Lost 6x03: "What Kate Does"

[chrisspringob]

average-
i'm trusting that the overall 6season arc will be satisfying, but at this moment, I am very tired of yet another episode where the castaways have guns pointed at them/threatened with immediate extermination/having information kept from them.

(You would think Sawyer, having lived with Juliet for 3 years, would have been given answers on what the Others were all about - at least everything that Juliet knew.)

Apparently, most of the members of Dharma and most of the Others just kind of blindly follows orders with only a vague sense of what the big picture is, or why they're doing what they're doing. The writers seem to have set it up so that only a small handful of people at the top have any clue what's really going on. Of course, it has to be this way for the writers to artificially stretch out the mystery.

Same thing happened with BSG. We started getting scenes from the Cylon POV, which would logically mean that the answers to the mysteries would be revealed. Except no! Now it turns out that most of the Cylons don't really know what's going on. Only one or two characters have the answers to all the mysteries, so we have an excuse for not telling the audience what the secrets are until the last few episodes.

 

[label]

Also chiming in on the Sisko thing. I mean, what was he doing with a baseball anyways?

Well, when I first saw the baseball I thought of the Season 3 premiere. I just thought that they were trying to connect to Jack in some way that made him feel a little more accepting and the others a little less foreign. As Jack goes, so does his team (for the most part) so I *think* they're just trying to connect with Jack.

 

[pookha]

Wow, we're nerds. I watched this ep with my brother, and as soon as he saw the baseball he said, "It's Benjamin Sisko!"

And then we had a nerdy discussion about how Jacob and NotLocke are really Prophets, and that the island is the Celestial Temple.

so does that make not locke a pah wraith??

 

[Hober Mallow]

-Jin is alive and getting his birthing wife a panda! But he's not and it's a useless flashback in Sun's flashforward episode!

I liked that one. Season four is my least favorite season, but this was probably my favorite episode from that season.

 

[Starbreaker]

I thought you were talking about DS9 for a second. I was like: WHAT?

 

[WeAreTheBorg]

They just seem to be wasting precious remaining moments in the history of the series. It's like one huge what if story that doesn't count...

Huh? Clearly that's not what it is. Remember Juliets "It worked"?

Remember the shot of the island under water? It all means something extremely important.

 

[Sheep]

I thought it was pretty boring in places and Kate episodes are generally pretty lame, but I do think some major things went down last night so I don't agree with the "nothing happened" comments.

1. Sayid is revealed to have been claimed like Claire was (after she died in the explosion) and like Rousseau's team was which ties things up very nicely.

2. Claire showing back up like she did was pretty big news.

3. The reveal that Claire was claimed and Jack now knows about it sets up an interesting storyline.

4. The reveal that Claire was claimed also has strong implications about Christian being claimed as well. It seems that Jacob can claim people by touching them while they were alive and the MIB can claim them once they're dead.

Basically, the fact that it was revealed that Claire is claimed as is Sayid really ties many story lines together that have been in play since Christian first showed up in Season 1.

5. The fact that Claire and Kate share a connection despite how Kate first takes Claire hostage at gunpoint is pretty clear evidence that they all still share a connection and this reality isn't going to ultimately work as a final solution.

Granted it's a Kate episode so it's bound to be sub-par and my interest did wane here and there through-out the show, but I do think we got some significant hints about the overall big picture and a couple of answers to boot.

This sums up my opinions about the good things in this episode despite the seemingly stupid things present (e.g., Claire bonding with Kate).

I went against the grain and gave this one an above average based on the various revelations and Josh Holloway's knock it out of the park performance. If you had told me 6 years ago Sawyer would be my favorite character on the show and I wished Jack and Kate painful deaths, I would never have believed you.

i wonder if the writers are fans of deep space nine..
the baseball business reminded me of sisko.

Add to that Jack saying something to the effect of "If you have something to say to me, say it!" at the end of the second episode and I think we're on to something.

 

[RoJoHen]

If you had told me 6 years ago Sawyer would be my favorite character on the show and I wished Jack and Kate painful deaths, I would never have believed you.

No kidding!


I really just want Hurley to walk up to Jack and say, "Dude, stop fucking things up!"

 

[Hunter X]

-Jin is alive and getting his birthing wife a panda! But he's not and it's a useless flashback in Sun's flashforward episode!

I liked that one. Season four is my least favorite season, but this was probably my favorite episode from that season.

Season four is actually my favourite season, and I like Ji Yeon too. But I really hate that Jin bait and switch. It's just one of those times when you can see the writers pulling the strings to fool the viewer, rather than simply telling a story.

 

[selina]

I voted „above average“. I quite liked the episode. There were some interesting facts about the characters, such as that Dogen really wanted Sayid dead instead of giving him medicine. I also got the feeling that Jack was pretty whacked, because everything is frelled now and nothing worked the way it was supposed to. He blames himself and is miserable. So I think when he was ready to swallow the pill, a part of him wanted to redeem himself.
We found out that Kate really came back to the island because of Claire, although I’m sure that Sawyer was another reason why she came back. And when she saw that he had planned to propose to Juliet, she finally realizes that she missed her chance and that it is too late for her now. Maybe she can move on now.
That Claire showed up at the end of the episode was not really a surprise, but the way she looked definitely was. Apparently things were rough for her, too. Wasn’t she frightening? Of course, her appearance leads to the question whether or not Dogen is telling the truth or if he is aware of all the facts. Maybe he is missing something or maybe he is just wrong about the smoke-monster. We’ll have to wait and see.
What I found very interesting was that the Kate in L.A., who was so desperate to run, suddenly has a change of heart and acts ethically despite the risks. I was wondering if that means her life could have been fine, if her flight had regularly landed in Los Angeles, but on second thought I take that back. Because we clearly learn that something has happened, hence her reaction when she saw Jack or Claire’s confidence in her.

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Apparently, most of the members of Dharma and most of the Others just kind of blindly follows orders with only a vague sense of what the big picture is, or why they're doing what they're doing. The writers seem to have set it up so that only a small handful of people at the top have any clue what's really going on. Of course, it has to be this way for the writers to artificially stretch out the mystery.

Same thing happened with BSG. We started getting scenes from the Cylon POV, which would logically mean that the answers to the mysteries would be revealed. Except no! Now it turns out that most of the Cylons don't really know what's going on. Only one or two characters have the answers to all the mysteries, so we have an excuse for not telling the audience what the secrets are until the last few episodes.

In Lost's defense, I can see why both Dharma and the Others would be set up as organizations so that there are a lot of clueless foot soldiers and a few folks in the know at the top. But the Cylons were essentially an organization of a half-dozen people. Everyone should have been in the know and it's ridiculous that they weren't.

They just seem to be wasting precious remaining moments in the history of the series. It's like one huge what if story that doesn't count...

Huh? Clearly that's not what it is. Remember Juliets "It worked"?

Remember the shot of the island under water? It all means something extremely important.

It could be that the stories will never intersect (they can't, without invalidating the supposed time-travel logic and being an enormous cheat). But they might have a thematic connection - here's how things turned out for Jack in this alternate reality, and isn't it ironic how much better/worse it was? The intersection will happen only in the viewers' minds. This will be tricky to pull off in an emotionally satisfying way, but the Lost writers have shown that level of skill so I'm hopeful.

 

[chrisspringob]

Apparently, most of the members of Dharma and most of the Others just kind of blindly follows orders with only a vague sense of what the big picture is, or why they're doing what they're doing. The writers seem to have set it up so that only a small handful of people at the top have any clue what's really going on. Of course, it has to be this way for the writers to artificially stretch out the mystery.

Same thing happened with BSG. We started getting scenes from the Cylon POV, which would logically mean that the answers to the mysteries would be revealed. Except no! Now it turns out that most of the Cylons don't really know what's going on. Only one or two characters have the answers to all the mysteries, so we have an excuse for not telling the audience what the secrets are until the last few episodes.

In Lost's defense, I can see why both Dharma and the Others would be set up as organizations so that there are a lot of clueless foot soldiers and a few folks in the know at the top.

Yes, but there would still have to be some motivation for the foot soldiers to be following the people in charge. Why do the Others go along with this hierarchy? Even if the people at the top are lying to them about what they're doing, what's the lie that they're telling them? They all seem to follow the leader for no apparent reason.

In the case of Dharma, sure you could say that the foot soldiers are actually being paid, so they don't need to know the big picture. But come on. You don't get boatloads of people to travel to some remote island and live there for *years at a time* without telling them what they're doing there. You at least give them some kind of cover story. It's ridiculous to expect that someone in the position of Sawyer/LaFleur would not have ever been told what Dharma was, and what they were doing on the island.

Or maybe he was told, but this information has never been shared with the audience?

 

[RoJoHen]

Dharma really isn't a mystery anymore, though, is it? They were studying the weird magnetic properties of the island.

 

[Mallet]

Yah, I think Dharma was pretty straight forward with what was going on. Heck, even Dr. Candle (Miles's father) straight up told the construction foreman building the Orchid Station that they were digging into a pocket of energy that could cause time travel. it wasn't his fault that the foreman didn't believe him.

I think it is safe to say that Sawyer and everyone else who stayed there knew that Dharma was doing scientific research in the hopes of bettering mankind.

But I'm sure everyone working on the island for Dharma knew what was going on. Heck, it seemed to be a big, scientist hippy commune.

Now, whether they knew some of the stuff that was only discussed in the Online game, like how Hanso knew that the world might end and that was what was driving Dharma's founders to find away to prevent it, well, who knows.

 

[chrisspringob]

It's not totally clear how widely known Dharma's goals were. The show makes details like that maddeningly vague. IIRC, in "LaFleur", when they first meet up w/ Sawyer et al., Horace never really tells them what Dharma *is*. It's just never brought up. It also seems like the time travel angle wasn't widely known among Dharma grunts or even people as high up as Radzinsky (for example, when Sayid is drugged, and says he's from the future, no one makes the connection to Dharma's own work; they just look at him is if he said he was from Mars). Though, oddly, Chang randomly tells that one construction guy about it.

I don't know. Maybe it's just me. But the show seems like it just drops these little clues over time, but there's never a scene where a character pieces things together, and says "OK, I guess we now know such and such", so it's hard to follow who knows what.

 

[RoJoHen]

My guess is that most people were under the assumption that they were simply studying the weird energy in the island. Time travel was probably just some crackpot theory held by a few scientists that very few people actually believed. I never had any problem with it.

 

[Agent Richard07]

Forgot to post the podcast.

[yt]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bocjtSYAQ8M[/yt]

 

[Temis the Vorta]

Yes, but there would still have to be some motivation for the foot soldiers to be following the people in charge. Why do the Others go along with this hierarchy? Even if the people at the top are lying to them about what they're doing, what's the lie that they're telling them? They all seem to follow the leader for no apparent reason.

Some people just get a kick out of being part of a big, mysterious organization with some kind of secret power to it. And weird, crazy shit happens on the island, so you know you're part of something big and mysterious that the common person is clueless about. You get to be badass and carry guns and occasionally kill people. People become professional mercenaries in the real world, so why wouldn't some people become an Other?

And the Others may be brainwashed in some subtle way that we haven't yet learned about.

As for Dharma, I agree with the other posts, they were a collective of hippie scientists and if the people in charge had other agendas, there was no way for the foot soldiers to know.

 

[RoJoHen]

So, I'm rewatching Season 1 because this week-long gap between new episodes is driving me insane. I'm currently watching the episode where Danielle and Sayid first encounter each other. I had this thought when I saw "What Kate Does," but I didn't really dwell on it, but...

The "test" that the Others perform on Sayid is almost the exact same thing that Danielle does to Sayid when she is first interrogating him. Later, when describing the infection, Danielle says she knows that Sayid is not infected. This leads me to believe that Danielle knew exactly what she was doing when she was torturing/testing him.

How did she know how to test for the disease? And what did Sayid do differently this time that made the Others believe he was infected?

 

[Jono]

The Kate parts were pretty dull but it was interesting to see Ethan in the hospital. The "current" timeline stuff was far more interesting. Above average.