Meet Kate Austen, the Good Shepherdess. When the sheep wander off (to grieve dead girlfriends), or become stranded in the wild (i.e., the terrifying urban jungle of Los Angeles), the foxy fugitive will put her own security at risk to rescue the sad strays of her flighty flock, no matter where they go or where she may be in the multiverse. This is ''What Kate Does,'' to borrow the title of last night's episode of Lost. Yes, she runs, but only because she's got that I murdered my awful father but he deserved it, the battering-abusive bastard, and I'm not letting anyone — even my heartbroken mom, who now totally hates me for killing the very monster I was trying to save her from — tell me different murder charge over her head. When it comes to her natural/nurtured pathology, Kate is a caretaker — a chaser. On the Island, she chased after runaway Sawyer, and then wept for his Juliet grief. In Sideways Los Angeles, she first marooned, then chased after pregnant Claire, and then nursed her through emotional and physical crisis. Kate's story — as well as the subplot belonging to Lost's other shepherd, Jack — reminded me of that great line from one of the show's many conspicuous literary references, The Little Prince: ''You are responsible forever for what you have tamed.'' In the book, ''tamed'' is explicitly defined as ''to create ties.'' As in: The castaways are profoundly bonded — tied — to each other and are now forever responsible to and for each other. As in: What the Island has joined together, let no man put asunder. ''What Kate Does'' — which continued the season's early emphasis on binding symbols (shackles, cuffs, rings) — reminded us of the souls that she has most tamed and the specific responsibility she has carried across the forever of time, space, and multiple worlds: to pull a Paul Simon and facilitate a mother-child reunion between Claire and Aaron. She fulfilled her guardian angel responsibility to Claire in the Los Angeles story line. But it appears she'll have more of a challenge in the Island world now that our fair Claire has taken Rousseau the French Lady's place as Lost's Heavily Accented Mama Gone Loony Toons Native....
+++ Lost has a habit of following up its premiere extravaganzas with scaled-down follow-ups that seek to ground the audience and orient them to a more deliberate pace to the season. ''What Kate Does'' conformed to the mold, and I'm going to hazard a guess and say that not everyone here appreciated that choice, especially those who came to the final season expecting Lost to be all We've Got A Lot To Do And Not Much Time To Do It So Let's Just Rip Into This! Nope. Apparently, Lost has decided to ring itself out by continuing to do ''What Lost Does.'' Which has always been a pretty good thing, in my book, even if means so-so second episodes. And yet, as I write these words, ''What Kate Does'' grows more and more interesting the more I think about it. Granted, it's my job to think about Lost, like, a lot, but put the episode's good stuff on a scale and I'll wager it'll outweigh the lame stuff.
The stuff I loved: Josh Holloway's wrenching acting as he revealed the heartbreaking disclosure that he intended to propose to Juliet; the intrigue of ''infected'' and ''claimed'' Sayid; the hilarious irony of Dr. Ethan Goodspeed; the notable camaraderie of the Temple-stuck castaways, determined to survive their latest ordeal with ''live together, die alone'' idealism and great, knowing humor. (Hurley: ''You're not a zombie, right?'' Sayid: ''No, I am not a zombie.'') And don't look now, kids, but is Jack Shephard actually getting really likable again? I loved his sincere concern for Kate and Sayid, his willingness to accept Sawyer's seething anger, and his humbled self-awareness. When he told Dogen, ''I don't even trust myself,'' Jack may have uttered the most heroic statement of his wannabe hero life, because it was so painfully honest. Superman of Science? No. Superman of Faith? No. Just Jack. And in the end, one wonders if that's exactly what he needs to be to save the day for himself and his friends.
But I'm not as blind as Lady Justice; I saw and was bugged by the weak stuff, too. I felt the absence of Richard, Ben, and The Locke-ness Monster. I'm not bowled over by the new crop of Others; Temple Master Dogen and his BFF (barefooted freaky friend) Lennon are growing on me, but the Lenny and George pair of Aldo and Justin was a dopey combo that didn't flatter the Others' ominous mystique. And I'm already counting the minutes until the castaways escape the Temple. It's not that I don't like spending quality time in the Island's spiritual heart; I find the themes fascinating. But I'm through with the castaways being captives. And I miss the beach. I really do. Unless the Temple gets super-interesting next week, my guess is that we'll be starting with the Season 3/Hydra Station comparisons next week.
And it was a Kate episode. Now, to be clear, I've grown to appreciate Kate over the years. In the beginning, I couldn't quite reconcile the young ingénue with the shampoo commercial hair with the scrappy fugitive/jungle cat tomboy Lost wanted her to be. I wanted more psycho-spiritual angst — and less ''Sawyer or Jack?'' blah blah blah. But over time, as the character gained detail and damage, and as the actress grew in confidence and experience, Kate has become credible and compelling. ''What Kate Does'' — evenly divided between its Sideways vision of an early Kate that struggled to capture my imagination and the Island Kate I've grown to respect — only reminded me of my ambivalence for her. Especially when she was in shampoo commercial mode. That Marshal Mars may be a jerk, but damn if he doesn't make his captured quarry clean up nice for their trek to reckoning.
Like I said, though, the more I thought about the episode, the more I liked it, and better yet, the more I became convinced that it contained some extremely valuable ideas for making sense of the season's risky flash-sideways storytelling device. The recap you're about to read captures that process of discovery. Get yourself some coffee, and let's get started.
NEXT: Kate's reincarnated self?
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