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Remember how Sayid killed wee Benjamin Linus last week? April Fools! He's not dead yet. And he probably never will be, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Even though the big news in this episode is that Ben isn't dead, the story is largely about Kate. In 1977, Juliet is trying to save Ben's life, but she's not a surgeon. Jack is though, right? Sure, but he's also not going to lift one gifted finger to save Ben, not even when Kate asks all pretty. He's all "Ben there? Done that." Juliet soldiers along, mostly alone, but gets a blood donation from Kate, who claims to be a universal donor. Huh. I don't remember her volunteering when Boone was dying. Of course she was kind of busy that night -- helping Claire bring Aaron into the world.
Speaking of Aaron, we see a lot of him in this episode, when the show fills in some of its Kate-shaped blanks between 2004 and 2007. In 2004, we see the baby Aaron accompany Kate to Cassidy's (Sawyer's Baby Mama) house, to meet her and Clementine (Sawyer's Baby). Sawyer's parting request to Kate (before he dove off Frank's chopper) was that she would make sure his little girl was taken care of. Kate shows up with an envelope full of cash to give away, and she's ready to spill all the secrets on which her friends' lives depend. She tells all -- everything that the big lie was supposed to conceal. Cassidy calls Kate out on being in love with Sawyer, and explains why that's futile, but that doesn't stop the two women from rekindling their friendship.
And in 2007, after Kate loses (and finds) Aaron in the supermarket, it's a conversation with Cassidy that makes Kate realize she's got to hand Aaron over to Carole Littleton, and then go back to the island to find his real mommy, so she does just that.
1977 is where most of the action happens, though. When Jack won't help Juliet with Ben, not even for Kate's sake, Kate takes matters into her own hands, and with Juliet's assistance, she loads the supposedly dying boy into a Dharma blue VW bus and drives out to the sonic fence to seek the help of the Others. Sawyer catches up with her there, and surprises her by calling her "Freckles" and offering to help her get Ben to Richard, who Juliet and Kate figure is the only person who can save Ben, now.
The Others find them in the jungle and take them to Richard. He says he can save the boy, but if he does, he won't remember everything, he'll be one of Them, and his innocence will be gone. Er... what exactly are they going to do to poor the child? Maybe I don't want to know. Whatever it is, it seems like it will happen in the Temple, because once Richard takes wee Ben off Kate and Sawyer's hands, that's where he carries him.
Also in 1977, Kate sort of befriends Roger Linus, who tells her he knows Ben stole his keys and let Sayid out of the clink. Hurley and Miles have the funniest conversation about time travel. Ever. Oh and Juliet watches Jack shower. I'm pretty sure there was more to their scene than that, but I got... distracted, so I'll catch you on the flip side with the full recap.
Discuss this episode in our forums, then see who beats Sayid in our list of the Best Lost Backstories!
Want more? The full recap starts right below!Remember how Sayid killed wee Benjamin Linus last week? April Fools! He's not dead yet. And he probably never will be, but I'm getting ahead of myself.
Previously, on Lost: Cassidy Phillips visits Sawyer in jail and shows him a picture of their darlin' Clementine. Kate saves Cassidy's conniving butt, by buying one of the fake necklaces she's passing off as the real deal. Sawyer jumps out of Frank's chopper so that they'll have enough fuel to reach the freighter. But before he does, he whispers something to Kate, and then tells her, "Just do it, Freckles," because he thinks she's in a Nike ad. On Penny's boat, Kate tells Jack she's keeping baby Aaron, because she can't stand to lose anyone else. Lawyer Dan "Angela Chase's Father" Norton tells Kate the jig is up and his "client" wants to handle the exchange of toddler-Aaron's custody quietly. Jack and Kate watch as Norton enters Carole (Claire's mum) Littleton's motel room. Jack goes to see Ms. Littleton, his dad's LOVAH, and he tells her everything he and Kate have done was for Aaron, and she's all like Who-The-Holy-Tim-Tams is Aaron? Jack does his best Emily Litella and makes a hasty retreat. Wee Ben goes to see Sayid in his Dharma prison cell. Sayid tells him it's nice to meet him, but I think the hottie doth protest too much. A flaming van goes careening into a Dharma Initiative cabin, which causes a distraction, allowing a tearful wee Ben Linus to engage in some then-futuristic Harry Potter cosplay while he releases Sayid, whom he mistakes for his own Sirius Black, but he's actually batting for Tom Riddle's team. Oops. Ben lets Sayid out of his cell; they run through the jungle, supposedly toward Team Richard, but meet up with Jin on the way. When Jin wants to check Sayid's story with Sawyer, Sayid knocks Jin out and shoots wee Ben! He then runs off into the night, like a big chicken.
Cassidy's sitting at her kitchen table with Kate, holding an envelope positively stuffed with cash, although I have to note that given the looks of her house, she doesn't need it. We'll ignore the question of how she affords such posh digs, since just a few short years ago she was hawking fake jewelry on the road as her main source of income. Let's just assume she worked a lucrative long con. She flips through the cash with her thumbs like a Vegas dealer might handle a deck of cards. "Sawyer? So that son of a bitch is still alive?" Kate says he was when she left Craphole. Cassidy can't quite buy that Sawyer asked Kate to find her, but Kate says, "Well, he -- he told me where to find you, and said to take care of Clementine -- his daughter?" Who names their daughter that? People who have never paid attention to the lyrics, I tell you what! And listen people, I'm just funning. I got an e-mail from a lovely reader with the equally lovely name Candida, who (quite kindly and politely) expressed her displeasure regarding a certain reference I made to her given name in a recap. While it's never my intent to pick on real readers' actual names, this recap is being written by a woman who was a kid named Cindy in the late 1960s, which means she's a Cindy who grew up in the 1970s (and '80s), but which fails to explain why I just referred to myself in the third person. My point, and I have one, is that if you're above the age of 10, sure I guess you can choose to get upset when people you don't know joke about the name you happen to have, but that's probably not going to do anything to discourage it. Laugh with them and move forward. Because it could be oh-so-very-much worse. I'm just sayin'...
Cassidy can't quite stomach Kate's company now that she knows she's there at Sawyer's behest, so Kate makes to go. They then have an expository discussion in which we learn that Kate's pretty much told Cassidy all the truth behind the Big Lie. The only thing Kate hasn't confessed is that Aaron isn't her own. Cassidy wants to know why Kate trusts her, and so do I. I mean Kate, you met the women while she was scamming people?! Is this that honor among thieves thing? Kate says she trusts Cassidy because Clementine has a right to know that her father cares. Unresponsive, move to strike, Your Honor.
Hurley holds up his left hand, fingers splayed, and looks at it about the way a newborn does when he first spots those magnificent wavy things at the end of his arm. Miles says, "What the hell are you doing, tubby?"
HUGO: Checking to see if I'm disappearing.
MILES: What?
HUGO: Back to the Future, man. We came back in time to the island and changed stuff. So if little Ben dies, he'll never grow up to be big Ben, who's the one who made us come back here in the first place, which means we can't be here. And therefore, dude? We don't exist.
MILES: You're an idiot.
THE RECAPPER: Watch it, Miles. I love you, but you're no Hurley.
HUGO: Am I?
THE RECAPPER: Yeah, I was just calling you Hugo because it seems more respectful. Oh, you weren't talking to me.
MILES: Yeah. It doesn't work like that. You can't change anything. Your maniac Iraqi buddy shot Linus. That is what always happened. It's just... we never experienced how it all turns out.
HUGO: That was really confusing.
THE AUDIENCE: Yeah, well, get used to it.
MILES: Yeah, well, get used to it.
THE AUDIENCE: Gee, wish we'd said that.
MILES: The good news is that Linus didn't die, so that means the kid can't, either. He'll be fine.
KATE: Didn't look like he was gonna be fine. What if you're wrong?
MILES: Well, if I'm wrong, then I guess we all stop existing, and none of it matters anyway then, does it?
Sawyer shows up and interrupts my favorite scene, which annoys me, so I'm not going to give him a lot of face time here. The wee Sawyer who has been squatting in my kids' Fisher-Price castle with Fertility Specialist Barbie all season, squawks, "Cry me a river, Cindy Lou Boo Hoo," so I toss him, her and their plastic love nest in the cabinets under our window seat, and shut the doors. TV Sawyer wants Jack to help Juliet mend wee Ben. Jack's all Sorry, I'm a little busy what with being under house-arrest and all. Kate looks at him like How could you, Jack? Jack looks right back at her like Because I have a memory, Kate. Sawyer says Ben will die if Jack doesn't come with him. Jack says, "Then he dies," and the music swells up and out and into a commercial.
Dharmaville House Arrest House: Kate peers through the blinds at Sawyer and Roger Linus, who are conferring on the porch of St. Jacob's. She decides to use her never-known-to-fail feminine wiles on Jack. She finds him in the kitchen, making sandwiches. I wonder if he's auditioning for Hurley so he can get a transfer from the janitorial staff to the mess hall. Kate reminds Jack that currently, Ben is "just a boy" and that he can't just let him die. It seems Jack has completely bought into Miles' explanation of the Time Warp rules. "We can't change what's already happened. This has nothing to do with me." Kate suggests that perhaps Jack is the one who is supposed to save Ben. Jack reminds her he's been there and done that, right after watching her and Sawyer's Hydra Cage sex scene. He did it then for her, who wanted him to do it for Sawyer and he doesn't care who first said it, he's down with the idea that doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result is batshit insane. Kate says, "This is our fault," because they brought Sayid back. Really? I think Ilana and her boots would beg to differ. Jack doesn't even bother to correct her on that point. Instead he reminds Kate how he drove himself and everyone else crazy trying to fix everything the first time they were on Craphole. "Did you ever think that maybe the island just wants to fix things itself, and maybe I was just getting in the way?" Sawyer will have your back on that last part, Jack. Kate says she doesn't like the new Jack; she likes the old one. Jack says she didn't like old him, either. Point to Shephard. Kate storms out of the cabin, right past Miles, who yells, "Hey, where are you going?" but he's a little too slow [Slow? He's playing frickin' dominos with Hurley! - Z] and doesn't shoot her in her shapely, freckled legs. And we cut to...
HUGO: Let me get this straight. All this already happened.
MILES: Yes.
HUGO: So this conversation we're having right now -- we already had it?
MILES: Yes!
HUGO: Then what am I gonna say ?
MILES: I don't know.
HUGO: Then your theory is wrong!
THE AUDIENCE: See, it's not just us!
MILES: For the thousandth time, you dingbat, the conversation already happened, but not for you and me.
THE RECAPPER: You're contradicting yourself, because you just said, "Yes," when Hurley said of your conversation, "We already had it?"
HUGO: Okay, answer me this. If all this already happened to me, then why don't I remember any of it?
MILES: Because once Ben turned that wheel, time isn't a straight line for us anymore. Our experiences in the past and the future occurred before these experiences right now.
THE RECAPPER: Okay, I remember Daniel saying something about this. And what have you done with Daniel, by the way?
HUGO: Say that again.
THE RECAPPER: Okay, I remember Daniel saying something about this. And what have you done with Daniel, by the way?
THE WEE HUGO WHO'S HANGING OUT ON MY SPEAKERS: Pssst. I think he's talking to Miles, not you.
MILES: [Shooting me a look while handing Hugo his gun]: Shoot me. Please. Please?
HUGO: Aha! I can't shoot you, because if you die in 1977, then you'll never come back to the island on the freighter 30 years from now.
MILES: I can die because I've already come to the island on the freighter. Any of us can die, because this is our present.
HUGO: But you said Ben couldn't die because he still has to grow up and become the leader of the Others.
MILES: Because this is his past.
HUGO: But when we first captured Ben, and Sayid... like... tortured him, then why wouldn't he remember getting shot by that same guy when he was a kid?
THE SILENCE: I shall deafen you all! Muahahahahahahaha.
MILES: Huh. Hadn't thought of that.
THE RECAPPER: pwnd!!!!!!!!!!!!11
HUGO: Ha!
[Okay, now Hurley has a point at the end there, which will of course be explained away in a minute, but everything else he argues? Makes no sense. Why would he remember a conversation that took place before he was born, especially one that included an older version of himself? Even if you can't bring yourself to add the necessary corollaries to the time travel rules of Back to the Future and Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure, I cannot imagine a scenario where that would work. In this reality, time is linear and unchanging, and while the characters' lives may jump around on that timeline, their paths are predetermined. That's it. End of story. Rant over. - Z]
Mainland; 2007: Kate shows up at Carole Littleton's motel. Does the level of anger Carole directs to Kate at the outset seem a little bizarre to anyone else? I mean, eventually she'll learn Kate deserves that and more, and I know Jack showed up and spewed a lot of crazy sauce at her and then was all, "Never mind," but for Carole knows right now, Kate's just there to apologize for Jack's behavior. Anyhow, she lets Kate in so that Kate can give her a real reason to be angry. And she does. Kate tells Carole how Claire's alive and that they left her on the island because they couldn't find her, and how she (Kate) passed off Carole's own grandson as her own baby for the past three years. She adds, "We lied and there were other survivors too, and we just left them." Carole asks why she lied, whereas I would have gone straight to violence. Hmmm. Kate forgets her original reason, because like me, she never quite understood the need for the big lie except for while Jack was giving the explanation. Instead, she tries on Cassidy's explanation for size and decides it fits well. "Because I needed him." We'll stick with that in the future, Katie. It's so much easier and it's in character, too. She then adds something along the lines of : And tag, you're it. After that brat scared the crap out of me in the grocery store, I got way over this motherhood thing. The kid is all yours now, sister. I need a vacation like yesterday. She gives Carole a picture of Aaron and says he's just two doors down, asleep. Alone? DID SHE LEARN NOTHING IN THE SUPERMARKET?! Kate then says, "When you're ready, he's waiting for you." She told Aaron that Carole's his grandma who is going to care for him while Kate's gone and that she'll be back soon. Carole asks where she's going. Kate says, "I'm going back to find your daughter." Sawyer's her daughter? We cut to...
Aaron's Motel Bed: The beautiful little boy who is just the age my own was when he escaped, and who is blond, just like mine, looks too much like my little one in this shot. I'll be right back after I take a crazy pill. Ahhhhh. This is a hard scene, and despite the fact that I've been prickly about Kate this episode, she breaks me, here. If you've raised a baby for three years, he's in your heart. Her tears fall and she tries to stifle her sobs so as not to wake Aaron. The longer she looks at him, the harder it gets, so with a great, snotty sniffle, she summons her courage and leaves his bedside. She opens the door and stops to look back just once more, and now he looks exactly like my youngest did at three, and I can't take another crazy pill 'til tomorrow, so I don't know what I'm going to do here. No, it's way too early to drink, you alkies. Kate looks over her shoulder at the boy and cries, "Bye-bye, baby," and shuts the door behind him. Gah. Luckily, I can get mad at Carole Littleton for not standing right there and pushing her way in, like any self-respecting grandmother would. Even the camera is crying as we jump to...
Cindy McLennan also covers How I Met Your Mother and Cupid (it's gonna die, brotha) for TWoP. If you have a Lost theory you want to share, or need to call her out for picking on the name Clementine this week, you can write to her at CindyMcLennan[at]gmail.com. All you Candidas and Cynthias, your concerns have been heard and are being addres -- oh just buck up and get to the back of the line.