Lost Rewatch: What Kate Does

 

Since many of the next several reviews will deal with character studies as much as the story, I’d like to start with one of the areas I’m in disagreement with Nikki Stafford in regard to the characters as she expresses it throughout Finding Lost. Throughout all of her books, Stafford argues that while black and white have been recurring themes throughout the entire show since the Pilot, all of the characters are neither but rather occupy a grey area. I’ve never held with that but it’s only after a long career of watching so much television in the last twenty years that I realized why.

In the previous episode ‘Locke’ dismissed everyone on the plane as ‘weak, pathetic and irrevocably broken’. We all know he was speaking from a place of contempt in that but there is one word that is accurate and that’s ‘broken’. Darlton referred repeatedly that all of the characters on the series were not just physically lost but emotionally so and no one will dispute that fact.

‘Broken’ could also be used to describe so many of the major characters in all of the other dramas that we met in the first decade of Peak TV. Tony Soprano was famously so, and you could say the same for everyone he associated with. Al Swearengen and most of the members of Deadwood were to a certain extent many in ways the characters on Lost could not handle. By the time Lost was getting nominated for Best Drama in its final three seasons we had been introduced to Don Draper, Walter White and Dexter Morgan all of whom its safe to say had pieces missing. That said I think its safe to say that in the entire run of Lost, the series never had a character anywhere near as morally bankrupt as these characters: the closest is Ben and he is anywhere near as villainous as any of the characters I’ve listed on a good day.

By comparison there isn’t a single character on Lost who even comes close to the definition of the antiheroes we were getting before, during and after the revolution. All of these characters are flawed but I would never have called any of them anywhere close to the level of monstrous that we were getting in Breaking Bad or The Sopranos. Even when Jack or Locke were at their worst, their clash was about what either believed was the greater good.

This may be one of the reasons it has been easier for me to return to Lost multiple times over the years than many of the other shows I’ve mentioned. All of them are of high quality to be sure but the enjoyment we get of these shows is of a darker layer than Lost’s.  And its fitting that the first episode after the season premiere focuses on one of the characters who is the most problematic for many fans even now.

We’ve known that Kate Austen was a criminal from the Pilot but oddly enough that’s not why she’s been so hard for many fans to accept then or now. Kate has one of the toughest and most complicated parental stories of the entire series as well as one of the purest hearts. That heart leads to do terrible things, run away and return to try and make amends and that pattern always leads to the people she loves getting hurt as collateral damage.

The title of this episode mirrors the Season 2 episode What Kate Did where we learned why Kate was on the run in the first place. Her stepfather was a drunk, had abused her mother for her entire life (and possibly her too) so she killed him and tried to provide for her mother as a result. Her mother, however, had always chosen her husband over her daughter and kept doing so even after he was dead. She turned Kate in to the Marshal and she managed to escape. And in a sense Kate spent the next four years running, even when she ended up on the island.

Kate has spent her time on the road wishing for forgiveness from her mother and came back asking for it twice. She didn’t get it either time, and on the latter occasion her former boyfriend ended up getting killed as a result of her actions. She ended up falling in love with a cop and she tried to settle down but it was because she loved him that she chose to leave him. Eventually she ended up in Australia but the Marshal ended up following her there and he captured her when she chose to come back to help the man who’d betrayed her.

On the island Kate was finally free from pursuit but she couldn’t handle that so she spent her entire tenure on the island desperately trying to get off it. She spent her time on the island torn between Jack and Sawyer, always following Jack into the jungle no matter how many times he asked her not to or much how abuse he gave her. She was always closer in temperament to Sawyer but perhaps because he pursued her she kept running whenever they got close. The longer they stayed on the island Kate managed to make things worse whenever she followed Jack, but she never got the hint – even when her attempt to rescue him led to Locke blowing up the sub and ending, for the moment, any chance at rescue.

Kate was one of the Oceanic 6 and when she got off the island she managed to have the happiest future of all of them. She finally stood trial, resolved things with her mother and ended up walking away free. She took over guardianship of Aaron and raised her as her son. As a mother she finally managed to find the happiness she’d never had on the island. She and Jack seemed about to have a happy life together but when Jack’s jealousy over Sawyer became too much for him, Kate chose Aaron over Jack.

When Ben began to orchestrate his plans to bring the Oceanic 6 back to the island Kate was by far the most resistant. But her reason was far less selfish and more specific – she was coming back for Claire.

Claire  is considered by Nikki Stafford part of the focus and since this episode marks the first time we’ve seen here since Season 4, it’s worth focusing on her as well. It’s also worth talking about because her character has seemed like one of the greatest missed opportunities of the entire show and despite her shock return, Season Six does little to redeem it.

I mentioned at one point that Claire Littleton is one of the few wholly good characters to exist in all of Lost and that may be the main reason the show could never figure out how to use her well. This is frustrating considering how critical she seemed to be to the overarching story by the third season and how badly the show blundered it.

Claire was one of the first regulars we met on Lost as Jack went to help a woman who was nearly eight months pregnant out of the wreckage of Oceanic 815. Throughout Season 1 Claire knew what most people saw when they looked at her: “a ticking time bomb of responsibility.” The writers didn’t seem to know what to do with her in Season One; she wasn’t listed as a full-time regular until halfway through the season by which point she’d been kidnapped just as we realized the Others were on the island and had been mysteriously returned (though no one had spent the intervening episodes even looking for her.) This would set a pattern for her character throughout the first two seasons: she seemed more important for what she represented than who she was and that seemed to be as Aaron’s mother. A psychic had told her that it was important that her child not be raised by another and harassed her to the point that when he gave her tickets to a plane and told her she had to be on it, it seemed that he knew the plane would crash and that she would give birth on the island. That played out when she was abducted and we would later learn that she was being poked and prodded by Ethan in order to take her baby from her.

When she finally gave birth at the same time Boone was breathing his last, it seemed like there was more importance to her child. When Aaron was abducted by Rousseau at the end of the season because she believed the Others were ‘coming for the boy’ it seemed just as important – though that was a false flag as they turned out to be coming for Walt instead. In Season 2, everybody focused on the hatch and Claire and Aaron became less important, usually mentioned in regard to Charlie and again when she thought a sickness had come for him. That season’s Claire centric episode ‘Maternity Leave’ again seemed important because of Claire’s memory but was again more important because it was the first time we saw Alex, Rousseau’s daughter. In Season 3 we learned the truth about Claire’s mysterious parentage and it turned out her father was none other than Christian Shephard himself – but since she never asked his name, she didn’t know that she and Jack were half-siblings.

At the end of Season 3, it now seemed that Claire would have to take more of a focus now that Charlie had given his life so that Claire could get off the island (Desmond had seen it in his flashes) and we knew that she was related to Jack. But after Claire ended up going with Locke to the barracks, she again became more of a background character. There was the huge shock when we learned that Kate was raising Aaron as her son and we spent the rest of Season 4 sure that Claire was dead (a theory many Losties held even after she survived). And what seems to have happened is…she saw the ghost of her father, wandered off into the jungle and left Aaron behind. The series never gives a real explanation as to why Claire, who had been told how important it was she raise her son, would leave him behind. And when Aaron ended up leaving the island with Kate, one wondered what his importance to the entire story had been.

In Seasons Four and Five we saw how much being a mother fulfilled Kate than anything we had seen before. But she realized that the right thing to do was to come back to the island and bring Aaron’s mother back to her. That was her sole focus when she came back to the island, which is why she was perhaps the most frustrated when the Losties ended up in 1977.

Fans were angry with Kate from her time in Dharmaville basically blaming her for everything that went wrong. It says a lot that when Kate told Jack: “Since when is shooting children and blowing up islands what we do?” many viewers chose to cast her as the villain even though she was right in both cases. Now in the aftermath of Jughead, it’s clear that Kate was right (something I guarantee you no fan will admit even now) and now that they’re back in the present, she’s trying to complete her original mission, something that the Others and most of the survivors don’t give a damn about.

Evangeline Lilly has had some of the hardest work to do of most of the characters on Lost, mainly because so much of her character’s evolution has been subtler from season to season. The flashbacks have been shown out of order so it’s hard to know how much Kate has changed in all of them and while other characters have evolved more distinctly each season, so much of Kate’s behavior is defined by her relationships with other people, mostly Jack and Sawyer. It’s been easier to tell the changes in her character once she left the island, because once Kate became a mother  the major aspect of her character -  running away – was removed and she became a force of stability. We saw this best in her scenes with Aaron throughout Season Four and Five when we saw what a good mother she was and how broken she seemed when she got on the Ajira flight. With no clear mission when she came back to 1977 Kate’s character struggled, and that may be why so many fans turned against her. Now that she’s in the present, she can move forward but like everyone else, the collateral damage has been immense and she can’t run away from it this time.

In Finding Lost Stafford complained that the flash-sideways was disappointing compared to the action that was happening on the island. Her logic was that there didn’t seem to be any clear differences between Kate here and in her previous incarnation and that Claire’s attitude was that of someone who had no survival skills, given that she chooses to go with a woman who held her at gunpoint and is exactly where Kate abandoned her. I understand the rationale and held with it for many rewatches. However, I’m now inclined to disagree.

When it comes to Claire she has no one to contact in LA and Kate just took all her money and credit cards. As to why she decides to trust Kate, there’s an argument that in the sideways world Claire is basically the same person: caring and willing to give the benefit of the doubt even to people she shouldn’t. And if you believe in the larger points of what the flash-sideways are, the implication probably is that Claire knows instinctively to trust Kate because of the bond they share. That’s also why, when Kate sees the pictures of the pregnant Claire as well as the vitamins and dolls, she realizes that her needs must take a back seat to the woman she hurt.

There’s also an argument that Kate, who seemed far harsher and more violent, is still the same person with the heart we knew. And there is one critical difference. Throughout her time on the island Kate was willing to own what she did, first to Jack and then to Sawyer. She was always running away on the island because she knew of her record but she never denied responsibility for it, either there or in any of her flashbacks. So when she tells Claire: “Would you believe me if I told you I was innocent?”, this is a break between who she was on the island. (I never saw any of the scenes from Comic Con, so I never knew why Kate was on the run and since they’re never truly considered canon, I’m not sure it would have made a difference.)  The implication is clearly that Kate is running not because it’s who she is, but because she doesn’t think anyone would believe her about the truth.

This is a contrast to Kate’s actions on the island. While everyone is crowded around a resurrected Sayid, Sawyer decides to make a break for it and Kate says that she can track him. Jin agrees to go with her. Both of them have ulterior motives to be sure, but it’s worth noting that Jin’s is based more in reality. Both of them are searching for someone they care about but Jin is willing to try and make whatever alliances he can. Kate refuses to trust anyone and still decides to go after Sawyer.

The scene with Sawyer and Kate breaks your heart every time you see it. Josh Holloway was magnificent in the fifth season but much of his work in the first part of Season 6 is even better. Sawyer isn’t back to where he was at the start of the series; he’s actually in a worse place than he was. His remark about Sayid has a cruelty that his old sarcasm lacked and his scenes with Kate are unlike anything we’ve seen in the entire series. There was always a sense of attraction between the two that Juliet picked up on back in Dharmaville. Now it is has been snuffed out for good as we (and Kate) realize that Sawyer had given himself to Juliet long ago. Sawyer truly does blame himself for forcing Juliet to stay on the island but now Kate really does realize how much damage she’s done since she came back to Dharmaville. When Sawyer walks away from Kate dismissively, the symbolism is clear: he is done with her. His actions for the next few episodes will suggest he is done with the group altogether. If Kate couldn’t bring him back, there’s no hope for any of them.

We are understandably distracted given what is happening to Sayid back at the temple. It initially seems like this group of Others, led by Dogen and Lennon, have no more intention of being helpful then any of the previous incarnations. They take Sayid with them, promise Jack answers but initially intend to give none and when Sawyer takes off, they seem more concerned about him than anything else without indicating why.

(Well, not all of them. In a beautiful bit of continuity one of the Others who accompanies Kate and Jin is Aldo, one of the few Others we met in Season 3 who managed to survive the carnage inflicted on them alive. Three years have done nothing to abate his grudge and it must be galling that now he has to protect the woman who clocked him with a rifle. Rob McAlhaney had a cameo in 2007 and in the interim had become a superstar on It’s Always Sunny on Philadelphia. It was good of him to come back to wrap up his story and now he can add: “I was killed off on Lost” to his resume.)

The scenes with Sayid are perplexing. At first we think this is part of penance for his past life: the torturer undergoing the kinds of torture he inflicted on dozens of people. But then it becomes clear that there is a larger issue. Lennon and Dogen do not seem happy that Sayid arose from the dead two hours after they killed him. The fact that they call Jack in to try and convince him to make Sayid take this ‘medicine’ by playing on his guilt is based on the fact that Dogen used this just a few hours ago to get Sayid into the spring in the first place.

But considering the last leap of faith Jack took, it’s small wonder he doesn’t trust himself. Lennon is stunned to learn Jack swallowed the pill considering he might well have suspected it was poison but at this point he doesn’t believe in anything anymore. When Dogen tells him he was brought to the island by the same person who brought Jack here, he listens because its something very close to what Locke said when he told them all of this was happening for a reason.  Jack needs to know what this reason is but being asked to trust these people is a bridge too far. He knows that they are in the Temple because they are being protected from something but no one’s willing to share that either.

And its worth noting even after Dogen saves his life, there are still precious few answers being given. Dogen tells him that Sayid has been ‘claimed’ by some kind of darkness and when he asks how he knew that this will happen, Dogen tells them that it happened to his sister. This is the first time anyone on the island has acknowledged Jack and Claire’s relationship and Jack no doubt needs to hear more but there’s no evidence that Dogen is forthcoming in the next few hours. (Then again, considering that the writers will make the decision to cut bait on the Temple in the immediate future, maybe they never got the chance.)

Of course we do get a sign of this in the jungle. There are traps around but when one of the Others tells her they’re not Rousseau’s he’s shut down. Jin falls victim to another at the end of the episode but then Aldo is killed and Justin is shot.

And there in the jungle, Jin sees Claire for the first time in three years. The same woman who Dogen’s heart is filled with darkness. Given that the old Claire would never have been capable of killing a person when she disappeared, it looks like when Claire and Kate finally reunite, it’s not going to go nearly as well as Kate hopes it will.

 

If You Believe The Ending: Why would Ethan be here? It makes sense if this is an alternate universe. Based on that interpretation, he was never taken by the Others (he is Dr. Goodspeed in this universe) and has grown to live a normal, happy life. There’s nothing creepy about his attitude in his scene in the hospital: he is warm, compassionate and understanding to Claire in the scene. (The needle line is hysterical either way.) But if the ending is accurate, then there’s no reason either Kate or Claire would see him. To Claire, he abducted her, experimented on her and was planning to take her baby and possibly murder her afterwards. To Kate, he beat Jack nearly to death and hanged Charlie by his neck and left him for dead. Perhaps there is a different context to this given the nature of the universe but like so many of the other recurring characters we see in the flash-sideways, it really does seem more like they’re giving William Mapother a curtain call before the show ends.