I’m going to jump in first with a couple observations that have little to do with what happens in this episode, to give the people reading this on Google Reader or Bloglines (is that still around?) or whatever the chance to click away (click away! click away now!) if they don’t want to find out what happened on Lost last night.
First: This episode’s title is an obvious callback to the Season 2 episode called “What Kate Did,” in which we find out that all the fuss over her is because she caused a house to explode with her biological father in it.
Second: It occurred to me while watching the previouslies that we’re dealing with a Locke Trinity of sorts — the dead Locke, the Locke in the alternate 2004, and the Locke who isn’t really Locke. There’s no real correlation to the Holy Trinity, and I don’t think this means anything — just something I realized. Lotta Lockes out there right now.
OK.
My initial reaction to this episode is not a positive one. I didn’t hate it, but I didn’t love it, and until I started writing this I didn’t much care for most of it. (Now I’m at a place of peace with it. It’s fine.) Entirely possible that it’s because it’s a Kate-centric episode and I find Kate exasperatingly annoying and selfish, but I was also thoroughly confused by all the Temple stuff, and confused in a bad way (unlike other Lost episodes which have left me thoroughly confused in a fun way, like most of Season 5).
So let’s tackle that first. Dogan determines that Sayid is “infected” (and btw am I the only one who looked at the torturey contraption he was using and immediately thought, “NOT TO FIFTY!”), that he has been “claimed,” and that there is a “darkness growing within him,” and if it reaches his heart then the person they know as Sayid will be gone. And THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED TO CLAIRE. That makes sense, I guess. Because I knew Claire died in that house explosion (First, no way could anyone survive that. Second, remember how Miles was so intent on watching her before she disappears). And it was pretty cool to see Claire return at the end of the episode as a sort of Nouveau Rousseau (heh). Couple questions:
1. This is The Sickness, right?
2. Did this also happen to Jack’s father? Or does it only happen to people who die on the island? Because I keep going back to Christian and Claire in Jacob’s cabin. Considering that they were guiding Locke on his path to leave and return to the island, I would imagine that they were manifestations of Smokey. But I’m still not clear on whether Smokey can possess actual bodies or if he can only assume their form. (And if he can possess them, then why not use Locke’s body? Because Locke didn’t die on the island? But then where was Christian’s body? Brain ow.) I feel sure that The Sickness is connected to Smokey, but I’m not sure how yet.
I’m not concerned with how Dogan knows that Claire is Jack’s sister — these people know everything.
So Dogan makes a poison pill for Sayid, because there’s no cure for the sickness other than death (my guess). I’ve been thinking for some time now that Sayid has to die this season, and Sawyer sums up via sarcasm precisely why at the beginning of the episode: “‘Course he’s fine. He’s an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids. He definitely deserves another go around.” Sayid’s killed so many people, not even in the service of the army, that there’s no way the island is going to support his being there. He has to answer for what he did.
One more thing: Sayid didn’t seem to have forgotten anything that happened to him prior to getting “saved.” Maybe that’s how they knew he was infected, by setting up a scenario — torture — that would’ve been instantly familiar to the old Sayid. And he responded exactly as he would have: I don’t know anything, I’ll answer any questions you have. It wasn’t that the hot poker or the electric shocks were testing anything. Good god, those Others are hardcore.
On to the Bizarro-2004 World:
Hey look, it’s Ethan! Good old Ethan . . . Goodspeed? Oh, right! Ethan is Horace’s son. And he’s off island in this 2004 because he and his mother were evacuated before the bomb went off. He’s not an Other because he didn’t have to choose between DHARMA and the Others before the purge (I assume in the original timeline that Ethan either lied when he said his last name was Rom or that he adopted this name post-purge to perhaps distance himself from what happened to his father. OR it’s a continuity error, but a pretty obvious one, so I don’t think it’s that). This I liked. I also liked how Ethan and Claire’s interaction bears traces of their Island interaction: “I don’t want to stick you with needles if I don’t have to.” Awesome.
But OK, KATE. First, how could she NOT NOTICE that Claire is HUGELY PREGNANT? And really, she was awful in the first half of this episode. I realize that it was her own fear of getting caught that made her so vicious, but it was really hard to watch. But then I have to say that going back to Claire after realizing that she’d just mugged and abandoned a pregnant woman is consistent with the Kate we’ve gotten to know over the last five seasons. BUT: Is it consistent with the Kate that would’ve existed had the plane never crashed? Or did Kate go back to Claire because there’s a little part of Island Kate still there in her? (You all noted that moment when Kate and Jack see each other at the airport and there’s that “do I know you?” look in Kate’s eyes, which could be again some sort of Island thing or it could be that she’s remembering bumping into him outside the airplane lavatory. Which leads me to ask, how many times has Occam’s Razor NOT worked for this show?)
(Kate going back for Claire also reminds me of the way Ben was unable to kill Danielle or Penny after seeing they were both mothers. )
And Kate and Claire together in the hospital nicely paralleled Season 1, when Kate helps Claire deliver Aaron. Also, the moment Aaron’s heartbeat disappears from the monitor calls back to the plan crash aftermath when Claire can no longer feel the baby kicking. And in both timelines, the name Aaron just comes to Claire. As I said last week, I sort of like these eye winks but they’re also sort of a little too Richard Bachian for me. Still, in terms of the Main Island Dichotomy, some things maybe are fated.
Other random thoughts:
1. Josh Holloway was spectacular.
2. The mechanic who helped Kate out of her handcuffs: was that psycho vampire Kralik from BtVS? Looked like him.
3. Arzt was so annoying.
4. “Are you a zombie?” “No. I am not a zombie.” — Naveen Andrews’ delivery of that line was the best moment of the episode.
5. Actually, my most pressing question right now is why so many of the Others are such assholes.
What did I miss?
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