Lost: The Nosebleed Section

As I’ve said before, I’m not exactly the biggest Kate (pictured, right) fan there is.

I’ve always felt the show’s writers go way out of their way to make her interesting and showcase her, despite the fact that there are more interesting female characters around. However, having recently re-watched the entire series to catch myself up for the new season, I found myself warming up to her considerably.

One of the things I’m liking about this season is how a greater variety of characters have more to do in each episode. Don’t get me wrong, I also liked the structure before, where a certain character almost starred in a mini-movie for the week. But with all the time-traveling trippiness and additional characters, there just isn’t enough screen time to go around for things to remain the way they were.

If I had to say, I’d say that “The Little Prince” was a “Kate” episode, but, despite the fact that it opened and focused on her desire to raise and keep Aaron, the character didn’t dominate the storyline. Then again, maybe the newer, more spread-the-wealth storyline structure just made her stuff more palatable and is the reason I really liked this episode.

Last week, I wrote that I was grateful the show slowed things down a bit and featured on a smaller group of characters, while sidelining, arguably, the most popular characters on the show. Last night, signature characters like Jack, Kate, Sayid and Hurley (briefly in an oversized prison jumpsuit) were back, but the show still slowed down the pace enough to let us catch our breath.

Of course, the real triumph is that, even when the show stops to let its characters take a breath and talk to each other, the storytelling continues to move forward. After last night, the people on the Island have a destination (the Orchid), and the Oceanic 6 is all but re-united (only the soon-to-join them Hurley was missing, though I’m not entirely sure I’m buying the technicality that’s letting him out of prison).

The episode opened with yet another scene on Penny’s boat and with Jack convincing Kate to go along with his lie. (I’m hoping this is the last scene set on that boat — we get it, after MUCH deliberation everyone agreed to lie.) Jack asked her if she was with him, and she said “I’ve always been with you.” Meanwhile, I rolled my eyes. I really liked seeing even a brief explanation of Kate came to be Aaron’s guardian, especially when you consider she was scared to even hold him once upon a time. She’d already abandoned a good number of her friends, and she didn’t want to let Aaron go either.

Three years later, Kate left Aaron with Sun (who is officially scary now) to meet with the lawyer who wanted Aaron’s blood sample. The lawyer refused to divulge who his client was, so Kate started following her. She eventually met up with Jack (and, like the audience, appreciated him shaving off the crazy man beard). Jack had come from the hospital after another anonymous baddie had tried tranquilizing Sayid (he’s had enough tranquility this season!) and had Kate’s address in his pocket.

It was good seeing Jack and Kate back together, and Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lilly did a nice job conveying the awkwardness and pleasure the two characters had seeing each other again. Turns out the lawyer was meeting with Claire’s mom, who must’ve been the one demanding Kate and Aaron’s blood sample. Jack insisted on confronting her (“I can fix this” — typical) and found out that Claire’s mom didn’t know anything Aaron existed.

Of course it turned out that Ben had hired the lawyer! I don’t even know why I’m surprised that this guy is behind anything anymore. That being said, the Claire’s mom misdirection was too much of an effort by the writers to lead us down the wrong path and the episode’s biggest misstep (It was even more cheap and blatant a fakeout than the “Jin’s in the past/Sun’s in the future twist from season 4’s Ji Yeon.)

Eventually, Jack and Kate met up with Sayid and Ben at the marina. I loved Kate’s face when she saw Ben — utter shock and disgust. Sayid’s face, on the other hand, when he was Ben at the hospital was a mixture of disgust and “of course.” Ben admitted to hiring the lawyer (presumably to rattle Kate from her comfortable life), so wouldn’t it be logical to assume Ben might be behind the guys who’ve gone after Sayid and Hurley to make them more open to the idea of going back to the Island? They’re 5/6 of the way there, since Sun brought Aaron (and a gun) to the marina. We’ve been led to believe she’s there to kill Ben (which is what she told Widmore), but I wouldn’t be shocked if she wanted to take a shot at the person in those surveillance photos with Ben — Jack. He’s the one who forced the chopper to take off and led to Jin’s death.

Except that we learned last night that Jin lives! (Yay!) He’s got a nasty tan and badly-chapped lips, but he was sucked up by the Island-moving time vortex thing and ended up in 1988 with the rest of the survivors at the end of the episode. We know it’s 1988 because it’s 16 years before the Oceanic 815 crash. And we know it’s 16 years before because Jin was discovered by a pregnant Danielle Rousseau and the rest of the French scientists. Jin seemed to recognize Rousseau, so that indicates that they met during the castaways’ time on the Island. However, Rousseau never mentioned anything about picking up a Korean gentleman when she told Sayid what happened to her people. I don’t know if this is because the past has been changed by Jin’s appearance in 1988 or because Rousseau never really had face time with Jin in 2004.

Before that, we followed the rest of the time travelers to a couple of different periods. The bright shaft of light indicated their first stop was season 1, I mean, two months before the Island move when Locke had his freakout at the hatch and Claire gave birth to Aaron with Kate’s help (which helped illustrate how she could become attached to the kid).

Sawyer watched the whole scene, but was paralyzed and Josh Holloway’s emotional facial expression validated why it was a good idea to give Sawyer more to do this season. He’s a standout in an excellent cast. I particularly enjoyed his scenes with the equally excellent Terry O’Quinn. Locke was open with Sawyer about his journey on the Island and explained why he wouldn’t change a thing. He also realized that the best idea might be to get to the Orchid, since it would mean he could leave the Island and convince the Oceanic 6 to come back (and could potentially stop the Island from moving through time). Unfortunately for him, Sawyer wasn’t as eager to open up.

The sky flashed once again during Aaron’s birth and now the survivors appeared to be sometime in the future. We know because their beach camp was in ruins and there was a water bottle from Ajira Airlines. Could that be the Oceanic 6’s airline of choice? There were six slots in the outrigger for Faraday, Charlotte, Miles, Juliet, Locke and Sawyer, so that probably means there were SIX slots available for the outrigger that was shooting at them (if you count Ben and not Aaron as one of the rowers of course). I figured maybe they were the ones shooting at the time travelers. Then I realized that Jack, Kate and Co. wouldn’t really chase after and shoot at a bunch of strangers, especially if they could be the people they were looking for, so I moved on.

Fortunately for the time travelers, they moved on themselves right when it looked like the shooters were catching up (Sawyer’s “I take it back” after thanking the time-traveling heavens was one of the funniest lines of the episode.) On the beach, Sawyer confessed to Juliet of all people that he’d seen Kate in the jungle. I thought it was interesting that he opened up to Juliet instead of Locke (who gave him a great chance to open up) and fortified my belief that there’s something brewing there.

Here’s hoping Juliet is around for the foreseeable future for something to happen. Last night, she and Miles developed Charlotte-style nosebleeds. Faraday floated a theory out there that maybe those who’ve been on the Island longer are more quickly affected by the nosebleeds. That would explain why they’ve hit Charlotte (it’s been suggested she was born on the Island), Juliet (who’s been on the Island three years) and Miles (who is pretty much guaranteed to be orientation video star Pierre Chang’s baby from this season’s opening sequence). It might also explain why Desmond (years in the hatch) had one in “The Constant.”

I have one minor concern about the time leap. Though the boat escape last night was effective from a comedic standpoint, I’m curious to see what the purpose is. Are the time travelers being taken to specific times in the Island’s history for a specific reason or is it just random? And if it’s supposed to be random, it’d be a little more believable if the time jumps didn’t occur at overly convenient (saving them from the gun fight) or inconvenient (Faraday time jumping before Desmond could catch his mom’s name) times.

So what’d you think of the episode? Who sent the gun to Sun’s room? (Widmore?) Who do you think was shooting at Sawyer, Juliet and Co. on the outrigger? If the nosebleeds are based on time spent on the Island, why did freighter communications officer Minkowski have one? Will the sickness that killed Rousseau’s crew become an issue or will Jin flash out of there before that happens? Finally, why does Juliet always get Kate’s sloppy seconds?