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You hear that sound? That was the Lost writers grinding the show to a hault after their full-tilt gallop out of the gate last week.

Understandably, I expected a slower pace and more character accentuation after the event and reveal of the premiere, but last night’s episode, What Kate Does, seemed to be entirely too tranquil. Pretty much every question I posed after last week’s episode, with the notable exception of one, remains unanswered and there was very little forward plot movement. On a more troubling note the show seems hell-bent on rehashing the tired romantic drama that swamped season 3 back in 2006. We only have a handful of eps left here people. Don’t waste them.

Still, it wasn’t a poorly written episode, or one without its own interesting highlights. It’s just that after priming us for a cataclysmic war of sorts, and introducing enough key players–Smokey wearing his Locke-et, Jacob, Widmore’s group, The Others, Jacob’s army–it seems unusual that the show leads would be this purposefully frustrating. There are numerous scenes of Kate staring pensively at something, whether it be Sawyer, Claire, a stuffed Orca, or at Jack whom she doesn’t really know in this sideways universe. In addition to that, Dogan, the asian leader of this gang of Others, keeps denying Jack answers only to give little snippets after stalling. He keeps exclaiming “we don’t have much time’ and then he just sits there and looks smug. It’s a really transparent attempt at prolonging tension but it grows dangerously close to simply infuriating.

For me, however, the biggest problem with the script to What Kate Does is the clear lack of real-world logic applied in the sideways reality. I understand this is a show involving a time-shifting island, a pillar of sentient smoke, and a fat guy stranded in the jungle who never loses weight, but this was well below Lost’s usual standards.

For starters, we have Kate easily slipping the FBI and airport security in 2004, three years after 9-11? She hijacks a cab, is stalled by a bystander who is nearly run over (Artz in a funny cameo), and still manages to drive away unscathed. Worse yet  is the fact she just seems to drive around afterwards, staying in the area like she’s running errands. Hardest for me to swallow was that the pregnant Claire would still be standing there, on the side of the road, like a pawn waiting to be moved. Add to that the dreadful ‘Kate hiding in the closet’ to throw off the Feds and you have a serious lack of effort on your hands.  It wasn’t unforgivable, but it was sloppy and the show deserves better than that. It shouldn’t have been too hard to write-out those inconsistencies, which makes their appearance all the more glaring.

What was good about the episode? Quite a bit actually, underneath the flaws.

Miles gets the best line of the night with “If you need us, we’ll just be in the food court.”

Matthew Fox is really developing Shepherd into a growing character, and after so many seasons of ‘whiny Jack’ having a contemplative Jack that is still capable of decision and leadership is nice.

Dogan has the potential to be a really great addition to the Lost character roster, and I enjoy the poise and presence that Sanada brings to the role. I just hope he gets to be more than the reluctant prognosticator of mumbo jumbo.

Josh Holloway did the most emotionally satisfying work of the episode, and possibly of that character’s entire storyline, by making us feel the pain and regret he has over the death of Juliet. Structuring a time-tripping show like Lost is difficult because it’s easy for an audience to base attachment on screen time as opposed to what the characters themselves have experienced. We saw Sawyer and Juliet together for a handful of episodes, but Holloway was able to express a depth of feeling that his character never previously tapped into, and it instantly made me aware of the fact that he was living happily with his dream girl there in Dharmaville for quite awhile before Jack and company showed up. In that scene on the pier with Kate, he was summing up a hundred shared lunches, sunsets, and tender moments we never got to see and he did it remarkably well.

Sayid has been ‘claimed’. This is in keeping with my theory that he is Jacob’s vessel, and while Baby John Lennon and Dogan are convinced he’s ‘infected’ with a darkness, the episode never does anything to suggest that it isn’t Jacob who is taking over. For one, there is never any direct comment on the part of Sayid that reveals he has his original memories. He says he was shot, but based on the fact he has a bullet hole in his chest, that would have been an easy thing to infer or relate. When he taks about trusting Jack, this still makes sense if indeed that’s Jacob inside. Is it possible then that the Others currently inside the temple have a skewed view of things, and percieve Jacob as the threat, as opposed to whatever opposing force is currently running around with John’s meat suit?

Finally, it seems odd that none of the characters are more compelled by the idea of being ‘claimed’.  The first few seasons of Lost were terrifically resistant to the idea of the supernatural, and there were attempts to have people like Jack constantly questioning everything. I understand they have all seen a lot, but if Richard can be surprised by someone else taking Locke’s persona, than shouldn’t Jack express more concern over the prospect that a force is ‘claiming’ his friend? My guess is that if he were more disbelieving, he’d just ask more questions that Dogan will stare at him for, tempting the audience to greater frustration.

The most tantalizing bits of the episode though, come through what appears initially to be the most extraneous part; the sideways universe revelation of what Kate Austen does after getting off the plane.

A few observations:

Claire is still pregnant, but she has chosen the name ‘Aaron’ because it feels right to her, and the prospective adoptive parents have split-up leaving the potential mother unwilling to take the child. So, Claire is seemingly planning to keep the baby herself, and Kate appears ready to stop running and possibly help with Aaron. The interesting point is this; even without the island, and without the bonding experience of the plane crash and the stranding, both characters  are more or less making the same decisions they came to in the reality we know. Originally, it seemed that being trapped on the island was a kind of reset or purgatory for the survivors; a place and opportunity for them to stop the destructive path of their lives and turn things around. Whats happening here is that the sideways universe seems to be orchestrating the same results without the island.

So, it isn’t that these people needed the island, it needed them. Then again, part of what motivates the characters are flashes and remembrances of what was their other life on the island. In point of fact, although both Kate and Claire made decisions regarding Aaron in the crash timeline, the interfering force of the island still managed to seperate them from him. In this new reality, who knows?

Then there is Ethan Goodspeed, creepily replaying the events that occured in the Dharma station when he kidnapped Claire prior to her pregnancy. With no island to return to, is this mere coincidence that Ethan and Claire are meeting, or more orchestration by higher forces? Do the rules of ‘cosmic course-correction’ that Faraday’s mother talked about still apply?

Finally, Claire has gone all Rousseau. And she also has a ‘darkness infection’? Now this is a development I can get behind. I wonder if she will dye her hair all emo-style again to reflect the change.

The big question now is will something significant and important happen next week? I sure hope so.

See ya back on the island.

If you missed last week’s rundown, it’s here: Lost 6.1: Demi Gods, Island Universes, and Hurley’s guitar case