Lost Season 6: What Kate Does (Episode 3)

A Kate-centric episode, huh? I’m pretty sure that I have well-established my disdain for all things Kate. However, it’s essentially the second episode of our final season. I could hardly turn on my TIVO without a few heart palpitations. Of course, when my TIVO suddenly decided to NOT record Lost there were more than heart palpitations! I ended up waking up at 6am to see if abc.com or iTunes had the episode up yet. They did and as my  kids watched Sesame Street, I got my Lost fix. So, let’s see if we can chat coherently about this week’s episode—even if I did only see it a few hours ago.

Let’s get the worst over with. We’ll begin with…

Present Day LA {You do know when I say “present day” I mean, Lost’s present day…which is the year 2004}

Kate has just whacked her US Marshall to the curb and jumped in a taxi with Claire (who by the way, IS preggo). She commandeers the taxi and demands that the driver go with no regard for traffic signals or Artz. Eventually the driver hops out and then Kate kicks Claire out without her suitcase.

Kate holds a random mechanic up at gunpoint (he finds this bemusing) and he helps her get rid of the handcuffs. Then she uses his restroom to change clothes—from Claire’s suitcase. Which just happens to be full of baby clothes AND a stuffed shamu doll. Kate gets all sentimental and decides to GO FIND CLAIRE AND RETURN HER SUITCASE. As if all of LA wouldn’t be looking for that taxi cab. But what-ever.

Kate finds Claire sitting on a bench waiting for a bus. (I guess Kate found Claire because she’s so good at tracking. Ahem.) She talks her into letting her drive to the adoptive parents’ house. Yeah, because THAT is probable. “Sure, random woman who just hi-jacked my cab AND pushed me out of the car, please drive me around LA!” It gets even worse because when they arrive at Aaron’s new parents’ house guess who Claire asks to go inside with her? Well, it ain’t Charlie. So, the two remarkably beautiful girls walk up to the house and a blond comes to the door totally surprised by Claire’s appearance. She begins to cry and confesses that her husband left her.

This freaks Claire out so much that SHE GOES INTO LABOR.

Who didn’t see THAT coming?

And who takes Claire to the hospital?

Nope. Not the adoptive mama. It’s Kate. In her stolen taxi.

They get to the hospital and who does Kate approach in the hallway to help her new bff? Oh, look! It’s ETHAN, the crazy insane OTHER doctor who did all sorts of tests on preggo Claire. And the man Charlie KILLED. Lovely.

I really thought I was going to get upset if Aaron was born that day to a trio of Claire, Ethan and Kate. But Claire (with the help of Dr. Ethan) decided to have a few shots that would calm down her labor. Claire also sticks up for the hiding Kate when the police arrive (FINALLY), then offers Kate her credit card (which SHE TAKES) and that is our very horrible and yucky real-time-totally-happening-parallel-universe.

The ONLY slightly good thing that MAY come out of that scenario is Claire may keep Aaron. At least Kate won’t get him.

(Are you sensing any Kate angst here?)

Now, onto the REAL story…

THE ISLAND

So, Sayid is alive. Yeah, yeah. Big surprise. Well, it is to Dogen. Lennon (is that really his name?) runs into tell him that Sayid is alive and what does Dogen do? Well, demand that Sayid be tortured, of course! Jack and Hurley try to fight this but obviously a gigantic man and a ripped up doctor are no match for The Others. Sayid is tortured with a crazy electric device and a blazing hot poker from the fire.

The interesting thing is that Dogen asked him no questions. In fact, I don’t think he uttered a word. When he began the torturing, he blew a dust over Sayid. I thought it might be some kind of “see-the-aura-of-a-person” smoke. I was thinking Dogen thought what I thought—Sayid is no longer Sayid. He is more Jacob-y. Apparently, I was wrong.

After a few (tiny and very uninformative) conversations Dogen tells Jack that they were testing Sayid. And the test shows that Sayid is in fact “claimed” or “infected”. Dogen wants Jack to give Sayid a pill he created. He claims if Jack convinces Sayid to take it, the infection will stop. Cap’n Jack isn’t sure what to do. He takes the pill to Sayid and they chat about trust…trusting each other, the Others and themselves. Finally Jack approaches Dogen (again) and demands to know what’s inside the pill. Dogen will not budge. So, Jack pops the pill himself. And Dogen does a kung-fu-Heimlich maneuver on him. The pill is dislodged and Jack has won.

Dogen tells him the pill was poison. He tells Jack that the “darkness” will change Sayid so much that any Sayid-ness left inside him will be overtaken.

Jack: How do you know this?
Dogen: It happened to YOUR SISTER.
Jack: {stunned silence because HE DOESN’T KNOW HE HAS A SISTER! Uhm. Yes. He does. Twitter just informed me that I am a moron. For some reason I was thinking KATE is the only one that knew…}

Meanwhile…

Kate and Sawyer stand on the outskirts watching Sayid’s resurrection. Kate wonders how this could have possibly happened.  (REALLY? She’s been on AND off the Island this long and wonders how this could have happened?!!!) Sawyer is his usual cheery self and says, “Well, he’s an Iraqi torturer–he kills kids. Of course he deserves a second chance.” Poor guy.

This happy conversation leads Sawyer to snagging a gun and escaping from the temple. The Others freak out because for whatever reason, they NEED Sawyer (or they NEED to protect him). Kate volunteers to track him (oh, dear god, her tracking skills! what a woman!). Two Others go with her and Jin tags along, too.

While they are off in the jungle, Random Other #1 (oh, his name is Aldo) gets mad at Kate because she hit him in the head 3 years ago (waaah!). To which she responds with another knock to the head. She knocks out both guys and leaves Jin to fend for himself. Jin asked her to help him find Sun. She refuses and shows her all-i-care-about-is-myself colors.

She arrives at (any guesses?) the Dharma barracks (I coulda tracked Sawyer there!) and walks right into Sawyer and Juliet’s house. Here, our my hero, Sawyer is pulling boards up out of the bedroom floor. He pulls out a dusty box and tenderly fingers a piece of fabric inside. Just then he hears a noise and sees Kate.

He isn’t happy to see her and storms past her to the dock. She approaches him and asks him to help find Claire. He totally ignores her and tells her that he blames himself for Juliet’s death. He says he was going to propose to Juliet. He is holding a ring. Then throws it into the ocean. And I sobbed.

He dismisses Kate and walks away. She begins to cry. For Juliet? For Sawyer? For Kawyer? For Claire? Aaron? I don’t know.

Then we see Jin running through the jungle. He is found by Aldo and Random Other #2 (aka Dumb & Dumber). As Jin runs, he is caught by a (polar) bear trap. Just when D&D are closing in, they are shot in the chest. I knew it wasn’t Kate and was pleasantly suprrised to look up and see a gun-totin’, very dishevleed, crazy, Rousseau-lookin’ CLAIRE staring back at Jin.

BLACK SCREEN O’LOST

Stuff To Talk About

1. So, Claire is the new Rousseau. I should have known when Random Other #2 said Rousseau had been dead for years. Random Other #1 knew the trap was Claire’s. He just didn’t want our Losties to know. I wonder if Claire is only PARTLY taken by the darkness and is only PARTLY crazy like Rousseau? Or is she all crazy like Rousseau’s boyfriend?

2. If Claire was infected with darkenss and Sayid was DEAD and then infected with darkness, it stands to reason that CHRISITAN could be alive. Albeit dark.

3. Jack. SLIGHTLY less King-of-The-Island-ish. Still not my favorite man. But he is at least continuing down his new man-of-faith path.

4. Sawyer. *sob*

5. Did you notice I don’t really have much to say about Kate, despite this being HER episode? I just felt like there wasn’t much character development for her. Just a little series of events that show how her life would/is/might be on two different planes. (Doc Jensen from ew.com has a completely different take on Kate. His recap is amazing!)

Conclusion
So, for all it’s Kate-ness, there was still a lot of other character development: Jack’s “humility”, Claire’s craziness, Sayid’s darkness and Sawyer’s brokenness. Of course, I had high expectations for this episode and I’m slightly disapointed that they didn’t deliver more to us. Again, I just can’t believe this is the last season—I feel like every episode should be laced with Aha! moments. Instead, I feel like I’m in Season 2 all over again.

It’s the flash-sideways that I don’t totally understand. I see lots of little nods to The Island. As if the Losties are living in a perpetual state of deja-vu. But I don’t know if the writers are doing that to show us something or just to be nice. It’s like watching a Pixar movie and looking for the red ball and the YO truck. I just hope these Island-moments are more than a cameo. I MUST get resolution on this parallel-reality that is LA.

What did you think?

Tweet me this week @oohamanda and check out my daily blog, ohamanda.com