Episode Report Card Cindy McLennan: A | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT I Was Dreaming When I Wrote This
By Cindy McLennan | Season 5 | Episode 4 | Aired on 02.04.2009
Mainland; Current Day; My So-Called Hot Pursuit: Kate and Jack trail Dan "Angela Chase's Dad" Norton to a motel. As Norton climbs the external stairway to his client's room, Jack tries to convince Kate that they won't necessarily know if Norton is meeting with his top seekrit blood-demanding client, or someone else. He also tries to cajole her into abandoning this plan. They can go get Aaron, take him somewhere safe and figure everything out. If you watch closely, you can almost see Benjamin Linus pulling Jack's strings. He's just a wee puppet man, but maybe if he's good he can be a real boy, someday. Norton's client answers her door. It's Carole Littleton -- Claire's mother! Jack and Kate take this in and we jump to... a commercial.
While Norton was in Littleton's room, the skies must have opened up, because he leaves in a torrential downpour and I'm stuck wondering whether there's any connection between the strand-aways' weather and the escape-aways' weather, but that way lies madness, so I back the heck up from the abyss. Jack and Kate watch him leave, and Kate's ready to drive off in defeat, but Jack stays her hand on the emergency brake release. He suggests that maybe they should take a moment and think things through. Maybe Ms. Littleton doesn't know about Aaron, but Kate insists she must. Just in case things aren't quite royally screwed up, Jack decides to go up to her room and talk to her. He thinks he can make her understand why he helped Kate steal the grandchild she didn't even know she had -- the son of her daughter whom she presumes is dead. Oh yeah, that'll work. Jack tells Kate he can fix this, and adds, "Aaron is my family, too." As a means of consent, Kate allows one pretty little tear to fall, while she closes her eyes, and smiles the smile of emotional depth -- or possibly Sun's shoes are giving her corns. Jack and Kate share A Meaningful Silent Moment, and Jack heads out into the pouring rain.
Littleton's looking at a tarted-up picture of Claire in happier days, when a now-drenched Jack knocks on her door. She recognizes him immediately and invites him in while thinking: Thank goodness I don't own this rug. He's dripping all over it. What an ugly, ugly American. Where's his umbrella? His Mac? His Wellies? Why is the recapper putting Brit words into my antipodean mouth? I blame that insidious Charles Widmore, who can't decide from whence he came. Where are my Tim Tams, damn it? All this internal narration has left me a bit peaked. Claire's mum exclaims she hasn't seen Jack since his father's funeral and asks how he even knew she was in L.A. Jack doesn't meet her eyes at first. "I knew you were here, Ms. Littleton, because I followed your lawyer." Why she doesn't kick him out of there or run out herself is beyond me. TV people are... different. When she asks Jack why he'd follow her lawyer, he finally returns her gaze. "I did it because, um -- I understand that you feel the need to do this, but I need you to know that everything that Kate and I have done -- it was for Aaron." Jack waits for a spark of recognition in her eyes. I hope he's not holding his breath, because all she can says is, "Who's Aaron?" And she means it. Jack blinks his eyes and looks at the floor for the brick that must have just fallen from his pants. Carole then adds, "I'm afraid I'm not following you." Jack recovers and asks what he should have asked at the outset. "Ms. Littleton, what are you doing here in Los Angeles?"