All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues
Encyclopedia
"All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" is the eleventh episode of the first season of Lost
. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams
and written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach
. It first aired on December 8, 2004, on the American Broadcasting Company
(ABC). In the episode, flashbacks reveal Jack Shephard
being responsible for his father, Christian's dismissal from a hospital after performing surgery while drunk. In realtime, Jack and a team go searching for two fellow plane crash survivors after they were kidnapped by somebody who was not listed in the passanger manifest.
The flashbacks were inspired by the writer's background as the son of a doctor, and the episode in general went through several changes in the writing stage, one of them being the creation of two new characters who help look for the missing survivors, that was scrapped in favor of including regular character Boone Carlyle
. "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" was watched by 18.88 million Americans and was met with positive reviews from critics, with several reviewers commending the scene in which Jack saves Charlie Pace
.
(Matthew Fox
) operates on a woman who flatlines, and despite his attempts to revive her, his father Christian Shephard
(John Terry
) forces him to stop and call the time of death. It is later revealed that it was actually Christian's operation; Jack was called in by a nurse after it becomes apparent that his father was performing the surgery under the influence of alcohol
. Christian attempts to cover this up by making Jack sign a form detailing the surgery, albeit with his inebriation omited from the report, stating that the hospital will revoke his medical licence if alcohol is mentioned.
However, sometime later Jack learns the patient's husband is suing the hospital. Jack and Christian then attend a board meeting discussing what went wrong during the operation. The board reveals that the deceased woman was pregnant
, which was unknown by Jack. Horrified, he confesses to the board that Christian was operating under the influence during the surgery, which impaired his judgment that led to the chain of events causing the woman's death.
) that one survivor, Ethan Rom (William Mapother
), is not listed in the passenger manifest. Furthermore Charlie Pace
(Dominic Monaghan
) and Claire Littleton
(Emilie de Ravin
) are missing. Jack and John Locke
(Terry O'Quinn
) run through the jungle to find three distinct footprints, indicating that Ethan took Charlie and Claire. Locke decides to go back to gather a hunting party, but Jack continues alone. Locke returns with Kate Austen
(Evangeline Lilly
) and Boone Carlyle
(Ian Somerhalder
) and find Jack. After they find a knuckle bandage left by Charlie as a clue, the party find two separate trials. Locke takes Boon in one direction, while Jack and Kate take the other.
It soon turns out that Jack and Kate are following the correct trial when they find more of Charlie's knuckle bandages. When it starts raining, Jack believes he hears Claire screaming. Jack tumbles down an embankment to find Ethan, who warns Jack he will kill one of his captives if he does not stop following Ethan. A fistfight ensues, but Ethan gains the upper hand and subdues Jack. When he regains consciousness, Jack continues on, eventually finding Charlie, who has been hung
by Ethan. Kate cuts him down, and Jack furiously performs CPR—despite Kate's pleas that he is dead. Jack does not give up and brings Charlie back to life.
Back at the caves at nightfall, Jack learns from Charlie that "they" only wanted Claire all along. In the meantime, Boone and Locke are still looking through the jungle. Boone decides to go back to the caves. As Locke throws him a flashlight
, Boone drops it, and it lands on a metal surface embedded in the ground. Curious, the two proceed to remove the mud over it to find out what it is.
. Throughout the writing process, the episode went through several changes. The working title for the episode was "What It Takes". However the writers deemed the title "lame." In writing Jack's flashback scenes, Grillo-Marxuach drew his inspiration on his own background as the son of a doctor. Two new minor characters, named Arthur and Sullivan, were originally created to accompany Locke. The idea was later scrapped in favor of including series regular Boone Carlyle; this development would serve as a genesis for the character's upcoming death in a later episode, "Do No Harm
". The idea behind the metal surface, which would be known as the hatch for the rest of the season, came when the producers were storyboarding the season. The hatch's discovery was to be introduced earlier into the episode, but was moved to the end to give the episode a cliffhanger
.
With Jack and Kate's journey, in the original outline they were to come under a dart attack by the Others, the island's native inhabitants, however it was cut because executive producer Damon Lindelof
deemed the attack too "cheezy." Grillo-Marxuach described the "hysterical CPR" as "the biggest cliché in the book," but added "the nine people who were writing for the show decided, maybe we earned that. It gave us the emotional payoff for the episode."
The fight scene between Jack and Ethan were performed by the actors themselves. The two were given the freedom to set up how their characters would fight each other. However, stunt coordinator Michael Vendrell wanted Ethan to be "as feral as possible; no school of combat, karate, kung-fu." Before filming the scene where Jack finds Charlie, episode director Stephen Williams
scouted for a suitable location and found "what looked like a cathedral," because of the layout of trees behind where Charlie was hung. Monaghan had to be harnessed to a cable for roughly four to five hours. The actor described the scene; "they put me in the tree and I just hung there. I just hung limp. I tried to fall asleep, I tried to relax. When everything was going on, when they cut me down from the tree, when [Matthew Fox] was trying to revive me, when [Evangeline Lilly] was crying, I really didn't hear any of it. I just was in a semi-meditative state; however close that I could get with someone smacking me in the chest.
. The episode was watched by 18.88 million viewers, the sixth largest audience in American television the week it aired. It was also an improvement of over 1.7 million over the previous episode, "Raised by Another
". In the United Kingdom, the episode was seen by 3.76 million viewers. It was the second highest-rated series to air on Channel 4
for the week.
Critical reactions of the episode were positive. Chris Carabott of IGN
rated the episode 9 out of 10, calling it "a swift return to form" with "plenty of striking and emotional moments" that made it one of the better episodes of the first season. Carabott commented on the flashbacks; "We don't necessarily learn anything new about Jack from a personality standpoint," but Fox did "an exceptional job of conveying Jack's heartbreak as he reveals that his father operated on a woman while under the influence of alcohol." He enjoyed Jack and Ethan's encounter, calling it "chilling." Carabott also praised the scene Jack tries to save Charlie; "I remember believing that they had killed off Charlie on my initial viewing and even though I knew the outcome this time, it was still a hard scene to watch," adding "after Jack finally manages to resuscitate him, you have to feel for Charlie because you know that he's disappointed in himself for letting Claire down." Another IGN article ranked "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" the 33rd best Lost episode.
Todd VanDerWerff of the Los Angeles Times
rated the episode the 79th of all Lost episodes (apart from the series finale
), described the episode as "thrilling," but that the show since "has done similar things much better." Whitney Pastorek of Entertainment Weekly
did not care of Jack's flashbacks, but commended the scene in which Jack saving Charlie, stating "even though I knew he was going to go back to the CPR and save Charlie's life, I started crying. This is how you identify good TV: When you know what's going to happen and you still get swept up in it all."
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...
. 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 Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Javier Grillo-Marxuach
Javier "Javi" Grillo-Marxuach , born October 28, 1969 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a television screenwriter and producer, known for his work as writer and producer on the first two seasons of the ABC television series Lost, as well as other series including Charmed and Law and Order: Special...
. It first aired on December 8, 2004, 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...
(ABC). In the episode, flashbacks reveal 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...
being responsible for his father, Christian's dismissal from a hospital after performing surgery while drunk. In realtime, Jack and a team go searching for two fellow plane crash survivors after they were kidnapped by somebody who was not listed in the passanger manifest.
The flashbacks were inspired by the writer's background as the son of a doctor, and the episode in general went through several changes in the writing stage, one of them being the creation of two new characters who help look for the missing survivors, that was scrapped in favor of including regular character Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle is a fictional character played by Ian Somerhalder on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the south Pacific. Boone is introduced in the pilot episode as the stepbrother of fellow crash survivor Shannon Rutherford...
. "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" was watched by 18.88 million Americans and was met with positive reviews from critics, with several reviewers commending the scene in which Jack saves Charlie Pace
Charlie Pace
Charlie Hieronymus Pace is a fictional character on ABC's Lost, a television series chronicling the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island...
.
Flashbacks
Jack ShephardJack 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
Matthew Fox is an American actor.Matthew Fox may also refer to:* Matt Fox , American songwriter and producer a.k.a...
) operates on a woman who flatlines, and despite his attempts to revive her, his father Christian Shephard
Christian Shephard
Dr. Christian Shephard is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by John Terry. He is the father of lead characters Jack Shephard , who becomes the de facto leader of the survivors of Oceanic 815 after it crashes on an island, and Claire Littleton , another of the survivors...
(John Terry
John Terry (actor)
John Terry is an American film, television, and stage actor.-Early life:Terry was born in Florida, where he attended Vero Beach High School. He was also educated at the prestigious Loomis Chaffee prep school in Windsor, Connecticut, and began a career building original custom log homes in North...
) forces him to stop and call the time of death. It is later revealed that it was actually Christian's operation; Jack was called in by a nurse after it becomes apparent that his father was performing the surgery under the influence of alcohol
Alcohol
In chemistry, an alcohol is an organic compound in which the hydroxy functional group is bound to a carbon atom. In particular, this carbon center should be saturated, having single bonds to three other atoms....
. Christian attempts to cover this up by making Jack sign a form detailing the surgery, albeit with his inebriation omited from the report, stating that the hospital will revoke his medical licence if alcohol is mentioned.
However, sometime later Jack learns the patient's husband is suing the hospital. Jack and Christian then attend a board meeting discussing what went wrong during the operation. The board reveals that the deceased woman was pregnant
Pregnancy
Pregnancy refers to the fertilization and development of one or more offspring, known as a fetus or embryo, in a woman's uterus. In a pregnancy, there can be multiple gestations, as in the case of twins or triplets...
, which was unknown by Jack. Horrified, he confesses to the board that Christian was operating under the influence during the surgery, which impaired his judgment that led to the chain of events causing the woman's death.
On the Island
At the caves, the camp has learned from Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge GarciaJorge Garcia
Jorge García is a U.S. actor and comedian. He first came to public attention with his performance as Hector Lopez on the television show Becker and later for his portrayal of Hugo "Hurley" Reyes in the television series Lost. Garcia also performs as a stand-up comedian.-Early life:García was born...
) that one survivor, Ethan Rom (William Mapother
William Mapother
William Reibert Mapother, Jr. is an American actor and former teacher, perhaps best known for his role as Ethan Rom on the television series Lost.-Personal life:...
), is not listed in the passenger manifest. Furthermore Charlie Pace
Charlie Pace
Charlie Hieronymus Pace is a fictional character on ABC's Lost, a television series chronicling the lives of plane crash survivors on a mysterious tropical island...
(Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Monaghan
Dominic Bernard Patrick Luke Monaghan is an English actor. He has received international attention from playing Merry in Peter Jackson's adaptation of J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings and for his role as Charlie Pace on the television show Lost....
) and Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton
Claire Littleton is a fictional character played by Emilie de Ravin on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the South Pacific. Claire is introduced in the pilot episode as a pregnant crash survivor. She is a series regular until her...
(Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin
Emilie de Ravin born 27 December 1981)is an Australian actress. She is commonly associated with her roles as Tess Harding on Roswell and Claire Littleton on the ABC drama Lost....
) are missing. Jack 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...
(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,...
) run through the jungle to find three distinct footprints, indicating that Ethan took Charlie and Claire. Locke decides to go back to gather a hunting party, but Jack continues alone. Locke returns with 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:...
) and Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle
Boone Carlyle is a fictional character played by Ian Somerhalder on the ABC drama television series Lost, which chronicles the lives of the survivors of a plane crash in the south Pacific. Boone is introduced in the pilot episode as the stepbrother of fellow crash survivor Shannon Rutherford...
(Ian Somerhalder
Ian Somerhalder
Ian Joseph Somerhalder is an American model, actor and producer, best known for playing Boone Carlyle in the TV drama Lost and Damon Salvatore in the TV drama The Vampire Diaries.-Early life:...
) and find Jack. After they find a knuckle bandage left by Charlie as a clue, the party find two separate trials. Locke takes Boon in one direction, while Jack and Kate take the other.
It soon turns out that Jack and Kate are following the correct trial when they find more of Charlie's knuckle bandages. When it starts raining, Jack believes he hears Claire screaming. Jack tumbles down an embankment to find Ethan, who warns Jack he will kill one of his captives if he does not stop following Ethan. A fistfight ensues, but Ethan gains the upper hand and subdues Jack. When he regains consciousness, Jack continues on, eventually finding Charlie, who has been hung
Hanging
Hanging is the lethal suspension of a person by a ligature. The Oxford English Dictionary states that hanging in this sense is "specifically to put to death by suspension by the neck", though it formerly also referred to crucifixion and death by impalement in which the body would remain...
by Ethan. Kate cuts him down, and Jack furiously performs CPR—despite Kate's pleas that he is dead. Jack does not give up and brings Charlie back to life.
Back at the caves at nightfall, Jack learns from Charlie that "they" only wanted Claire all along. In the meantime, Boone and Locke are still looking through the jungle. Boone decides to go back to the caves. As Locke throws him a flashlight
Flashlight
A flashlight is a hand-held electric-powered light source. Usually the light source is a small incandescent lightbulb or light-emitting diode...
, Boone drops it, and it lands on a metal surface embedded in the ground. Curious, the two proceed to remove the mud over it to find out what it is.
Production
"All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" was written by Javier Grillo-MarxuachJavier Grillo-Marxuach
Javier "Javi" Grillo-Marxuach , born October 28, 1969 in San Juan, Puerto Rico, is a television screenwriter and producer, known for his work as writer and producer on the first two seasons of the ABC television series Lost, as well as other series including Charmed and Law and Order: Special...
. Throughout the writing process, the episode went through several changes. The working title for the episode was "What It Takes". However the writers deemed the title "lame." In writing Jack's flashback scenes, Grillo-Marxuach drew his inspiration on his own background as the son of a doctor. Two new minor characters, named Arthur and Sullivan, were originally created to accompany Locke. The idea was later scrapped in favor of including series regular Boone Carlyle; this development would serve as a genesis for the character's upcoming death in a later episode, "Do No Harm
Do No Harm (Lost)
"Do No Harm" is the twentieth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Stephen Williams and written by Janet Tamaro. It first aired on April 6, 2005 on ABC....
". The idea behind the metal surface, which would be known as the hatch for the rest of the season, came when the producers were storyboarding the season. The hatch's discovery was to be introduced earlier into the episode, but was moved to the end to give the episode a 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...
.
With Jack and Kate's journey, in the original outline they were to come under a dart attack by the Others, the island's native inhabitants, however it was cut because executive producer Damon Lindelof
Damon Lindelof
Damon Laurence Lindelof is an American television writer and executive, most recently noted as the co-creator and executive producer for the television series Lost. He has written for and produced Crossing Jordan, and wrote for Nash Bridges, Wasteland, and the MTV anthology series Undressed...
deemed the attack too "cheezy." Grillo-Marxuach described the "hysterical CPR" as "the biggest cliché in the book," but added "the nine people who were writing for the show decided, maybe we earned that. It gave us the emotional payoff for the episode."
The fight scene between Jack and Ethan were performed by the actors themselves. The two were given the freedom to set up how their characters would fight each other. However, stunt coordinator Michael Vendrell wanted Ethan to be "as feral as possible; no school of combat, karate, kung-fu." Before filming the scene where Jack finds Charlie, 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...
scouted for a suitable location and found "what looked like a cathedral," because of the layout of trees behind where Charlie was hung. Monaghan had to be harnessed to a cable for roughly four to five hours. The actor described the scene; "they put me in the tree and I just hung there. I just hung limp. I tried to fall asleep, I tried to relax. When everything was going on, when they cut me down from the tree, when [Matthew Fox] was trying to revive me, when [Evangeline Lilly] was crying, I really didn't hear any of it. I just was in a semi-meditative state; however close that I could get with someone smacking me in the chest.
Reception
"All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" received a 6.8 in the ages 18–49 demographic in the Nielsen ratingsNielsen Ratings
Nielsen ratings are the audience measurement systems developed by Nielsen Media Research, in an effort to determine the audience size and composition of television programming in the United States...
. The episode was watched by 18.88 million viewers, the sixth largest audience in American television the week it aired. It was also an improvement of over 1.7 million over the previous episode, "Raised by Another
Raised by Another
"Raised by Another" is the tenth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode was directed by Marita Grabiak and written by Lynne E. Litt. It first aired on December 1, 2004 on ABC...
". In the United Kingdom, the episode was seen by 3.76 million viewers. It was the second highest-rated series to air on Channel 4
Channel 4
Channel 4 is a British public-service television broadcaster which began working on 2 November 1982. Although largely commercially self-funded, it is ultimately publicly owned; originally a subsidiary of the Independent Broadcasting Authority , the station is now owned and operated by the Channel...
for the week.
Critical reactions of the episode were positive. Chris Carabott of 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...
rated the episode 9 out of 10, calling it "a swift return to form" with "plenty of striking and emotional moments" that made it one of the better episodes of the first season. Carabott commented on the flashbacks; "We don't necessarily learn anything new about Jack from a personality standpoint," but Fox did "an exceptional job of conveying Jack's heartbreak as he reveals that his father operated on a woman while under the influence of alcohol." He enjoyed Jack and Ethan's encounter, calling it "chilling." Carabott also praised the scene Jack tries to save Charlie; "I remember believing that they had killed off Charlie on my initial viewing and even though I knew the outcome this time, it was still a hard scene to watch," adding "after Jack finally manages to resuscitate him, you have to feel for Charlie because you know that he's disappointed in himself for letting Claire down." Another IGN article ranked "All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues" the 33rd best Lost episode.
Todd VanDerWerff of the 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....
rated the episode the 79th of all Lost episodes (apart from the series finale
The End (Lost)
"The End" is the series finale of the ABC television series Lost, consisting of the 17th and 18th episodes of season 6. It is also the 120th and 121st episodes overall...
), described the episode as "thrilling," but that the show since "has done similar things much better." Whitney Pastorek of 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...
did not care of Jack's flashbacks, but commended the scene in which Jack saving Charlie, stating "even though I knew he was going to go back to the CPR and save Charlie's life, I started crying. This is how you identify good TV: When you know what's going to happen and you still get swept up in it all."