Kate-Fights

I'm going out on a limb this week and saying that Lost has really got it's mojo back. The balance between adventure, humour and drama that it struck so well back in Season 1 and seemed to forget how to do in Season 2 has returned with consistency in the second part of this Season. Once again, the show seems to be firing on all cylinders and that's good news for fans like me. The last few episodes have worked well on almost every level, so those of us who worried that maybe our Wednesday night love affair might be turning into a marriage of convenience can breathe a big sigh of relief. The fire really is back.

This week, we got a bunch of the elements that make Lost so much fun to watch: Previously unimagined connections, terror filled running through the jungle of death, Kate kickin' ass, the return of the Smoke Monster, and awkward camp politics.

As a bonus, we even got an homage to buddy movies. All that was really missing was a car jumping a gorge at the end. Maybe Hurley'd lend Kate the Microbus....

More on running a good con, women in handcuffs, wet girlfights, and learning to say "I'm sorry" after the jump.

Kate finds herself in handcuffs in the Others' recreation room. As she contemplates escape, she sees Juliette pass by a window, and decides to set an ambush. With a trusty pool cue and using the tried and true "Prisoner behind the door" trick, she gets ready to kick some Other ass. The door opens. Kate swings and misses as Juliette ducks out of the way. Like Jack before her, Kate underestimates Juliette, who proceeds to flip her effortlessly to the floor.

FLIP

It's really true what Kate told Lefty way back in Season 1. They really do listen to Patsy Cline everywhere. While "Walkin' after midnight" plays in the background, we see that Kate' s car has broken down and is going to take a couple of days to fix. She gives the name "Lucy" to the tow-truck driver. He drops her and her ailing vehicle at a gas station where a familiar face is running a familiar con. It's Cassidy, the woman that Sawyer conned out of her life savings way back in the "Long Con" episode in Season 2. She's trying to run the "hot necklaces, cheap" scam, but guy she's picked as a mark isn't buying it. In fact, he's threatening to call the cops, which is what piques Kate's interest. We all know that darlin' Kate has strong reasons to not be where the police are. To keep the savvy gent from calling the local constabulary, she jumps in, fakes jewelry expertise and buys one of the necklaces. The old guy gives up and walks away, much to both women's relief.

When Cassidy asks Kate why she helped her, Kate claims it was just one gal helping another. Cassidy's not buying that though. She figures out that Kate's real motive in saving the day was to avoid a call to the police. She offers a ride in return for Kate buying her a drink.

Ah, girl-girl bonding.

Back in her makeshift cell in the recreation room, Kate is idly handling the pieces of a backgammon set when Locke enters the room. Oddly, he's not shackled. She's understandably a bit confused, asking if they captured him too.

"Yes, but only temporarily."

He's come to say goodbye, which confuses poor Kate even further. She fears that Locke has been brainwashed. It seems that Locke has thrown his lot in with the Others and is voluntarily leaving with them, while Jack and Kate are going to have to be left behind. Locke tried to make a case for her, apparently, telling the Others that she was a good person, but then they told him who she was and what she'd done.

"Forgiveness isn't one of their strong suits."

SORRY KATE

On the beach, Sawyer has put the Agatha Christie away and is once again reading Watership Down. Hurley walks by and gives the con man a kick to get his attention. The big man has come to warn him that the group is considering voting to banish him from the camp because of his selfish and disrespectful behavior. He suggests that perhaps Sawyer could make amends before it comes to that.

"I don't do 'amends'."

"You might want to ask yourself about all the good stuff that comes from being a part of this...society. I mean you can't even feed yourself. You use our latrines, you drink the water that Steve brings every morning to the trough..."

(*Detail detective side note. Sawyer was reading "Watership Down" WAY back in Season 1, in a couple of episodes, most notably in "White Rabbit" which is the episode when Jack gives his "Live together, die alone" speech. Watership Down is about a group of bunnies trying to find a home, and it is heavy with themes of home and building a working society, with home and society defined not only as a place of shelter, but one of happiness where the bunnies can live, grow, play and find spiritual harmony together. Agatha Christie as they investigated the mysterious deaths of Nikki and Paulo, Watership Down as Hurley tries to keep Sawyer from being banished from his home...*)

Sawyer blows the whole idea off, throwing in a "You sir, Hugo, are rotund, annoying and you're ruining my damn view."

Hurley tries to warn him that he's making a big mistake by not doing more to work within their "society".

Flies are buzzing around the remains of Kate's sandwich as she lies on the floor. As she reluctantly gives in to hunger, she hears a commotion outside. The Others seem to be preparing to leave, just as Locke inferred they were going to. She watches helplessly as they don gas masks and start leaving, but before they leave, they take the time to toss a gas canister into the room with her. Panicking, she tries frantically to wrench the window open, but the gas overcomes her before she has the chance.

In another room, with a different pool table in the background, Cassidy asks Kate her name. When she hesitates, Cassidy calls her on it.

"Next time somebody asks you, don't think about it."

"I didn't..."

"Not even for a second."

Let's all take a moment to enjoy the unexpected, but ever-so-cool, fact that some of Kate's survival skills flow from Sawyer to Cassidy to her. Of course, training in the fine art of deception isn't the only thing of his that both these gals have enjoyed...

Ah, girl-girl bonding.

Cassidy wants to know why Kate is trying to avoid the law. Kate tells her about killing her step-father, because he was a "Bad guy," and how she's in Iowa to see her Mom. Cassidy figures that "Lucy" hasn't got a chance of seeing her Mom, since the Feds are going to be watching her too closely for "Lucy" to have a chance in hell of getting to see her without getting caught. Cassidy offers to help, because she fell in love with the wrong guy. He conned her, embarrassed her, took her life savings and he too was a "Bad guy", so she figures at least one of them deserves something good.

In the jungle, Kate slowly wakes up. Looking around, she finds herself still handcuffed, only not the way she was. Now she's cuffed to someone else.

Juliette.

Ah, girl-girl bondage.

On the beach, Sawyer is doing his best to prove Hurley wrong and feed himself. He's fishing. Down the beach, Jin and Sun are bringing in a net full of fish. When he tries to nod a polite greeting to Sun, she glares daggers back at him.

"Ain't gonna get the Korean vote."

He does actually manage to catch a fish. He even makes an incompetent attempt to gut and clean it.

Failing miserably at the task of feeding himself, Sawyer goes hat in hand to Hurley, asking the big man's guidance in making amends and avoiding banishment.

"Dude, you stink."

PU

The first thing that Hurley asks of him is an apology for the names he's called him.

"I'm really sorry I called you rotund."

"Really?"

"Ah, God, you're worse than a girl. C'mon, let's spread the love..."

Speaking of Sawyer and his love spread, cut back to Kate and her new partner in the Island's first annual three-legged race. She spies a knife in Juliette's pocket and carefully extracts it. Before she has a chance to do anything with it, Juliette grabs her by the wrist and demands to know what she's doing there.

Eventually, she lets Kate's wrist go and watches as her former captive goes to work on the cuff lock with the knife. The blade is too large to jimmy the lock with, so for the moment, they're stuck. Kate asks what happened to Juliette.

"I was making a cup of tea, canister came in through the window."

"So, what'd you do to piss 'em off?"

I guess the Others really don't like tea.

Kate wants to go back to the village and try to find Jack and Sayid. She tells Juliette about Locke coming to say goodbye and what he said about the Others leaving. Juliette seems genuinely puzzled when she asks where the Others went.

"Welcome to the wonderful world of not knowing what the hell is going on."

A woman wearing Kate's hat, Kate's hair and jacket walks up to a building, dragging a case on wheels behind her.

(*Kate fan side note. Full points for getting the walk right, but the second she came into the frame, I KNEW it wasn't Evangeline Lilly dragging that case. I'd know that ass a mile away.*)

When she knocks on the door, Kate's Mom answers. The two women stare at each other for a moment and then all hell breaks loose.

Kate's nemesis, the Marshall is there, gun drawn, ready to haul his prize back to prison, only it's not Kate, but Cassidy, posing as a door to door bible saleslady. Through a pair of binoculars, Kate watches the scene unfold.

When Cassidy returns to Kate's hotel room, she wants to know why seeing her Mom would be worth risking running the gauntlet of all those cops and a Marshall with a personal grudge against her. Kate explains that her Mom was the one who turned her in, despite the fact that she killed her drunk, wife beating step-father after setting up a nice fat insurance policy so her Mom would be taken care of. Seems that Mamma Austen chose Wayne over Kate in the end and Kate wants to know why.

In the jungle, Kate is trying to follow the trail the Others left when they dragged the two of them out into the trees. Juliette looks up and in a very "Locke" like tone tells Kate that it's going to rain (Well, of course it's going to rain. Two women are about to slug it out and there isn't any other way that they can get wet out here in the middle of nowhere...) and suggests they wait until morning to get back to the village.

When it starts to rain, Juliette stops them and tells Kate that she hopes that she's not going back just for Jack. Juliette's little tirade sends Kate over the edge and she throws the first punch.

I've been waiting to see Kate get into a good rain soaked jungle rumble since they introduced Ana Lucia, way back when. Gotta love a show that knows its audience.

After lots of punching, kicking, flipping and rolling around on the muddy ground, Kate gets the upper hand, landing on top of Juliette and twisting her arm painfully behind her back. She exerts a bit too much pressure and manages to dislocate Juliette's shoulder with a sickening crunch.

As the blond doctor writhes on the ground in agony, Kate hears a sound even more chilling than the dislocating shoulder joint made. That's right, Smokey is out there somewhere and by the sounds of it, that somewhere isn't very far away.

Helping Juliette to her feet, the two women pelt headlong into the jungle, trying to put distance between them and the Island's Big Bad. When it becomes obvious that they can't out run Smokey, Kate finds a bamboo stand for them to hide in. She clamps her hand over Juliette's mouth to keep the blond woman's cries of pain and panicked questions from giving away their position.

Smokey doesn't need to hear them to find them though. It comes right up to their hiding place and then exhibits some new behavior. Four quick flashes of blinding light happen in succession and then it backs off into the jungle, leaving the two women shaken but intact.

Was it taking pictures? Dosing them with radiation? Some kind of psychic scan? Trying to see through their wet shirts?

Back in camp, Hurley is coaching Sawyer through the foreign territory of being truly kind to people. He wants Sawyer to make nice with Claire, since she's influential and her vote will go a long way to tipping the vote in favour of letting Sawyer remain in the camp. Sawyer figures that since he never did anything bad to Claire, there's no reason for her not to want him to stay.

"Naw, but you never did anything good for her either. And have you ever even asked how Aaron is?"

"Well, I know how he is. He cries loud and he smells."

"See, that's what I'm talkin' about. You're sarcastic. People don't like that."

(*Character development side note. Didn't it seem odd that an accomplished con man would need coaching on how to be nice to people? Sure, it's not his nature, but you'd think it would at least be one of his skill sets...*)

After Hurley's instructions, Sawyer approaches Claire and makes a really awkward "nice guy" overture.

"I just came by to say your baby's...he's not as wrinkly as he was a couple of weeks ago..."

Claire accepts the compliment and the blanket, earning Sawyer a thumbs up from Hurley.
Back in the stand of bamboo, once they decide that they're safe, Riggs Getz Murtaugh to help her pop her shoulder back in. If those two ever get on the same side, they'll make a real Lethal Weapon.

Sorry, I couldn't resist.

While they are about the business of popping Juliette's shoulder back together, Kate learns that her little soul (and other bits) bearing episode with Sawyer was caught on camera and seeing it broke Jack's heart and that's why Jack told her not to come back, not because he was trying to save her.

Sawyer has partnered up with Desmond, of all people, and the two of them are out boar hunting. Desmond is understandably curious why Sawyer would want to be his new hunting partner. It seems that Sawyer has figured out that with money not being worth anything on the island, meat is the currency of bribes. And he has a mess of people to bribe.

BOARING

After a quick shot of Kate and Juliette waking and heading off to find the Others' Village, cut to a diner where Kate's Mom is serving chili to Cassidy. As she walks away, Cass slides the bowl to the edge of the table so that when Mamma Austen passes her a quick flip spills it all over her. Mamma Austen heads to the Ladies' Room to fix the damage. She's stopped cold when Kate walks in.

(*Side note. Is it just me or did Mamma Austen look freakishly like Juliette in this scene?*)

SEPARATED

Kate asks her question.

"I wanna know why you told them what I did to Wayne."

"I thought maybe you came because you wanted to say you were sorry."

"I'm not sorry."

Mamma Austen explains that despite the fact that Wayne used to beat her, she loved him.

Kate killed the man she loved. That's why she told the police what Kate had done. Because Kate is her daughter, she's not going to tell her two police shadows that Kate is there, but she warns her that if she ever sees her again, the first thing she'll do is yell for help. That's a promise we've already seen her keep.

Walking through the jungle, Kate and Juliette discuss Jack. Kate figures that Juliette doesn't really know Jack. Juliette knows a bit about him.

YOUDONTKNOWJACK

"I know where he was born. I know what his parents did for a living. I know that he was married and who he was married to. I know why he got a divorce. I know how his father died. I know his height, his weight and his blood type. What do you know about him, Kate?"

Forget "Love Triangles". We're into Quadratic Equation territory. I can't keep track anymore.

Fortunately for Kate, Smokey chooses that moment to reappear, forcing the she-cats in chains to sheath their claws and run like hell. During their flight, they fall face first into a nice slimy mud puddle. Too bad Smokey's on their collective tails or we might have been able to enjoy round three, this time in the mud. Alas, they are forced to continue running. Spectator sports will have to wait for another time.

A short run from the mud, they run up against the Others fence posts. I hesitate to call them the "sonic" fence posts, since I'm not certain they are sonic in nature. Whatever they are, Juliette tries to convince Kate that it's safe to cross them, because they're off. When Kate refuses to budge, Juliette pulls out a handcuff key and unlocks her cuff and crosses the fence line, leaving a stunned Kate lying on the ground.

With some coaxing, Kate too crosses the fence line, just in time for Juliette to activate it and save them both from Smokey.

SMOKE

"Alright. We don't know what it is, but we know it doesn't like our fences."

While she's probably grateful that Juliette just saved her life, Kate's pissed that she's been played for a fool.

PISSED

"You had a key."

"They left me behind, too. They gassed me. I know that you don't care, but the people I spent the last three years of my life with, they just left me. I thought that maybe, maybe if I could make you think that we were in it together, maybe I wouldn't get left behind again."

Kate snags Juliette's key, takes off the remaining cuff and heads off towards the village without a look back. Juliette, left with few options, follows.

On the beach, Sawyer is playing host, chef and waiter to the camp. Sawyer reminds Charlie to remember his hospitality when the time comes for him to vote. Charlie hasn't got a clue what Sawyer is talking about. Slowly, realization dawns that the con man has himself been conned. Let's see. Jack, Kate, Ben and now Hurley have all gotten the better of Sawyer by playing his own game against him. When he confronts Hurley about it, Hurley denies that it was actually a con. He just wanted to help Sawyer cement himself in his new, if unsolicited, role as leader. With Jack, Kate, Locke and Sayid gone, Sawyer is IT.

"Look around. You made everyone happy. Just for today, they can eat boar, laugh and forget that they're totally screwed. And you did that for 'em, dude."

"What if I don't wanna be the leader?"

"Well, I don't think Jack wanted it either. Sucks for you, dude."

Don't look now, but that makes Hurley the power behind the throne. Big throne.

BOARED

As some soft music plays in the background, Sawyer sees the peace and contentment he's brought to the camp and seems to accept his new role. He even takes baby Aaron in his arms for the first time, to the delight of Claire. He catches Sun's eye...

Still not getting the Korean vote.

At the Other's village, Juliette volunteers to go find Sayid while Kate gets Jack.

Now, I'm just a guy, so I might not be reading this right, but I got the sense that this was one woman lording her superiority over another, rather than a magnanimous gesture on Juliette's part. More "You can try, but he's mine" than "Go ahead, I want you to have him".

Kate bursts in to the room where Jack was staying, finding two gas canisters on the ground, which is likely why he's still unconscious a full day later than the two women who were exposed to the fresh air and only a single canister each.

She shakes him awake and explains that the Others have gone, leaving them behind. She tells him that she came back to help him and she's so sorry that because of her, he's lost his one chance to go home.

"I'm sorry. I'm so sorry."

SORRYJACK

Jack asks if Juliette went too.

"No. They left her too."

"Why?"

"You know her better than I do."

"Now what?"

"Now? Now we go back."

Kate helps him up and outside.

Back in the world, Cassidy drops Kate at her freshly repaired car. Kate asks for the name of the guy who ripped her off, so she can try and repay the favours that Cassidy has done for her by finding him and punishing him somehow.

Instead of giving Kate the name of the con man (How weird would it be if Kate had known who Sawyer was all along?) Cassidy instead tells her that she's pregnant with the guy's baby.
Kate's advice is to go to the cops and get the guy locked up, but Cassidy wonders if Kate will ever be able to forgive her own Mother for doing that to her.

Kate's answer is no.

In their last moments together, Kate shares her real name with her friend.

Anyone want to bet that's not all they've now got in common?

Kate and Jack leave the house to find Juliette waiting for them. Sayid joins them, explaining that he can find no sign of where the Others have gone.

"It's like fifty people disappeared into thin air."

As they start off towards their camp, Sayid objects to Juliette's presence.

"She is not coming with us."

"Yes, she is."

"Why?"

"Because they left her behind, too"

Along with bets about Kate's oven and possible bun, I'm taking bets that Jack lives to regret that command decision.