I love Lost. So do a lot of other people. For comprehensive coverage, go elsewhere (as I no doubt will). For one important thing to think about each week, read on.
With a few exceptions, I thought this week's episode ("What Kate Does") was pretty slow. Good, but slow. It did confirm some of the theories sparked by last week's premiere -- that the sideways world will follow a similar course as the island world we've seen for five seasons -- in some interesting ways (the seeds that were planted for Claire keeping her baby) and unexpected ways (Ethan as Claire's doctor!). But all it did was confirm, offering nothing new in terms of plot until perhaps the last three minutes of the episode. Plus, much of Kate's sideways story was infuriatingly implausible -- like when the cops asked Claire if she had seen Kate, AKA Joan Hart, but didn't ask ANYONE else, NO ONE, no doctors, nurses, security personnel, and God forbid they should search the room real quick, though I doubt they could find her in her AMAZING hiding place, right behind a doorway, and by the way, LAPD, she's driving around in a stolen cab which at least has a license plate (as if yellow cabs in LA are AT ALL commonplace to begin with), though it probably has a GPS tracking device, and maybe you should put her picture on TV so that if she happens to stops by some random person's house, like maybe she's stupid enough to accompany a stranger TO THE DOOR of another stranger's house for moral support instead of just giving her a ride or waiting in the car, maybe that person would recognize her and call the police, I mean she is a fugitive, wanted for MURDER, for f*ck's sake.
Sorry for the rant.
I truly did like the episode, and I can look past all that because the most important moment in the episode, for me, also involved Kate, but in the Island world. It was the moment when she and Sawyer were standing at the end of the pier, and he takes out his engagement ring. For a brief moment, he holds it in his fingers, and if the wide shots of them on the pier weren't beautiful enough, the close-up of Kate, in the background, staring at the blurry ring in the foreground, was priceless.
I know that's kind of a cheesy most important moment. But the plot of this episode didn't quite get me. Not yet. On an emotional level, this scene did.
Why? Because of the four relationships in the love quandrangle among Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet, there's only one relationship I have ever been truly invested in.
Jack and Kate? Nope. They had it all -- off the island, no less -- but it just wasn't meant to be. Neither of them could live with themselves if they didn't go back to the island. I admire each of them for it, but that's not true love. (Though maybe, in the sideways world, things will be different?)
Jack and Juliet? Close, but no. I loved the idea of the two of them at the beginning, but as Jack got more and more annoying -- and more and more wrong about everything -- I realized that I just loved Juliet, not Juliet + Jack.
Sawyer and Kate? Eh. Maybe they can bring this one back for me by the end of the series, but it always feels like they're both trying to con each other. Plus, they consummated their love during the worst 6-episode segment of this entire series during the beginning of season 3. Maybe those "mistake" episodes cast a negative shadow on their whole affair.
The only relationship I've ever really cared about is Sawyer and Juliet, and from the way they've been portraying it recently, I'm guessing -- and hoping -- you feel the same way. Though her death was painfully drawn out, it was pretty meaningful, and Josh Holloway's performance in the first three hours of this season has been moving (sometimes).
On the pier with Kate was one of those times. That moment, when he accepted what he lost (and whose fault it was) and when Kate realized (possibly for the first time) what was now out of her reach, was the most important moment of the episode.
If that's not enough, and you're focused on plot, there was one other moment, when Claire calls her baby "Aaron" and then, a few minutes later, confesses that it was as if she already knew the name somehow. Maybe I'm reading too much into this -- maybe she had already been thinking of that name before flight 815, in either sideways world -- but that moment, and especially the fact that Claire specifically commented on it afterwards, seems to indicate another connection between the two worlds. Is she somehow in touch with her island world self? Perhaps on a subconscious level? Is whatever reminded her of the name Aaron the same mechanism that made Juliet ask Sawyer out for coffee last week, and later declare that "It worked?" Since I suspect this season -- and perhaps the entire series -- will revolve around just HOW these two worlds are connected, this is another moment that may provide clues in the future. Since my choice of moment last week dealt with the same issue, this week I'll say it was the second most important moment. But important, nonetheless.
Disagree? Which moment do you think was most important? Perhaps something in the temple? Insight into the "sickness" we've heard so much about? Claire's reappearance on the island? I say we don't know enough about any of that for it to be meaningful ... yet. But maybe I missed something ...