Lost: Motherly Nature

I guess it’s nice to see the TV-viewing audience isn’t the only group of people whose brains have been semi-fried by all the time-travel craziness on this season of “Lost.” (Though if you start experiencing nose bleeds, you really should see a doctor — or at least turn the TV off for a few minutes.)

I usually find overly self-referential scenes like the one between Hurley (who already speaks for the audience) and Miles to be too cutesy or indulgent, but I really enjoyed watching these two try to break down the implications of Ben dying and their place in the time-space continuum.

Besides giving the underused Ken Leung something to do, it would’ve been weird if some of these characters DIDN’T eventually acknowledge all the time-travel insanity. It’s one thing to have Jack and Kate exchange a weary “of course we’re in 1977 look” when they first returned, but to not have anybody eventually address the implications of their actions in the past would’ve just seemed off.

So, I must give kudos to the writers for a couple of funny scenes that involved “Back to the Future”, dominos, and a few questions on all of our minds. If Ben dies, wouldn’t they all disappear given that he’s the one responsible for sending them back in time? (I liked Miles’s explanation — Faraday’s “interesting theory”? — that Ben turning the wheel meant they were experiencing this stuff for the first time.) More importantly, how come Ben in 2004 didn’t remember Sayid as the guy who shot him when he was a little boy? (We seemed to get the answer to this question at the end of the episode.)

Despite these knowing winks at the audience (I also enjoyed Jack’s observation that most people didn’t actually LIKE his previous pushy, take-charge persona), this episode was mostly about Kate. Last week filled in pretty much all of Sayid’s off-Island life, and this time it was Kate’s turn.

It started with the no-frills revelation of what Sawyer had whispered to Kate before he jumped out of the helicopter in the season 4 finale. Since most of us had guessed that it was something to the effect of “I have a daughter named Clementine, could you find and check up on her?” there really was no point in dragging this out (just like there was no point in dragging out whether Young Ben’s gunshot wound had instantly killed him).

Kate visited Clementine (and her bitter mother/Sawyer’s ex-lover/Kate’s ex-partner in con Cassidy) at the start of the episode (how adorable did Aaron look in his backwards-facing car seat?) She tried to pass off her Oceanic 6 settlement as money from Sawyer (Kate wouldn’t know that Sawyer already set Clementine up with money), but Cassidy saw through that. She also saw through Kate’s lie about Aaron being her son and called out Sawyer’s “heroic” jump from the helicopter for what it really turned out to be — a coward move by Sawyer (“I wasn’t ready to be your boyfriend”). Obviously, Cassidy still harbors some resentment toward Sawyer for breaking her heart. She had that “heart breaking” thing in common with Kate, which made Kate spilling the beans about the Oceanic 6’s lie to a person she hardly knew a little more believable.

I also think a large part of the credit should go to Evangeline Lilly, who delivered her absolute best performance in the show’s run. As a necessity, this season started by jumping from one group of characters to another, but the last few episodes have been trending toward what the show’s episodes have mostly been about — focusing on one character and working everything else off of that. Last week, Naveen Andrews stepped up to the plate in the Sayid-centric “He’s Our You” and knocked it out of the park, and next week it looks like it’ll be Michael Emerson’s turn as Ben.

This week, however, it was Lilly’s turn. I’m not a huge Kate fan, but Lilly was so good last night that she not only made me like Kate, but she actually convinced me of a couple of things a lesser actress may not have been able to pull off.

For example, after the marina scene (they’ve sure gotten a lot of mileage out of that footage) when Kate briefly lost Aaron in that supermarket (what parent hasn’t experienced THAT horror?) and got him back from the creepy lady we all thought was Claire (I have to keep repeating to myself that Emilie de Ravin is NOT scheduled to appear on the show this year), she decided that she’d turn him over to Claire’s mother, whom she knew was still in town.

Now I realize Mrs. Littleton and Aaron are related by blood, but she’s still a complete stranger to Aaron (and to Kate). This should’ve seemed like a harsh and bad idea, but Lilly’s acting (particularly in her touching, tearful goodbye to Aaron) sold it for me. I also believed her when she told Mrs. Littleton that her reason for going back was to find Claire (though I’m willing to listen if you try to convince me she went back to find Sawyer). Her guilt for keeping Aaron due to her admittedly selfish reasons (“I needed him”) and her paranoia over someone (who just happened to look like Claire) taking him away was conveyed well enough for me to buy this. (What wasn’t conveyed was why this would lead her to hook up with Jack immediately after ditching Aaron.)

I also bought that she’d be inclined to save Young Ben Linus’ life. Besides feeling a kinship for her fellow lower-class Dharma recruit Roger Linus (sympathetic for the first time last night) Kate is just a different (better) person than she was three years ago, the same way Sawyer is a different (better) person. (They weren’t right for each other before, but does that mean they’re right for each other now?)

Of course, I don’t mean to suggest the flip side of that is true. Just because Jack refused to save Ben’s life, I don’t think it necessarily means he’s a worse person. If anything, he’s becoming more capital e “Enlightened”, like the former yin to his yang John Locke. If you recall, Locke wasn’t above making sacrifices “if the Island demanded it” (like Boone). That’s not too different from Jack’s refusal to intervene on Ben’s behalf if it was what the Island intended (I love how Jack now talks about the ..Island.. as an entity). Of course, the path of the Enlightened is a harsh one. Locke’s been shot a few times, and even died. So far, the worst Jack has had to endure is having his ass chewed out by Juliet as he emerged from the shower.

Sure, Jack came off as a bit of a dolt when Juliet asked him why he was “supposed” to come back and he didn’t have an answer. Still, I’m digging this change from his “I’m going to force it and try to fix EVERYTHING” attitude with each passing episode. (An attitude that Sawyer himself mocked two episodes ago.) Jack was right — people may have respected him, but did anyone actually LIKE him?

Still, I’m of the opinion that even if Jack had stepped in and helped save Young Ben’s life (the fact that this would have been a major red flag for Horace and the other workman-dissing Dharma elite was glossed over) the kid would’ve still found his way into the Others’ grasp somehow. (Call it “course correction” if you will.)

As it stands, Jack allowed “whatever happened” to happen. Meaning that, (at Juliet’s suggestion) Kate and Sawyer turned Young Ben over to Richard Alpert and the Others to save him. Alpert said, if they took him, Young Ben (who REALLY hung in there last night for someone who was allegedly critically wounded) wouldn’t remember “this happened” (which explains why Big Ben didn’t recognize Sayid in 2004) and that he would lose his innocence. The decision was (surprisingly) easy for Kate and Sawyer and they turned the kid over so Alpert and the power of the not-so-hidden Temple could make Ben all better.

In all, not my favorite episode of the season by any stretch, but it was still necessary to fill in Kate’s back story and was made very enjoyable by Evangeline Lilly’s performance.

So what’d you think of this episode? Was that blond woman holding Aaron’s hand really just a good samaritan or something more sinister? (Her odd calm was Other-y, but I’m leaning toward the former. She probably seemed creepier than she was due to Kate’s frazzled state.) Where the hell did Sayid run off to? Were you also a little surprised to learn that Ellie and Charles (Widmore) were still on the Island in the 1970’s? (I shouldn’t have been since an older Ben is the one who eventually wrestles control of the Island away from Charles, according to Widmore.) Finally, I’m not the only who found Locke’s “Welcome back to the land of the living” to be a little cheese-tastic, right?