Spoilers.
Lost Official Site
The Time: Wednesdays, 9:00 PM, ABC
The Show:
When
Oceanic Flight 815 from Sydney to London went down somewhere over the
Pacific, the survivors of the crash found themselves marooned on a
tropical island. But this is no ordinary island; it has
unusual magnetic, temporal, healing and seemingly supernatural
properties, and is fraught with constant danger. There is
a mysterious black smoke-like creature, polar bears, and even
apparitions of the dead roaming the forest. The island is
also the former secret haven of a group called the Dharma Initiative,
who were running experiments utilizing the unique properties of the
island via research stations that dot the landscape. Now the
Oceanic survivors, led by Dr. Jack Sheppard, Kate Austen, James
“Sawyer” Ford, John Locke, Hugo “Hurley” Reyes, Sayid Jarrah and
others, seek a way to escape the island and its many dangers.
But there are people, both living on the island and seeking the island
from outside, who are at war for control of it, and the Oceanic
survivors find themselves caught in the middle. Told via
nonlinear fashion that incorporates flashbacks and flash forwards, Lost is one of the most unique and densely mythological shows on television.
The Stars:
• Matthew Fox – Dr. Jack Sheppard
• Evangeline Lilly – Kate Austen
• Josh Holloway – James “Sawyer” Ford
• Naveen Andrews – Sayid Jarrah
• Terry O’Quinn – John Locke
• Jorge Garcia – Hugo “Hurley” Reyes
• Daniel Dae Kim – Jin Kwon
• Yunjin Kim – Sun Kwon
• Michael Emerson – Benjamin Linus
• Henry Ian Cusick – Desmond Hume
• Elizabeth Mitchell – Juliet Burke
• Jeremy Davies – Daniel Faraday
• Nestor Carbonell – Richard Alpert
• Alan Dale – Charles Widmore
• Reiko Aylesworth – Amy
The Episode: “What Happened, Happened”
Young Ben Linus is hanging at death’s door after being shot by Sayid, which seemingly threatens to change the future. When Jack refuses to help him, knowing what he’ll grow up to be, Kate goes to drastic steps in order to save his life. With Sawyer’s help, she seeks out the Others. Meanwhile, the backstory of two fateful meetings Kate had with people and how one of those meetings affected Aaron are revealed.
The Lowdown:
Pretty good episode this week, even though it’s – surprise – a Kate-centric episode. You know, you check any of the other reviews on other sites or message boards and almost universally, people have tuned out on Kate. I don’t blame them, actually, because I was one as well, and I’ve seen every episode only in the last six months or so. Despite that, it seems like a long time since Kate was, well, Kate, and was one of the more interesting characters on the island as we were discovering about her past. Then the whole Sawyer / Kate / Jack thing happened and it washed away the Kate love like a sand castle at high tide. But this episode, I think, throws a little more sand back into the pail to rebuild some of that lost empathy, spurred on mostly by an affecting turn by Evangeline Lilly.
The main story of course, is that young Ben has been shot – but not killed – by Sayid as he escaped the Dharma compound. Juliet managed to stabilize him, but he’s going to die eventually. Surprisingly to Kate, Juliet and the others, Jack refuses to help young Ben. When Kate confronts him, he tells her that he’s already been down that road once: saving Ben’s life, for her, in fact. Now, knowing what Ben’s going to grow up to be, he won’t make that mistake again. Good interchange between Kate and Jack when she tells him she liked the old Jack, the crusader, but that this new Jack is someone she doesn’t like: indifferent, cold and uncaring. Also interesting to note that Jack has, by that indifference, helped to create the man that he despises.
Kate takes an unusual interest in the boy, donating blood to help him and then going so far as to taking him in one of the vans to the perimeter fence to seek out the Others. Sawyer goes with her and together they find them (actually it’s the other way around), and are taken before Richard Alpert. Richard tells them that he can take Ben, but he won’t remember that this happened and he’ll permanently become an Other forever. And he’ll lose his innocence. Just that last statement makes me think there’s some Catholic priest action going to occur, but whatever. Richard’s as vague as he typically is.
Since this is Kate-centric, we find out two things that we already pretty much knew: what Sawyer asked her to do before jumping out of the helicopter, and what happened to Aaron. If you thought that Sawyer asked Kate to go see Cassidy and Clementine and take care of them financially, and that Kate gave up Ben to Claire’s mom, congratulations, you’re not fooled by the obvious. Those two elements were unnecessary fill-in-the-blanks material, but what they did give us was some pretty good stuff from Lilly, who’s the most affecting I’ve seen her in a while. Cassidy has an insight into Kate, knowing that she took Aaron because she needed him because Sawyer broke her heart, just as he had broken Cassidy’s years before.
A nice aside was of course Hurley and Miles having the discussion that mirrors basically what fans have been discussing this entire season. Except for the whole Ben seemingly not remembering any of them from his childhood thing. But Richard clues us in with his vague explanation of how he’s going to save young Ben’s life. Finally, Ben’s expression at seeing the resurrected Locke staring him in the face is priceless. Although, for some reason, I thought that he knew that that was going to happen, which is why he insisted so heavily on bringing the body with them.
Next week seems to be very myth-heavy involving Ben and I’m definitely looking forward to that.