What Kate Does

Is it just me or are Kate centric episodes almost always boring as hell? All she ever does is go after people who explicitly tell her not to go after them. At the close of this one I thought it was a rather dull episode but after I had some time to think about it I realized that there were some pretty serious implications from what we learned turning a relatively mundane episode to a fairly interesting one. Want to know more? Read on!


Non-Crash Time – Kate Does A Bunch of Boring Shit
When we last left Kate he was hijacking a cab with a pregnant Claire in it. For some reason she’s serious about keeping the preggo as a hostage but not so much for the fat cabbie. He doesn’t so much run away as he waddles hypnotically to freedom. That leaves us with Kate and Claire until Kate tosses Claire out and refuses to give her her luggage. What a bitch!

Jump to Kate pulling into a random auto shop where she meets a friendly mechanic who cuts off her handcuffs no questions asked. Now are all auto mechanics so anti-law that they’ll practically trip over their own feet to help a wanted fugitive or is Kate’s gun able to shoot magic friendliness bullets that rather than terribly wound her target instead convert them into Kate’s best buddy for life? Kate has a change of heart when she tries to get some new clothes from Claire’s bag - it’s full of baby stuff. Realizing she can’t fit into any of those maternity moo-moo’s Claire brought from the outback Kate decides to give the stuff back. Proving she can track people in a city just as well as she can in the jungle Kate finds Claire on the side of the road waiting for the bus. Showing that she’ll be like the best mother ever Claire willingly accepts a ride from a wanted fugitive who a little over an hour ago stole her luggage and left her in the middle of a LA ghetto.

So Kate takes Claire to the soon to be adoptive parents of her baby only to find that the woman’s husband has left her and she totally doesn’t want the kid anymore. Was she so devastated that she couldn’t even, you know, call the pregnant lady whose baby you were going to take BEFORE she boards a plane from Australia? All the crying ladies around makes Aaron want to bail on this pity party and he pulls the ejection seat cord and next think you know Claire is about have her baby with the help of her new best friend Kate. That magic gun sure works wonders Kate!

Back in a hospital you’d assume they’d run into Jack cause that’s just how LOST works but he’s a spinal surgeon not Cliff Huxtable so Claire’s doctor turns out to be none other than….Ethan Goodspeed. Yes Horace’s adopted son is off Island and working as an OBGYN; similar to what he was doing on Island. Is he still an Other? Do the Others even exist in this alternate timeline since their Island is underwater? One thing we do know is that baby Ethan survived whatever caused the Island to sink under the ocean. He sticks Claire with a couple needles and Aaron decides the womb isn’t that bad of a place after all. As Claire sits recovering from her near labor she covers for Kate with the cops and gives her her credit card. You’re going to be the best mother ever Claire!

Island Time – Kate Doesn’t Listen
So Sawyer bails on the whole Temple crew and tells Kate not to go after him. Immediately Kate goes after him with Jin, a new Other named Justin, and my favorite Other/Philadelphia bar owner Aldo. You may remember Aldo from season 3 when he fell for the old Wookie Prisoner Gag. You may also know Aldo from his off Island alter ego Mac, co-owner of Paddy’s Pub! Aldo immediately starts channeling his inner Mac and gets up in Kate’s face. Before he can bust out his sweet karate moves Kate has him unconscious and she’s off after Sawyer. Better luck next time Nightman.

Kate finds Sawyer weeping like a little girl in Otherville. We find out that Sawyer was going to propose to Juliet and then both him and Kate take turns apologizing for killing her. One limp wristed toss later Kate’s leaving Otherville, a lobster has a sweet engagement ring, and Sawyer’s holed up in a cabin eating Hagen Daz, watching Jennifer Aniston movies, and weeping quietly to himself.

Jin catches up with Kate in the jungle and so does Aldo and Justin. “What’s up bitches” Aldo implores just before taking two caps to the chest. Justin takes a hit too and we look up to find the shooter is none other than Claire back from her 5th season hiatus and looking very, very crazy. I’m talking Rousseau crazy and that aint the good kind of crazy.

Island Time – Indiana Jack and the Temple of Gettin’ His Ass Beat
Finally all that boring Kate business is past us and we can get to the meat of the episode! Sayid is alive and confused. His confusion grows even greater when Asianpants McGoo starts randomly torturing him. Turns out he’s testing him for infection. And Sayid’s got it bad. Aint no cow bell going to cure that fever.
Jack and Asianpants McGoo have a little pow wow and Jack finds out that Sayid is “infected”. Asiantpants tells Jack that, as Sayid’s physician, has to get him to take a mystery pill. Jack, remembering one of his med school classes mentioning something about not giving patients medicine when you have no clue as to what it actually does, decides not to give Sayid the pill. Instead he does the logical thing – he takes it himself. Hell, it worked for that guy who created LSD. This leads to Jack getting his ass beaten again by AsianPants McGoo using the same technique my mom used to use when I accidentally swallowed something bad. Guess what? The pill was poison and the only way to cure Sayid is to kill him. Again. Rough week for him.

In addition to Sayid we find out at least one other person is infected – Jack’s half sister Claire. Thus explaining the whole crazy thing she had going on with Jin and Kate. This is where the implications of the episode start to get interesting! Claire has been infected. By who? Well the last time we saw her she was being daddy’s little girl in Jacob’s former cabin so we can assume it was Christian Sheppard. Now I’ve always thought that the Christian on the Island was merely Black Smoke taking a human form but think on this: we have just seen somebody who was dead, Sayid, come back from the grave but infected by Black Shirt. Christian’s body has been missing since way back in the first season! What if Black Shirt found him and resurrected him with his taint (the infection, not the other thing, get your minds out of the gutter)? Thus Christian Sheppard isn’t just a Black Smoke figment he is as real and alive as Claire and Sayid are! So Black Shirt has at least 2 (soon to be 3 if Sayid continues to live) followers on the Island. Either one of them could have disturbed the circle of ash around Jacob’s cabin allowing Black Shirt entry.

The whole “infection” thing as been around longer than just this episode we’ve just forgotten about it because it hasn’t been mentioned in a while. Danielle was always talking about how her science team was infected. And where did all her science team go last season? Into the Temple! Dragged there by the Black Smoke. And remember Desmond stayed holed up in the hatch all that time cause he thought there was an infection running loose on the Island. It’s going to be interesting to see what happens to the infected and how it makes them loyal to Black Shirt.