We're edging closer to wonderful, wonderful season two, but first we have to go through episode 1x22, "Born to Run," another Kate-centric episode. I'm not particularly fond of Kate-centrics (or Kate herself, for that matter), but regardless, I'm sure this episode has a few interesting moments that are worth discussing. With news that the
raft must leave at once to avoid changing winds,
Kate decides that she needs to be one of the passengers, attempting to steal
Sawyer's spot. Meanwhile, suspicion abounds after
Michael's drinking water is tampered with. Flashbacks in this episode focus on
Kate reuniting with
Tom after learning about
her mother having cancer.
- Before we get started, it's worth noting that this episode is known as "Time Capsule" in Japan.
- Charlie mentions to Kate that record sales for Drive Shaft will have spiked when he "died," and when he "comes back alive" they will increase even more (much like record sales of Michael Jackson albums have increased recently). He's right -- Naomi will later tell him that Drive Shaft released a "Greatest Hits" album in honor of Charlie, increasing the band's popularity and fanbase.
- Enter Leslie Arzt, the world's most annoying teacher, who also happens to be one of the most memorable characters on the show, thanks in part to his not-so-glorious death in "Exodus, Part 2." Arzt is complaining that they need to launch the raft as soon as possible, but later tells Michael that he made up the story about the monsoon in order to provoke the raft to launch sooner. ("Tropical Depression")
- We meet Tom Brennan, a younger version of whom we saw shoplifting with Kate in "The Incident." They dig up a time capsule in a New Kids on the Block lunchbox, which is what Jacob paid for when Kate was caught trying to steal it.
- Walt, through touching Locke, knows about the hatch. Probably Walt's telepathy at work, but it another power to add to the list of Walt's abilities.
- Kate's mom cries for help, just like she promised to do in "Left Behind."
And that does it for "Born to Run." Next week we'll finish of season one and begin season two! Look for the blog for the next episode, "Exodus, Part 1," soon. You can discuss this episode in this
forum thread, read others' posts about it at the
rewatch hub, and
edit the episode's article.
Yeah, I know what you mean about not being too keen on Kate. Did we find out who sent Kate the letter at the beginning of he episode? Do you think that the writers see it as worth answering this season?
ReplyDeleteI do like Kate's constant need to run. Good character flaw.
I always wondered if her need to run matched up with her seemingly endless desire to follow the gang into the jungle.
ReplyDeleteEither way, choosing Kate to be the action-packed fugitive was always an odd choice for me.
Turbine, I agree absolutely. Her attitude and abilities (other than with a gun) make her seem so unfit for the role she has been given. She seems easily freaked out and doesn't seem to have the resolve of a a fugitive.
ReplyDeleteAnd I think this contributes to her being a boring character. Also, the born to run thing seems to me to be very one dimensional; she is doing the same thing in every flash back and forward. It doesn't make for great watching.
The only thing I've gained from the rewatch with Kate is that she looks like Gollum when wet and scared as seen in the Pilot when they are being chased by smokey. I vote to kill her off and be done with it.
thats interesting that you find kate's need to run contradictory to her need to follow everyone into the jungle. i always thought they were the same thing. it seems like she always has to be moving because she feels so guilty. although i guess one could also say that on the island she has "people" and off the island she is alone so maybe she just doesn't want to be left behind.
ReplyDeleteand sorry patrick, but there is no way kate is going to die until she picks either jack or sawyer so i'm guessing your stuck with her for awhile.
personally i like kate, but then i love all the characters on lost. thats what makes the show so good or thats one of the things. except for john locke. i've always had a deep distrust of him even when i pitied him during his flashbacks. and this is coming from someone whose second favorite charcter is ben by the way. idk that orange peel scene coupled with the growling at the end of one of the episodes kind of did him in for me and ever since i've found him creepy although i do find him compelling as well of course.
@patrick - I agree with both the Gollum thing and the killing thing. :)
ReplyDeleteMy main concern is that they really haven't set her up to die. In fact, they've done just the opposite, by making her a relatively inconsequential character. Sure, she's there all the time, but what does she contribute? As we all have come to find out: Nothing!
So if I were a writer on this show, I would be very worried that her death would actually bring a wave of joy and relief to the fanbase more than anything else. Anyone reading this can admit it: she wouldn't be missed. It is because of this that she will be with us to the end.
Kate is eye candy and nothing more! If it wasn't for that and the whole stupid love triangle she would have been killed well before charlie, whose character had ran its course. Kate hit a dead end after tabula rasa.
ReplyDeleteOne thing I have learned from this rewatch is this..I am not alone in disliking the character of Kate. She does fill up space and keeps the tension going between her menfolk, but that's it. Not even knowing her background makes her interesting. I don't remember anything she has done or said that is remotely interesting. I doubt we will be rid of her..she will be us even unto the end of Lost time.
ReplyDeleteI am a John Locke fan and a Ben fan. I am looking forwarded to seeing how they end up at the end of this show. Well, John is really dead but Ben is very much alive and frisky.
So much Kate-hate! :] I am not a big fan, but I actually enjoyed her episodes in the rewatch. I like examining character motivations in this show. Jack annoys me the most in the rewatch, but surprisingly, Kate doesn't.
ReplyDeleteI'm glad you mentioned that the Jacob buying the plane for her was in "The Incident". Watching Season 1 so soon after Season 5 is making me forget what happened in which, as strange as that sounds. I didn't realize that they tied in the Tom thing so much later in the show, since there's not too much mention of him after "Born to Run".
ReplyDeleteKnowing the overall development of the show since then, I actually like the japanese title of the episode better than the original.
ReplyDeleteCan't say that about any german episode title; some of them are really ridiculous...
I don't understand why you are so excited for season 2, I find it to be the weakest season of LOST, but that is just me.
ReplyDeleteKate, Juliet and Jack are not on my favorite list, but without them the show would not have been as interesting I suppose. It needed this mix to propel it to the end. They are characters we love to hate.
ReplyDeleteI have been going back to older posts from the beginning. It is fun to see how far off we were back then without all the knowledge we have now.
I watched most of the second season and picked up the ones I missed online. Watching the older ones now is more interesting knowing what I know. Sometimes it seemed to bog down and get dull back then.
I wonder if some of this was the way non of our characters talked about the weirdness going on around them. Most people would talk each Island quirk to the most. It's as though this group just doesn't notice anything really bizarre about the Island at this point. It makes me feel as though non of this was unexpected to them since they had lived it before. Or at least the main characters seem really calm. Probably the bulk of 815 passengers were experiencing this for the first time.
What do people think about Walt freaking out about the hatch?
ReplyDeleteWhy would he be so afraid of the hatch being opened- it never led to anything bad in the end did it?
Man, y'all are harsh on Kate! But I must admit, I never cared for her. I never found her to be a sympathetic, easy-to-relate-to character. I think the weakest parts of the show are the moments devoted to the love triangles and love squares. I'll probably point out some of those moments as they come up. I feel like the writers need to include the Jack-Kate-Sawyer-Juliet romance angle is very unoriginal and takes away from the show's mystery and intrigue. That's not to say that all the romantic relationships on the show are distracting - I find Desmond and Penny's relationship moving, and the same goes of Jin and Sun and even Bernard and Rose.
ReplyDeleteEnough about that. On to Walt: I truly hope we get to see him in the last season, because it's seems like there is still a great bit of mystery regarding his powers and abilities. How could he know, just by touching Locke, how much grief the hatch would give everyone?
It just hit me reading the comments... if we look at the importance of Walt from the point of view of the game between Jacob and his adversary, why would Jacob tell the Others to kidnap Walt and test him? Is it because he needs Walt or someone like him to foretell the future or is it because he wants to take Walt's power "off the board" so the Man In Black can get on with his plan (which I feel Jacob may have wanted to come to fruition with his death, which will lead to whatever Jacob has set up for the 815'ers in the upcoming season...
ReplyDeleteGotta remember there, that Jacob never necessarily said to kidnap the children; Ben had never spoken to him.
ReplyDeleteGood to see I have some backup with my Kate comment; there was a chance that I was going to get some serious flamin' from some very attracted men.
I do agree with the people who followed up my comment, that Kate will not die. As they also said, this is very disappointing. While she adds nothing to the plot, she has become entwined in it in a way that makes her inseperable, much like Jack and Locke have.
I'd love to watch kate die in a romantic way together with jack at the end....
ReplyDeleteThey don't really deserve to live (at least not more then Juliet who never got the chance to leave and see her sister again. Or Jin and Sun who's baby is still with sun's mom.)
But they can't kill her of at the opening scene of season 6 can they?
well... I don't really like kate (or jack in the last 2 seasons) but I kinda like every single episode of lost, even kate-centrics.
Well.. my fav characters always have a way of dying, charlie, daniel, libby, and now I fear Juliet's end has come... Luckily Sun, Hurly and Desmond have escaped death. Well I do have a lot of fav charachters maybe...
And about walt? He's weird and I want to know what his powers are.. but I'm afraid the actor may have gotten a bit to old, seeing he doesnt really look like a 14-yr-old to me.
Perhaps Walt has served his purpose and we just can't see it yet. I feel like the scene between him and John Locke was his last..he did tell Locke his dream about him in a suit and people around him wanting to hurt him. And it did come true.
ReplyDeleteMaybe opening the Hatch did change the time lines and that is why he feared it. What happened may happen but nothing so far lets us think that things can't be changed just enough. After all even Jacob countered MIB when he said it always ends the same..Jacob said yeah it ends but everything before is progress.
Maybe it ends with death and a few folk coming over to the others. But it ends just a bit different and that is what brings Jacob closer to winning. The MIB may have got his loophole but Jacob could have set it up that way.
I am intrigued with the Dhrama being allowed to set up camp and last so long. We have seen that the Island can get rid of anyone it wants. Maybe Dhrama was just one more bit of progress in the grand scheme.
I have to say, while I agree with most of you in regards to Kate's role in all this, you are overlooking the most important part. Yes, the fugitive angle is a bit tired, and yes, the love triangle/quadrangle might seem a bit fluffy compared to the rest of the plot(s), but there is one angle that fascinates me and no one has brought it up.
ReplyDeleteI'm talking about Kate's relationship to Aaron. She helped bring him into the world and she ends up raising him after the rescue. She is the only one who has had any contact with Claire, etherial though it may have been. So, I am very interested to see if there will be any follow-up to this tangent of the show.
Prof. Askew,
ReplyDeleteYou're right - we should back to what Kate's role in the story is. I just watched some of the Season 2episodes over the past two or three days, ones that feature Eko. He tells Claire that Aaron was the name of Moses' brother. Also, Ben says in the "The Incident" that Locke leads the others like Moses. Moses was a "stranger in a strange land" and "raise by another" - he was an Israelite raised by Egyptians. Since I'm convinced the background of the island/Jacob story is rooted in biblical-Egyptian history, is Aaron a Moses figure? Does that make Kate Pharaoh's daughter?
It's also possible that Kate will play a key role in the final "battle" of good and evil and all that. It seems that Jacob selected everyone for a reason, which we will surely see next season.
I believe the children - Aaron, baby Charlie, Ji Yeon (sp?), and possibly Walt - will be key figures in the final season. Remember all the ado about pregnanices, all the parent-child issues in the show, and the statue of Tawaret, who has something to do with fertility, right?
I have actually grown to like Kate in the second half of Season 5. 'Whatever Happened, Happened' was her best Kate centric by far, she was not running anymore, she decided to face the facts and return to the island so she could reunite Claire with her son. Her goodbye scene with Aaron was heartbreaking and a top 10 moment ever for me.
ReplyDeleteI felt this episode was a weak Kate episode and pretty much a filler. But never mind, eh.
Yes.My Japanese version DVD says "Time Capsule". I did timecupsule when I was in elementary school. I put my miniture car in it.
ReplyDeleteI know that most have you think that the love triangles/quadrangles are fluffy, but personally i think they're intrinsic to the show. the show deals so much with the themes of fear of other people and what people do out of that fear and about being alone and lost. and if they didn't have the love, they wouldn't have a compelling opposite to those themes, so it would be incomplete. also lost deals with the manipulation of other people- ben being the primary manipulator during most of what we have seen, but also jacob and mib, sawyer, locke. often the love in the relationships becomes the thing they are manipulated by. furthermore every epic story has great love stories, even if they aren't the central part of the plot. the great thing about lost is that it doesn't just have one or even one type and they are all equally compelling (in my opinion, although i do think that the sawyer/kate/juliet/jack stuff got lost in the shuffle during season 5 making it less compelling, but i personally love the dynamics of the relationships in season 3). thats my spiel. please feel free to disagree.
ReplyDeleteI agree with what robbie said above. I also can't understand sam's enthusiasm for season 2 rewatch. Many episodes i found to be complete space fillers. Also did i see that someone said libby was one of their favourite characters???? Come on!! Do you hate all the others that bad that you would consider her a favourite of yours??
ReplyDeleteLots of good food for thought, there, Brian. I think all of those ideas deserve to be followed up on. And though the children were staring me in the face, I never really thought of them as a whole, the way you put it. There are quite a few new babies. Can't be a coincidence.
ReplyDeleteAnd Anonymous, I agree with you about the love stories. I only used the term 'fluffy' in comparison to the meatier plot of the island. I don't believe they put the love interests in there for purely soap opera reasons. Love is a strong motivator, after all.
At the guy that said:
ReplyDelete*Also did i see that someone said libby was one of their favourite characters???? Come on!! Do you hate all the others that bad that you would consider her a favourite of yours??*
I really liked her character from the moment she entered the story, mostly because she fell in love with Hurley, who has been my fav character from the beginning (together with charlie even tough when rewatching he appears rather annoying in season 1). So i kinda hate not knowing what she was (well human of course) and why she was on the plane. And I really don't hate all the other characters, I kinda like most of them... even tough boone, shannon, paolo, niki were kinda not really good... rose and bernard would've been better main characters.
And I really, intensely hate michael and am really happy he died!
and I agree kate's story got way better in season 5 then all the previous ones, and that counts for jack too, I don't say I like him more now, becoz he only got more annoying, he just changed alot wich is a good thing....
And I actually think season 2 is a good season, it intoduces great characters... and kills them of again (one of them in S3). Desmond is a great character, and so is ben. But some of the episodes are a bit to much about faith-vs-science or rather locke-vs-jack.
and I respect you think libby wasnt that good, to me she was and to hurley she was too.
That was me who said that about libby. You make some good points there about introducing good characters in season 2 e.g. eko :) . I also love desmond and the ben episodes were good. I meant though that there were too many boring pointless episodes to fill space like hurley's ep , jin amd suns, shannon ep. These wern't exciting episodes is what i mean so why the excitement about them? Also i personally felt libby was a real "plain jane" character, who was of no interest until the "dave" episode ending. And then she died and we are none the wiser.
ReplyDeleteI agree that Libby really went nowhere... I know we don't need everything answered, and that there are more important things, but a bit of explanation would have been nice.
ReplyDeleteThere is no reason to leave it unanswered, so a short 3 minute thing, maybe in the past of someone elses life would be good. Maybe she was somehow involved with the island which sent her bonkers. I know it's as likely as my vote to kill Kate but one can always hope.
why I liked libby:
ReplyDelete1 she had influance on Ana, wich don't many people had.
2 She fell for Hurley
3 She is very mysterious (giving boats away and sitting in a mental hospital and then lieing about it.)
about the space filling episodes, I am pretty sure the sun/jin episodes are going to be really important. They have changed alot. Sun was the innocent woman that listened to her husband, but in a few seasons she kills a woman, and even later she will try to kill ben. She looks really confident. The Sun episode is also important for the Juliet character, but we'll see that in season 3.
I agree the hurley episode wasn't all that spectacular, but it was needed to get some people where they needed to be. Same for the shannon episode.
The other Hurley episode Dave was a great episode about hurley-libby, but most people don't really like libby. I still think if her story isnt told in an episode, they should TELL her story in the bonus material for season 5 or 6, because I really want to know what they had intended for her.
well.. I fell like spamming this blog... but it's about lost so I think it's appropriate.
Here's my thought on the Swan hatch.
ReplyDeleteThe hatch became a domino effect. Explained pretty much by Daniel when he’s explaining why he wants to detonate a hydrogen bomb in it.
If Locke hadn’t opened the hatch. Desmond wouldn’t have run off leaving the Losties to push the button.
Leading to Locke’s eventual loss of faith. Leading him to destroy the computer. Leading Desmond to turn the fail safe key.
Which allows the island to be found by Widmore and the people on the freighter, along with Penny.
Which brings Ben to turn the donkey wheel to hide the island again. Which puts it off it’s axis. That causes the time jumps.
Which brings Locke to the well to turn the wheel again to leave the island with the belief that he must die to bring back the O6.
Which puts the O6 except Sun in 1977 with the rest of the Losties and enables the MIB to use Locke’s likeness and manipulate Ben into killing Jacob.