What Kate Does is Annoy and Bore Me

I’ve been blogging about Lost since Season Two, and I’ve waited for five long seasons to use that as a title.

It’s fitting though, that here in Lost’s last season, in what’s hopefully the very last Kate-centric episode, that I would be frustrated with an episode centering around my least favorite Island castaway.  Kate seemingly has nothing to do with the larger Island mythology.  I can see no discernible reason why two otherwise likable characters would dispel all rational behavior in favor of acting like a bunch of idiots while fawning over her.  And most importantly, she’s not that interesting.

So in the third episode of Lost’s final season, we wasted an episode on Kate.  But we did get one big question answered:

This week’s episode, What Kate Does spent most of its time with the castaways at the Temple.  Dogen (referred to last week as Samurai Other) tortured the recently revived Sayid, to determine whether he had the sickness.  Jack was tasked with getting Sayid to take a pill which was, in the end, poison.  Jack took the pill instead, got beat up by Dogen and found out the nature of the sickness- a darkness claims those infected, one example is Jack’s sister, Claire.  Meanwhile, also on the Island, Kate and Jin went in search of Sawyer aided by Aldo (remember him?) and an other Other.  Aldo and oO were on the verge of giving a few answers of their own, but were stopped multiple times.  Kate tracked down Sawyer, who revealed his intentions to marry Juliet and his guilt over getting her to stay on the Island because he didn’t want to be alone.  Back in the jungle, Jin was rescued from Aldo and oO by no one other than Claire, back in action after a year-long hiatus.

Off-island, in the “sideways flash,” Kate commandeered Claire’s taxi.  After nearly running over Arzt, the cab driver ran off and Kate ditched Claire. (An aside: as the husband of a pregnant woman, this action gave me even more reason to despise Kate).  Kate got a shady mechanic to remove her cuffs, went back for Claire and took her to find the “nice couple” who was to adopt her baby.

But it turns out the “nice couple” wasn’t a couple, nor were they nice.  Claire went into labor, Kate took her to the hospital, where her attending OB was none other than Ethan Goodspeed (nee Rom).  Dr. Creepy calmed Claire down to the point where it looks like she may keep the baby.  Very Thelma and Louise, but not many answers.

Anyway, it looks like these sideways flashes are going somewhere.  Whether it’s a parallel universe, an alternate universe or a universe that will somehow crash with the one we know and love, this should all make sense in the end.  But I still hate the fact that the Island is underwater.

From the few hints in this episode as to what’s going on in this reality, Kate says she’s innocent, where in the original Lost reality, she never shied away from admitting she killed Wayne.  Also, Ethan’s still has the name of his parents, having (supposedly) never become an Other.  But he’s still a doctor here.  And Claire is once again his patient.  And he’s still real creepy.

Despite the fact that this was a Kate episode (and those are slightly higher in my esteem than that episode where Jack got the tatoo), this was a decent episode, made so by the fact that this Dogen guy is growing on me and there’s the promise of even more non-“this is a baseball” style answers in the future.

Some other thoughts:

-I like the mythology and the characters of the show over the relationships.  That being said, I really liked the relationship between Juliet and Sawyer (and I’m also a fan of Desmond and Penny).  I’m not sure where Sawyer’s character is going (although I have an idea from the previews), but all the advancement he took over the last three years (show time) is pretty much out the window.  The one other thing I’m hoping is his pining over Juliet will put to rest the Jack-Kate-Sawyer triangle once and for all.

-I wonder what Jack thought he could have done for Sayid after his revival.  Yes, Jack’s a trained doctor.  But I don’t think he’s ever had a patient come back from the dead before.  Kind of along the same lines: last season, there was an evolution to his character, where he was more accepting of the magic of the Island.  But tonight, it seemed like he was back to his old man of science self.  I’ve said it before, and I’m sure I’ll say it again, but with all that he’s seen on the Island, you would think he’d be able to take a leap of faith once in a while or so.

-I really thought Aldo was dead (but I’m pretty sure he is now).  How in the world did he of all people get promoted to Temple Other status?  You’d think that once Ben heard he fell for the old Wookie Prisoner Gag, that Aldo would be stuck on Polar Bear cleanup duty, not moved to the cushy temple.  I just wished in his few scenes that they would have let each other finish their explanations.

-Sayid’s “they didn’t ask me any questions” reminded me of Han Solo in the Empire Strikes Back.

-When Dogen asked Jack how Sayid was shot, why didn’t Jack say “he was shot a few hours ago in 1977 by the drunken father of the boy who was, up until three years ago, your leader”?  I’m sure Dogen would have understood.

-What was Dogen doing with the typewriter? Writing a letter to the Coconut Telegraph?

-Where did Claire find the bear traps?