Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) plotting her next move./ ABC
SPOILER ALERT: Before you read this post, grab some boxed wine, a backgammon set, place an armed grenade in your mouth and watch last night’s Lost.
How exactly did Chaddogg wrest control of Lostwatch from the cold, metal claws of Robo-James?
Well, after pulling a Charlie by swimming to the bottom of the Hudson and disabling Robo-James’s underwater signal, I was able to publish this isolated recap for “Eggtown,” Thursday’s Kate-centric episode. (In other words, James and Time.com editor Josh Tyrangiel asked me to fill-in; enjoy the vacation, James!)
And thank the four-toed statue gods I was here, because “Eggtown” was a self-referential Lost episode, folding-in and subtly referencing many canonical stories from the Lost-universe, and thus winking at fans who obsess over every shot of this show.
Need proof? First, we had the wonderful scene of Locke cooking breakfast for Ben, just like the Hatch-days, and Ben-the-prisoner again getting the best of John-the-warden. (“You’re more lost than you ever were.” “Now I know what you’re trying to do. It’s not going to work.” “Excellent, John, you’re evolving!” Is it just me, or should all Terry O’Quinn and Michael Emerson scenes be shipped immediately to Emmy voters?)
Other referenced memories from the early Lost days: Locke providing food (now by killing a chicken instead of a boar), blatant racism directed at Sayid (Miles’s snarling “So the Arab traded you too, huh?”), and Sawyer bringing backgammon to Locke’s house (reminiscent of Locke and Walt on the beach, and the black and white rocks found on the Adam and Eve skeletons during season 1).
But probably the best “wink” at the audience came in Kate’s flash-forward, with her lawyer Duncan Forrester, played by Shawn Doyle. Did you recognize Mr. Doyle? In a 2000 Dennis Quaid-Jim Caviezel movie called “Frequency,” which involved communication via short-wave radio across a 30-year time continuum, he played a character named…wait for it…Jack Shepard!
Yes, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelhof love their audience enough to use stunt-casting that to add to the Lost mythology. As Hurley said, “you just totally Scooby-Doo’d me, didn’t you?”
But enough theories, on to plot! On the island present, when she wasn’t doing laundry and avoiding holding Aaron (more on that in a minute), Kate was spying for Team Jack against Team Locke. She found Miles in the previously unseen boathouse, and discovered that Miles sought a minute of conversation with Ben.
After enlisting Sawyer’s assistance in conning Locke, Kate brought Miles to Ben. Omniscient Ben, of course, knew Miles’s employer, but didn’t seem ready for what Miles offered — silence regarding Ben’s survival at a price of $3.2 million. (“Why not $3.3? Or $3.4?”). That’s not all Miles knows: he also knows the history of every Oceanic 815 survivor, including Kate’s criminal past. Miles got his come-uppance, though, when Lock left an armed grenade in his mouth as punishment for speaking with Ben.
Meanwhile, in the flash-forward, Kate was on trial, and facing damning testimony from her not-dead-yet mother, Diane. Thanks to character testimony from Jack, we learned that the “official” story is that eight people survived 815’s initial crash. And when Diane failed to appear for her testimony, Kate readily accepted a plea deal for time already served and a promise to not leave the state. Is someone trying to keep her from returning to the island? Because if they saw her there, they should know that Kate always ignores orders to stay put.
Which lead us to the jaw-dropping lesson of who Kate was returning to at the end of Season 3. No, not some lover or husband. It was Jack’s nephew Aaron — Claire’s son. (Of course, Jack is unaware of that coincidence, at least so far.) And thus Kate adds kidnapping onto her already impressive criminal record.
In the spirit of Kate’s method for picking locks, onto the bullets:
* Sawyer-ism of the week: “Well I un-banish you. You can sleep right here, because this is my house. [Pause as Hurley flushes the toilet off-camera.] Okay, me and Montezuma’s house.” After a line that sweet, how could she slap him the next morning?
* Of course Jin wants to raise his and Sun’s unborn child in Albuquerque: their child could grow up with Sawyer’s daughter, Clementine.
* Speaking of Sawyer, I heard grateful gasps from my female neighbors when Kate walked in on shirtless, boxer-wearing Sawyer reading in bed.
* Who were the two crash survivors who did not join the Oceanic 6?
* Daniel can’t remember three cards? Does the island affect memory, too? And two cards was progress? Was he forgetting more cards earlier? Honestly, this is by far the biggest mystery of the entire episode to me (and my fellow viewers at the Chaddogg condo), so robust discussion will be appreciated.
* And why has the helicopter not landed on the boat yet? (I think we’ll learn more next episode.)
Just as the Hatch’s clock always resets to 108, James will be back next week with a vastly improved Lostwatch (although I must admit, this has been a TON of fun). I will be around tomorrow (this weekend, forever?) in the comments section, so get to discussing!