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Lost: Whatever the Case May Be

Sawyer: "Impact velocity. Physics, my ass."

The locked metal case was the Most Obvious Symbolism this week. It represented the mystery of Kate's past. (See, I was paying attention in college.)

Kate is definitely a user, and my opinion of her has plunged. She may have a conscience, but she lies, steals and manipulates. We didn't get much solid information from the flashbacks (I felt somewhat cheated), but we now know that Kate masterminded a robbery to get into a safety deposit box (for what?), shot her own partners in crime, and killed the man she loved. Her name is not Maggie Ryan (but is it really Kate?) and she was not a photographer working in New Mexico. And she's obsessed with a toy airplane. Okay, right.

Forget Kate. I think I'm starting to like Sawyer.

The Kate/Sawyer shenanigans were a lot more fun than the flashbacks. Sawyer's attempts to open the case were hilarious; they reminded me of the chimp in those old Samsonite commercials. Plus, even with the threat of having his meds yanked, Sawyer called Jack "brother" and leveled with him about Kate being a user. That gave Sawyer points as far as I was concerned.


The other highlight of this episode was the oddly effective pairing of the heroic, sober Sayid and the shallow, bitchy Shannon ("You worry about the French, I'll take care of the math.") I honestly can't think of two people with less in common, but they make an intriguing couple. Shannon is accustomed to being treated like crap ("Haven't you heard? I'm completely useless"), but Sayid didn't treat her that way. And there may be more to Shannon than sunbathing, obsessive grooming and asthma. After all, she did figure out what Rousseau was writing about.

The abnormal rising tide and the move down the beach was all about the survivors moving on, and leaving hopes of rescue behind. (This, and the marshal's decomposing body, had some unintended tsunami undertones.) I wonder if the wreckage will wash away? I wonder if the wreckage always washes away?

Character bits:

Is Boone gay, or was Shannon just attacking, the way she always attacks her brother? Stayed tuned, because it looks like we're getting a Boone/Shannon backstory next week.

This is a girl thing, but I noticed that Kate was still shaving her pits and her legs. And yet, she doesn't seem to brush her hair. It's a mystery.

Rose was back. She was still wearing her husband's wedding ring around her neck (which always reminds me of Frodo) and she still believed he was alive. Poor Charlie, paralyzed with grief and failure, had Rose to help him get back in touch with his religious side.

Sawyer got that knife wound eleven days ago, according to my unofficial calculations. Shouldn't his course of antibiotics be over?

Sawyer called Kate "Freckles," Michael "Daddy" and Jack "Brother."

Kate said that only Jack knew her secret. That's not true: Hurley knows. And now Sun does, too, since she was eavesdropping and still pretending not to speak English. It'll probably turn up in the Island newsletter any day now.

Bits and pieces:

— Again, no eye scene for Kate.

— It has been four days since Claire disappeared, which makes it about 25 days since the crash.

— Emilie de Ravin was not in this episode. No one was even looking for Claire, since Locke and Boone were more interested in the Big Metal Thing. Poor Claire.

— Brief mention of food supply problems: the trees have been picked over.

— The pool was cool, right up until they found submerged bodies still in their upright and locked positions. Kate said that the suitcase was checked; if so, what was it doing under the seat?

— Jack's shirt didn't look like something Jack would wear. It looked like re-purposed contact paper. It looked like it belonged on the sale rack at K-Mart.

— Michael called the case a "Halliburton." That was a new one for me.

— Guns, guns, guns. Uh oh.


— The number of the safety deposit box was 815. The Oceanic flight number was also 815.

— "Whatever the Case May Be" is probably not a song title, but we did get a famous song: "La Mer," which is also known in English as "Beyond the Sea." Apropos of absolutely nothing, let me add that "Beyond the Sea" is the title of one of my favorite episodes of The X-Files and the new movie about Bobby Darin starring Kevin Spacey.

Interesting and fun episode, and I can't wait for next week's. Two out of four polar bears,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

6 comments:

  1. This review made me smile time and again. All the points I thought of during this episode you mentioned. Great minds...

    They were the Sayid/Shannon relationship and the Boone/Shannon relationship, the distrust of Kate, the case as a symbol (I thinking digging up a corpse ties into that as well), the shaved legs (which I began to notice in the last episode but which really jumped out at me here) and the number of the safety deposit box.

    One thing I noticed, however, was that Sawyer, for the first time ever (I'm pretty sure), called someone by his true name: "That's a nice story, Jack." I love this character. For some reason, he seems to be the one with the clearest vision of the truth.

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  2. Yeah, this is where Kate lost me completely. A second chance, a guy who she knows cares about her simply asking for the truth, yet instead of honesty ( I mean, it's a trinket of her past, easily explained ) she still can't tell the truth.

    Jack has already shown he's far from perfect and together, yet she refuses to open up at all. Honestly, if I were Jack, I'd have said goodbye right after she deceived him about the key.

    From here on, Kate's stories were my least favorite to watch, because I had stopped caring about her character.

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  3. Kate used to manipulate people. She used bank's director,she used her boyfriend robber. She used Sawyer,willingly,and then used Jack,unwillingly. She's an hard character to read,is bad and good at the same time. Her past stinks like rot flesh.

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  4. Rewatch Comment: I really struggled with Kate’s character when I first watched Lost, and was committed to having an open mind this time around. Yet I find myself falling right back to the original struggle of reconciling who she really is, both on and off island.

    Clearly, she has a checkered past from what we’ve seen, and now hints that it’s even worse than what we know, and yet she has moments of just the most genuine kindness on the island.

    One interesting thing - she has had a moment of interaction with the island a la Locke, Jack, and Charlie. I genuinely cannot remember where her story goes and very curious to see if I see it differently in the rewatch.

    ReplyDelete

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