Lost ~ What Kate Does

This week Lost returned to its character-centric episode format, with the twist of offering flash-sideways instead of flash-backs or flash-forwards. I’ve seen a lot of complaints out in the internet world today that this episode was filler, and that they wanted more action. Here is Damon Lindelof’s response:

It was certainly slower paced, but had some awesome little nuggets. Personally, after an action packed premiere, I’m okay with slowing things down a bit. I have enough faith in Damon and Carlton to just hang on and go along with the ride.

Here is a quick recap of the action.

In the Sideways-verse:

Kate has hijacked Claire’s taxi and the driver is reluctantly speeding away from the airport, with a slight delay from Arzt.

“I’m walking here!”

At the first convenient red light the taxi driver makes a run for it, leaving Kate to drive the taxi. Shortly thereafter she ditches Claire on the curb and commandeers her purse and luggage. After bribing a mechanic to get the handcuffs off her, Kate opens up Claire’s luggage to find baby stuff, and her conscience (or haunting feeling of deja vous?) leads her to go back and pick up Claire. She gives Claire a ride to the home of the couple who are going to adopt her baby, but things don’t go so awesome. It turns out the woman’s husband left her and she can’t take the baby anymore. Really? You don’t call the pregnant Australian girl and tell her to save herself a trip? Classy. The stress triggers Claire’s contractions (much like the plane crash did in the Pilot), so Kate rushes her to the hospital. She needs a Doctor, STAT:

Oh HEY Ethan! He tells her that she can have the baby now, or he can stop the contractions. Machines start beeping like crazy and while Claire freaks out she says the name “Aaron”, which just came to her out of nowhere. The machines quiet down and baby Aaron is okay. When the police some asking after Kate by the alias Joan Hart (lol, Melissa Joan Hart?), Claire says she was just the cab driver and that she left after she brought her to the hospital. After the police leave Claire gives Kate her credit card as a thank you.

At the Temple:

Lennon and crew drag newly healed zombie Sayid off to Dogen to be tested with electrodes on his nipples and ash. Nothing happened, which they tell him a good thing. Apparently, not so much. They later tell Jack that Sayid failed the test and needs to take a pill which will stop the infection. But they won’t tell Jack what is in the pill or what this infection is. Sayid says he trusts Jack and he’ll take the pill if Jack thinks he should. The problem is, Jack doesn’t even trust himself these days. So he goes back to Dogen, asks for answers, and stupidly swallows the pill – which is poison, according to Dogen. Now I’m a little fuzzy here – did Dogen successfully sucker-punch the pill out of Jack, or did Jack succeed in swallowing it, hence the special tea treatment? Methinks the former. Dogen then reveals that Sayid has been “claimed.”

''There is darkness growing in him. Once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone.'' ~ Dogen

Dogen says that the same thing happened to Jack’s sister. We’ll get to her in a little bit.

The Runways:

Sawyer decides to skip out of temple-town, and of course Kate needs to follow. She tells Jack and folks that she will be able to convince him to return (which she has absolutely no intention of doing). Kate and Jin head off with two of the Others, Aldo (who we last saw getting knocked out by Sawyer and Kate outside Room 23 in season 3) and Justin (who got shushed a lot by Aldo). They stumble upon a trap which looks very much like one of Rousseau’s, but she’s been dead for years (as Justin tries to say). Kate springs the trap and knocks out her Other guards to head off after Sawyer.

She finds Sawyer at New Otherton, ripping up the floor boards of his and Juliet’s house to pull out a shoe box. He tells her that he was going to propose to Juliet, and that it was his fault that she died because she could have left of that submarine their first night in the ‘70s, but he begged her not to go. He throws the ring into the ocean and breaks our heart. Kate cries a lot, because she totally doesn’t have a chance with Sawyer (?), or because she has some other issues going on – but we don’t really care because our Suliet hearts are busy breaking all over again.

Back with Jin, the Others are plenty pissed and Aldo plans on killing Jin (even though Justin says they shouldn’t because he is one of “them”), and Jin gets his foot caught in a bear trap (!) just before someone fires shots that take out the Others.

Hey crazy island Claire! You’re looking mighty Rousseau-ish there!

Sidenotes and Questions:

• The stuffed orca in Claire’s bag is exactly the same as the one Aaron had off island when he was living off island with Kate and Jack.

• What exactly is the “infection”? How is it related to “the sickness” suffered by Rousseau’s people? Is Claire actually Claire, or is she Christian-like manifestation of Smokey? She looked much more Rousseau-ish – not as polished and smooth as we always saw Christian. Did she actually die in season 4, like many believed?
• According to Dogen, he was brought to the island just like everyone else.

• The Others are really concerned with keeping Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Hurley, Jin, Miles, and Sayid (maybe) safe. What exactly did Jacob’s note say?