Usually, when Lost throws a Kate episode out there, I get very bitter afterwards, wishing the episode had focused on someone more integral to the show’s overall mythology.
Don’t get me wrong, I still think there are plenty of other characters on the island (everyone but Sun) who has a more interesting story and who is more integral to the Lost saga. But at least tonight, after Whatever Happened, Happened, I’m not bitter. For a Kate episode, it was not that bad.
There are a few reasons for this; The continued self-assertion of Sawyer as leader of the survivors. DHARMA. The continued downward spiral of Jack into the biggest idiot on the island. The Others. But most of all, the two conversations between Hurley and Miles discussing time travel and whether they’re living in their own future or their past. (And by the way, Miles is right, he just doesn’t know why. I think)
Lost has a great ability to throw together two characters of seemingly different viewpoints and have them be the most interesting thing on the show. It’s happened before with Locke and Eko, with Locke and Ben, Ben any Sayid, Sawyer and Hurley, etc. Tonight, Miles joined that inner circle, by having a conversation with Hurley that I’m sure most of the Lost fanbase has had at some point since this time travel stuff started happening.
It wasn’t only the witty banter between Hugo and Miles that made these scenes stand out, but the body language that made me feel like the conversation was real and I was right there.
And leave it to Hurley to throw out the reference to Back to the Future to tie Lost’s time travel rules to something that thanks to popular culture, everyone can understand (or at least pretend to understand).
And I would be remiss if I didn’t mention Hurley already has a tie to the BTTF trilogy.
It figures though, as the roundtable gets down to work discussing the things on the island that really matter, that former leader Jack would back out of the convo for a shower.
Even though earlier I mentioned that Jack was the biggest idiot on the island, I think he’s beginning to realize his place. He doesn’t have all the answers. He doesn’t have a ‘leadership’ role anymore. He has to wait for his destiny. And while he slipped up in the beginning (wanting to take charge when everyone else in DHARMA was trying to put out fires), he soon realized his place was just to go with the flow. Although, that didn’t stop him from pulling an Ivan Drago (“If he dies, he dies”) when offered to the opportunity to save Ben.
By now we know that DHARMA and the survivors won’t be the ones to save Ben. Rather it’ll be the Others (and Richard not caring what Ellie or Charles wants, because they’re not the boss of him) who save Ben. From Sayid’s attempt at murdering Ben to Jack’s decision not to save him to Sawyer, Juliet and Kate’s choice to bring him to the Others, we now know who is responsible for turning Ben into Ben, and it is those who bore the brunt of his actions in their past. Kind of a reverse revenge.
And then we have Ben waking up from his ‘injuries’ at the end of the episode. I’m going to throw out a crazy idea here–even though they’re separated by 30 years, both the ‘current day’ Ajira 316 survivors in 2008 and all the lostaways who went back to 1977 are living in some kind of parallel time. That’s why Ben was out cold and seemed to wake up after Richard let the island do its work. While it happened in the past- for some reason, the wavelength of the action committed back then hit him now, because in a way, they’re all still in the same time.
But I’m probably wrong.
Another thing I’m probably wrong about now–a few weeks ago, I said I thought Ben knew that Locke would come back to life on the island. Well, judging by the ‘oops I just crapped my pants’ look on Ben’s face when he woke up to Locke, I don’t think that’s what Ben was expecting to see.
But I still think he’s a good guy. Even if his innocence was taken by Richard Alpert (not in that way!).
Two other things-
-Are we done with the whole Aaron/Claire’s mom bit yet?
-I thought Cassidy lived in New Mexico. How did Kate get there a) within the time window she had from Los Angeles and b) without validating the terms of her plea agreement?
What did you think?
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