LOST What Kate Does, first thoughts

“What Kate Does” is of course reminiscent of the title “What Kate Did” which is the ninth episode of Season 2 where we found out why Kate was a fugitive. It is also the episode in which we saw Kate take care of a feverous Sawyer just like she was caring for the knocked out Sawyer at the end of LA X Part 2.



In this episode, we find out what Kate does immediately upon escaping, and it is to help Claire, something that she of course also did early and often in the original timeline. The two different realities are clearly bleeding together in the LA Timeline. Kate feels the need to help Claire when she sees the picture of her, and I think that it is because of the connection that she built up with Claire and especially Aaron in the original timeline. The moment that Claire thinks Aaron is in danger, she knows his name as if she already knew her son, this is another instance of the other reality bleeding through. There is also a clear moment when Kate and Jack both look at each other and seem to know each other far better than they do in this dimension.



Other thoughts, questions that have been raised talking with some of my friends this last week, are Penny and Faraday alive in the LA Timeline? When Jack and Co. set off Jughead, both Faraday’s mother (Eloise) and Penny’s father (Widmore) were on the Island which we’ve seen is now underwater. The argument of course is that they died and therefore, Faraday and Penny would never have been born. Which would also mean that not only would Desmond not have crash landed on the Island because it is underwater, but that he never would have felt the need to race around the world in the first place. Which also means that he wouldn’t have been training for that race and never would have met Jack running up and down stadium steps, so Desmond being a phantom or not, Desmond and Jack shouldn’t have known each other, yet Jack clearly recognized him, which leads you to think that there is bleed through from the future that they don’t have anymore.



The connections that the show set up throughout the flashbacks also seem to play a role in the reality without the Island. Kate and Claire this week, Kate and Sawyer last week, Kate and Jack on the plane and this week, Locke and Boone last week, Hurley and Sawyer last week, but most importantly, Claire is once again nine months pregnant and again being treated by Dr. Ethan.



Something that we’ve wondered about since the tenth episode of season one became clear, the psychic spent a lot of time telling Claire that she must raise her baby, then finally told her that there was a couple in Los Angeles that would take the baby. The question has been rather that couple existed, as he told Eko it did, and that he did it for money or if he somehow truly knew that the plane would crash and that Claire would be forced to raise the baby herself. We found out this week that the couple did exist, and yet, they were never going to be able to take Aaron anyway, the husband left, and the wife told Claire she couldn’t do raise the baby on her own. Whether the plane landed or crashed, Claire was going to have and want Aaron either way.



Finally, we also seem to have an answer of sorts on what it is that happened to Christian and Claire (and unfortunately, now Sayid). They died, they were dead, and then, somehow, they were infected by “a darkness”. They aren’t Christian, Claire, and Sayid as we remember them, but are reanimated and being taken over by this darkness. Claire right after she died was somewhat Claire, but quickly became less and less Claire and if you recall Miles could tell something was wrong with her (causing Sawyer to think that Miles was some sort of weird stalker). Sayid is somewhat Sayid right now, but is on his way to being different in the same way that Claire and Christian are different.



The question, of course, is why didn’t the same thing happen to John Locke’s body. And if it is Esau (the Man In Black) that is responsible for Christian and Claire, why did he become Locke but leave the body while reanimating Christian, Claire, and now Sayid? That doesn’t make much sense to me yet, leading me to believe that whatever darkness reanimated Christian, Claire, and Sayid, it is different from Esau.



The other big question I have from this revelation that this darkness can reanimate and change the dead is why Richard didn’t see this as a possibility for Locke when he found out that Benry had killed him and yet the Island had brought him back. Instead, Richard says that he’s never heard of the Island bringing anyone back to life. Shouldn’t he have known about this possibility? Or did he, like Dogan and Lennon did to Sayid, somehow test Locke and whereas Sayid failed due to the infection of the darkness, Locke passed since he wasn’t the darkness but was Esau?



One last insight from last week’s episode, the Kierkegaard book that the LOSTies found in the outer temple wall was Fear and Trembling a book in which Kierkegaard meditates on the story from Genesis 22, when Abraham goes out to sacrifice Isaac on the word of God. Kierkegaard talks about faith being a belief in the absurd. He respects Abraham’s faith, but utterly fails to comprehend it. Interestingly, in the Bible, Isaac, Abraham’s son, is the father of Jacob and his twin brother Esau.



Last, but not least, good to see Aldo again, even if not for long, or as he might be more familiar to some of you, Mac from It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia. Made me wonder where Charlie, Dennis, Frank, and Sweet D were though.



Until Next Time, line of the night… “As you can see, uh, Hugo here has assumed the leadership position, so… that’s pretty great.”-Miles