Lost, Season 6, Episode 3

6.3: What Kate Does

--I fail to see the significance of the episode title. What does Kate do? Well.....stuff. Y’know, stuff. Just like in every episode in which she appears, which is practically every episode. Sorry, but I was hoping for Kate to do something HUGE and GAME-CHANGING, and she didn’t. Though, actually, some of the things she didn’t do were kinda significant. Still, it seems like any Kate-centric episode could have been called “What Kate Does.” Minor nitpick there.

--My love/hate relationship with Kate is still going strong, as she skillfully balances competence with stupidity, compassion with bitchitude, and pouting with....uh....pouting from a slightly different camera angle. This episode was middle-of-the-road as far as Kate-centrics go, with some good and some meh. As always, she’s chasing her men -- Sawyer, in this case, who grabbed a gun and very easily made a run from the Temple. Kate volunteered to track him down, with the help of Jin, whose actual motives were about as opaque as invisible plastic wrap. Seriously, who cares about Kate and Sawyer? CAN JIN AND SUN PLEASE GET BACK TOGETHER? CAN WE NOT HAVE ANY MORE BEAR TRAPS, EVIL DOPPELGANGERS, TIME-JUMPS, OR FRENCH RESEARCH TEAMS KEEPING THEM APART? Sigh, guess not.

--Sooooo, Aldo got to come back and be an incredible dick just long enough to paint a great big target on his chest before dying. Yeah, totally didn’t see that coming. I do like how they’re trotting out past characters, even ones we totally forgot about. That Justin guy was kinda cool, though, but you’ve gotta take the good with the bad. Hey, what about the other Oceanic 815 survivors? What about Sexy Blue Striped Shirt Girl, goddammit? Did they ALL die off? BRING BACK SEXY BLUE STRIPED SHIRT GIRL! (http://lostpedia.wikia.com/wiki/Sexy_Blue_Striped_Shirt_Girl)

--Right, right, the review. Back in the Temple, Dogen the Other boss-man demonstrated his warm beside manner by jabbing Sayid with electrodes and hot pokers, ’cause Sayid apparently can’t not be tortured sooner or later. This led Mr. I-Don’t-Like-Your-Heathen-Pig-Language to determine that our sexy Iraqi had been....infected, or possessed, or something. Something bad, anyway. Ahhhh, so THIS explains the “Sickness” that turned the French team into psychos! Another piece falls into place. Dogen concocted a neat little “medicine” pill and tried to get Jack to feed it to Sayid. But Jack was going through a surprisingly non-idiot spell and totally called Dogen’s bluff, trying to take the pill himself. Dogen freaked, and was subsequently forced to admit that he’d been trying to poison Sayid. Why? Well, picture someone as unhinged and slaughter-happy as the late Rousseau....with the strength, survival instinct, and torture skills of Mister Jarrah. Yipe. Can’t wait to see how this subplot cooks....

--“We’ll be in the food court if you need us.” Miles, I love you. Never stop being an asshole.

--So, Kate successfully shed the Other goons and Jin, then found Sawyer moping around the Barracks like a more rugged, less sparkly Edward Cullen. The whole sequence between them was kind of odd and could, I feel, be interpreted in several ways. They tossed around blame for Juliet’s death, the moral of which seemed to be that NO ONE WAS REALLY RESPONSIBLE SO STOP WHINGING ABOUT IT, GUYS, and then Kate cried alone on a pier. Was she crying because she’d lost her shot at Sawyer? Because she couldn’t help but take the blame for Juliet dying? Because the actions of three little people don’t amount to a hill of beans in this crazy world? I honestly don’t know, but I guess Kate’s come to terms with the fact that A) Sawyer slipped away, and B) she has to be a decent person even when she doesn’t want to....

--As demonstrated ham-handedly in the flash-sideways, in which Kate was a total bitch to Claire, felt bad after fondling a stuffed orca, then went back to lend the cute pregnant Aussie a hand. Which led to some awkwardness, initially, until Kate’s maternal side kicked in big time. Once Aaron’s would-be adoptive mother bailed out due to personal crises and Claire went into labor, Kate just had to rush her to the hospital, then run after some brown-haired male doctor whose face we didn’t see at first. Heh, it’s totally gonna be Jack, right? Because who else could it b--

--AAAAHHH!!! AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!! AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!! AAAHHH!!! AAAHHHHHHHHH!!!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

--I wish I was kidding about the screaming, but that was my IRL reaction. God dammit, I should’ve KNOWN they’d find another way to bring back creepy Ethan and his creepy jowls! GAH. Okay, what’s the significance of Ethan being a (maybe) non-Other physician in Timeline LAX? What other Others might we see? Ooohh! I wanna see Tom as a go-go dancer, and Ms. Klugh as Obama’s wife, and Mikhail the eyepatch guy as a kindergarten teacher, and......ahem. Anyway. Kate did good. That, I think was the point. The “What Kate Does” refers not to a specific deed but to a universal. Kate does the right thing. Well, ain’t she saintly. And, of course, all the stuff with Claire foreshadowed the DUN DUN DUNNNNNN moment, when Dogen grimly revealed to Jack that his quasi-sister had fallen prey to Smokey madness....and then Claire herself appeared, grimy and shotgun-wielding, to gun down some Others and stare at a downed Jin. Heh, cool. I love the idea of an evil Claire. She’ll be even cuter!

--Hey, Kate? When you’re hiding from the cops, you might wanna wait a little longer before emerging from hiding and taking off. Just in case they might be LINGERING OUTSIDE THE DOOR, or might be SUSPICIOUS OF A RANDOM GIRL WHO WILLINGLY TOOK A CAB RIDE WITH A CONVICTED CRIMINAL, or might have TOLD THE HOSPITAL STAFF ABOUT YOU. I mean, Jesus, how does she stay on the lam when she does dumb shit like that? Especially with cameras following her around and getting poignant close-ups all the time! Oh, yeah, it’s called Hollywood.