What Kate Does

At the heart of Lost has always been a focus on cause and effect, actions and their consequences. Each of the Losties made a series of choices that led them to the island. To a man, they are deeply flawed individuals. Most are self-inflicted, like Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Some seem to be on the bad side of fate, like Locke and his loser of a daddy or Rose and her cancer. But they are all people with scars.

In this episode, we spend time both on the island and off, following two very different paths. But as so often happens, all roads lead to the same place and we see the same people irresistibly drawn together in the alternate timeline. Cause and effect.

The Island

The show opens with Spectacles shuffling down the hallway, paranoid and harried. He rushes into a room and says with great import: He's ALIVE.

Who else could he be talking about, but Sayid, who is back from the dead after a not-so-refreshing dip in the temple spring. Now Sayid may be back, but he is more confused by what's going on than the rest of us. Hurley explains in his usually succinct way, we been captured by the Others...again.

But the Others aren't through with Sayid. Not by a long shot. They ask him to come with them, they have a few questions for him. Jack, who just can't let anything happen without sticking that nose in, says no. A scuffle ensues and a shot rings out. Everyone freezes and we see Sawyer. "I don't care what you do with any of these guys, but I'm leaving," he says. Dogen (formerly known as Mr. Miyagi) tells him he has to stay (implying that our Losties must stay together?), to which Sawyer says, "No, I don't" and sets off into the jungle.

After he leaves, Kate offers to track him down and bring him back. As she and Jin are getting their stuff together, Jack and Kate have a moment as she is turning to go where he grabs her arm and looks down into her eyes and tells her to be careful. I thought he was going to kiss her. Wanted him to. But no. Will these two star-crossed lovers get back together? I know there is a strong anti-Jack and Kate sentiment, but I always liked the two of them together.

Remember when I said the Others weren't done with Sayid, well, here's where that gets ugly. It seems that "just a few questions" actually means "shoot electricity through your body" and "stick a red hot poker on your chest."

When Jack sees Sayid's condition, he storms in to see Dogen, where he demands to know what they did to Sayid. Dogen tells him, through Spectacles, that they were testing him and that the tests proved that he was "infected." Dogen tells Jack that he must get Sayid to take a pill he has just finished making. Doing so will give Jack a chance to redeem himself for all of the people who were hurt or killed trying to help him. Action/consequence at play.

When Jack walks back into the spring room, Miles and Hurley are quizzing Sayid about the afterlife: was there a white light, angels singing, dead relatives, are you a zombie? (Oh, how I love Miles and Hurley!) Jack asks them to leave, which they do, but not without protest, and then tells Sayid that he is supposed to get him to take the pill. Sayid says, "I don't know anything but who I trust, and if you want me to take that pill, I will."

Jack walks back into Dogen's room. He asks who he is. Dogen says he was "brought" to the island just like everyone else. Dogen asks about the pill and Jack says he didn't give it to him because he didn't know what was in it. You just have to trust me, Dogen says. "Trust?" Jack says, "Let's see where trust gets us" and tosses the pill into his mouth. Dogen dives for him, punching him in the stomach and doing a little Heimlich action, finally getting Jack to marf up the pill. "What was in that?" Jack rasps. The answer: Poison.

Meanwhile, Kate and Jin have been having quite the rumble in the jungle. After escaping from Aldo and Justin, the Others sent to keep an eye on them, Jin turns back for the temple and Kate continues on after Sawyer. She finds him in his old cabin in the other Other compound as he is tearing up floorboards in search of a box. A box which contains a small, black, velvet bag.

Kate and Sawyer sit on a dock, looking out over the water. Kate tries to apologize, to take the blame for Juliet's death, but Sawyer stops her. "It was my fault," he says, "We sat in this very spot and I talked her into staying because I didn't want to be alone. But I guess some of us are just meant to be alone." He pulls out an engagement ring and says, "I was going to ask her to marry me." And with that he stands up and throws it out into the water. As he walks away, he tells Kate that she can probably make it back to the temple by nightfall. Were you crying here. I was. Each of the three times I watched this episode.

Back in the temple, Dogen and Jack sit at a table sharing a cup of tea. Jack asks why they want to kill Sayid. "Because he has been claimed. There is a darkness growing within him and once it reaches his heart, everything that was once your friend will be gone." "How can you be sure?" Jack asks. "Because it happened to your sister." Dunh, dunh, dunh.

In the jungle, Jin is leaning over a stream to refill his canteen when he is attacked by Aldo and Justin. As he attempts to escape, his foot gets caught in a bear (um, hello, BEAR?!) trap. Just as things look terribly dire for our dear Jin, Aldo is thrown back by three shots to the chest. A moment later more shots ring out and Justin goes down, too. Wondering who his savior could be, Jin looks in the direction of the gunfire and sees crazy hair CLAIRE.

Alterna-Lost

At the airport, Kate brushes past Hurley and jumps into a cab with a customer…Claire! She orders the cabbie to go and he floors it, almost hitting poor Arzt, whose luggage is strewn all over the place just like, well... Poor Arzt.

From the back seat, Kate scans the crowd looking for Marshall Edward. She sees Jack standing on the sidewalk talking on the phone and makes a face. Like so many other situations in this alternate timeline, she seems to recognize him.

Once away from the airport, the cabbie takes off and a frazzled Kate dumps a sobbing Claire on the side of the road. Kate careens into a dingy garage. After a brief showdown at gunpoint, a mechanic, who clearly is no stranger to "bracelets," helps Kate extricate herself from them. For the bargain price of $200. He laughs ironically when she asks for a spot to change her clothes.

In the bathroom, she goes through Claire’s bag, no doubt looking for something to change into. No luck, it's a diaper bag. Underneath a picture of a very pregnant Claire, the bag is full of baby stuff.

Kate gets back on the road and finds Claire sitting at a bus stop. She offers her a ride to the home of the couple that are adopting her baby. As they approach the house, Claire asks Kate to come in with her. When they knock, a teary-eyed woman comes to the door. Clair identifies herself and Mrs. Baskim (the adoptive mommy-not-to-be) tells her that her husband (Who might this fellow be, pray tell? Methinks he might be someone we know!) just left her and that she wouldn’t be any good for the baby now. Kate says “this girl came all the way from Australia and you couldn’t call?” Claire starts screaming and says “ITS COMING!!”













At the hospital, Claire lies in a bed while Kate charges out in to the corridor looking for a doctor. Of the several that seem to be standing around, she steers toward one. As he turns around, we see it is ETHAN! Aka Dr. Goodspeed. Is it just me or does he make you feel just a teensy bit uneasy about the quality of health care he is going to provide?

Ethan comes into the room and says that all signs point to her having a baby tout de suite. But Claire says she isn’t ready and just as Ethan orders a something-something medicine drip, the baby’s heart monitor flatlines. Ethan calls for an ultrasound saying that it is possible the baby just moved out of position, but Claire is freaking out, screaming “is Aaron okay??!!” (Aaron??) Ethan uses the ultrasound wand and shows that the baby is fine and says that Aaron (Again, Aaron??) is going to be a handful.

Claire is laying in the hospital bed looking at the sonogram picture (dated 10/22/04?) when two cops walk in asking for Joan Hart. Claire said she was just the cab driver and she had already left. The cops leave and Kate comes out of a storage room. Claire asks why they’re after her and Kate says "would you believe me if I said I was innocent?" “Yeah” Claire says.

When Kate compliments the name Aaron, Claire says "I don’t know why I said that, it was like I knew it." Kate tells her she should keep him and they wish each other luck.

They're all going to need it. Whew.

Okay, Sussers, what thought you of this ep?