Lost Re-view: Whatever the Case May Be

No dancing around it: halfway into Lost's first season, and this episode is the clear front runner for the worst of the entire year. It starts with the same strike against it that I mentioned about the previous Jack-centric episode, that it seemed off-putting at this point in the show to get a second episode focused on a character we'd already seen -- Kate, in this case -- when there were still characters whose back story was yet to be filled in. But where the Jack episode made up for that in other ways, this episode trips up.

The A-list behind-the-scenes talent was responsible here. The main recurring director, Jack Bender, was calling the shots, and the script came from creator Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson. (For the latter, this was her final script credit, but she did also contribute to the excellent episode The Moth.) But they all still turned in a subpar effort.

The problem is that this is the first episode of Lost that truly goes nowhere and provides little. Coming off the last hour, Claire was missing, abducted by Ethan. Boone and Locke had found "something metal" buried in the jungle. And this episode furthers none of those previous plots. In fact, it's almost as though we've just moved on or something; it's four days later, Shannon tells us in a bit of snarky dialogue, marking the longest off-screen passage of time the show has had yet.

This episode kicks off with a manufactured event completely unrelated to anything that has come before -- Kate and Sawyer are off in the jungle together and come across a beautiful lagoon with a scenic waterfall. When they go for a sexy dip together, they discover dead plane crash victims at the bottom of the water, sitting on top of a MacGuffin -- a locked metal case that has something inside Kate wants very badly, though she doesn't want to say what it is. So Sawyer, being Sawyer, decides to keep it from her simply because she wants it.

Some retroactive storytelling occurs to grease this storyline. The case belonged to the dead marshal that was escorting Kate. The key's in his wallet, on his body that Jack turns out not to have burned with the fuselage, but rather buried for vague reasons out in the jungle.

And speaking of behavior that doesn't quite make sense, Jack is oddly snippy with Kate now. When she approaches him saying "we have a problem," he immediately and out of nowhere throws it back in her face with: "we have a problem, or you have a problem?" He does agree to help her, even blackmailing Sawyer by threatening to deprive him of the medication for his stab wound, but he's pretty pissy about it the entire time.

What's even worse than having this whole episode be built around the previously unknown "what's in the case?" device is the reveal of what's actually in the case, and the tedious flashbacks getting to this information. It's nearly 11 minutes into the episode before we even get to the first flashback, and it's Kate pulling a bank heist with a bunch of thugs we don't know and who wind up dead by the end of the hour. It's all just to get into a safety deposit box. (Box 815, by the way. While this isn't the first time that one of "the numbers" shows up just casually, this is the first time they seem to be planted deliberately to match the Oceanic flight number.)

And what's in the box? A little toy airplane, whose significance we don't even actually learn anything about this episode. "It belonged to the man I loved... it belonged to the man I killed!" declares Kate as she breaks down at the end of the hour. But coming at the climax of an episode in which she lied repeatedly to Jack and Sawyer on the Island, and ran an elaborate con in the flashbacks, I don't see how we have any reason to believe her when she makes this admission. In fact, while it is eventually revealed to be the truth, it's still a bit of a lie. I think the writers want us to believe that "the man I killed" is a reference to why Kate is a wanted fugitive, when in fact we learn later that this particular death was collateral damage long after the crime that put Kate on the run.

But the episode isn't a total loss. It also marks the return of Rose for the first time in a while, just the person to help Charlie through his current depression. Charlie's withdrawn after losing Claire, but in a series of nice scenes, Rose gets him to open up, and assures him that nobody blames him for Claire's abduction. He did everything he could, including almost dying himself.

They also share a nice scene about her missing husband, who she still maintains is alive. "It's a fine line between denial and faith," she says. "It's much better on my side." This culminates in Lost's first overtly religious moment, as Rose says a prayer as Charlie breaks down.

Sayid and Shannon are also brought closer together this episode. Sayid has backed down off his crazy claims about "whispers" and "Others," but he is interested in having the notes he swiped from Rousseau translated. This means going to the only French speaker among the survivors, Shannon.

You get a taste of their eventual relationship, as Sayid mostly remains patient and encouraging (and even a little flirtatious) with Shannon, even as she almost constantly whines about how she can't actually speak French. Boone does berate her for being "useless" in this episode, so there's at least maybe a little room to feel sympathy for her. And yet, in the sort of "go nowhere" spirit of this episode's plot, the translated notes end up being nothing more than the lyrics of a song with no apparent meaning. (Other than very obliquely hinting that Rousseau has a child.)

The only significant takeaway from this episode is that the beach dwellers have to move their camp because the tide is coming in suddenly and strongly, threatening to wash the fuselage out to see, and all the survivors as well if they don't relocate. This was purely a bit of real-world necessity, since the actual filming location that was being used until this point was now experiencing higher tides after several months of shooting. In the world of the show, Sayid does remark that these sudden tides are abnormal for the roughly three weeks that have passed so far, which is maybe, if you really stretch it, the first oblique reference to the weird time/space properties of the Island.

Aside from that, the only other fun things in the episode are getting to see flashback Kate repeat the "I don't know how to use a gun" lie she used in the pilot, and just to see her generally being bad. (A necessary thing for her character, since she didn't really come off like much a criminal in her previous flashback episode.)

But overall, it's basically Lost's first stand-alone episode, and that's just not the kind of story this series was built to tell. I rate it a C-.