Whatever the Case May Be

WHY AM I WATCHING WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE?

In which Kate becomes a sexy bank robber or something.

And the Katers gonna Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate, Kate. 

PREVIOUSLY, ON LOST:

Who cares? We're just running in place this week. It's not like there's a big, weird hatch we could be checking out or anything.


THE ISLAND

As you can see up there, we start the episode with Kate in a goddamn tree. And I resist the easy joke about low hanging fruit. As Kate makes her way back to the camp, she hears spooky noises coming out of the Haunted Jungle. So she chucks a rock at it. Turns out it's just Sawyer being a creep, as usual. They go for a swim, and showing how this program likes to subvert expectations, they keep most of their clothes on. At the bottom of the lake are the dead, rotting bodies of some plane crash victims. And Sawyer is like "Sweet, I'ma steal his wallet!" Kate thinks that's gross, but then she sees a suitcase under the seat and decides she wants it for herself. But when Sawyer manages to get it, he won't give it to Kate. But she's all "Whatevs. It doesn't even go with my shoes." and saunters off with a hair flip. That night though, she tries to steal it back. But Sawyer is keeping the case in the one place he is always paying attention to. Between his legs.

The next day, Sawyer is trying to pick the lock on the suitcase, which Michael and Hurley think is HILARIOUS. "Why, that's a ZERO Halliburton brand suitcase!" they say. "Available in finer retail outlets nation wide! No one can break into one! Your belongings are always secure in ZERO Halliburton brand luggage!" Sawyer decides that if he can't pick the lock, then he's gonna SMASH IT! And so, we are treated to a montage of Sawyer trying to break open the suitcase like so much Samsonite Gorilla. It doesn't work. So he climbs a really tall tree, and drops the case onto a giant rock. It still doesn't work. But Kate knows EXACTLY how long it will take him to climb down from the tree and zips out of a bush to grab the suitcase before Sawyer can get back down. But then Sawyer gets the case back anyways. Remember what I said about running in place?

Kate decides to enlist a big strong man to do the work for her, and Jack gets the case back from Sawyer. She tells him that the case belonged to the Marshal and there are some guns in it. He doesn't believe her (of course), but agrees to help as long as SHE TELLS HIM THE GODDAMN TRUTH FOR ONCE. Jack really needs to calm down when it comes to Kate. He always gets super growly and controlling, and Kate gets very meek and submissive, and this happens every goddamn time these two get together and I'm already sick of it. Jack is an interesting, likable character, when he's not trying to control every aspect of Kate's life. Dammit, show! Stop putting me on her side!

The Marshal has the key to the suitcase, so they gotta go dig him up. Kate tries to use some David Blane Street Magic to sneak away with the key, but OF COURSE Jack sees this, grabs her, and makes her give him the key. Then Kate sits quietly with her hands folded like a good girl, while Jack roots through her stuff. There are some guns, and there's also an envelope with a little plane inside. The kind of plane one could waggle around sadly. And boy, does this really piss Jack off.

"Why is the plane so important, Kate? Tell me! It's totally my business!"
"It belonged to the man I loved!"
"Stop lying! Why is it so important Kate? GRRRRR!"
"It belonged to the man I killed!"

Then she starts crying. Well, there you go Jack. Happy now? Jesus Christ, just fuck already and get it out of your system. And do it off camera, I do not care about you crazy kids at all. We had a really good run of episodes there, before Kate came around and Kated the place up. Kate ruins everything. And climbs trees. And waggles a sad plane.

While all that is going on, Shannon has gotten bored and decides she's going to ruin Sayid. Boone, called her useless, so now she's going to translate the crazy French woman's crazy French map. But as it turns out, Rousseau is crazy and the map makes no sense. It's just the same gibberish repeating over and over again, but it's oddly familiar gibberish. Both Shannon and Sayid get frustrated, but since Shannon is the useless one, she just up and quits.

That night, Shannon realizes why she recognized the words. It's from the French dub of a movie "That CGI cartoon with the fish" I assume she means Shark Tale. The words are from the song that played over the credits. She sings the song to Sayid, while he makes shmoopy eyes at her. And Boone glares menacingly from the shadows. Yeah, the B plot wasn't much better.

Rose gets some nice scenes though. Charlie is still in a funk about losing Claire to The Others. The island's weirdness is acting up again. The tide is coming in when it shouldn't be, so the castaways have to move the camp up the beach. But Charlie is just siting there depressed and silent. Until Rose comes at him with a nice combination of tough talk and gentle wisdom. He's still in a bad place, but at least he's part of the group again.

Sadly waggling your stupid plane. 

 THE FLASHBACK

Kate, or as she's calling herself this week Maggie Ryan, is trying to get a loan from the bank. Until The Joker bursts in with a bunch of goons to rob the joint. Things get hairy when a local redneck realizes he can rush the lead robber, and the gun goes flying and lands next to Kate. She plays the "I'm just a girl, I don't know how to gun!" card, and I swear they did this exact same gag in the last Kate episode. As punishment, the Head Robber takes her into the back room to rough her up a bit. But then... PLOT TWIST! They totally start making out. Kate was in on it the whole time! The robbery was her idea even! Does it still count as a plot twist if you saw it coming a mile away?

So the robber, who's name apparently is Jason, roughs Kate up a bit. Then they go back outside, and the bank manager takes them to the vault. The bank manager is opening the vault and safety deposit boxes when Jason just fucking loses it. He rips his mask off, and starts threatening to kill everyone in Gotham City. Kate shouts "We agreed no one would be hurt!" and the manager still has no idea what's going on. Then Kate shoots Jason and the other bank robber, who's name apparently is Six Foot Five, because no one would get hurt. Then there's some really bad ADR to prove that they're still alive.

Kate needs the  manager to open up box #815. "But I can't!" he says "We need two keys!" And so Kate produces the second key. "But wait!" exclaims the manager "If you had the key, why do this elaborate bank robbery ruse?" "I know," I tell my TV "It's a Kate episode. Just... just go with it. It's not worth it." What amazing, important item is in this bank vault? Money? Jewels? A dumb toy plane, perfect for sad waggling? Yeah, it was the last one.

You got that right.

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• Look, I know complaining about the plot on Lost is a fool's errand. But come on. This was all filler.
• That is one pun-tastic episode title, by the way. Lost loves those. 
• Special shout out to how terrible the music is in this episode. To be clear, normally I love Michael Giacchino. His score for the '09 Star Trek is phenomenal. And, of course, he did the score to my favorite movie of all time: Speed Racer. But he is BAD in this episode. Part of why I hate Kate is the dumb, loud, oppressive shmoopy music that follows her wherever she goes. Then later, there's this dumb "whimsical" music that completely changes the tone of the scene, and also sounds like he stole it from the forest levels of Ocarina of Time. 
• Another thing I hate about her, and to be fair this isn't the character or the actress' fault this time but shitty writing, is how little control she has. They're trying to sell her as this badass bank robber, but she really doesn't do much at the robbery. Then back on the island she just sits there quietly while Jack growls at her until she cries. 
• So, a couple years back, my buddy AAlgar (from The Post Atomic Horror) got me a Kate action figure, because he knows the exact right ways to annoy me. Anyways, the toy comes with trees to climb and a plane to waggle around sadly. The point is, I'm not just making things up. These are the (and I'm using this term very loosely) character traits that the people involved with the show see as Kate's best qualities. 

Flonk ruins everything. And climbs trees.

THE CATCHPHRASES

• Son of a BITCH! (2x)
• Son of a... (variant) 

I'm Kate. Bloo bloo bloo.