When we saw in ‘Because You Left’that someone wanted blood samples to prove Kate’s relationship to Aaron, it raised a lot of speculation. The big three guesses were Ben, Claire’s mom and Widmore. The problem with that much guessing is that when one of them turns out right, we all end up feeling like ‘we knew it.’Even if we didn’t ‘know’know, we think we figured it out because the thought occurred to us before it was shown. This makes what should be a big reveal end up anticlimactic. That, and the fact that it followed the extremely popular ‘Jughead,’is probably why this episode was a bit of a letdown for me.
We’re back on The Searcher, three years ago. It’s the night before the scene where they decide to lie, the one we saw at the beginning of the second episode of this season. Kate, carrying Aaron, and Jack wander the deck because they can’t sleep. I’m not really sure why she’s carrying him around, I would think they would have fashioned him a sleeping bunk, or emptied out a drawer or something. Maybe they’re trying to say she can’t let him out of her sight. She asks Jack if he knew Claire was planning to give him up for adoption. Is that a wee bit of justification I smell? ‘She didnt really want him…’Jack didnt know that. She brings up the idea that they should say Aaron is her son. She feels that after everyone they’ve lost, like Michael, Jin and Sawyer, it would be hard to lose him too. Really? Michael’s on the short list of people you’re upset you lost? Did she even see him after he left the Pala Ferry dock? How about being upset you lost, oh, I don’t know, Charlie? Whatever. Jack tells her that they have to lie but if it looks like it’s just his idea, no one will go for it, so he asks if she’s with him. She tells him she’s always been with him. He doesnt point out, ‘except when you’ve been with Sawyer.’
Back in LA, Kate is borrowing her BFF Sun’s clothes and leaving Aaron with her while she goes to do something. For a second there I wondered if Sun was planning to steal Aaron. As Kate leaves, a package arrives for Sun, and she steals off to her bedroom to open it, leaving Aaron with his mac and cheese and french fries. Good to know the insanely wealthy feed their kids crap just like me. She opens the package to find surveillance records from an investigator and a nice box o’chocolates. You know, life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what your gonna get. For instance in this box you get a gun! She looks at the gun the way I look at the chocolates: practically drooling.
Back on the Isle of Hemorragia, Charlotte hasn’t woken up since last week! Sawyer is marching back and forth complaining about this, so Juliet sends him away. This gives her a chance to confront Daniel about whether or not he knew this was going to happen. He says he thought it might, and he thinks this is happening because the brain’s internal clock is going loopy due to the flashes. So I guess that means everyone can stop speculating that she needs a constant. Dan says this is essentially like a really, really bad case of jet lag, but hey! Look at the bright side, at least it’s not happening to the rest of them, right?
In The Lawyers office, Kate tries to work out a deal: she will give the blood samples if she can just talk to Mystery Client. Dan Norton pretty much laughs at her and tells her to prepare herself. She is going to lose Aaron.
Over in the outcast section, Locke fills in Sawyer about his plans to go to the Orchid, get off the island and bring the rest of them –especially her– back to the island. Sawyer looks almost puppy-like as he thinks about Kate before being interrupted by the news that Charlotte is waking up. At first Charlotte doesn’t recognize Daniel, but then he says ‘it’s me,’and she relaxes. So thankfully we don’t have to go through the ‘Who are you!? Where am I!?’plotline again.
St. Sebastian’s: Jack is still examining Sayid, who just wants to get out of there. Jack points out he was unconscious for 72 hours, and he may not want to be rushing anywhere. Turns out, Jack should have listened because the doc in charge of Clinical Services pops in to ask Jack out in the hall for a friendly reaming. She yells at him for treating a patient when he has been suspended for substance abuse, and that the hospital is now liable for his craziness. Jack’s phone rings. It’s Hurley telling him the good news: he’s in jail where Ben can’t reach him. After Hurley hangs up, Jack meets up with Ben. And apparently Jack really is blessed because even though he put the hospital in jeopardy, Angry Doctor Lady feels that three-second stern talking-to was sufficient punishment for egregiously breaking the law.
Meanwhile, Sayid is chillin’with his IV bag when a nurse comes in to give him his meds. Sayid knows this doesnt sound right, so when the guy turns his back, he slips off the bed, avoiding a couple more tranq darts. He jumps the nurse/hitman and strangles him with the IV tubing. Sayid is like MacGuyver, Chuck Norris and Jack Bauer all wrapped up into one hot Iraqi ball of awesomeness. Sayid asks him, ‘Who does number two work for?'(or something) and the guy stops getting his windpipe crushed long enough to tell him to look in his wallet. Then Sayid shoots the nurse with the tranq darts as Ben and Jack walk in the room. Jack looks with incredulity at the disarray and the guy on the floor. Ben looks like this is what he always finds when he pops in on Sayid. They check the wallet and find a slip of paper on which is written Kate’s address.
Jack calls Kate to find out where she is. She sounds ok, but flustered. She says she shouldn’t have even answered the phone. I get the feeling Jack has heard that one before. Jack wants to meet up with her and she finally tells him where she is. Jack goes off to see her, while Ben and Sayid go to deal with Hurley. Ben tells Jack to meet him later at the Long Beach Marina, slip 23.
Locke and the gang are treking to the beach. They plan to grab the Zodiac and take it to a spot close to the Orchid. While they walk, Sawyer asks Locke what he plans to say to Kate to get her to come back. But before they delve too deep they catch sight of something amazing: a bright beam of light is shining straight up out into the sky. They jumped to Las Vegas?!? Locke wants to avoid it, so they go the long way to the beach. Dan can tell Locke knows what the light is, but Locke won’t tell him. Meanwhile, Miles has developed a nosebleed. Suddenly they hear screaming. Like, awful, something-is-ripping-my-guts-out screaming. Sawyer goes to investigate and he comes across old footage from Season One, when Kate helped Claire deliver Aaron. I could have sworn Jin and Charlie were there for that. I guess that’s why they show more of Sawyer as he watches this. Because even though this does make a small connection to Kate’s role in bringing Aaron into this world, mostly this scene is more about Sawyers love of Kate. He watches her until a flash takes her away again.
Jack has found Kate downtown, sitting in her car. He runs up to the window and tries to talk to her, but she is flustered and tries to send him away. Finally he gets her to tell him about the threat to take Aaron. She spots Dan Norton driving away and tells Jack to either get in or go away. He gets in and they follow the lawyer.
Back on the trek, Locke and Sawyer are talking about what they all just saw. Locke confirms that the light they saw was from the hatch the night Boone died. Sawyer suggests Locke should go tell himself not to do some of the things he did, and save himself some pain. Locke says he needed that pain. Somewhere the ghost of Boone says ‘I didn’t need that pain.’Miles confides in Dan that he got a nosebleed and wants to know why he and Charlotte have them and no one else does. Dan thinks it has to do with how much time each person has spent on the island. Miles is surprised since he thought he’d never spent more than two weeks there. Daniel asks him if he’s sure about that. I’m wondering how Miles knew that Charlotte had been there before, but not that he himself had. I’m aware of the prevailing theory on Miles, but because of what I said about theories coming true starting to be like spoilers, I am not going to discuss that here.
They have arrived at the beach, and their camp is back. Sawyer starts looking for beer. Locke finds Vincent’s leash being very much not attached to Vincent. Daniel notices there is no Zodiac either. Sawyer notices there is no beer. Miles finds two long outrigger canoes, and discovers there is a water bottle in one from an airline called ‘Ajira’. Sawyer looks to see if there is beer in it. They decide to to take one of the canoes before whoever owns them comes back.
They cut to them paddling and they look about as happy about it as I was when I was forced to canoe in summer camp. Juliet can see that Sawyer seems preoccupied, and he admits to her he saw Kate in the woods the night before. Or was it the flash before. So, when was the last time they slept or ate anything? Or bathed, for that matter. I wonder how much time has accumulated for them. Hours? Days? We don’t have time to discuss it, because they are suddenly fired upon by a mysterious shadowy group in a similar canoe that are rapidly gaining on them. They paddle their little hearts out, even when Sawyer’s paddle is shot to pieces, and Juliet takes a couple of shots at the group and it looks like she hits one. I hope we get to see who this group is. We won’t get to for now, though because because another flash occurs. Sawyer shouts to the heavens, ‘Thank you, Lord!’And then he completes the best line of the night when they emerge from the flash into a raging storm at sea. ‘I take that back!’They paddle for shore.
Jack and Kate have followed the lawyer to a hotel. Jack is saying to her that she should just come with him and together they will figure out what to do to keep Aaron safe. It’s cute watching him try to work Ben’s manipulation schtick. I hope Kate has a hot pocket handy. They see that the woman he is meeting is Claire’s mother. Kate starts to freak out a little, but Jack decides he wants to talk to her. After Norton leaves, he knocks on Mrs. Littleton’s door and when she answers he starts to babble about how everything they did, they did for Aaron. She responds with, ‘Who’s Aaron.’This is the shortest number of words the writers could use to convey the answer that she is not the one trying to take Aaron away. However, I find it hard not to believe that someone who would have most likely followed the news that six survivors from her daughter’s plane were found would not know that the baby born on the island was named Aaron. I will just assume that the next words out of her mouth were, ‘Oh, you mean Ms. Austen’s baby? Well, I imagine you would be protective of him. What does that have to do with me?’Otherwise, my brain will hurt. It turns out, Jack explains to Kate in the car later, that she sued Oceanic and she is only in town to pick up her settlement. So it’s just another Lost-style coincidence, and the Mystery Client remains unknown.
Ben and Sayid are driving around in the reincarnation van, and pull into a parking garage and stop next to a car. Dan Norton gets out of the car (the guy gets around) and brings papers over to Ben. He explains that he looked into Hurley’s legal case and he should be free in the morning. Ben tells Sayid and anyone else in the audience that hasn’t caught on yet that Norton is his lawyer.
Back on the island the group has reached the shore and Juliet and Sawyer rest next to the canoe. They pick up their conversation about Kate until suddenly Sawyer sees that Juliet has developed a nosebleed. Charlotte calls out to them to come and see what she found. It’s the fresh wreckage of a boat. We know of two modern-age shipwrecks on the island. Some of this wreckage is labeled the Besixdouze, which rules out Desmond’s boat, so unless they are introducing a new wreck, it has to be Danielle’s ship. They cut right back to a life raft in the storm, where everyone is speaking french. They are griping about following the numbers. Montand blames Brennan for not watching the sonar, but Brennan says the instruments malfunctioned. Suddenly Danielle spots a man floating in the water. They paddle over to him and drag him in their boat. It’s the not-at-all blowed-up Jin!
Back in LA, at the Long Beach Marina, Jack and Kate sit in her car while Jack explains about her address being in the wallet of a guy who attacked Sayid. He mentions again that it’s important that they keep Aaron safe. Jack and Kate get out of the car when another car pulls up. It’s Ben, and Jack says he’s with him. Kate realizes that Ben is the one who has been trying to take her son. Ben readily admits it and points out to her again that Aaron is not her son. Any reference to the boy either being or not being Kate’s son has to be added to the Lost Drinking Game. Sun is in her car farther down the parking lot with Aaron asleep in the back seat. She is watching the group and holding her gun.
Jin is waking up from where the French crew just left him lying in the sun because I guess he’s just not sunburned and dehydrated enough. Danielle comes to him and asks him if he’s ok. Meanwhile the other crew members are listening to the numbers play on the transceiver and are talking about whether they can find the source or not. When they see he’s awake they all come over to grill him about where he came from and why he doesn’t know how he ended it up in the middle of the ocean. Dude, he just said ‘boat’and ‘sink,’what else do you need to know? Danielle asks him his name and then formally introduces herself to Jin and the audience. Jin looks freaked out, which is understandable because who would have thought the Crazy French Chick was originally so kind, caring and pretty?
Fin.
When review an episode, I tend to judge a large portion of it on rewatchability. I watched ‘Jughead’four times and I would pop it in again right now. This one was hard to focus on just the second time around. Maybe it’s because nothing could live up to following ‘Jughead.’Maybe it’s my own fault for not liking the Jack/Kate episodes. Maybe it’s because the reveals were more or less expected. I don’t know, but it was really hard to get through this one again. It seems to set up the next few episode all right. Things are now in place for them to go back. Five out of six of the O6 are in the same place and they are near water-based transportation. We know where Hurley is and how likely he is to be sprung the next morning. Back on the island we know that Jin is alive but the others are in mortal peril. We know Locke has a plan to get off the island. I consider this a stop sign on the road to the next few episodes. We slowed down a little but we can coast through and get back up to speed and on our journey. How many hours do we have left?
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