Flashback – Kate
Some time after she murdered her father (who she still referred to as "stepfather,") Kate found herself in a dead car in Iowa, where she was on quest. She wanted to find her mother and ask why Diane had turned her in. Her car was towed to a service station where someone else was springing a con - it was none other that Sawyer's baby-mama, Cassidy. (Any question as to whether Cassidy was lying when she told Sawyer the baby was his was put to rest when she later described to Kate how Sawyer conned her out of her money and left her pregnant).
Realizing that Cassidy's botched attempt to pull the "expensive jewelry con" Sawyer had taught her would summon the police, fugitive Kate jumped in and offered to pay Cassidy full value for one of the chains. When they were clear, Cassidy returned the money and the two formed a kind of Thelma and Louise bond. Kate, calling herself Lucy (Cassidy sniffed out the lie but didn't press for her real name) related the story of why she wanted to see her mother, and Cassidy offered to help.
Cassidy knocked on Diane's door in a Kate-esque wig, only to have our favorite (deceased) marshall and a whole cadre of cohorts decend upon her. Later, Cassidy "accidentally" spilled chili on Diane at a podunk diner so Diane would go to the restroom, where Kate confronted her. Rather than explain her actions to Kate, Diane demanded an apology from Kate for killing her (abusive) husband, angrily insisting that “what you did, you did for yourself.” Diane swore she would yell for help if she ever saw Kate again, and the encounter ended. Later, Kate asked Cassidy the name of the guy who ripped her off so Kate could help find him. Cassidy then told Kate she was pregnant with the con man's kid, and she couldn’t call the cops (or Kate) on Sawyer because he would never forgive her, just as Diane could not forgive Kate (another missed connection!). Finally, Kate told Cassidy her real name, and the two parted company.As a final note on the flashback, I dig Cassidy (and the new Kate-Sawyer connection), but the shots of whiskey were probably a bad idea for a pregnant woman...
Real Time Part 1: The Beach
In a cute, if not throwaway plot, Hurley warns Sawyer the beach camp plans to vote to banish him for his selfish ways. Hurley suggests amends, but, as Sawyer snidely remarks, “I don’t do amends.” Sawyer goes fishing while Sun and Jin work their net. He smiles at Sun, who shoots him a nasty look. “I ain’t gonna get the Korean vote,” Sawyer mutters to himself, and reality of his situation starts to come to him. He then asks Hurley for help winning over the other castaways. Hurley gives Sawyer a blanket to offer Claire. The idea of Sawyer as father is again suggested with his awkward attempt to relate to the young mother: “your baby, he’s not as wrinkly as he was a couple of weeks ago.” He gives the blanket. The awkward exchange over, Hurley gives Sawyer a thumbs up.Sawyer’s next good deed is helping Desmond on a boar hunt. Sawyer plays chef with the catch, preparing a luau for the camp. Sawyer tells Charlie he hopes they remember the feast he provided at the vote, and Charlie has no idea what he means. Sawyer confronts Hurley, who admits his plan – if Sawyer will be the beach’s leader, he needs to learn to play nice. With the big guns (Jack, Locke, Sayid, Kate) gone, the survivors will start to look to him. “What if I don’t want to be the leader?” Sawyer asks. Hurley's response: “I don’t think Jack wanted it etiher. Sucks for you, dude.” Sawyer surveys the good he has done, and finds it suits him. He even brings Claire some pineapple and offers to hold Aaron while she eats. He gives a Sun another smile, but she ain’t biting yet.
As an aside, I would have liked this plotline a lot more if not for the promos revealing that Jack, Sayid and Kate will return to the beach in next week's episode. How much of a leader will the castaways need Sawyer to be when that happens?
Real Time Part 2 - Othersville
But the real meat of the action in "Left Behind" took place where Kate was still being held captive by the Others in the Dharma barracks...
Kate, still cuffed in the Others' rec room swings a pool cue at Juliet, who was bringing her a sandwich. Dropping the sandwich on the floor, Juliet intercepts the cue and downs Kate in what, to me, was a hell of an impressive martial-arts move.
Later, John Locke, with a bandaged hand, comes to see Kate. (That bandage cannot bode well for Anthony Cooper, whose story will supposedly resume in three weeks...) He came to say good-bye, because the Others were leaving, and he was leaving with them. He tells her that Jack has to stay behind, too, and that he doesn’t want to go home. He tells Kate he tried to plead for her as a good person, until he found out what she’d done (presumably, the Others' Kate dossier includes that little patricide thing). "Forgiveness," Locke says, "is not one of their strong suits." He refuses to answer Kate’s other questions about Jack, Sayid, Rousseau, and apologizes as he leaves her behind.
Realizing her plight, Kate starts to eat the sandwich Juliet dropped on the floor the night before. She hears a commotion – the Others are packing up, putting on gas masks, grabbing guns, and going. One of them tosses a gas canister into the pool hall. Kate puts a towel over her face, but the door is locked, and she collapses. Kate awakens in open jungle…cuffed to the unconscious Juliet?? In Juliet’s pocket is a knife, which Kate tries to use to jimmy the cuffs (and did you see how Juliet shot to alertness and grabbed Kate’s wrist when the blade opened?) Kate asks what Juliet did to piss them off. Kate insists on going back to try to help Sayid and Rousseau. When Juliet looks dumbfounded that the Others departed without here, Kate says, “welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell is going on.”
Kate follows the trail left by the people that dragged them. She wonders aloud why they would handcuff them together. Juliet says, “Ben has a thing for mind games.” (And we later learn, Ben is not alone in this regard). Juliet plays the Jack card: she accuses Kate of ruining Jack’s chance to escape, and the two get into a real nasty catfight. Juliet goes for the controlled grace of a martial artist, while Kate goes for good old fashioned boxing and wrestling. Juliet cries in pain as her shoulder dislocates, and suddenly, the sound of Smokey's roar fills the air. Juliet screams, “what the hell is that?” Kate drags her to her feet and they run. She quiets Juliet down, as smokey comes a huntin’. It looms over them, produces a series of strange flashes, and leaves.
(Thoughts on the flashes? My take is something akin to the download Smokey seemed to do on Eko, though why this appeared different, I have no idea).
Juliet, wonders if they’re safe. Kate says, “you tell me,” before picking up on this having been Juliet's first Smokey encounter. “Are you serious, you’ve never seen that?” she demands?Juliet changes the subject to her shoulder. This is Juliet’s fourth dislocation, and she demands Kate’s help putting it back, before laying the boom on the reality of Kate's relationship with Jack. “He saw you and Sawyer. The reason he told you not to come back wasn’t because he didn’t want you not to get hurt. It was because you broke his heart.” Crushed, then angry, Kate all-too-happily pops Juliet’s shoulder back in place.
The next morning, Kate asks Juliet if Jack actually said she broke his heart. Kate accuses Juliet of knowing nothing about Jack, until Juliet relates every topic she does know about Jack’s past. Kate has little time to stew over this response when, suddenly, out in the open, they hear Smokey again. As they run, they trip and fall in some mud near the sonic fence. Kate refuses to follow Juliet through the posts when Juliet says the fence is off. Juliet pulls out a key(!) unlocks the cuffs, and runs through. Kate follows, and Juliet enters a familiar code (16-23) on the fence post, activating it, and when Smokey appears, it is repelled (for video of this really nifty Smokey encounter, click on the tile of this post).
Interstingly, Smokey appeared to be gunning for Juliet, not Kate. Could this be the result of the brand the Others placed on her, or something it detected during the flashes, or maybe just the closer target?
After Smokey retreats, Juliet, responding to the "yeah, right, you've never seen that thing before" look on Kate's face, says, "We don’t know what it is, but we know it doesn’t like our fences." That's not all Kate wants to know - like, Juliet had a freaking key the whole time? "I know you don’t care, but the people I spent the last three years of my life with, they just left me." Juliet explains she affixed the cuffs because, maybe, if she let Kate think they were in it together, she wouldn’t get left behind again by her new companion. Kate angrily takes the key, removes the remaining cuff, and storms off.
Back at Othersville, Kate finds Jack collapsed in the hall of his bungalow. She apologizes to Jack for not listening to him and ruining his chance for escape. Jack is incredulous that they would leave, especially Juliet, which clearly twists the knife in Kate's heart. (Incidentally, how awesome has Evangeline Lilly's acting been this season? I used tho think she was a poor man's Jennifer Garner, but the facial expressions she has silently delivered all season have been amazing). Jack wonders why the Others would leave Juliet, then tells Kate, “now we go back.” Outside, they are rejoined by Juliet and Sayid (I guess Rousseau was not capture, after all...)Jack and Juliet seem to have a moment while Kate looks on. Sayid confirms the people and their weapons are all gone. Jack says they should take what they can find and head out. Sayid protests that Juliet should not come with them. Jack insists otherwise, since they left her behind, too, but Sayid and Kate remain suspicious. The question looms large – why did they leave her behind?
Afterthought 1 - Analyzing Smokey
I really liked this blurb from Doc Jensen's recap about Smokey, and why he seemed intent on pursuing Juliet, but not Kate:
"More so than any previous episode, 'Left Behind' seemed to suggest a clear, cogent theory to explain Smokey's modus operandi. It seems to me that the Monster has a bug up its incorporeal butt about human pride. Think back to Mr. Eko. Think back to what he said to the manifestation of his beloved younger brother, Yemi, prior to getting pounded by Smokey. Falling to his knees, the reluctant warlord turned faux priest proclaimed (paraphrase), 'I have done nothing wrong!' Eko came to the belief that his sins and all their consequences were justified in the context of the sacrifice he made to save Yemi's life. Kate's story echoed Mr. Eko's, which would have made her Monster bait, if not for two things: 1. Fortunately, as the flashback revealed, her mother had already confronted her about her self-righteous narcissism, so the lessons had already been implanted. 2. The experience of being tethered to Juliet helped to activate those lessons and make them real. For during her dark night of the soul, Kate was made to understand, in a personal way, how her allegedly altruistic actions could be compromised by selfishness and have painful, destructive consequences. It was this epiphany that allowed her to apologize to Jack at the end of the episode for sabotaging his escape and denying him a chance at happiness."
What about Juliet's apparent admission that the Others knew about Smokey's existence, but not what it is? Another lie? Proof that Smokey is tied to Dharma, or predates the Others' presence on the island? Perhaps something natives like Ben never revealed to recruits?
Afterthought 2: Why Leave Juliet Behind?
Recall that we never saw Juliet get gassed. And she apparently was able to affix the handcuffs to Kate, suggesting she may never have been. Is Juliet's abandonment the Others' latest attempt to infiltrate the 815ers' beach? Perhaps she's going along with Ben's plan for another hope at escape? Or was her imminent departure too big a rift for Ben to allow her to accompany them?
For that matter, just where did the Others go? And how long after the beach reunion before Jack and co. lead the survivors to the barracks? I'm sure, unlike Locke, they'd all appreciate kitchens and toilets (even if Paulo is dead). Besides, in "real world time," the South Pacific tsunami is due to hit, so one imagines the beach will soon be rather inhospitable...
Final Afterthought - Upcoming Schedule
The recently released flashback schedule for the rest of the season offers lots of excitement:
Episode 3.16: One of Us (Juliet-centric)
Episode 3.17: Catch-22 (Desmond-centric)
Episode 3.18: D.O.C. (Jin/Sun-centric)
Episode 3.19: The Brig (Jack-centric)
Episode 3.20: The Man Behind the Curtain (Gerald and Karen De Groot!!)
Episode 3.21: Greatest Hits (Charlie-centric)
Episodes 3.22 and 3.23: Title unknown (Ben-centric, two-hour season finale)
Unfortunately, the pending Charlie-centered episode, coupled with the producers' claim that there will be another death this season, does not bode well for our favorite stranded hobbit. But who isn't psyched for four hours of flashbacks involving Others and Dharma people?
1 comment:
great recap Dan!
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