Born to Run

WHY AM I WATCHING BORN TO RUN?

In which I put my head down and power through this so I can get to the season finale.

Kate ruins everything. And climbs tress. And sadly waggles a plane around.

THE FLASHBACK

We start out with Evangeline Lilly in a terrible blonde wig. It's supposed to be her real hair, but I guess the director realized how terrible it looked, because we never get a good shot of her wearing it. She's in some seedy motel, clearly on the lam. She dyes her hair brown, and that's when we get the reveal of what we already knew. It's Kate. It's a Kate episode. Oh goody. This was in a Sexy Sad Shower scene, by the way. She's checked into the motel under the name Joan Heart, but there's a letter waiting for her written by someone who knows who she is, so how good of a disguise could this possibly be? The letter makes her cry because it's been like 5 episodes since we watched Kate cry and we were overdue.

She goes to the hospital with a big sack of flour, but there's a random cop sitting there, so she can't stay. So she does the next best thing. Breaks into the car of her childhood sweetheart, one Tom Brennan, who JUST HAPPENS to be a doctor there, and makes him sneak her into the hospital. We find all this out through excruciating exposition later in the guy's kitchen. Also it's Kate's mom who's in the hospital. She's got a case of the cancers and only has a few months to live. Once they're done expositing, Kate decided they need to go and dig up "it". Ooooooh, how mysterious! They go to a dark field and get out their shovels and the Scary Music swells up and we cut to commercial. What a dramatic cliffhanger!

It's a fucking time capsule they buried when they were kids. In there is the dumb toy plane Kate's always sadly waggling. It was Tom's favorite toy when they were kids. So now we finally know where Kate's stupid plane comes from. There's also a cassingle the two recorded when they were kids. In it, Tom talks about how he can't wait to grow up so that he and Kate can get married and have a million babies (which is basically what he's done with his life) and Kate can't wait to grow up so she can start running and never stop, despite all logic that she should. (which is what she does, with occasional breaks to climb trees) That's some A+ character writing there, Lost Writers. Way to stay on #brand. Then, even though Tommy's got a wife and a newborn baby, he and Kate make out all over the place.

Morning comes and they go to the hospital. Tom's arranged a secret MRI so Kate can say hi to her mom with some privacy. She gives her mom the flour, but when mom wakes up, she is terrified of Kate and starts screaming for help. Kate leaves, and the Convenient Cop is right outside the door and (somewhat understandably) grabs her. Kate (completely understandably) says a half lie and tells the cop that her mom is senile and confused and she's going to get a doctor. The cop (pretty inexplicably) doesn't believe her and starts to radio for back up? Then Kate (completely inexplicably) punches the cop in the face and takes off running. She tries to steal Tom's car, but he's in it for some reason. The cops circle the parking garage and draw their guns. Kate tries to get Tom to leave, but he won't. So she makes a break for it with him in the car. There's lots of gunfire and property damage, if that's your thing. When she gets away, Kate turns to the passenger seat and sees that Tom has been shot and killed. When you go and ruin someone's life, you don't mess around, huh Kate? The only way this could have been more on #brand is if you did it in a tree. The sirens are getting louder so Kate runs away. Presumably to buy some flour for the funeral.

More like blond to run

THE ISLAND

The main plot on the island is fucking dumb too. Kate wants to get on Michael's raft, because she knows that when they get rescued she's going to get recognized and arrested. It will be easier to run if she's already back on the mainland by the time reporters find out about her. First thing she tries to do is take Walt's place, which is fucking dumb. If there's only one thing you know about Michael it's that he needs Walt within arms reach of him at all times. So, instead she starts sewing discontent so she can replace Sawyer.

Sawyer starts complaining about something or other, so Michael threatens to kick him off the raft. Sawyer pretty quickly figures out what Kate is up to, so he goes to yell at her for a bit. They get into a pissing match and both declare that they will be the ones on the raft. I'm sure it looked good in the script, but as I've tried to make clear in this blog, Evangeline Lily does not sell steely eyed bad ass lines very well. Sawyer does let her know that he knows she was the Marshall's prisoner. So there's that.

Meanwhile, Sayid and Locke have taken Jack down to the hatch for the B-plot. It's basically two scenes, but they're so good. Jack wants to know why Locke didn't tell him about the hatch. And Locke is all "Why would I? You didn't tell anyone about your ZERO Halliburton suitcase full of guns." And Jack says "That's different! I was protecting the camp! You're a liar John! You lied! To me!" and Locke rolls his eyes and thinks "Get over yourself, Jack." The whole time Sayid is just in the background, staring off into the distance waiting for dad and dad to stop fighting. Jack calms down for a second and decides that since it's here and he's here, they might as well get it open. That's when Sayid wakes up. "Get it open!?! You're supposed to be talking Locke out of that! Did you ever think that there's a reason this thing doesn't have a handle?" Jack wants to get it open because in the worst case scenario, they'd have some shelter. Sayid counters that this island is fucking weird and worst case scenario, there's a family of Godzilla polar bears in there.

Back on the raft, Michael collapses in pain. Kate runs off into the jungle (of course) to get Jack. So much for the interesting stuff. Time for a dumb poison mystery, complete with a couple idiotic twist endings. Yeah, Jack figures out Michael's water was poisoned, and they both immediately blame Sawyer. Stop doing that. It's never Sawyer. The guy is an asshole, so every time someone is killed or something is stolen or set on fire, lets blame the hillbilly. Maybe he wouldn't be such a prick if he wasn't getting blamed for every little thing that goes wrong, ever think of that?

Hurley accidentally tells Locke that Kate was the Marshall's prisoner, causing Locke to get into another fight with Jack about keeping secrets. Jack tries to use Locke's own words against him, but it comes off as more "Yeah, Locke. I'm a hypocrite. Deal with it." He heads off to the cave to get some doctor stuff, where he runs into Kate. She totally not casually asks if Michael's spot on the raft is up for grabs, and Jack flips the fuck out. Yeah, it's the return of my second least favorite character Jack, The Guy Who Is Violently Mad At Kate For No Reason At All. Jack is such a good character when Kate isn't around Kating the place up. She ruins everything. And climbs trees. Jack accuses Kate of poisoning Michael and she goes and cries or something. I don't know. I started playing games on my phone at this point.

Over in a more interesting part of the caves, Walt is talking to Locke. He wants Locke to know that he didn't poison his dad. But when he touches Locke's arm, he suddenly starts freaking the fuck out and shouts "Don't open that thing!" before running off into the night. Kids, amirite?

Down on the beach, Michael accuses Sawyer of poisoning him and kicks him off the raft. Sawyer then decides to tell the whole beach that Kate was the prisoner. And now we get to see Kate the Badass Who Just Stands There Meekly With Her Sad Eyes While The Men Make All The Important Decisions About Her Life. Fucking Kate, I swear. She starts crying, (of course) and plays with that fucking toy airplane (of fucking course). Michael welcomes Sawyer back to Team Raft.

Then Jack goes to talk to the real poisoner. It's Sun. She was trying to poison Jin so he would stay? I don't know. It's fucking dumb. It gets dumber though, because the double surprise twist comes later when we find out the whole thing was Kate's idea. I know. Just... I know. Kate also has a coda with Sawyer. She asks him why he's so intent on leaving the island and he looks at her sadly and says "Because there's nothing here worth staying for" I guess this is supposed to have something to do with the love triangle between the two of them and Jack? But that thing barely exists, there's no way that after a whole season they're still trying to push that, is there?

I actually want to end this on a good note, so luckily there was a scene at the end here that I liked. All the secrets are coming out this week as Walt admits to his father that he's the one who burned the raft. He's sick of moving, and likes it on the island. Michael immediately switches gears and says that they can stay, but Walt says no, they have to go. It's a good character bit for the two of them, and it strengthens the mystery of Walt's powers and the hatch. It's a much better way to end the episode than with some more of Kate's bullshit.

Hatch, hatch, hatchhatchhatch, hatch, hatch, hatch. ERRYBODY!

THE RANDOM THOUGHTS

• Kate's alias is Joan Heart. Her mom is played by one of the aunts from Sabrina the Teenage Witch. This is too stupid to be accidental. 
• I don't know if the flashback actually took up half the episode, or if it just felt that way. But holy fuck was it long. We spent so much time on shit that I just Do Not Care About. Go back to the hatch!
• There's also some really terrible flashback/island transitional voice over. The worst one being at the end when Kate is running from the cops and we hear Sawyer in voice over saying "you never stop running" Fuck you, show. We get it. 
• This episode introduces Dr. Arzt, who is utterly delightful. More on him next week. 

I seriously fucking hate that plane.

FENWAY PARK

• My boy (2x)
• ZERO Halliburton suitcase. Order yours today!