LOST Rewatch: What Kate Does

LOST Rewatch: What Kate Does April 15, 2015

The episode begins with the fact that Sayid died and now is alive. Sawyer sarcastically comments on the fact that Sayid gets another chance, being an Iraqi torturer who shoots children. Left unspoken is the fact that Juliette did not live. The Japanese-speaking man Dogen tortures Sayid as a test, “to be sure,” but he is told that he passed, even though apparently he did not. They tell Jack that Sayid is “infected” – presumably referring to the same thing that Rousseau talked about. Miles asks Sayid if he didn’t see a white light or angels singing, and Hurley asks him if he isn’t a zombie. Dogen tells Jack that he was brought there, just like everyone else. He had given Jack a pill to give to Sayid, insisting that it would stop the infection. He tells Jack to trust him. But when Jack takes the pill himself, Dogen makes him cough it up, saying that it was poison. Dogen says he believes Sayid has been claimed by a darkness which is making its way to his heart. When Jack asks how he can be sure, Dogen replies, “because it happened to your sister.”

The episode title focuses at least in part on the parallel storyline in which Kate gets a chance to express her desire to run away on her own, and ends up hijacking Claire’s cab and stealing her purse and a bag with things for her baby. She then finds Claire and returns them, giving Claire a lift to where she is going and then going in with her. The woman who was going to adopt the baby says that her husband left her and can’t raise the baby alone. Claire goes into labor then, amd so Kate runs her to the hospital. Ethan Goodspeed is the doctor. He says that she is at 36 weeks, and he might be able to stop the labor, but he doesn’t want to stick her full of needles if he doesn’t have to.

But the title may also refer to Kate going after Sawyer on the island when he leaves. She knocks out the two Others sent with her and Jin. Jin wants to find Sun, and asks Kate who she cares about. Kate tracks Sawyer to the Dharma barracks. Sawyer pries up floorboards and pulls out a box. Kate tells Sawyer that she came back to the island to find Claire, hoping to reunite her with Aaron. Sawyer had wanted to ask Juliette to marry him, and even had a ring, but never did.

And so in the afterlife, Kate accomplishes what she wished she had in this one, namely Claire keeping her baby.

In the final scene, Claire shoots the Others who had caught up with Jin.

The focus in the title is on redemption – where an earlier episode had been “What Kate Did,” this one is “What Kate Does,” with different choices. Also striking is the second instance of an apparent resurrection which turns out not to be a blessed event. Perhaps this is interesting to consider in connection with the focus on the afterlife in this season. On the one hand, cheating death by returning to this life is viewed negatively as something deceptive and dark. On the other hand, the show reflects the conviction that the dead live on in another form.

LOST Kate Claire Ethan


Browse Our Archives