Episode 404 - Kate Goes Free In "Eggtown"

Before we get started, a quick shout-out to Mollie D, the first LLL reader from Australia to post a comment to the blog. Welcome aboard, Mollie D! Aussie Aussie Aussie, Oy oy oy! So, with that, on with the show...

In the spirit of great fictional trial portrayals, I'm reminded of the famous Danny Kaffee (Tom Cruise)/ Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) exchange from "A Few Good Men." "You want answers? I think I'm entitled. You want ANSWERS? I want THE TRUTH! YOU CAN'T HANDLE THE TRUTH..." Those answers were delivered last night (along with, of course, many more questions). So what answers did we get in "Eggtown?" The answer to why Kate went free! The answer to who is the fifth O-sixer!! The answer to what the O6 told the world went down!!! The answer to whether Bear Cage Sex Knocked Kate Up!!!! All this, and some bizarre character action. (I still can't figure out the significance of the title. Any ideas? Please let me know.)

Island Time

The episode begins close in on John Locke's closed eye as it opens (oh, how the producers love to open episodes with a close-up of an eye opening). Locke has taken Ben's hospital bed as his own - insert poignant observation regarding recovered cripple here. He whips up some breakfast and grabs a book (Philip K. Dick's Valis, which stands for "Vast Acting Living Intelligence System," perhaps a sign of what Jacob/ smokey/ the island could be?), then goes down to the dungeon-like basement, where he unlocks a door (to the same room where Locke last season was shown his bound and gagged father, Anthony Cooper) and brings the breakfast to Ben. Locke wants to know who Ben's spy is, but Ben pulls another manipulation. "You keep hitting dead ends," taunts Ben, again accusing Locke of needing someone to tell him what to do next. "Here we are, just like old times, except I'm locked in a different room, and you're more lost than you ever were." John takes the food and smashes it against the wall, signifying to Ben that he's gotten under his skin.

Outside, Sawyer greats Kate and Claire and Aaron, and Claire skedaddles to fetch him some coffee. By now we know Sayid was correct - Kate did stay behind voluntarily. Kate tells Sawyer she didn't stay to move in with him. He says she has a "secret agenda" and she tells James she doesn't trust him. He suggests this is about the preganancy (remember? it was on Juliet's taped secret message to Ben last year? Big unanswered question (oh there are so many)?), but she shoos him away.

Back on the beach, Jin and Sun are trying to pick where they will live when they get to the United States. Jin has been learning English for Sun, but Sun says she wants to raise their baby in Korea. Getting a little ahead of ourselves, Mr. and Mrs. Kwon? Jack returns with Daniel, Charlotte and Juliet.

Kate asks Locke if she can talk to Miles, but is denied. Locke says New Otherton is not a democracy, yet denies he's a dictator. So what, Soviet communism? Kate then "scooby doos" Hurley into revealing that Miles is in a boathouse. When she asks Miles what he knows about who she is (presumably to help her decide if the outside world does, indeed, offer only handcuffs as Sawyer said last week), Miles agrees to tell her, but only in exchange for one minute with Ben.

Jack tries to contact the boat with one of the satelite phones, but can't reach them. Sun gets concerned that Locke might be right about the danger posed by the freighterites.

Back in New Otherton, Kate gets uncomfortable when Claire asks her to comfort Aaron for a moment. Claire recommends that Kate try having a baby some time.

Sawyer and Hurley are rooming together. Kate shows up just as Hurley starts watching Xanadu (when combined with the 8-track recording of "Road to Shambala" from last season, I'd say Hurley has an affinity for other-worldly paradises). Over boxed DHARMA wine, James asks straight up what she wants to use him for. She wants help busting Ben out. So Sawyer visits Locke for a round of backgammon. Locke asks if Sawyer believes Locke knows what he's doing as a leader, but Sawyer says he'd be more worried if they stayed on the beach. Sawyer gets Locke's word he wouldn't do anything to Kate, then spills the beans on Kate. Locke guns up and says whatever Miles has to say to Ben, he can say to him...but Miles is gone when they arrive (i.e. Sawyer lured Locke away so Kate could take the already-sprung Miles to see Ben). Finally confronting his (alleged) quarry, Miles offers to lie to his employer and say Ben is dead in exchange for $3.2 million. Ben, always ready to play the part of the chorus, asks why $3.2 million, and not 3.3 or 3.4? Miles brushes off this question but says he would take care of Charlotte's having seen Ben. Ben negotiates a week to make it happen. Miles tells Kate everything there is to know about her and suggests she stay on the island rather than face justice. Locke, none too pleased, arrives and sends Kate home.

So, what's up with this Miles-Ben exchange? Is Abaddon the employer to whom Miles obliquely referred, or is there some unknown different mastermind? Why assume Ben had, or could deliver, 3.2 million dollars? For that matter, as Ben asked, why that particular amount? And does Ben in fact intend to pay up?

Locke arrives at Claire's and asks Kate what happened between Miles and Ben. She tells him, but then Locke banishes her from the barracks. Kate then shows up in Sawyer's room. He says he "unbanishes" her. Nookie ensues.

On the beach, Charlotte quizzes Dan over which playing cards are face down. He struggles, and she, interestingly, asks what he remembers. He ends up getting two out of three (correctly "remembering" the queen of diamonds and six of clubs).

In each of the past three weeks, Daniel has had a little "moment" like this one that suggests something much deeper about his character. There was the oddly-scattered jungle light, the time-shifting rocketry experiment, and now this card trick. Was this just a memory test? Does Daniel suffer short term memory difficulties? Or is it a test of psychic ability, or, as Jeff Jensen theorizes, a test of recall from a time travel experience? In any case, these cards may have some further importance...

Jack interrupts and asks why the boat doesn't answer his calls. Charlotte tells Jack about an emergency number, which she calls and gets Regina, who never heard about Desmond and Sayid, and claims to not know the helicopter ever took off from the island. But they left in broad daylight, and it's now nighttime. Is this a lie, or has something strange happened to the helicopter? It can't be that bad, since Sayid was on board and he's one of the O6...

We return to Miles, hanging by his arms from the ceiling. Miles is greeted by Locke, who puts a grenade, pin pulled, in Miles' mouth, a sign that it's time to keep his mouth shut (i.e. lest the trigger spring).

Sawyer and Kate wake up and get back to it. She says she's not worried about being pregnant - She's sure she isn't. There! An answer to a question! Sawyer's relief is not what she wanted to hear, though, so she gets set to leave New Otherton. Kate slugs Sawyer when he snidely says she'll be back in a week after getting pissed at Jack over something.

So, while the island time portions of this episode seem to have teased any number of events going forward, it was the off-island sequences that really provided big-time answers...

FlashForward - Kate Austen
Kate, dolled up, put on sunglasses and emerged from a car in front of a courthouse. Who was the strange bearded man shouting at her outside? Somehow I'm sure we'll find out later. Kate's charges were read to her - murder, arson, assaulting officers, grand theft, yadda yadda. She pled "not guilty." Kate's lawyer told the Court she could not flee since she was one of the most recognizable faces in America, (in other words, we just established, in case there was any doubt, that this is a flash-forward) but the judge ordered her remanded without bail through the duration of the trial (as if Kate ever fled anything in the past, eh?).

Kate later met with her lawyer, who said the DA was going to try the case herself. Kate didn't want to deal, so her lawyer said to make the case about who she is, not what she did. But Kate refused to let him bring in...her son?! So, folks, now we know who the "he" was who was going to wonder where Kate went during her late-night rendezvous with Jack...but didn't she tell Sawyer she wasn't pregnant?

At trial, Kate's lawyer surprised her by calling Jack as a witness. He was still clean-shaven, as the trial was obviously before Jack's brush with addiction. Jack told the jury a skewed version of events, including the marshall dying in the crash. According to Jack's sworn (and perjured) testimony, he never asked if Kate was guilty because she pulled the only eight survivors of the crash out of the water, and cared for all of them, even though two later died. (Umm...I'm pretty sure Jack is about 40 survivors short on that count. Any guesses as to who the two who died later are under the O6 story?) The DA asked if Jack loved Kate, and he testified "no, not anymore."

Kate's lawyer wheeled in her mother to a conference room. She didn't want to testify against Kate, but she wanted to see her grandson. But Kate didn't want her anywhere near him. Still, the DA later told the judge Kate's mother was unable to testify for medical reasons. The DA demanded 4 years in a deal before agreeing to time served plus 10 years' probation, no leaving the state. So, Kate was free (and a celebrity - so there's our answers as to how she wasn't in jail and how she was able to afford the cushy Volvo in Jack's flash-forward). Jack intercepted Kate by the backdoor to the courthouse. "You know Jack, I've heard you say that story so many times, I'm starting to think you believe it." Jack told her he didn't mean that he didn't love her. Kate said she knew why Jack didn't want to see the baby, but until he did, there would be no going for coffee. Edited as the show was, we were meant to assume the baby was Sawyer's, conceived in the bear cages, and that Kate merely lied about her pregnancy. But the last scene of the episode made clear this was not the case.

Kate was taken to a lovely house by the taxi. She went in, greeted the nanny, and climbed the stairs to the room of....Aaron! Yup, folks, it would appear the fifth O-sixer is Aaron Littleton, who for some reason calls future Kate "Mommy." So Jack has an aversion to seeing Aaron? Does he know yet that Aaron is his nephew? Is he blaming himself for whatever ill befell Claire that led to mother and child being separated? For that matter, how are we to understand Desmond's vision of Claire and Aaron boarding the helicopter, if only Aaron made it back? Or is Claire the other O6er who for some reason gave up her child?

One final note. Before we saw Aaron, we got a brief look around his room. This is a screencap of a painting hanging on the wall. As if the importance of Daniel's card "guessing" game weren't hidden enough before, now one of the very cards he correctly guessed is painted on Aaron's wall? What's the deal with the Six of clubs? Is there a greater meaning to the number 6 than the number of survivors who got off the island? Or did Daniel somehow predict there would be six survivors?

Well, lostophiles, that's all I got this week. Sorry so late, but it's been a busy day. And to the loyal friends and readers who emailed me after seeing the episode on the East Coast that they correctly guessed the Aaron shocker before it was revealed, well, so did I!

Namaste!