of the Latin panis for bread.In a late medieval hall, there were...
filled with foodstuffs, all in boxes bearing a strange marking
DHARMA Initiative
The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA , was a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science...
. Kate then climbs into a ventilation shaft.
The plotline converges to the same point at the end of the previous episode, "Man of Science, Man of Faith
Man of Science, Man of Faith
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" is the first episode of the second season of Lost and the 26th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof. It first aired on September 21, 2005 on ABC. The flashbacks focus on Jack Shephard's struggle to heal Sarah, who...
". An alarm klaxon begins to sound. Desmond walks Locke at gunpoint to the computer terminal, and forces him to enter "the numbers" into the computer, which resets a 108 minute timer. Soon after, Desmond detects Jack Shephard
Jack Shephard
Dr. Jack Shephard is a fictional character and protagonist of the ABC television series Lost played by Matthew Fox. Lost follows the journey of the survivors of Oceanic Airlines flight 815 on a mysterious island and their attempts to survive and escape, slowly uncovering more of the much broader...
(Matthew Fox
Matthew Fox (actor)
Matthew Chandler Fox is an American actor. He is mostly known for his role as Charlie Salinger on Party of Five, and for portraying Jack Shephard on the supernatural drama television series Lost.- Early life :...
), and after channeling him to the computer room, forces Locke to greet Jack as seen in the previous episode.
Back at the raft, Michael and Sawyer see one of the raft's pontoons, and they decide to board it. Sawyer swims to the pontoon, giving Michael his gun in case the shark appears. When it does, Michael fires several times, apparently injuring the shark. Michael then joins Sawyer on the pontoon, and when the morning breaks, he cries, realizing that he should not have brought Walt with him on the raft, and blames himself for his son's kidnapping. At this point, Sawyer notices that they are back near the island. When they wash ashore, they meet Jin running toward them, hands tied behind his back, shouting the word "Others", and fleeing a group holding him captive.
Production
Exodus (Lost)
"Exodus" is the first season finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd through 25th episodes of the first season and the show overall. The episodes were directed by Jack Bender, and written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse. "Part 1" first aired on May 18, 2005 and "Part 2"...
finishes with two cliffhanger
Cliffhanger
A cliffhanger or cliffhanger ending is a plot device in fiction which features a main character in a precarious or difficult dilemma, or confronted with a shocking revelation at the end of an episode of serialized fiction...
s, the opening of the hatch and the attack of the Others on Michael's boat. When production of season 2 started, the writers decided that season premiere "Man of Science, Man of Faith
Man of Science, Man of Faith
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" is the first episode of the second season of Lost and the 26th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof. It first aired on September 21, 2005 on ABC. The flashbacks focus on Jack Shephard's struggle to heal Sarah, who...
" would focus on the hatch, leaving the raft for the second episode. To avoid bloating the first episode, some of the hatch storylines, such as Locke's incursion, were left to be revealed in "Adrift". The episode was originally going to be Sawyer centric, and was to feature actress Jolene Blalock
Jolene Blalock
Jolene K. Blalock is an American film and television actress and model, perhaps best known for playing the Vulcan T'Pol on the UPN science fiction series Star Trek: Enterprise. The star of several feature films, she is a regular guest star in television films and series.- Early career :A popular...
as a guest, but this was rewritten "at the proverbial last minute" and changed to a Michael-centric episode.
Director Stephen Williams
Stephen Williams (director)
Stephen Williams is a Canadian film and television director. Williams has directed several modern day television programs including work as a regular director on the ABC drama series Lost, where he was also a co-executive producer...
described filming at the sea as challenging, since the waves caused cameras, lighting and the scenery where the actors were standing to be "moving out of sync with one another". Williams however thought that the scenes became more realistic due to the location. The aquatic scenes took three nights to complete, and Harold Perrineau received swimming lessons in preparation. When Sawyer is getting ready to swim to the other platform, a shark swims past, and in an underwater shot a DHARMA Initiative
DHARMA Initiative
The Dharma Initiative, also written DHARMA , was a fictional research project featured in the television series Lost. It was introduced in the second season episode "Orientation". In 2008, the Dharma Initiative website was launched. Dharma's interests were directly connected with fringe science...
insignia can briefly be seen near its back fin. This was an inside joke or "easter egg
Easter egg (media)
Image:Carl Oswald Rostosky - Zwei Kaninchen und ein Igel 1861.jpg|250px|thumb|right|Example of Easter egg hidden within imagerect 467 383 539 434 desc none...
," which turned out to be more visible than had been intended. While a mechanical shark which required three puppeteers was built, the shot of Michael being attacked was done with a shark fin being held by an underwater crew member.
Reception
23.17 million American viewers tuned into "Adrift", making it the second most-watched episode in the show's history, behind the season openerMan of Science, Man of Faith
"Man of Science, Man of Faith" is the first episode of the second season of Lost and the 26th episode overall. The episode was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof. It first aired on September 21, 2005 on ABC. The flashbacks focus on Jack Shephard's struggle to heal Sarah, who...
.
Reviews were mostly negative. Mac Slocum of Filmfodder.com said the flashback storyline "wasn't all that interesting". Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly
Entertainment Weekly is an American magazine, published by the Time division of Time Warner, that covers film, television, music, broadway theatre, books and popular culture...
Zap2it
Zap2it is an American website and affiliate network that provides news, photos and video, local TV listings and movie showtimes. The site is produced by Tribune Media Services , part of the publishing division of the Chicago-based Tribune Company...
thought that revealing the Hatch events through different perspectives a "fresh narrative approach", but complained about the lack of plot advancement, and considered the raft storyline "three times as long as needed, with a really fake shark attack to boot". IGN
IGN
IGN is an entertainment website that focuses on video games, films, music and other media. IGN's main website comprises several specialty sites or "channels", each occupying a subdomain and covering a specific area of entertainment...
's Chris Carabott gave the episode an 8.2 out of 10, praising Perrineau's performance and the flashback, but the website later ranked "Adrift" 80th out of the 115 Lost episodes, jokingly saying that the shark should have eaten Michael "and save us a lot of 'Waaaaaalt!' and 'They took him. From my hands!' shout fests". A similar list by Los Angeles Times
Los Angeles Times
The Los Angeles Times is a daily newspaper published in Los Angeles, California, since 1881. It was the second-largest metropolitan newspaper in circulation in the United States in 2008 and the fourth most widely distributed newspaper in the country....
ranked the episode as the fourth worst of the series, describing it as "boring". New York magazine
New York (magazine)
New York is a weekly magazine principally concerned with the life, culture, politics, and style of New York City. Founded by Milton Glaser and Clay Felker in 1968 as a competitor to The New Yorker, it was brasher and less polite than that magazine, and established itself as a cradle of New...
listed "Adrift" in its "Twenty Most Pointless Episodes of Lost", complaining about "grinding the story to a halt" and the "plodding" flashback, and saying that the episode would have been improved if Sawyer and Michael reached land faster.
External links
- Episode guide and photos at ABC.com
- Overview at TV.comTV.comTV.com is a website owned by CBS Interactive. The site covers television and focuses on English-language shows made or broadcast in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and Japan...