Episode 603 - "What Kate Does" is Go After Claire

This week, I'm a bit behind, so this will be a "broad strokes" type of recap...

The return of a missing "friend!" The return of a superfluous Other!! The reappearance of a contextually changed other Other!!!! All this, plus Kate2's big adventure, on "What Kate Does."

Foreword

The title of this episode invokes the Season 2 episode, "What Kate Did," which explained the crime for which she was wanted. For a very detailed look at parallels between the episodes, see Doc Jensen's ew.com recap.

Alternaverse

Kate2's story picks up where she left off last week - carjacking Claire2's cab at the airport. There's a thoroughly unamusing Arzt-channels-Dustin Hoffman moment, then they drive off. The cabbie gets bold at a red light, and takes off running. Kate2 hops to the front seat, and humanely lets Claire2 out, but refuses to let her take her suitcase.

Kate2 finds a chop shop, and pays the creepy proprietor to bust her out of the cuffs. She goes to the bathroom to change into something from Kate2's bag, and inside sees all the trappings of a mom-to-be, including a stuffed Shamu. Fun fact: this is the same plush toy that 2-year-old Aaron had in the Season 4 episode, "Something Nice Back Home."

Kate2, now free, knows what she has to do. She finds Claire2 sitting more or less where she left her. Claire2, after a brief "should I or shouldn't I" moment, hops in Kate2's cab. She explains that she's on her way to meet the family that's adopting her unborn baby, and rationalizes that they probably just forgot to pick her up at the airport. When they arrive at the house in "Brentwood" (Aside - Hawaii often does a good job of standing in for other locales, but semi-rural Oahu looks nothing like L.A.'s densely packed Brentwood neighborhood).

Sure enough, Claire2 finds her would-be adoptive mama crying, because her husband just left her (Juno, anyone?), and she says she can't do it alone. Suddenly, Claire2 experiences labor pains, so Kate2 rushes her to the hospital. Once there, Kate2 spots a cop car, so she sticks with Claire2 through admission. Kate2 goes to find an OB to come help the Thelma to her Louise, and the doctor turns out to be...Ethan2 (Rom) Goodspeed!? In an awesome bit of dramatic irony, the good doctor says he wants an ultrasound before he does anything too drastic, because, "I don't want to stick you with needles if I don't have to." (Get it? Because Other Ethan kidnapped Claire, and kept sticking her with needles?) Suddenly, Claire2 blurts out that the baby's name is Aaron, and Doc Ethan2 says, "I have a feeling Aaron is going to be quite a handful." (Chuckle Chuckle).

Unpacking the hospital scene - this sequence is the biggest, densest part of the episode. As on the island, Claire2 had flase labor pains shortly after flight 815. As on the island, Ethan2 is intimately involved in Claire2's late-term pregnancy. As on the island, Claire2 suddenly "realizes" that the baby's name is "Aaron," rather than just choosing that name based on taste or a favorite uncle or anything like that. And, as in island world, Claire2's plan to give up Aaron2 to an adoptive couple in L.A. is thwarted by forces beyond her control.

Philsophically, the biggest moments in this scene were, of course, the presence of Ethan2, and the ultrasound photo Claire2 saw. If this alterna-verse really split off after the incident, the presence of Ethan2 tells us that the Island inhabitants were not obliterated by Judghead (unless, of course, Ethan2, unlike Ethan, was successfully evacuated on the sub). Assuming the former, that tells us that Ethan2 survived, and then subsequently left the island, meaning the detonation of Jughead is not what caused it to sink, at least not immediately.

There's also the matter of the ultrasound, depicted here...

Check out the date - October 22, 2004. Well, folks, that's a big deal. Remember, this is the same day that flight 815 landed with our alterna-characters...only, the crash of flight 815 took place on September 22, 2004. Supposedly, however, online chatter suggests that Lost's continuity guru, script supervisor Greg Nations, has revealed that something about the date on the photo is right, and something else is wrong. No idea what that cryptic clue means, but I am wondering a doctored photo made just for the episode could have a wrong date on it...something to watch out for.

The rest of the hospital sequence was fairly mundane. Claire2 covered for Kate2 when the police came looking for her. Kate2 asked Claire2 if she believed that Kate2 was actually innocent of what she had been accused of, but when Claire2 decides, yeah, she does, Kate2 seems less than convinced. And then, as Kate2 departed, she shared her unsolicited opinion that Claire2 should keep the baby.

Island World

Back on the island, we returned to the moment where Sayid first awakens from his apparent resurrection. Kate wonders to Sawyer how that could be, and Sawyer, still so angry about Juliet's loss, snorts, ''He's an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids. He definitely deserves another go around.'' Miles keeps giving Sayid weird looks, making me a bit annoyed that he just doesn't say which part of Sayid's death and resurrection is making his spider sense tingle. As they go outside, and Sayid wonders what happens, Hurley starts to assure him that the Others are protecting them, at which point Miles gives us one of his better lines, "as you can see, Hugo here has assumed a leadership position, so that's pretty great." Jack lets Sayid know that it was the Others, and not him, who saved Sayid's life.

The Others "ask" Sayid to go alone with them, and Jack insists, ah, no, not until you tell us what's up. "Once we've spoken with Mr. Jarrah, we'll be more than happy to tell you anything you want to know," says barefooted Lennon. Jack gets all, "oh no you don't, you sneaky Others," and says, "something tells me you won't be happy to tell us anything." During the scuffle that ensues, Sawyer gets ahold of a gun, and announces he's leaving. Dogen pleads with him, "please, you have to stay," to which Sawyer responds, "no, I don't" before directly addressing Kate, "don't come after me."

Naturally, Kate announces she's accompanying the Others' search party to bring Sawyer back, and so does Jin. Of course, they have their own agendas. Kate wants to get Sawyer to help her on her Claire-quest, and Jin wants to find the damn Ajira plane and, with it, Sun. They're accompanied by two bumbling Others, Aldo (he of the clocked over-the-head-as-part-of-the-Season-3-Wookie-prisoner-trick fame), and Justin, who apparently talks to much. I'm not sure why Aldo was so intent on stopping Justin from telling Kate and Jin anything; perhaps it was the bitterness he felt that Kate didn't seem to remember bonking him in the head with a rifle butt. In any case, Kate and Jin almost trip a couple of Rousseau-esque traps that Justin divulges can't be Rousseau's, because she's been dead for years, and Kate realizes she can intentionally spring the traps to escape. Jin refuses to go with her, though, because he wants to find Sun, so they part company.

Back at the Temple, Dogen tortures Sayid (turnabout!) with electric shocks to the chest and a red hot poker, after coating him with a fine dust. Lennon assures Sayid it was just a test, and he passed, but after Sayid is dismissed back to the bubbling pool room, Dogen confirmes Lennon's suspicion that Sayid did not pass the test.

Jack goes to demand an answer as to why Sayid was tortured, and the armed guards at the door find they really just have to let him pass. Dogen tells Jack that Sayid is "infected," which Jack scoffs at given the lack of a fever. Dogen pulls a much less subtle version of the ol' Ben trick and expressly tries to manipulate Jack. He asks if he feels responsible for Sayid's getting shot, and all the others who were hurt or killed helping him, then offers him redemption in the form of getting Sayid to take a weird green pill. Jack tells Sayid about the exchange, and Sayid says he trusts Jack, only Jack, humbly, admits he doesn't even trust himself.

Ultimately, Jack doesn't give Sayid the pill, and instead calls Dogen's bluff by trying to take it himself. Dogen forcibly heimlich's Jack to get the pill out, because it's poison. He and Lennon explain that, what's happened to Sayid is that he's been, for lack of a better translation, "claimed." There's a darkness growing inside of him, which, when it reaches his heart, will mean there is no Sayid left in there. When Jack asks how he can be so sure, Dogen relates that he knows because it happened to...Jack's sister (which is less a Luke/Leia moment since Jack has known for three years now about his relationship with Claire).

Kate follows Sawyer to the abandoned barracks, where Sawyer digs up the engagement ring he had for Juliet under the floorboards of their old place.

Exactly where does one acquire such an object while stationed with the DHARMA Initiative? Gues Lafleur had some pull...

Kate follows Sawyer out to the submarine dock, and Josh Holloway has just about the most beautifully emotive scene any Lost cast member has had to date. Kate tries to apologize for Juliet's death, but Sawyer, wracked with guilt, explains that Juliet dies because, three years before her death, Sawyer convinced her not to leave on the sub, because he didn't want to be alone. "Well, I guess some men are meant to be alone," he chokes back, and once again, the Sawliet relationship gets me all choked up.

But I have a prediction. They will meet again, and in fact, it will be over coffee, and Juliet will suggest they go Dutch. Lost has established this pattern - what seems to be a random babbling just before a character dies is actually the channelling of a memory/ vision of another encounter in another time with the character the dying one is babbling to. Remember Charlotte's bizarre parting words, "I'm not supposed to have chocolate before dinner?" Then we learned that's what young Charlotte said when she first met Faraday. I think the same thing happened with Juliet - in the moment before she died, she channeled her meet-cute with Sawyer2 from alternaverse. The universe, it seems, will course correct...or at least I hope it will.

Kate apologizes for going after Sawyer, and he forces a smile through his tears before tossing the ring into the lagoon. Sawyer then returns to his old house, presumably to mope himself to death, leaving Kate on her own in her quest for Claire.

Jin, meanwhile, gets ambushed by a very unhappy Aldo (and still pretty dense Justin). Justin suggests they take Jin back to the temple, but Aldo has had all he can stand with these uppity 815ers. He pulls a gun on Jin, and suggests maybe they should report that he died accidentally while they pursued Sawyer. Justin warns him, "he's one of them," and Aldo corrects, "he may be one of them."

WTF is that all about? I thought Jacob's list established their bona fides...

Anyway, at that very moment, Aldo and poor Justin are gunned down, supporting theory that it's better to be a red shirted away team member in Star Trek than it is to be an Other with a name in Lost.

As Jin looks up to see who saved him, he (and we) get a surprise - it's Claire, only she seems to have gone all feral, and rather Rousseau-esque...

So it would appear we've reencountered "the sickness" that Rousseau told Sayid took her crew, forcing her to kill them, way back in Season 1. It stands to reason that this is what changed her crew, including Robert, when they followed Montand into the chambers outside the Temple, since that's where Sayid was infected as well. It also seems that the sickness explains why Robert almost murdered Rousseau in cold blood when his firing pin misfired, and she killed him, instead - because he had the sickness. And now, we're told, Sayid has it, too.

But...if we also know that Claire has the sickness, perhaps it was Rousseau, and not her crew that got sick? Since Jin flashed from the Montand's arm scene to the time that Rousseau shot Robert, we didn't see what happened after they went in the hole. Maybe the reason Rousseau was so nuts was that she had the same sickness, which caused her to go all paranoid and kill her crew? But then she seemed to genuinely love Alex when they were reunited. Does this offer hope for Sayid, and, for that matter, jungle Claire?

Well, that's all for this week. Until next time, when we reconvene for "The Substitute," Namaste!