Lost: Cop Out

How interesting would it have been if last week, when it looked like Sayid killed lil’ Ben, Sayid had actually, you know, killed lil’ Ben?

We’ll never know, because the show totally copped out and had Ben survive. I maintain that Sayid knows from killing and would not have made such an error, given the stakes. Maybe paradox-wise they figured there was no way they could have had Ben actually die, but – seriously? This show couldn’t work around that? I didn’t give a lot of thought to the paradox last week, because I figured there was no point, since the writers obviously knew where they were going to go with it. But this, this was pretty unsatisfying. If Ben had never grown up then … I don’t know, a bunch of stuff about the whole show would be very different, probably, and that would’ve been neat to explore.

Also disappointing, but not to nearly the same degree, is the apparent return to the very-single-character-focused episode structure. I liked the way we were doing it for the first half of the season, where you could tell we were mostly following, say, Jack through an episode, but the screen time was still pretty evenly divided. I guess they think they have to do it this way to answer all the questions that have accumulated so far, and I did appreciate finally finding out what happened to Aaron and why Kate decided to go back to the island. But I much prefer the ensembleness. That being said, I enjoyed this one way more than I enjoyed previous seasons’ Kate episodes. (Remember that one where she robbed a bank to steal a tiny plane trinket that supposedly meant the universe to her but was never mentioned again? Or the one where she hooked up with Sean Astin’s brother and then he died and it was supposed to be so sad but then she got over it in, like, three seconds?)

The basics:

On the island, we’re dealing with the fallout from Sayid’s escape and shooting of Ben. Ben’s not doing so hot, so Juliet tries to work on him (apparently none of the Dharmas are bothered that their mechanic of three years is suddenly performing C-sections and patching up bullet wounds), but she doesn’t have the surgical expertise to save him, so he’s slated for death. Jack might be able to, but he refuses (good for Jack). Kate wants to help, so Juliet suggests taking Ben to the hostiles/Others for their magic treatment. So SawFleur and Kate carry Lil’ Ben out into the jungle, where they meet up with Richard and co. Richard recognizes Ben and takes him into some kind of temple or something, saying of Ben, “He’ll forget this ever happened, and his innocence will be gone. He will always be one of us.” Interesting. So, my interpretation of that is that getting shot by Sayid was what made Ben the psycho he became. Meanwhile, everyone’s very nervous about how Sayid escaped, because they know he must have had some Dharma-brand assistance. The “new people” – Jack, Kate and Hurley – are naturally under suspicion. But SawFleur and Roger figure out pretty quickly that it was Ben.

In the flashbacks, we get more resuscitation of subplots I had totally forgotten about. Mostly, Cassidy. Remember Cassidy? She was Sawyer’s partner in conning and in life, and then he screwed her over, and then she had his baby and sent him to jail, and then she made friends with Kate. This week, we learn what Sawyer whispered to Kate on the helicopter before he jumped: He asked her to take care of Cassidy’s daughter, Clementine. So Kate did so, and started hanging out with Cassidy, like, all the time. Then, after all the nonsense started up about going back to the island, Kate decided to go hand Aaron off to Claire’s mother and go back to the island to find Claire. This is all loosely tied in to the episode’s main action through the implication that Kate’s desire to help Ben is based on her love of Aaron and, by extension, all children, apparently.

The good:

• Jack has decided to officially turn into Locke, with all the faith-above-logic stuff. It’s fun to watch. Jack has always bored me, and Locke has always mostly bored me, but Jack-playing-Locke is cool.
• I love seeing Juliet in doctor mode. She’s so outwardly calm and soothing and professional, like a school nurse or something, and then she uses that mask to do things like ask Kate about whether she hooked up with Jack, as though she needs to know it for official medical reasons when in reality Juliet just loves to know everything about everyone’s sex lives.
• There’s a well-done, really scary flashback scene where Aaron disappears in a grocery store. Seriously, my heart was pounding.
• We get to see Kate dressed up in Sun’s clothes again. Not to keep going on about it but she really looks fabulous.

The bad:

• Lil’ Ben looks very much like Harry Potter when he’s passed out. It’s distracting.
• All the characters, except Jack, are totally eager to save Ben’s life (and even Jack is only abstaining because of his new views about fate or whatever). I’m surprised that Sayid is indeed the only one who would kill baby Hitler. You’d think at least Miles would be on board.
• The episode suggests that the real reason Sawyer jumped off the helicopter in the season 4 finale was that he couldn’t figure out another way to break up with Kate. Uh, okay. Look, he was never my favorite character, either, but I don’t buy that for a second. And anyway, hadn’t Kate already broken up with him by then?
• Hurley spends his screen time talking about the time-travel paradox in a way that explains nothing. When will Daniel come back to do this for real? I miss Daniel. Come to think of it, I miss Desmond too. And Claire. What is this, are all my favorite characters only going to have, like, one episode this season?
• At the end, we get a random, tacked-on-feeling scene between Ben and Locke that is there to set up next week but just feels, well, random and tacked on.

The stuff that will matter next week:

• Kate and Roger Linus sort of become friends. I don’t like this. I don’t want to have to start seeing Roger as a multidimensional character. He’s only been in a couple of episodes – I guess this was his third? – but I have a very strong negative impression of him that I don’t think can be overcome and I don’t want to have to watch him try to flirt with Kate.
• In the grocery store scene, when Aaron is “lost,” he’s found by a blonde woman who returns him to Kate and acts like she’s totally innocent and was about to make an announcement or whatever. I suspect that this woman was not innocent and that we’ll be seeing her some more soon.
• Kate says she went back to the island to find Claire, but now it’s 1977 and Claire hasn’t been born yet, and Kate seems pretty okay with that. Look, I understand why SawFleur and Juliet aren’t desperately trying to time-jump again, but if Kate’s serious about finding Claire, you’d think she’d be doing everything she can to track down Daniel and get some insight, instead of just sitting around and going with the flow.
• When Richard takes Ben into the temple, one of the Others says, “Richard, you shouldn’t do this without asking Eelie. If Charles finds out -” and Richard retorts, “Let him find out. I don’t answer to either of them.” Charles we know about, but I swear it sounded like the guy said “Eelie” not “Ellie” so I don’t know what’s up there. Interesting.

Season 5, Episode 11: Whatever Happened, Happened (originally aired April 1, 2009)

For another take on this episode, check out Kate Has Men Issues Part 47 by J.B. Perlow.

For more on Lost, click here.

Wednesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC