From Lostpedia

"The Other 48 Days"

Season

Episode

2

07

Airdate

16 November 2005

Running time

46:17

Production code

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Flashback

Tail-section survivors

Flashforward

{{{flashforward}}}

Flashsideways

{{{flashsideways}}}

Centric character(s)

{{{centric}}}

Day(s)

1-48

Written by

Damon Lindelof
& Carlton Cuse

Directed by

Eric Laneuville

Special guest star(s)

{{{specialguests}}}

Guest starring

Sam Anderson - Bernard Nadler
Kimberley Joseph - Cindy Chandler
Brett Cullen - Goodwin Stanhope
Josh Randall - Nathan

Co-starring

Glenn Lehmann - Donald
Kiersten Havelock - Emma
Mickey Graue - Zack
Jon T. Sakata - Man on Beach

Uncredited

Ian Somerhalder - voice of Boone Carlyle

Episode transcript
[[{{{transcript2}}}|Part Two]]

[[{{{audiotranscript}}}|Commentary transcript]]

Episode images

"The Other 48 Days" is the seventh episode of Season 2 of Lost and the 32nd episode of the series as a whole. The episode is unique as the entire episode is a flashback, showing what happened to the survivors of the tail section of Oceanic Flight 815 from their moment of the crash right up until the "present day" on the Island. Finding that she has survived a terrible plane crash, Ana Lucia Cortez becomes the de facto leader of an eclectic group of survivors. However, the newly formed community is put through extreme stress as they become targeted in attacks by strange indigenous individuals on the Island.

Synopsis

The crash of the tail-end

After the tail section of the plane crashes into the water off the beach, the survivors swim ashore. Zach, a child holding a teddy bear, points out his sister floating in the water. Mr. Eko, in a black suit, pulls her out, and Ana Lucia performs CPR on her, saving her life. A man runs out of the woods asking for help, saying there's someone alive in the jungle. The man, who later calls himself "Goodwin", brings Ana to Bernard, who is still belted into his airplane seat, stuck up in a tree. Ana coaxes him to grab the tree branch, just before the seat crashes to the ground. Back on the beach, Goodwin, who claims to be in the Peace Corps, builds a signal fire, so "they can find us." Bernard asks Eko if he found an "African-American woman" among the bodies, referring to his wife, whom he can't find; Eko tells him no, but he will pray for her and for their rescue. That night, three of the adults are taken and Eko kills two of the Others with a rock when they try to take him. From that night on, he refuses to speak.

A survivor who identifies himself as Nathan suggests staying on the beach, and the group does so. On the fifth day, a man dies from a leg injury and is buried. On the twelfth day, the Others take nine more, including the two children (Zach and Emma). Ana manages to kill another one, who is discovered to be carrying a vintage U.S. Army knife and a list of the nine to be taken, along with their descriptions.

Ana Lucia reads the list. (promotional still)

The survivors opt to head into the jungle. They make a camp near a source of fresh water and fruit trees. Ana digs a pit, which she turns into a prison cell. As soon as it is done, she knocks Nathan unconscious and throws him into the pit. She interrogates him, believing he is one of those who took the children, due to his unexplained absences and how nobody remembered seeing him on the plane. When asked where he came from, he replies, "Canada". She begins starving him, demanding to know the location of the children, but another member of the group feeds him when she is not looking. Ana tells Goodwin she intends to start torturing Nathan the next day. That night, Goodwin frees Nathan, warning him of Ana's plan; when Nathan turns to leave, Goodwin snaps his neck, killing him.

The Tailies find the Arrow station.

The survivors move again on Day 27 and find the bunker marked by a DHARMA Initiative logo, with an arrow in the center. Goodwin is surprised to see it. Inside a box they find a glass eye, a Bible, and a radio. Goodwin and Ana go to higher ground to try to pick up a signal. While there, Ana reveals that she knows Goodwin is one of the Others, because on the first day, he ran out of the jungle with his clothes completely dry, ten minutes after the plane crashed into the water. Goodwin admits he killed Nathan, and confirms that the children are still alive, saying that they are "better off". He also says that those taken were "good people" and that Nathan was not on the list because he was a "bad person". The two fight for the army knife; when they roll down a hill, Ana impales him on a sharpened stick.

Ana kills Goodwin.

Ana returns to the survivors and tells them, "We're safe here now", but does not reveal on-screen that she killed Goodwin. On the forty-first day, Bernard picks up Boone's transmission from the Beechcraft on the radio and responds to Boone's "We're the survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815" with "We're the survivors of Flight 815." Before any further conversation can take place, Ana turns off the radio, dismissing the transmission as another trick by the Others. "They know we were on Flight 815 because Goodwin knew we were on Flight 815", she argues. "This is our life now", she tells them. She goes off by herself to cry, and Eko, speaking for the first time since the night he was nearly abducted, tells her everything will be all right. She asks him why it took him forty days to speak; he asks her why it took her forty days to cry.

Libby and Cindy pull Jin out of the water.

Soon after, Cindy and Libby find Jin washed up on the shore. After pulling him from the water, they tie him up and blindfold him while they try to find out who he is. As Eko and Ana Lucia argue, Jin breaks free and runs to the beach, at which point the events shown in previous episodes are replayed.

Ana Lucia shoots Shannon.

The remainder of the 48 days are shown as a montage of the events already seen, including the tail section's acceptance of Jin, Sawyer and Michael, the trek to the midsection's camp, Sawyer falling ill, Cindy listening to the forest's whispers just before she is "taken", and the shooting of Shannon by Ana Lucia.

Trivia

General

• The flashback events of the Tailies synchronize with the real-time events of the middle section survivors from the following episodes: "Pilot, Part 1", "Pilot, Part 2", "Tabula Rasa","Walkabout", "House of the Rising Sun", "Solitary", "Raised by Another", "Hearts and Minds", "Special", "Homecoming", "Deus Ex Machina", and the Tailies point of view of "Adrift". Flashbacks from days 17, 19 and 23 take place in between Season 1 episodes. The montage at the end shows previously seen events from "Orientation" to "Abandoned".
• Mr. Eko first created his stick in this episode.
• The first killing of an Other by a Survivor is committed on the Island and before an Other had killed (or tried to kill) a Survivor; Mr. Eko killed two of them when they tried to kidnap him on the first night after the crash.
• Bernard received Boone's transmission on the 41st day.
• Right after the plane's tail crashes on the water, one of the Monster's sounds can be heard.
• In "Jughead" we learn that the U.S. Army visited the Island in the 1950s. This could be an explanation of the origin of the the pocket knife Ana Lucia and Goodwin fight over in this episode.

Production notes

• This was Maggie Grace's last main cast credit as Shannon. She was credited as a special guest star in the next episode.
• Charlie, Claire, Hurley, Jack, Kate, Locke, and Sun do not appear in this episode.
  • Sawyer only appears in archive footage.
  • This is the first episode in which Jack and Hurley do not appear. Consequently, as of this episode, there is no character who has appeared in every episode of the series.
• The first of five episodes in which both Jack and Kate do not appear, the others being "Flashes Before Your Eyes", "Meet Kevin Johnson", "Jughead" and "Dead Is Dead".
• As this episode focuses on all the Tailies, it was also the only one to focus, albeit partially, on Libby. As of season 5, Libby is still the only main character who has never had any off-island flashbacks centered on her, though she appeared in other characters' flashbacks in the episodes "?" and "Live Together, Die Alone", in Eko and Desmond's flashbacks, respectively and had a brief flashback in the Hurley-centric "Dave".
• A podcast rehash for the episode was released on November 21st, 2005. (Official Lost Podcast/November 21, 2005)
• This is the only episode that takes place completely in the past and the first to take place entirely on the island. It is also the only episode of the series in which all events are depicted in chronological order.
• This was the first time that the Official UK Lost Podcast was released for Channel 4.
• A deleted scene from this episode shows the Tailies pulling a large parcel from the ocean. Zach and Emma hope that food will be inside but are disappointed when the only thing inside are Australian Boomerangs.
• This is the first extended episode of Lost running 5 minutes longer than the standard 1 hour episodes of Lost, other episodes that were extended were "What Kate Did", "The Long Con", "Maternity Leave", "Dave", "?", "316" and "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham."
• This was the only episode until "LA X, Parts 1 & 2" to credit Kimberley Joseph as a guest star instead of a co-star.
• A Lost: On Location for this episode is available on the Season 2 DVD with the Best Buy/TV Guide Bonus DVD or Blu-ray Disc set.

Bloopers and continuity errors

• Cindy says "we were flying for two hours in the wrong direction," which contradicts the pilot Seth Norris, who said that they changed course after six hours.
  • It's possible that Cindy was told only 2 hours before the crash that they were flying in the wrong direction.
• Ana Lucia says "We were in the air for 2 hours. I didn't see him once, not once," which contradicts the pilot who said that they were in the air for at least six hours (they changed course after six).
  • The "6 hours in the air" is also reaffirmed by Carole Littleton when she spoke to Jack in "There's No Place Like Home, Part 1"
• Goodwin dies in a different place to where Eko and Jin found him in "...And Found". Here he is by the hillside yet the first time we see him dead it is inside the jungle. When Ben and Juliet go to see Goodwin's body he is back on the hillside.
• In the opening scene, the tail section is shown to come crashing into the water from an offshore direction, which contradicts the apparent mid-air break-up of Oceanic 815 over the island as seen from the Barracks in the episode "A Tale of Two Cities".
• The plane comes toward the island over the ocean in the opening scene yet Bernard is found in a tree inland of the island.
• When Mr. Eko comforts Ana Lucia as she cries, she puts her right arm over his left as she leans into his left shoulder. When the camera cuts to a different angle, his left arm is over her right.

Recurring themes

• The title of the episode contains the Numbers 4 and 8. (The Numbers)
• The episode took place over 48 days. (Time)
• There were 26 survivors from the tail end of the plane.
• Zach and his sister Emma were introduced as characters. (Children)
• Zach was carrying a teddy bear. (Animals)
• Emma's lifeless body was pulled from the ocean by Mr. Eko. Ana Lucia resuscitated her with CPR. (Life and death)  (Rebirth)
• Emma immediately asked for her "mom" after being saved by Ana Lucia. Her mom was going to meet her and her brother in Los Angeles. (Parent issues)
• Mr. Eko pulled several dead bodies from the ocean, and Bernard was strapped in his seat next to a dead person. (Life and death)
• Mr. Eko killed two Others when they tried to kidnap him. (Life and death)
• The infection in Donald's leg killed him. He was buried with the rest of the Tailies that died. (Life and death)
• Goodwin caught a chicken, and killed it for food. (Animals)  (Life and death)
• Ana Lucia killed the Other that was carrying the list. (Life and death)
• Ana Lucia threw Nathan into the tiger pit. (Isolation)  (Imprisonment)
• Ana Lucia threatened to cut off Nathan's finger. (Missing body parts)
• The Tailies found a glass eye in the Arrow Station. (Missing body parts)  (Eyes)
• Goodwin pretended to help Nathan escape, but then he broke his neck. (Deceptions and cons)  (Life and death)
• Ana Lucia discovered Goodwin was an Other. (Deceptions and cons)
• Goodwin said that "Nathan was not a good person." (Good and bad people)
• Ana Lucia killed Goodwin. (Life and death)
• Mr. Eko observed a 40-day vow of silence as a way of doing penance for killing two of the Others. (Redemption)

Cultural references

• The Bible. A Holy Bible is found inside the Arrow. (Religion and ideologies)  (Literary works)
• Temptation of Christ: Mr. Eko spent 40 days on a "fast from speaking" just as Jesus spent 40 days on a fast from eating. (Religion and ideologies)  (Literary works)

Literary techniques

• Ana Lucia finds a US Army knife on one of the bodies of the Others. This foreshadowed the reveal that there was once a US Army presence on the Island. (Foreshadowing)
• Several Tailies are introduced and then killed. (Redshirt)

Storyline analysis

• Bernard told Mr. Eko that his African-American wife was still missing. (Relationships)
• Ana Lucia acted as the leader of the Tailies for nearly the entire duration of the 48 days. (Leadership)
• The Others infiltrated and kidnapped some of the Tailies. (O-Missions#Infiltrating the Survivors' camps)
• Mr. Eko killed some of the Others. The rest of the Tailies told him it was okay because it was self-defense. (Crimes#Eko)
• Ana Lucia killed an Other during a kidnapping. She later killed Goodwin after his deception was revealed. She also incarcerated and threatened Nathan for reasons that turned out to be wrong. (Crimes#Ana Lucia)
• Goodwin killed Nathan because he did not want the Tailies to find out who he was. He also claimed innocence stating that Nathan was not a good person. (Crimes#Goodwin)

Episode references

• Goodwin is discovered to be one of the Others infiltrating the beach camp, much like Ethan. ("Raised by Another")
• The Tailies found the radio. Sawyer asked if it worked and if they could use it in ("...And Found").
• Bernard receives Boone's radio transmission. ("Deus Ex Machina")
• It is shown that Ana Lucia was the one who killed Goodwin. ("...And Found")
• Nathan, believed to be an Other, has a name that sounds a lot like "Ethan," an actual Other. Both Ethan and Nathan claim that they are from Canada. ("Raised by Another")
• Mr Eko began growing his beard as a symbol for the two men he killed. He cut this off when he confessed the killing to Henry (Ben) in ("One of Them").

External Links

The making of "The Other 48 Days", of the Lost Season 2 Bonus section - On Location [1]