Yay for answered prayers! After last week’s grouchy recap, the plot gods have enriched us beyond measure — although we won’t say how before the jump, lest the spoiler gods smite us down.
For fans of the Kate triangle, something for everyone: Jack tries to fix things, Sawyer gets mushy, new glory for Kate’s hair. There are two solid reveals, and a bunch of people noodge one another to talk about their feelings. (Some absurdly: Why does Juliet care so much about Sawyer’s thing for Kate?) And the bold time-travel gambit is starting to pay off, turning this season into a weirdly meta-annotated version of all the previous seasons. Viva crazy logic.
Teaser
Boat to the Mainland. Jack broods, Kate nuzzles baby Aaron and wants to fake being his mom. Which is grand with Jack, as long as she’s up for the Big Lie too. “I have always been with you,†she says, skipping over all that cage and tent sex with Sawyer.
Then it’s three years later, and Kate’s preparing to set out in Sun’s corporate revengewear while Sun babysits, a situation so ominous you’d think a con woman like Kate might catch a clue. “It’s what any friend would do,†Sun deadpans, practically cracking her knuckles with deceit. Then she gets the best care package ever: photos of Jack ‘n’ Ben, delicious candy, and a gun!
The Mainland: Graham, Esq., Legal Representative of the Worldwise Oceanic Consipracy
Kate sits with Graham from My So-Called Life and offers a deal: blood samples if she can talk to his client. Graham puffs up like a scary lawyer-bird and threatens, “You are going to lose the boy.â€
Back at the hospital, Jack’s giving Sayid agita by insisting, “Ben is on our side.â€Â Then an angry extra lures Jack into the hallway.
Hurley calls Jack to say he’s in lockup, and a fake-o orderly sneaks in to assassinate Sayid — like that would ever work. There’s IV-fu, and Sayid grabs an address from the killer’s pocket. It’s Kate’s.
Jack calls Kate up, but she’s freaking about Aaron’s custody. So as Ben and Sayid leave to check on Hurley (which confuses us: why would Sayid take Ben with him?), Jack joins Kate in her car, where she’s planning to trail Graham to his mysterious client. Jack rides shotgun. The meeting is with Claire’s mom, which is only logical, since she’s Aaron’s grandmother — but when Jack goes up to talk to Mom Claire, she explains that she’s merely a red herring in town to collect her Oceanic settlement.
In a dark parking garage, Ben and Sayid bicker, and are possibly about to make out, when Graham arrives to talk law with his client, Ben. (I expect future consults with Tall Walt, the ghost of Eko’s brother, and the legal owners of the Black Rock.)
Back in the car, Jack shows Kate the note from the assassin’s pocket, and it’s driving us bananas that they haven’t called Sun to check on Aaron. Unknown forces plan to pluck him away! Make sure he’s at least getting a nap!
Finally, Ben, Jack, Sayid, and Kate gather in a parking lot. Kate realizes Ben’s behind the legal gambit, and he charmingly confesses (but also slags her maternity: this from the guy who kidnapped Alex from Rousseau). Anyway, there are weirder fish to fry, because, somewhere in the darkened parking lot, Aaron is indeed napping — but without a car seat! And Sun reaches for her gun.
On the Island: Blood, Sweat, and French People
Charlotte is bleeding. Juliet whispers; Sawyer shouts. Faraday thought this might happen: It’s neurological, like bad jet lag. But though he claims he doesn’t know why nosebleeds aren’t happening to everyone, there’s one of those “ding ding†effects, so we’re not buying it.
Locke wants to go to the Orchid, based on Alpert’s instructions: He plans to reunite the cast, even if it kills him. Then he name-checks Kate to mess with Sawyer’s head, and Charlotte recovers, looking lovely, like Nicole Kidman in Dead Calm.
As the Losties tromp through the time-bent jungle, Sawyer broods about Kate. It’s rainy, nighttime, there’s some anxious chronology talk, and then an ominous (and familiar) straight-up white light is visible. Miles’ nose is bleeding, and eerily, a woman is screeeeaming in the distance! When Sawyer goes to see who — GOOD GOD, it’s Kate and Claire, during Claire’s childbirth scene from season one. Kate is glowing and beautiful, and Kate and Sawyer are verklempt, separately. Then FLASH, time traveling again, and when Locke asks what Sawyer saw, he mutters, “It’s gone now.â€
But Locke keeps hocking Sawyer, so they have a whole retrospective conversation about season one: how that straight-up light was the one Locke believed was a sign, back when he was a mess about Boone’s death. Sawyer asks why he didn’t go back and stop himself from being such a credulous goonball, but Locke insists he needed that pain “to get to where I am now.†Meanwhile, Miles confesses his nosebleed to Faraday, who asks if he’s sure he was never on the island.
When the Losties arrive at camp, there’s no beer or motorboat, just a big, weird canoe filled with Ajira Airline water, so they jump in. More Sawyer therapy time, with Juliet hocking him until he confesses to seeing Kate. “Time travel’s a bitch,†he gripes, there’s gunshots, a chase scene, Juliet shoots back, and FLASH!
“Thank you, lord!†shouts Sawyer, then takes it back when he realizes it’s raining. After they paddle to shore, Juliet uses eye-contact whispering to bring Sawyer to catharsis. “I was close enough to touch her,†he rasps. “If I wanted to, I could’ve stood right up and talked to her†— but what’s done is done, he concludes, à la Locke, and look, we understand it was painful to see joyous Kate, but if you were TIME TRAVELING, wouldn’t you want to test out the physics experiment? Just a little? Meanwhile, Juliet has a nosebleed.
And then, a wonderful distraction: Charlotte discovers plane wreckage, specifically French plane wreckage! We squeal with anticipation watching Frenchies, in a raft, speakin’ French, discover a body. We’re thinking, oh please please s’il vous plait merci let this French chick be Rousseau, when they turn the body over for an unexpected reveal. It’s Jin! Oh lordy.
The adorable Frenchwoman reveals a pregnant belly and offers Jin water. I’m Danielle Rousseau, she explains, and Jin quietly freaks out, as do we.
What We Know Now
• Jin is aliiiiiive!
• Ben is trying to get Aaron.
• At one point, Rousseau was an adorable French pregnant woman; then she lost her kid, plus everyone she knew, and went crazy — this should be a grim flashback.
The Wha? Factor
• Where’s Claire? And why does no one mention her?
• If the nosebleeds come in order of the length people are on the island, what does that indicate? Is Miles the baby in that Marvin Candle flashback? Who is Charlotte?
• What’s Sun’s game? And how will she react when she finds out Jin’s aliiiiiive?