Lost Season 6, Episode 3 -- What Kate Does

The 9 February episode of Lost had two major themes -- the burden of leadership, and an exploration of running away from or toward difficult situations. The themes were echoed both in the 2007 Island time track, and the "Flash-Sideways" world of 2004 Los Angeles.

In L.A., Kate hijacks the cab driven by Heroes' Puppet Master(1), with Claire as passenger. They barely get out of the airport and away from all sorts of security. Kate spies Jack standing out on the sidewalk outside the terminal, and they exchange glances and wonder to themselves where they have seen each other before. In his dash out of the airport, the cabbie almost hits Doc Arzt, who has dropped his luggage everywhere and takes forever to pick up. With a threat of Kate's handgun, the Puppet Master takes off again, hauling away some of Doc Arzt's carry-on under the front bumper.

Eventually, the Puppet Master flees the vehicle in traffic, leaving Kate to take the wheel. Weirdly enough I had a flashback to the first episode I ever saw of Magnum, P.I., in 1981, where that character had to take over a first-generation Honda Civic smaller than a riding lawn mower that had been abandoned in traffic by Noah Beery Jr. from The Rockford Files. This must be TV Cliche #2,123, Character Flees Car in Traffic and Lead Character Must Take the Wheel. I don't know why I have these flashbacks, considering I've never taken mind altering drugs in my life.

Kate dumps Claire out at the curb and takes the pregnant gal's possessions. Kate speeds off, eventually ending up at a car repair garage, where a rugged, teasing mechanic lets our Favorite Fugitive remove her cuffs. He suggests using a punch press. (2) While there Kate digs through Claire's things, only to find a picture of her holding her big belly and stuff for baby. Kate has a twinge of guilt and goes back for the preggers Australian, who is now sullenly waiting for the bus. Claire tells her that weirdly enough, the adoptive couple never came to the airport to pick her up.

On Craphole Island in 2007, Sawyer waves a handgun around, demanding he be let out of the temple. Reluctantly, the Temple Others part and let him leave. The rest of the crew, including a dazed Sayid, watch him head out a heavy wooden gate.

Hurley wants to know if Sayid is a zombie, to which he says no. Sayid thanks Jack for "saving his life," unaware of how he came back from the dead. But now it seems Hurley is acting more like the leader of the castaways, and Jack is kind of a slacker along for the ride.

Sayid faces new weird, rough treatment by the Temple Others. Dogen, the Japanese leader, has him brought into a room. He throws some Magic Dust all over Sayid and puts alligator clamps on what looks like Sayid's nipples and his stomach area and then sends a jolt of electricity through the guy. The torturer gets tortured. Sayid cries out, demanding to know why Dogen's doing this, but the leader sez nothing, except that the process is a "test" (uh, right). Dogen picks up a hot poker from a fire and and puts it to Sayid's torso, while the latter screams in agony.

"You have passed the test," Lennon translates Dogen as saying. Later Lennon asks Dogen if he's lying, and the leader says yes, that's exactly what he just did.

In 2004, Kate takes Claire to the wonderfully wealthy city of Brentwood, where she is to meet with Aaron's adoptive parents. However, mom-to-be (3) is weeping and and apologizing 10 ways to Sunday, because her husband left her, and adoption is now out of the question. Then TV Cliche #1,613 occurs, Very Pregnant Woman Goes Into Loud, Painful Labor and Grabs Her Belly. Kate hurries Claire back to the cab and off to the hospital -- does this happen to be the one where Christian and Jack Shephard worked?

In the ER they meet -- Dr. Ethan Goodspeed??!! Yes, the villainous other, known as Ethan Rom and The First Cousin of Tom Cruise, Actor, here is the physician who comes to Claire's aid. With that surname, it's obvious that Ethan is DHARMA Horace's son and did not spend his teen and adult years with the Others.

Claire is 36 weeks into the 40-week pregnancy and was dilated 3 millimeters. There is a scary moment at one point when it seems the baby's heart stops, and Claire cries out "Is Aaron okay?" This is surprising, because she had no name for him or even knew yet that he was a he. But somehow that name just came to her, Claire says later. The loss of heartbeat on the fetal monitor was because the boy moved around in the womb.

At one point, a plainclothes policewoman comes in with another officer to Claire's room. She asks her about Kate, and Claire says she does not know where she went. The police leave, and Kate gives her thanks for the favor. Claire wants to know why the fuzz are on her trail, and Kate says, "Would you believe me if I told you I was innocent?" Kate ends the conversation with the suggestion that she should keep Aaron and raise him herself.

Back on the Island, the 2007 Kate convinces the Temple Others to let her go out and track down Sawyer. Jin and two Others, a blabby guy named Justin, and Mac from It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia (Rob McElhenny), go out into the jungle with them.

Mac or, more appropriately, Aldo, stridently reminds Kate that he was the guard she knocked out during her escape from captivity in Season 3. Aldo keeps telling Justin to shut up, as that guy has a tendency to spill Other secrets -- like that the Ajira jet carrying Sun did indeed land on the other island.

When they reach a branch in Sawyer's trail, Kate announces that he made a "false trail" to throw them off, and directs everyone to the correct one. Aldo then stops Kate from walking into a tripwire attached to a big net of big rocks, that he claims was left over from Danielle Rousseau. Kate, seeing an opportunity, sets the snare off anyway, taking out Aldo, and getting his gun. Jin knocks Justin out and takes his rifle.

Kate stomps off away from Jin to find Sawyer, and he continues decides to go on and try to find the passengers from the Ajira flight. Kate goes right to Sawyer, and for the second episode in a row, we see Dharmaville, but obviously not under the sea anymore.

Kate finds Sawyer inside the house he had shared with Juliet, breaking up the floorboards in the bedroom. He pulls out a box and removes a piece of black cloth, and tears come to his eyes.

Later down at the dock, where usually the submarine was parked before Locke came along, Sawyer and Kate have a heart to heart. He is still grieving over her and can't get over her, thus the lingering in Dharmaville. Sawyer reveals that Juliet was his truest love and what he had hidden under the floorboards -- an engagement ring. After emoting on the strains and challenges of love, he stands up and throws the ring into the lake by the dock. This also happens to be a TV Cliche, #338 -- Emotionally Upset Character Throws Formerly Valuable Item With Sentimental Value Into Body of Water.

He ran away in this episode, and Kate ran too, but toward him, driven by love and compassion (that same compassion that made her go back to Claire in '04). She can see clearly that his heart still belongs to the dead girl, and all she can do is be a sympathetic ear.

Back at the temple, Dogen mixes up some Secret Ingredients, making a fluorescent green paste that he inserts into a capsule. This is also Jack's night for what at first appear to be Dumb Questions, as he asks Dogen "What's that?" as he at one point he is tossing a baseball at his desk, which also has a retro typewriter. "A baseball," the Mystic Leader of the Temple Others says.

Dogen is holding the capsule for Sayid. Dogen tells Jack that he must get Sayid to take the pill, or else the infection in Sayid's body will spread completely, and he will die. He says that someone Sayid trusts must get him to take the capsule in order for it to work.

Jack asks Dogen why he always has someone translating for him all the time, when it's obvious his English is fluent. Dogen says that speaking his native tongue puts distance between him and his followers, and it is easier to make unpleasant decisions and orders to his followers, if it appears it is not coming directly from his mouth. It is one of the difficult things about leadership, which must have struck home hard with Jack. During all his attempts to oversee all the castaways, through Other abductions, off the Island, back on the Island, back to 1977 and now in 2007, the good doctor's leadership record is spotty at best.

Jack takes the pill to Sayid, telling him what Dogen said. Sayid says he trusts Jack, and if he says to take the capsule, he will.

Later, Jack returns to Dogen, again demanding to know what is in the pill. He adds that he didn't give Sayid the medicine. Jack abruptly swallows the capsule, and Lennon and Dogen whack Jack's shoulders and do haphazard Heimlichs to get the pill out of him, proof that there is something nasty in there.

Jack again asks "What's that?" after Dogen pours him a cup of green tea. "It's tea," says Dogen. These moments are getting so Zen. When is a baseball not a baseball, and a cup of tea not a cup of tea?

Dogen finally confesses that the pill was poison, and that Sayid did not pass the test at all. He needed to take it, because the infection in him isn't biological, it is a "darkness" that takes over certain people on the Island and completely changes them once it reaches their heart. (4) Dogen tells Jack that already his sister -- Claire -- has been completely swallowed by this horrifying darkness.

Back in the jungle, Jin stops take a drink, and in TV Cliche #738, Character Leaves His Weapon Unattended While in An Awkward Position, is accosted at gunpoint by an extremely pissed Aldo, who now twice has been knocked unconscious by Kate, and sidekick Justin. Jin tries to run away and runs into another snare, a bear trap that bites onto his ankle!

Shots ring out, and Jin gapes in surprise as Pissy Aldo and Blabby Justin drop to the ground, dead as doornails. He turns and sees...

...Claire, with tousled hair, glowering face and rifle at the ready, now appearing as Rousseau the 2nd. Dramatic Michael Giacchino music, fade to black, then that familiar thudding noise and white LOST. End.

(1) David H. Lawrence XVII -- Heroes' Puppet Master -- has actually commented here on this blog and said he likes it. That's the second time someone from showbiz contacted me directly. The other was back in 2001 when I had a Harry Potter fan site, and a stuntman who doubled for Lord Voldemort in the first movie thanked me for putting his biography on the site, simply wanting a correction on his birthdate It is possible that Lawrence's cabbie will be back in another episode, as his cab is still in Kate's hands, but it's also possible she'll find another car to throw the police off her trail.

(2) In looking at SpoilerFix, the mechanic is probably named Melky, who is listed in a casting call description as a "dangerous looking guy that can be surprisingly calm [and] (r)uns a seedy chop shop and not someone to be messed with has handled many dicey situations and is not thrown by anything."

(3) The SpoilerFix blog has another casting call for "Jenny: Female, early 30s, any ethnicity. Yuppie, sweet, happy and well off. Never had any problems until she receives heart-breaking news that tears her world apart." This may be the woman who was supposed to adopt Aaron.

(4) A "darkness" was shown to infect everyone except Rousseau in the Season 5 time jumps. The "spiritual" disease made them descend to the most insane and evil levels. Is Clare really infected? It won't be answered until further episodes.