Lost Rewatch: Whatever the Case May Be

 Kate was one of my favorite characters on Lost pretty much from beginning to end. Evangeline Lilly was one of the great discoveries of the series and whatever her personal or political views are, I have never had a single problem with her performance on Lost. So I was surprised to learn that over time, many fans of the series became frustrated with her character or never cared for her at all.

I believe, in hindsight, there are two reasons for this, neither entirely without merit. The first and it’s nearly impossible to argue with that is that most of the other female characters on the series never got as fully developed at Kate. There is a real argument that many characters never got the same level of depth or exploration into their backstories as Kate did. This is particularly true in the first season when Kate receives three flashbacks on her own and is part of two other ones in the Pilot and the season finale. By comparison Shannon doesn’t even get her own episode to herself in the first season, and only appears in flashbacks that are related to Boone. Considering that this episode shows the potential for a couple of other characters in it and there’s almost nothing to be learned from Kate’s long term, I can understand why this frustrate fans.

The other problem many had with Kate, particularly in the first season, was her continued duplicitous nature throughout and especially how eager she seemed to be to get off the island despite the fact that if she did, she was heading back to prison. That the show would not address this issue at all until well after the third season – when as we shall see, it was a moot point – must have been a constant source of irritation.

And let’s not kid ourselves, one of the bigger problems with the series that would increasingly become dead weight was the Kate-Jack-Sawyer triangle that the writers would devote too much time having Kate flitting between one or the other, never settling for the idea. As someone who thought this storyline seriously should have been resolved a lot quicker than it was – and never was remotely happy with the outcome  it is hard not to look at Kate’s actions and not understand why so many people could begin to dislike her.

Because this episode probably shows Kate at her absolute worst, both in the flashback and on the island. From the moment the suitcase is discovered, she is utterly determined to get what’s in it and is more than willing to use both Sawyer and Jack to get it. As soon as Sawyer gets the case she refuses to tell him what’s in it or why she wants it. Both of them ask her outright why she wants to open the case so badly and in both cases she utterly refuses to give her reasons. She’s willing to steal it from Sawyer and utterly manipulate Jack in to getting it from her, all without revealing her reasons. Jack’s self-righteousness towards Kate is never an attractive quality on him, but this is the rare episode when its completely justified. She tells him why she wants the case, forces him to dig up the corpse of the man he killed, and then palms the key right in front of him. That Jack is still willing to open the case in front of her after all this actually shows more kindness out of him than I’d think warrants; this is the rare time where I would have fine if she just shut Kate out. And while some might harp on the fact he still wants Kate to be honest about why she wanted what was in the envelope, it’s worth noting she deflects twice before finally breaking down.

The flashback doesn’t show her to much better effect. We already know she’s a criminal and devious (even though we think this is the reason she ends up a fugitive in the first place) but when we learn the fact that not only did she set up this entire heist just to get access to a safe deposit box but it is perfectly fine betraying the people she tricked into doing so, this may be the first time we actually wonder if the Marshal was right about what he said before he died about who Kate was.  The next flashback will end up throwing that into question (and in doing explain much more about who Kate really was before she got on the island) but given everything that we see in the past and the present, the viewer could be forgiven for starting to lose empathy towards her at this point.

What makes this episode all the more frustrating is that so much energy is fundamentally put on what is the most minimal of story points (by the end of the first season, this whole issue will obviously be forgotten) on what should be far more pressing matters. To be fair, there is at least some discussion of the search for Claire in this episode (the next couple don’t even bother) but the mystery that was uncovered in the last minute that every wanted to start seeing answered is referred to for all of one brief scene between Locke and Boone and then forgotten.

The plot problems can be forgiven in the sense that the writers may still have been working out what they wanted to do (it was later revealed the writers still didn’t quite have a concrete plan for the overarching plot) The characters issues are far less forgivable, particularly when it comes to two female characters.

Shannon may be the one major character on the series who was hated pretty much from the moment we met her to her untimely end. (This is a spoiler, but if you know this show you know a lot of characters meet untimely ends.) I had less difficulty with her than some of the other fans of the series, but let’s be honest: it is the writers fault that they chose to give her as little focus as they did. This is particularly frustrating because every so often, there were moments to make you realize like everyone else on the island, there was more to Shannon that met the eye. This is particularly clear in a couple of the scenes she has with Sayid. Her lack of confidence in her own abilities has always been clear (Boone hasn’t been helping so far on the island) and we do get the idea that much of her pettiness and entitlement might be a front. When she points out to Sayid the idea that maybe Rousseau went nuts after sixteen years on the island – an idea that not only has merit but will basically become one of the key arguments many other characters will make – Sayid is initially dismissive of it in a way you don’t see from other people who state this. And at the end of the episode, she reaches a realization that I really don’t think anyone else on the island could have gotten to her on their own. Add in some of the elements of her backstory that are hinted at that the series never follows up on, and it is frustrating that the writers decided to simply give on her relatively quickly.

The other character who I wish they’d used more of was never a regular, but in episodes like this, you truly wished they would have made her one.  Charlie has understandably been in a state of hostile depression ever since Claire’s abduction, but it’s pretty clear to this point everyone’s been either avoiding him or treating him with kid gloves. When Rose walks up to Charlie and treats him with the same no-nonsense attitude that she does everybody else, she manages to snap him out of his funk – first against his will and then by appealing to their common faith. At this point, with the exception of Locke, Charlie and Rose are the most openly religious characters on the series and when she asks him to pray with her and ask for help, it’s a moment of clarity that helps Charlie to begin to move through his trauma. His recovery will seem a bit quick by comparison (and he’ll show less amnesia regarding Claire then the rest) but it’s unlikely any other character on the series would be capable of talking to him this way. L. Scott Caldwell’s work on this show would be dependable pretty much from start to finish, and I honestly wish the writers would have had enough faith to use her more often than they did throughout the series.

This is the first episode so far on Lost where you don’t really think much progress has been made, either in terms of plot or character development. When the series was run in syndication, several episodes that were far more critical to the story were cut from the run, which is murder on a serialized production and deadly to a show like Lost. This episode is one of the few in the series that you almost wish could have been and might not have minded if it was