Mario Perez/ABCOn tonight's all-new episode of Lost, Kate Austen proved that she's not only the show's first lady, but that she might still be the best...
WHAT WE LEARNED
Wow. Sawyer was talking about himself when he said he'd "done a lot of growing up these past three years," but that assertion obviously goes double for Kate Austen. Our dear, demented, daddy-killing, water-poisoning, toy-plane-stealing, wait-I'm-coming-with-you, crazy, mixed-up Kate has left behind her selfish, childish petulance and become both a wildly competent mother and a profoundly magnanimous woman.
How do we know? It's like the Biblical story of the judgment of Solomon, where the true mother of a disputed baby would rather lose her own child and see it raised by another than see it come to any harm on her account. After three years of grief and confusion, Kate finally admitted that despite her deep love for Aaron, she had no righteous claim to wee Turniphead. (As Cassidy put it, "You needed him. Sawyer broke your heart. How else were you supposed to fix it?") So Kate delivered Aaron into the arms of his grandmother, and then she set out on a quest to find her son's missing true mother.
On the Island, we saw further evidence that Kate's growth is no temporary or circumstantial shift. Kate is a full-grown mama lion now—not just the sleek, ungovernable juvenile feline we first met. When the life of a child hung in the balance she unflinchingly volunteered to open a vein for him—even though a) Kate famously hates blood, and b) the child was Ben, who would later go on to endlessly torment her and her loved ones. It's almost as if Kate's become a mother to all the children of the Island.
Kate Austen has gotten serious, taken responsiblity and finally become worthy of her original birthright as the leading lady of Lost. An amazing turn, really, for Freckles, and a truly wonderful performance by Evangeline Lilly, whose "Bye-bye, baby" will surely go down as one of the series' great heart-wrenching moments.
BREAKING BAD: Per Richard Alpert, baby Ben will still never know the beneficence of a mother's love, nor will he ever know how hard Juliet and Kate fought for him. Alpert told us, "He's not ever going to be the same again. He will forget this ever happened and his innocence will be gone for good. He will always be one of us." Fate? By the by, the curse that touched Ben when he crossed the line into Otherville is not supposed to apply to Aaron too, is it? There would seem to be an obvious parallel—but Aaron's gonna be OK in another-mother-ville and not a psycho killer when he grows up...right?!
TRANSFERENCE: We learned (although most of you had figured it out long ago anyway) that Kate's promise to Sawyer was to take care of his daughter, Clementine. And Kate did indeed keep her promise, and for that matter, she was downright insulted when Sawyer dared to ask her if she'd done what she promised. That said, with such a fierce mom as Kim Dickens' Cassidy, Clementine doesn't really need an Aunt Kate looking out for her, but that's OK—it was still all a great excuse for Kate and Cassidy to become BFF. (Side note: For that matter, Juliet and Kate also achieved a very respectable detente.) Loved that Dimples and Freckles rediscovered in each other the sorority they obviously didn't have elsewhere in their lives, love the little surrogate family they created for themselves. Didn't love Cassidy's "transference," i.e., her assumptions that the situation with her and Sawyer mirrored totally the situation with Kate and Sawyer, but hey, without misguided advice our TV shows would have no comedy or drama, so carry on, little characters. Carry on.
TIME-TRAVEL DEBATE: I do not understand the time-travel stuff, but I also don't care, so it works out OK.
MOAR PLZ: Just wanted to put in another vote for an eventual Godfather Saga-style recut of Lost. Not sure when it would start—where, exactly, is the beginning?—but it would be wonderful to see all the pieces of all these scenes as they happened, in order. Heck, we'll take even the less brilliant stuff, like the latter-day Nikki and Paolo scenes cluttering up J.J. Abrams' brilliant postcrash beach scenes from the pilot. (Love you Kiele!)
EASTER EGGS & MISC.
- A little birdie recently told me that the bunny cover art of the recently rediscovered Geronimo Jackson single has a name, and that name is Rabbit Jack. Jack, huh? Can that be a coincidence? For that matter, do you think we've met the "Dharma Lady" of the lyrics? Download for free on iTunes and come back here with your theories...
- Did you hear that Kate was singing "Catch a Falling Star" to Aaron? That song has been following Aaron around since before he was born, and without a doubt it will be back again in the future.
- Aww...more of Patsy Cline, Kate's signature music. Tonight's song, "She's Got You," was last heard in "Eggtown," when we first learned that Kate had possession of Aaron back in the world (while unnecessarily freaking out on the Island that she'd gotten knocked up by Sawyer).
- Did anyone else think that in the three long years after the Island, at some point Kate took the season-one Boone-blood-loss situation to heart and made a concerted effort to find out her blood type so she would know if another such situation were ever to arise?
- What happened to Clementine's ill-gotten trust fund? In "The Long Con" we saw Sawyer earn some dough that he had secretly delivered to Clementine, but clearly Cassidy either doesn't know about it or doesn't know that it came from Sawyer.
- Richard Alpert had bosses in 1977, and their names were Ellie and Charles. Sounds like Eloise Hawking and Charles Widmore, to me! Can't wait to hear about the rest of that family drama! (Crazy, totally unspoiled speculation: Is it possible that Daniel Faraday and Penny Widmore are full or half-blood siblings, but at some point, Parent Trap-style, mom and dad broke up and each took one kid with them, so the kids didn't ever know each other?)
- The Island ruins are a weird cross between the Temple of Doom and Angkor Wat.
- Carole Littleton? Total GILF.
WHAT'S TO COME:
Brinn in Santa Barbara, Calif.: So I am in no way asking you to reveal the Lost death to me, but would you possibly be able to confirm that it is not Penny? I am suddenly freaking out that TPTB might kill off one-half of my favorite TV couples ever. Hopefully you can help ease my unease. Wait, if you can't confirm that it isn't her then it might be ruined for me. Ahh, what a pickle I'm in! I guess you should just proceed at your own discretion.
It's not Penny.
This Redux was brought to you by In-N-Out Burger and Johnny Cash's "The Man Comes Around." Later, Losties!