Category Archives: Season 6

Recaps that I enjoyed reading this week:

Jeff (Doc) Jensen, in his recap at EW, calls Kate a “Good Shepherdess” in this episode, because she runs after the “sad strays of her flighty flock” — grieving Sawyer on the Island and pregnant Claire, all alone in L.A.

Jensen writes about how the title is in the present tense, and how that reflects what is going on in the episode. In both realities, the characters are trying to get away from their past.

He has two theories about the Sideways flashes. The first is that The Sideways world is the LOSTie’s afterlife, and the second is that the Sideways story is a metaphor for our relationship to fiction.

(My own take is that the Sideways story shows how fiction is written. A writer, starting with a character, will play with the character in his mind or in drafts, putting the character into first one situation then another, seeing which situation best gets the writer where she is trying to go, which one best reveals character, creates interesting conflicts, or barrels towards a satisfying resolution.

When I watch the Sideways world, remembering the original flashback world, it feels as if I am reading subsequent drafts of a story. The essence of the characters remains the same, but the details of their situations — their external circumstances — differ.

There is certainly more to it than that — I’m sure the LOST writers will ultimately merge all these worlds together, in some way — but I think it must have been a blast to write the Sideways scenes, creating two similar, but different, scenarios — and then getting to keep them both. An unusual opportunity to have one’s (Dharma) cake and eat it too.)

Back to Jensen’s recap: He makes an interesting point about the new-and-improved Jack having a Zen-like grounding in the present, which combines the episode’s theme of the present tense with the Zen backdrop provided by Dogen and his temple.

There’s a lot more to this recap (8 pages!), and you can read it here: Jeff Jensen’s recap of 6×03: Staying Connected.

Fishbiscuit, at Fishbiscuitland, offers sharp insights into Kate’s character. For example, she writes: “Whenever [Kate] does a person wrong, she turns around and pours her heart into helping them recover from whatever it is she just did.”

She can be very funny: “I know the poor man [Sawyer] needs his space, but he’s going to have to snap out of it pretty quick. We’ve only got three months left! I don’t want to see him dressing up in her clothes and building a shrine to her in his attic or anything like that.”

And she picks up on cool details: “Lindsey Baskum” (the name of the woman in the Sideways world who was supposed to adopt Claire’s baby, but didn’t) is an anagram of “Used by Malkins.” (Richard Malkin was the psychic who Claire visited, who told her to go to L.A. to give her baby to a couple he knew there. His wife and daughter made brief appearances on the show. Perhaps collectively they are the Malkins (plural) that the anagram refers to.)

She has interesting things to say about free will and fate: “Jack and Locke, Kate and Sawyer, Hurley and Sayid, Sun and Jin – all were brought to the Island by Fate. Dogen says that he was also ‘brought’ to the Island. It’s an Island of immigrants, where everyone is imported from somewhere else. There are no indigenous people. Who brings them there and for what purpose? That is the question we are now circling in an ever decreasing orbit, but it doesn’t seem to me that Free Will has much of anything to do with it.”

There are a lot more great points in this recap, and the well-chosen images and quotes make it a pleasure to read: Fishbiscuit’s recap of 6×03: Kate, Interrupted.

A week ago, I said that I wasn’t going to be writing any recaps this year. But then, as it turned out, I couldn’t resist writing something after all. What I ended up with is not quite a recap — I’m not sure what to call it (any suggestions?). I invite you to read it, if you haven’t already: Ms Terri’s (not quite a) recap of 6×03 What Kate Does.

Finally, if you want to quickly review the highlights of 6×03, here’s the “Previously on LOST” bit (which ABC calls, confusingly, “Quick Cut” on the video title) which (I assume) is what we’ll be seeing at the start of the next episode:

Though this episode wasn’t as exciting as the season premiere, there was much here to like.

Transitions between timelines

Most of the Island scenes flowed right into the Mainland scenes, and vice-versa. It reminded me of the way the flashbacks worked in Season 1, where there would be some action on the Island and then a flashback to a directly relevant scene from the character’s past.

I have no guesses yet as to what, if anything, these seamless transitions might mean, but they’re a great storytelling technique, giving the episode, with all its different plotlines, a kind of unity. The fact that we don’t yet know what that unity is about only makes it that much more intriguing.

See how smoothy these transitions flow:

Island Sawyer: “I’m thinking about about running, Kate.” Cut to mainland Kate running from the Marshall.

Mainland Kate driving. Cut to Island Kate turning a corner.

Island Kate, to Lennon: “I can be very convincing, when I want to be.”  Cut to Mainland Kate driving into mechanic’s shop, where she convinces the guy there to cut off her handcuffs and give her a place to change.

Mainland Kate opens Claire’s bag. Cut to Island Kate stuffing things into her own bag.

Mainland Kate is about to drive Claire to her destination. Cut to Island Kate leading group through the jungle.

Island Jin to Kate: “Once you catch up with Sawyer, then what?” Island Kate: “I guess we’ll figure that out together.” Cut to Mainland Kate and Claire in the cab, where they will soon have to figure out together what to do.

Mainland Claire feels the baby coming. Cut to Island Kate, walking into the children’s playground in the deserted Other compound.

Island Kate to Sawyer: “I was worried about you.” Cut to Mainland Kate, worried about Claire, rushing her to the hospital.

Kate holds Claire’s hand in hospital. Cut to Island Kate telling Sawyer that she came back to the Island because she needs to find Claire.

Kate is about to leave Claire. Cut to Kate about to leave Sawyer.

Leakage from one timeline to another

This was an eerie moment:

Kate: “Aaron’s a great name.”
Claire: “I don’t know why I said it. It’s like I knew it or something.”

I expect we will be seeing more leakage as the season progresses.

Karma

Sayid, the torturer, gets tortured. Could this be karmic justice or retribution?

Jack, who wants to save everyone, easily admits that he didn’t save Sayid from the gunshot wound. Is it his destiny to learn humility? Or maybe not, as he does save Sayid in the end.

The other Others

It’s so funny that the hippie Other with the Lennon eyeglasses is actually named Lennon. Even funnier is the way that Television Without Pity calls his constant companion Dogen “Yoko.”

You have to stay

Dogen tells Sawyer, “You have to stay.” Sawyer answers, “No I don’t.”

Is “You have to stay” the Season 6 version of “We have to go back?” Will something terrible happen if the current band of LOST-ies do not all remain in the Temple?

Sawyer, Kate, and Jin all managed to get out. Was this a good or a bad move for them? I think they may be in trouble. As horror films have taught us, people in creepy situations should never separate themselves from the larger group.

The revelations

What’s a LOST episode without revelations? This episode had three, though we had to wait for them until the very end.

1. Sayid has been “claimed”!
2. Claire too!
3. Oh, look, the person who just shot those people is Claire!

And just because I like the love triangle …

Yeah, I know, many fans loathe the love triangle, but I still get a kick out of it, and out of moments like Jack’s leaning in to kiss Kate, and Kate walking away.

And the love quadrangle too …

I’ve already mentioned how moving I found the scene on the dock where Sawyer blamed himself for Juliet’s death.

All in all, a good episode, if not one of the all-time greats.

All screencaps are from lost-media.com, except for the screencap of Dogen and Lennon, which is from the ABC site.