In 2004 in LOST2 we see Kate's getaway from the airport. She jacks Claire's cab, forces the driver to run over Arzt's baggage, and when the driver makes a break for it, Kate takes over, kicks Claire out of the cab, and drives off. Claire IS pregnant, altho Kate doesn't realize it when she boots her.
In 2007 in LOST1 we see Sayid diagnosed with an infection, or, as the Others describe it, CLAIMED. Also, Sawyer busts out of the Temple for parts unknown, providing an excuse for Kate and Jin to go after him, each with their own agenda.
We get a pretty fun alternate universe convergence when following Kate and Claire from the airport. Here in LOST2, Kate ends up being with Claire when she experiences early contractions and ends up driving her to the hospital to be cared for by Dr. Ethan Goodspeed. In LOST1, Ethan Goodspeed is the Other agent charged with Claire's abduction and prenatal care, and Kate is the one who helps Claire deliver her baby on the Island. I'm not certain, but I suspect Kate is with Claire for the naming of the child in both realities as well, eh?
Anyhow, when Kate ends up realizing that she abandoned a pregnant woman (after getting that dark-magic-dealing warlock from BUFFY to bust her cuffs), she goes back to find her and offer a ride. Claire's desperation and need meet Kate's attitude and Kate ends up accompanying Claire on her visit to the couple who's adopting her child. When Mrs. Bascombe comes to the door, she breaks down at the sight of Claire, telling her that her husband left her and she can't go through with it. The news apparently shocks Claire into early labor pains and Kate rushes her to the hospital where they meet Doc Ethan.
So, what was supposed to happen with Claire's child here in LOST2? In LOST1, Australian fortune teller tells Claire he's arranged for an adoption by a good couple in LA, and explains that she MUST leave on Oceanic 815 to meet them right away, knowing that she'll never make it. Once on the Island, Claire understands his plan and realizes that there never was a couple waiting for her in LA. In LOST2, right up until Mrs. Bascombe answers the door, I got to thinking that it was the same scenario, only... there's no Island to pull the plane out of the sky? But, when Mrs. B shows up with her story (and assuming she's not an actress, hired by the fortune teller), we see that there really WAS a couple waiting for her baby. So, maybe the fortune teller saw the same danger in Claire's child, but came up with a slightly less supernaturally tinted solution. He sets her up with a couple that he knows will break up, sends her to LA to meet them just after they implode, basically leaving her stranded in the City of Angels with her soon-to-be-hatched child, a scenario in which she will decide to keep him.
When the cab is about to leave the airport, Kate catches a glimpse of Jack (in the mirror? out the window?). He's standing w his luggage by the curb, talking on his cell. For some reason, Kate does a double take at this. I can't decide why. LOST1 deja vu? Or was I so tired that I missed some visual cue?
This may be the closest that half brother and sister have been in LOST2, with Kate's contact their one degree of separation. Would Claire's mother show up at Christian's funeral in 2004? Would Claire herself know enough to show up? In LOST1, while she meets her biological father, she seems determined to never learn his actual name (Christian Shephard, not too on-the-nose w that, eh?).
Overwhile, in 2007 in LOST 1...
Poor Mac. Coldcocked twice by the same Krazy Kate. And this time there wasn't even a wookiee prisoner set-up! I think it's great that Jin's game for striking out on his own in search of Sun. I think it's LOSTly aggravating that the Others don't just tell Jin as much as they can, in spite of Justin's basic openness.
Whenever any group strikes out across the Island in LOST, do they always have to include a Laurel and Hardy/Abbot and Costello/Artoo and Threepio couple? We've seen it with Hurley and Locke (or anyone, almost), Miles and Faraday, and now, Mac (okay, Aldo) and Justin. It's not a bad thing, but that's the first time it felt kind of... I dunno... lazy.
I got really excited when Kate tracked Sawyer down at New Otherton and caught him prying open floorboards. I was thinking to myself, he's DOING IT! He's playing the LONG CON! He buried some important/useful $hit back in the 70s just in case he, or someone else, might need it in 2004 or 2007!
But no. It was only his D&D dice. O well.
Well, it was only his D&D dice this time. Who knows what else he might have stashed way back when.
I loved the Sawyer's Creek moments at the sub dock. For having the chance to insert "Dawson," "Joey," and "Pacey" into the dialogue in my head, but also for getting to see more of Sawyer's earnest range (has Holloway gotten any movie roles?) and hear his harsh-but-true take on almost tricking Juliet into staying with him cuz he didn't want to be alone. Sad, that. Krazy Kate, tho. Man. What part of "Don't come after me" don't you understand? Again? When they split up after Kate takes out Mac and Justin, Jin asks her, "Who do you care about, Kate?"
Actually, that could be parsed as question AND answer. Who do you care about? Kate. Still, the stories would have us believe that she cares about Aaron and Claire, so, I guess we'll allow for that.
Her crying at the end of the Sawyer's Creek bit was just so annoying and indulgent. Boo-frickin-hoo. LOVED Sawyer's walk across New Otherton to his cabin while Kate's refilling her canteen. He doesn't give her anything.
Maybe he's in there to pry more floorboards?
Back at the Temple, Dogen "tests" Sayid by electrocution and glowing poker. I think this proves that he's not an Esau double, but doesn't necessarily tell them anything else. I don't see how that session could tell the Others that he's been infected, unless the fact of his resurrection itself is enough. That, if the spring alone saved him, he should have revived much earlier, and a later revival is indication of Something Else.
Miles and Hurley quiz Sayid on his near-death experience, but get nothing exciting out of Sayid. Then Hurley asks the perfect BUFFY-Anya type question, and Sayid gives the even perfecter answer...
Hurley: You're not a zombie, right?
Sayid: No. I am not a zombie.
Interesting, tho, that as he's dying, Sayid laments his life as torturer and killer, fearing what's in store for him in his afterlife, and, within minutes of his apparent return, he is subjected to the Others' torture "test."
Dogen explains to Jack that he keeps an interpreter to create distance between himself and the people he leads...
Dogen: Because I have to remain separate from the people that I'm in charge of. It makes it easier when they don't like the decisions I make for
them.
An interesting business school lesson for Jack, perhaps.
Dogen gives Jack a pill of what he calls medicine. He tells Jack that Sayid must take it willingly in order to successfully fight the infection. Of course, he's gotta be cryptic about the whys and wherefores. Partly cuz it's LOST and partly cuz on some level it's about trust and faith on this wacko Island. He does play this as something Jack can do to redeem himself, to make up for lives damaged and lost because of his decisions. Kind of thin on logic, but a perfect tack to take w Jack.
When Jack explains the sitch to Sayid, Sayid says that he will take the pill if Jack tells him to. Almost as if he's in on this trust game with Dogen. Jack goes back to Dogen w the pill and does this really excellent thing—he swallows the pill himself. Dogen immediately Heimlich-fus him and gets Jack to expectorate the pill. Dogen tells him then that it's poison.
I get the feeling that Dogen and Saul are impressed by Jack's gambit. However, does it wreck whatever chances or options they have to save Sayid? Even tho their conversation assumes that Sayid would die if he'd taken the pill, is that actually what would have happened? Saul explained to the Losties that if Sayid died, they'd all be screwed, so it's in everyone's interests for him to survive. If Jack had done as Dogen requested, persuaded Sayid to take the pill, would he have been purged of the infection, maybe killed, but then revived again, unclaimed? Does Jack's now knowing that it's poison rob it of its power to cure Sayid, even if he takes it at Jack's request?
Jack: Why would you people want to kill Sayid?
Dogen: We believe he's...
Saul: The closest translation would be... claimed.
Dogen: There is a darkness gorwing in him. Once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone.
Jack: How can you be sure of that?
Dogen: Because it happened to your sister.
Ha! I knew she'd gone bad, or at least, dark. I say she died in New Otherton when the mercs attacked. Sawyer found a changed or tainted Claire, who stuck w them for a little while, until she wandered off into the night with her dad. But... There wasn't time for her to be taken to the Temple and then returned. She couldn't have drowned in the spring the way Sayid had. Unless Dogen is referring to something that happened to Claire after the Oceanic Six left...
Which would be OK, I guess, except that I'd be wrong then, bleah. So, I'm gonna stick w my story and suggest that Sayid and Claire were claimed by Esau, and it doesn't matter how or where they're revived, just that they're revived. Maybe the infection is what revives them anyway. Which would mean that the spring didn't really work at all (discolored and all).
I'd really like for Miles to speak up about how Sayid read as a corpse, or reads now as a walking corpse. Does he get a vibe from him that he got from Claire?
Claimed. What does that mean? I think it means that a person becomes tainted by Esau's influence, darker, perhaps insane. Little Ben must have gone thru almost the same process that Sayid did. Was he infected then, in 1977? Is Christian infected as well? Or is he just another one of Esau's skins? We don't ever see Lockesau and Christian in the same place at the same time, right? And it would make a kind of sense for infected Claire to be so comfortable hanging out with Esau-Christian.
Dammit. I really thought Christian might've belonged to the Island itself. Bleah. Rowan thinks that anytime we see a dead guy walking around, it's Esau. A great Occam's razor explanation, but I really thought that I'd seen too many different ways that people had been resurrected, but really... maybe not.
Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Mac and Justin overtake Jin, and Mac, still in a snit about being knocked out by the same Krazy Kate twice, wants to take it out on him with some jungle justice. Justin's not on board...
Justin: Aldo, no, we can't. He's one of them.
Aldo: He MAY be one of them.
And then *Bang Bang Bang!* Mac and Justin are down! Beartrapped Jin has been saved... by a little blonde boy! It's Claire! Claire's the new Rousseau! This is what happens to women on the Island whose children are taken? Does this also mean that Rousseau was once claimed, too?
Crazy.
There's a funny little thing between Dogen and Jack, maybe a lesson for Jack, maybe for us...? When Jack walks into Dogen's study or whatever, he's spinning a baseball. Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "It's a baseball." When Dogen serves him tea after the Heimlich-fu, Jack asks him what it is. Dogen tells him, "Tea."
I forget if I mentioned this before, but hey, that magic ash keeps the Monster at bay, but you know what else does? A sonic fence, right? Just sayin.
Keep on keepin on~
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