LOST Season Six: "What Kate Does" and "The Substitute"

This is the second of my LOST Season 6 recaps. Each post will cover two episodes. Most of these will be moderately stream of consciousness and will not exactly follow the narrative that the episodes followed. Enjoy.

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"What Kate Does"

While the season opened with the shocking two-parter "LA X," the third episode of the season is "What Kate Does." Finding out the title name a few days prior to broadcast, I gave a sigh, and prepared for a Kate episode. Kate bugs me and it's actually pretty hard to describe. Not as annoying as Claire Bennett, but the focus on both her on Heroes, and Kate on Lost frustrates me because they're just not very interesting characters compared to the rest of the cast.

Well thank goodness for this "Sideways" universe. Kate may still be bland and annoying as ever, but we'll get something new and interesting and hopefully not too contrived. Well, were we left Kate off last time, she was on the run, kidnapping the "puppet master" from Heroes and Claire, who is not related to the Heroes character of the same name. He takes off, leaving the two. Kate eventually relents and takes Claire to the hospital - where... Doctor Ethan Goodspeed helps Claire with her crisis. Ethan's actions in the LA hospital mimics his season two appearance, where he takes care of Claire and injects her to "help" her baby. The

Claire calls the baby Aaron. I can't remember if that's what she planned to call him, or if it was pulled out the the Lost ether. Okay, later on Claire says she picked the name because she "knew it or something."

Back to the Temple... Okay, well Sayid is all screwed up. Something is seriously wrong with this guy. Dogen tortures him, and it appears to really hurt. Bad. Poor guy. Jack forces his way in to talk to Dogen, and is told that Sayid has the sickness, and will soon change. They try to get him to to give Sayid poison, but the plan fails. Apparently the same thing happened to Claire on the island.

Oh, sucks for Aldo. Bye bye Aldo - I hope you like your sleeveless shirts back in the real world. And who's the shooter? None other than Claire. What the frak.

"The Substitute"

Is a John Locke centric episode. Since Locke is dead, it's primarily set around the life of Locke in the "Flashsideways" universe.

John seems to have a much happier life than the one he ultimately had in the "real" universe. I don't say that it is happier because in the "real" universe he's dead. Almost any reality is better than one where you're dead. He seems to be much happier. Still in a wheelchair, but happier.

He's with Helen, and the two are to be married. She makes mention of his father, who I suppose while still probably a con-artist apparently have reconciled and (from what I gather) has probably given up the life of crime. Perhaps he even asked John for the kidney and didn't proceed to cut all ties with him (and didn't fake his death). The one problem (aside from the wheelchair) is that he's still at the box company and his boss is still Randy.

Well, it turns out that he lied about his trip to Australia, and that he had used the company dime to attempt to go on the Walkabout. My only issue with this is that if he was planning on going on a Walkabout for that week or so, why didn't he attend the company function a day late? He was supposed to be there, so it would seem that he went to Australia, didn't bother going to the conference, and then after a few days went to the Walkabout, it also seems to indicate that he probably didn't go to work for a few days, unless he got back on a Friday and was supposed to return on Sunday...

But anyway.

John is fired by Randy. On his way out, a vehicle blocks his handicap exit, frustrated, he tries to take out his anger on the vehicle, to no avail (Maybe important...). The vehicle is owned by none other than Hurley who understands Randy and offers to help John. He sends John to his temp agency and is helped by none other than Rose, completely unaware that they were on the same airplane just days prior. John gets a job as a substitute teacher at a school. He enters the teachers lounge. Another teacher is railing on the other teachers about the coffeemaker. That teacher turns out to be none other than...Benjamin Linus.

On the island, The Smoke Monster lets Richard, who he had trapped, go. Richard takes off into the jungle. The Smoke Monster then sees a young boy, in the woods (Jacob?). The Smoke Monster then travels to James, who is currently sitting in his old Dharma house. He convinces James to come with him, and they trek off to answer why they are on the island.

Richard appears to have been following the two. When The Smoke Monster takes off to chase down the young boy who has made another appearance, Richard tries to convince James to return to the Temple and tells James that the Smoke Monster wants "everyone dead." Unable to convince him, Richard takes back off into the jungle. The Smoke Monster and James make their way to a cliff and begin down a ladder. Not quite "Jacob's Ladder" right? Har har.

John is buried. Ben admits that he killed him and that he was sorry. Frank comments about the "Weirdest damn funeral [he's] ever been to."

At the bottom of the cliff there is a cave. Both James and Smokey enter, and Smokey throws a white rock, removed from it's scale. It's an "inside joke" between the two. Smokey is evil. EVIL!!! All the survivors are apparently "candidates" to replace Jacob. Why he needed replacement is unknown, unless he knew about his impending death. All

"23 - SHEPHARD," "8 - REYES," "16 - JARRAH," "42 - KWON," "15 - FORD," and so on. "4-LOCKE" is crossed out by Smokey.

James joins Smokey. duh duh DUHHHH!!!

To read previous Season 6 Reviews, follow the links below:
LOST Season Six: LA X (Parts 1 and 2) Review