6.3 What Kate Does

So, you are standing on a sidewalk, and a man with a horse comes clippety-clopping up to where you are standing. The man dismounts, and ties his horse to a light pole, and saunters into the local diner. Since you have nothing better to do, you watch the horse. Slowly, ever so slowly, a nice steaming sh!!t falls out of the horse’s ass and plops down on the sidewalk. You look at the horse, you look at the fecal matter, and you feel sad and uncomfortable. The aroma starts to waft in your direction. Your curiosity gets the best of you. You mosey up to the poo to get a closer look. Much to your amazement, there is some writing on the fresh horse sh!!t. It says “What Kate Does”. Now, I could have summarized the prior long winded description into “last night’s episode was a pile of steaming horse sh!!t” but I wanted to pay homage to the people responsible for last night’s debacle and demonstrate what the fock “filler” means. Sure, this episode ranks among the worst in LOST history, and by some strange coincidence most of these turds are Kate-centric. Why, oh why must these people insist that this horrible character must be important to the overall plot. The whole episode was full of horrible acting, stupid plot premises, lack of advancing story lines, ridiculous actions taken by characters. Really, with what we learned, we could have seen in three minutes and spent 57 minutes watching commercials. Same exact thing. I wasted 3 hours of my life watching and re-watching this crap while snow piled up all around me. For focks sake, I only watched it drunk twice. The other time, I had to make sure it was as bad as I thought. Do you how enraging it is to watch something this bad at 5:00 in the morning, sober? I needed to keep hitting pause and pace to cleanse my pallet before going back. All work and no beer make Homer go crazy. On a scale of 1 to 10, this episode was a zero. I’d have been happier with 1 minute of Dogen spinning a stupid baseball and 59 minutes of commercials. It’s the last dam season, and only a handful of episodes are left. And you are really going to present that hot garbage to us?

Sadly, Iron Chef and John Lennon monikers are no more. Instead I am going to refer to them by their now revealed names: Dogen and Lennon. Lennon? My prognosticating skills grow stronger. Lennon interrupts Dogen’s hunting and pecking attempts on what I assume is a brand new IPad. Those Others are fashionably keeping up with the times, never mind their 6,000 year old hand me down sack cloths and not showering for decades at a time. Sayid’s alive. I swear, I was expecting Dogen to lift his face and stroke his nonexistent beard, since it was so reminiscent of the Master in Kill Bill Volume 2. This guy needs a nice long distinguished beard like Evangeline Lilly needs an acting coach. So, while Sayid is alive, Sawyer is grumbling about torturers and child killers get second chances, and of course left unsaid was that Juliet didn’t. Well, who buried her, stupid? But he is looking to escape. Swell. A Kate centered episode, and a character is talking about escaping. Gee, I wonder where this story is headed? Why the rush to escape anyway. Take a load off and grieve for a bit. Are you so worried about the polar cages that you have to take off before you know why you are there in the first place? Kate is telling the cab driver to take off. She sees Jack and stares at him. She must be wondering if she should return his pen. Dr Artz has dropped his luggage, and Kate is having none of that. Run him over. Kill. Kill. Kill. She continually brandishes her gun, diabolically and skillfully preventing anyone from escaping. Well, at least until the first red light, when the cab driver takes off. Kate’s prison break and car jacking then devolves into stealing pregnant Claire’s purse and luggage and throwing her out of the cab. Kate is racking up the crime points like a seasoned player of Grand Theft Auto. The Losties are explaining to Sayid that they’ve been captured by the Others, and Miles calls Hurley the leader. Um, I can’t think of any scenario scarier than that, other than Jack being the leader. No worries, Hurley is impeached 5 seconds later. Sayid’s wound is healing faster than a cripple at a religious tent revival. A brawl with the Others starts up, and Sawyer pulls out a gun. This is the second straight episode where a fight almost happens, and almost just doesn’t cut the mustard. Sawyer escapes. “Don’t come after me”. This statement has the same effect of somebody in a scary movie saying “Wait here. I’ll be right back.” Five minutes later, their severed head comes rolling back and bumps into your feet like a soccer ball. I hope they wait at least a commercial break or two until someone goes after him. It would just be too simplistically obvious to do it right away.

Kate decides that she is going after Sawyer, with Jin, Justin, and our old buddy Aldo. Aldo was the guard at the brainwashing cabin that Kate and Sawyer broke Karl out of on Hydra island back in Season 3, with the help of Alex. Aldo has the distinction of falling for the Wookie Prisoner Gag. More importantly, I just wanted to see Charlie, Sweet Dee, Dennis, and Frank go on the rescue mission too. Kate: I can be very convincing if I have to. Abe Vigoda staring you in the eyes and saying “I’m 24 years old and have never used Viagra in my life” is more convincing that anything Kate has ever mumbled. But, the Others allow her to leave, as they did with Sawyer. The episode seemed centered about choices and free will, but don’t forget Sawyer and Miles were captured and brought to the Temple against their will. Jack and his group were willingly headed to the Temple. Still, Sawyer, no choice. But they have a choice in leaving? What about the “shoot them” from last episode. What a mess. Kate stumbles into a car repair place, threatens a grease monkey with a gun, and demands a tire hammer. Why try to be convincing when you have a gun? She offered the guy 200 bucks, and after the use of a punch press, Kate is free to go to the bathroom and try to search for some humanity for once. As she leafs through pictures of pregnant Claire and baby stuff, including a killer whale stuffed doll that Aaron owned in Season 4 in his room at Kate’s home, she realized that Claire must have been pregnant and not smuggling watermelons from Australia under her shirt. Kate is so self absorbed, she seriously did not notice Claire was 8 months pregnant? What the fock? Kate comes up with a master plan with Jack: I’ll take care of James, you take care of Sayid. What are the odds that neither is successful? Oh, that’s right. It’s Jack and Kate. Sayid is escorted to a torture session. Now, this was eerily similar to when Sayid was being tortured by Danielle back in Season 1 in the bunker after he was captured following the cable from the beach into the jungle. Dogen blows a cloud of dust/ash over Sayid. I can only think that since the MIB has problems with ash, this was some kind of test to see if Sayid was in fact MIB. Ok, ok, let’s talk about this thing. On the enhanced episode that aired this week, the subtitles say that MIB is Smokie. They are one and the same. Fine. Despite all logic that I presented why this was dubious, I will suspend my reason and logic and accept this “answer”. I realize the writers are running out of time, and need to wrap up plot points, no matter how ridiculous they may be, and despite this episode was a waste of time. So….every time we saw a manifestation on the island and probably off the island, it was Smokie. Christian, Charlie, Walt, Libby, Ana Lucia, Dave, the black horse, spiders, Horace Goodspeed, Ben’s mother, Yemi, Boone, Claire, polar bears, etc. Hell, MIB could have manifested as Jacob and visited Hurley to tell him to rescue Sayid. I mean, MIB can apparently be in multiple places at once, so why not. Idiot writers. They zap Sayid with electricity and then brand him with a hot poker. I wasn’t clear as to the specifics of these tests, other than to see if he can feel pain. I suppose you can hear a certain crackling as the Smoke Monster appears which may have elements of electricity. You passed the test. Sh!!t. I’d hate to see failing it.

In a completely ludicrous situation, Kate returns for Claire. Yeah, I understand that you are trying to show Kate in a different light, that she is not simply a selfish criminally predisposed monster. But Claire is just sitting there waiting for a bus, a bus near an airport that apparently makes one trip every other day. Instead of trying to call for help or trying to waddle away from the handcuffed car jacked, Claire has a polite conversation with Kate. K: I didn’t take your money. Then where did the 200 bucks you promised the press punch guy come from? The marshal allowed you to carry around spending money? A family was to meet Claire at the airport, but never showed up. Because, when you are desperate to get your hands on a baby, you will fail to keep such an appointment. But I know how that is. Sometimes I miss a dentist appointment, but I usually try to reschedule. Claire accepts a ride with Kate. How ridiculous was that? I don’t care if memories and scenarios are starting to bleed between the dual realities. How do you accept that ride? And if it’s because you remember Kate from the past, do you not know that Kate held your baby hostage? Kate might be trying to do her first unselfish thing in 6 seasons, but Claire is a complete mark, a rube, a patsy. Not to mention the acting between these two is worse than you would see at a kindergarten Christmas play. Just nothing. No chemistry. No believability. Nothing. This scene made me more sad than angry. Well, sad was at about the same level as angry. Just mailing it in. Aldo tells Kate and Jin that the Others are protecting them from the black smoke, basically MIB. Idiot writers. Jin asks about another plane landing, and when Justin was going to answer, Aldo told him to shut up. Justin came close to saying some important, significant stuff several times this episode, but kept being told to stuff it by Aldo. The frustration keeps building up in a viewer. This whole episode was on the verge of telling us important stuff, but instead chose to wallow in mud until the last 10 seconds. I get it. You want to give us a twist ending every week. I’d rather you just tell a story instead of setting up a “Gotcha”. A handful of episodes left, and you are playing games. Kate points out a decoy trail and says they should head another way. How does she know? Experience. And the Others that have lived on the island for some time and probably have an inking of how to track and hide tracks. Yet, Kate is better at it. Right. What have we here? A Rousseau booby trap? Justin: You mean the French woman? She’s been dead for years. Aldo gets Justin to shut up again. Being that Rousseau was killed by Keamy’s men, does 3 years qualify as a long time, or was Rousseau killed 16 years ago when she first came to the island as instructed by Widmore. We can’t assume that everything is the same in 2007 as the Losties left them in 2004. We’ve only seen the MIB and Ben and Richard group on the beach. Who knows what has been happening on the island the last 3 years. I was pointing out changes last season in the Locke subplot, how the main island processing center still had Dharma logos and photos, and the dock was much more disheveled than it should have been. Actions from the past have led to changes in the future. We don’t really know when Rousseau died anymore. Or maybe we are looping still, but with two loops in dual realities. I’m trying to wrap my head around it. But it seems that no matter how the circumstances start out, like the LAX reality, the characters continue to gravitate towards each other. It’s as if no matter how things start out, it will always end the same, except for the loophole that Jacob is looking for. Sigh. I still need information to make a reasonably logic assumption on what is happening this season in relation to seasons one to five. Kate knocks out Aldo and Justin gets clobbered with some rocks. Kate escapes. Again. Sayid explains that he was tortured, but wasn’t asked any questions. Jack is in a huff and goes to talk to Dogen. Your friend is sick, infected. We’ve heard “infection” several times in the past. Rousseau told the story of how her entire team got sick and she killed them all. And we saw that scenario play out during the time jumps. But Rousseau may have become infected herself, but we can’t really prove it. She simply wandered the jungle for 16 years, setting traps, hiding. Ethan needed to give medicine to Claire to keep her baby safe. Desmond would inject himself with some sort of a vaccine to keep from getting ill in the Swan hatch. Charlie gave Claire some type of injection kit on the beach in Season 2. Juliet was dispensing some medicine in Season 3 and 4, but Claire got sick due to an implanted chip from the Others. Hell, what about that implanted chip? Could that have malfunctioned? I am not sure how many scenarios are related to the island infection, but the theme keeps coming up. Dogen gives a pill to Jack. Sayid needs to take it willingly. Seems like the theme of choice and free will is coming up more and more this season, a point of contention between Jacob and MIB. The Others at times live by a creed that the other person must want to do something, therefore Ben is a master manipulator. He needs to convince people to make choices to do something Ben wants them to do. Dogen is trying to convince Jack that he wants Sayid to willingly take the pill. Dogen confronts Jack with his own words, that it was Jack’s fault that Sayid got hurt. Personal responsibility. Jack caused the problem, so he needs to fix it. To be fair, it’s silly to blame Jack for Sayid being shot, other than it Jack’s idea to finish Daniel’s plan. There was plenty of blame to go around. But Jack accepted it, so tough sh!!t. Dogen: there were others that got hurt or died helping you, here is a chance to redeem yourself, it is medicine, or the infection will spread. Dogen is talking to a doctor. He won’t tell him what ingredients are in the pill, won’t describe what disease or infection Sayid has, guilts Jack about the past, and Jack says OK. Holy smokes. This episodes sucks beyond belief. It’s not just Kate sucking it up. Jack too. I’m reminded of a running theme in X Files of the black oil, an alien substance that was able to infect the host as it flowed into a human’s system. A warring alien race was fighting the black oil, and one form of protection was to sew close any orifices where the oil could enter their bodies, such as eyes, mouth, ears, nose, etc. Sayid had an open wound in his chest. This most likely was the entry point for the infection from MIB. To conclude, it was a difficult process to extract the oil and keep the person alive.

Sayid insists that he is not a zombie. But if he was, he’d starve with the collection of numbskulls that are the Losties. Jack: I didn’t save your life, I didn’t fix you. This is odd dialogue, considering that is exactly what Jack is always trying to do, on the operating table and off. He fixed his ex-wife. Those were the key words. “I’m going to fix you.” Now, right now, on this island, he is talking the opposite. So very odd. Sayid says he trusts Jack. So, let me try to understand this. Why does Sayid have this infection? Is it that anyone that dies on the island, MIB can claim them for his side? Was this true before Jacob died? Locke died off the island, but MIB claimed him I guess. Does this mean MIB has claimed Christian and Boone and Paulo too? There will be some kind of upcoming battle, as Widmore warned us last season during the Locke death episode. Jacob and MIB are dividing up the people. And screw Jacob. He pretends to care about the characters, who are living horrible existences off the island and on the island, seeing people around them die, seeing themselves dying horrific deaths. It is all for this stupid competition with MIB? Jin wants to find Sun. J: Who do you care about Kate? This reminded me of the conversation Kate had with off island Locke, when she scoffed at John about coming back to the island. She told John that he never loved anyone. Jin: You find Sawyer, then what? Kate: I guess we will figure it out together. Are you serious? Let the guy grieve for a couple of hours. Your crazy ass is imagining you and Sawyer as a couple still. Claire arrives at the adoptive parent’s house. She wants car jacking Kate to come with her instead of saying thanks for the ride and beat it. I never knew the Stockholm Syndrome can take effect in 2 minutes, as Claire has been fawning over Kate since then. My husband left me. Oh, so you let a pregnant woman fly across the world and let her get all the way to your house before you decided to tell her you didn’t want her kid? So completely unrealistic. I’m glad your husband left you, dummy. Claire’s baby is coming. Kate returns to the Barracks and watches Sawyer pull up floorboards. Kate: I was worried about you. Sawyer doesn’t look at her and simply walks past her. FACE.

Claire is in the hospital, and Ethan Goodspeed, offspring of Horace and Amy, is looking less creepy as he attends to Claire. This sucks, because Creepy Ethan was great. He doesn’t want to stick needles into Claire if he doesn’t need to. Another opposite scenario from what happened on the island, specifically at the caves and the medical hatch in Season One. Claire isn’t ready, and the baby flatlines. Claire says “Is Aaron OK?” and the baby is alive and kicking again. What the fock? Would the kid have died if Claire didn’t name him? We get a glimpse at an ultrasound, but the remarkable thing is that it is dated 10/22/04. If you recall, Oceanic 815 crashed on 9/22/2004. Yet, in this supposed “what would happen if they never crashed” reality, we are a month into the future. Further supporting evidence of loops, and they are still happening. Multiple loops being cut and pasted and presented to us on a weekly basis. Which brings into question flashforwards and flashbacks and whether they even occurred in the same time frame as we were led to believe. The loops are still in play. I just need to reconcile loose bits to the overall theory, and take a shot of guessing the ending of the series. But this many questionable scenarios of physical and verbal inconsistencies cannot be explained any other way. Well, they could be. Afterall, despite strong contrary evidence MIB is the Smoke monster simply because the writers said it was true. Idiot writers. Sawyer is sitting on a pier, crying. Craving attention, Kate comes over and sits beside him. Since Sawyer doesn’t say anything, Kate plows ahead, ignoring Sawyer’s tears. I. I. I. Me. Me. Me. K: I need to find Claire, you could help me find her, bring her to Aaron, I never should have followed you. Sawyer responds to the only part of that speech that wasn’t bullsh!!t. Sawyer: Which time? Kate still doesn’t get it. K: I’m sorry. For Juliet. S: It’s not your fault she’s dead. I talked her into staying, I didn’t want to be alone, Some of us are meant to be alone, I was going to ask her to marry me. Sawyer takes a ring out and tosses it into the water, much like Desmond did with Penny’s ring back in Season 3. Sawyer tells Kate to go back to the Temple, and walks off. Then, and only then does Kate start to cry. It was because she followed Sawyer and Sawyer told her to beat it, sister. Kate is feeling sorry for herself. Again. I understand that she was chosen for a purpose. Sayid is the assassin. Kate is the escape artist, with her amazing ability to generate unbelievable luck in escaping from Marshal Pinhead. Dogen is spinning a baseball. Wheee!!!! He explains to Jack that he uses a translator to keep a separation from his people because of some of the decisions he has to make for them. The reality is that it takes twice as long for him to make a speech and getting it translated, filling up air time, creating filler for uncreative douchebags that can’t figure out how to put together an interesting 40 minutes of TV every week. Sure, you can have clunkers. But not episodes that are utter failures. Kate’s trial in the future, Jack’s tattoo, etc. Dogen explains to Jack that they were all brought here to the island. Jack is stupefied. Dogen: you know exactly what I mean. Trust me, Dogen. Jack is a dummy and has no idea who Jacob is. Sadly, the writers had a chance to waste another 10 minutes by having Dogen explain to Jack who Jacob is, but they didn’t take advantage. Jack still wants to know what is in the pill. Dogen: You have to trust me. Jack swallows the pill before Dogen beats it out of him. It’s poison. However, it might be poison to Jack, but it may not be to Sayid. It could be a cure, or yet another test to see if Sayid can ingest poison and live, a formidable foe that can’t be killed. Or it’s just poison.

Cops visit Claire at the hospital, after finding the cab outside that Kate left out front, and Dr Artz had said that he got the license plate number earlier. The cops ask Claire some questions, Claire lies, they fail to search the room properly, and inexplicably leave. Cops are not this dumb. Sheesh. Claire continues to become best friends with the woman that threatened to shoot her this afternoon. In Claire’s household, not only is accepting candy from strangers going to be allowed, it will be encouraged. Claire: What did you do? Reality is that I could list about 100 crimes Kate has committed on just this day. Kate: Would you believe I’m innocent? What kind of moron would say yes? Claire: Yes. Here, take my credit card. Sure, I’m all alone in a foreign country with a baby ready to pop out, but take my last dollar. Kate eagerly accepts. Claire on Aaron: I don’t know why I said it. I just knew it or something. Realities bleeding together at weak spots. Dogen to Jack: We believe he has been claimed, darkness growing in him, when it reaches his heart, he will be gone, it happened to your sister. Jack’s half sister is Claire. Don’t look now, but a darkness sure as hell is growing in Sawyer. Maybe the rock to the head killed him. Sawyer will be on Team MIB soon. Sayid died to be claimed, right? So, if Claire was claimed, that means she died back in Season 4 during the Keamy missile attack. She wandered off into the jungle, and wasn’t seen again. Aldo and Justin capture Jin. Aldo: where is that b!tch? I could not have said it better myself. Aldo wants to kill Jin, but is stalled by Justin. “We can’t. He may be one of “them””. Them being the people chosen by Jacob, the variables, the people on his list. Jin steps into a bear trap trying to escape. Claire shoots Aldo and Justin. Claire is looking a lot like Rousseau did. So, has she been wandering the island since 2004, the past 3 years, not time traveling, but setting traps and acting crazy, looking for her missing son? And why shoot Aldo and Justin, but not Jin?

This was a lackluster effort on my part. I just wasn’t feeling it for this write-up. This awful episode just didn’t offer up much inspiration. I’ll try again next week