Lost Reviews and News

Nonetheless, these episode reviews aim to actually review the episodes, so in the name of due diligence I'll plod forward with this week's Not Particularly Interesting Kate Round-Up.

So it all starts out with Kate and Sawyer stumbling upon a pristine lake. The two strip down (For those keeping score: Kate sported a shirt and underwear while Sawyer went for the bare-chest-and-jeans ensemble) and engage in some gag-worthy "playfulness," including the "I'm pretending to drown you but not really" move. Somewhere amidst all this nonsense, the two dive deep into the lake and discover something that's not playful at all -- two decomposing corpses strapped into Oceanic airline seats. After 10 seconds of feigned fright, Kate and Sawyer dive back down for a second look. Sawyer rifles through the pockets of the deceased while Kate desperately tries to pry a metal briefcase from beneath the seat's metal frame. Her efforts prove fruitless, so Sawyer swims over to lend some braun. He yanks the case out and swims for shore.

And that's where he discovers that Kate is very interested in this metal case. She claims that it's hers, but Sawyer watches as she fumbles with the locks and calls bullshit on her ownership. Kate sulks off before Sawyer can launch into a full inquisition. The plot thickens ... sort of.

This metal briefcase is supposed to be incredibly important, but this sub-plot runs dry about 30 seconds after it starts, so instead of wasting time detailing all the twists and turns I'm instead going to boil it down to bullet points. My apologies if this is a little half-hearted -- to me, this briefcase thing was pretty dull.

So anyway, here's what you need to know about the Briefcase Plot:

The bank scenes were oddly boring (seriously -- how can a robbery be boring?), so here's a quick and painless round-up:

• Kate charms the bank manager with a bogus story about coming to the area to take pictures for a coffee table book. She uses the name "Maggie Ryan" during this exchange, but this, like everything about Kate, is probably a damn dirty lie.

• During the heist, Kate plays the role of Innocent Bystander. At one point she ends up with a pistol, but she wails "I don't know how to use a gun!" One of the bank robbers hauls her off to a rear office, where the two start making out. I'm not making this up.

• The robbery team -- including Kate -- eventually ends up inside the bank's vault. Kate's robber boyfriend opts to finish off the bank manager, but before he can pull the trigger, Kate shoots her beau in the leg and guns down two of her other criminal accomplices. She demands that the manager open safety deposit box 850. He hands over the key and she cracks open the box. Inside is a single envelope that looks exactly like the envelope containing that ridiculous little toy airplane.

So Sayid sidles up to Shannon as she's sunbathing (promiscuously sunbathing, at that) and asks for her help. Shannon is feeling vulnerable because her brother Boone deemed her "useless" earlier in the day. Sayid uses the "I believe in you" technique, which works like a charm on the easily swayed ingenue.

So Sayid and Shannon spend most of the episode pouring over maps and flirting. Yes, flirting. Shannon reveals that she spent time in France with "this guy," while Sayid looks on with an expression that says "I'd like to be 'this guy'."

Eventually, Shannon's slow language translation frustrates Sayid. The two call off their rendezvous, but before she storms off in a huff, she offhandedly says the phrases Rousseau wrote seem familiar. Later that evening, Shannon sits next to Sayid on the beach and tells him that "the guy" she was with in France had a little kid who used to incessantly watch one particular movie -- "it was the cartoon about a fish, you know, one of the computer ones" -- and she now realizes that the music over the film's closing credits included the same words Rousseau wrote on the maps. She begins to sing the song in French (she might be useless, but she has a lovely singing voice) and we hear the unmistakable melody of Bobby Darin's "Beyond the Sea."

So what does this tell us? I see two possibilities:

1. Rousseau is out of her friggin mind.

   or

2. Rousseau has a dubbed copy of "Finding Nemo" and she really enjoys writing lyrics on maps ... and she's out of her friggin' mind.

Who's Rose? Way back at the beginning of the season she appeared in a couple of scenes with Jack. She's the woman who contends that her husband somehow survived the plane crash. For weeks she's been missing in action, but now she's emerged to help snap Charlie out of his grief coma.

And snap she does. With a mix of tough love and spirituality, she tells Charlie that no one blames him for Claire's abduction and that he needs to ask for help before he can start healing. Later that evening, Charlie sits with Rose and begins to bawl. Rose takes his hand and prays. Now, the praying at first seems a little heavy-handed, but it does have relevance to Charlie's character. He showed a fair degree of piousness during his flashback episode ("The Moth"), so perhaps Rose's prayer session marks the renewal of Charlie's faith. Or maybe the writers were just feeling it this week ... who knows?

This episode also clearly revealed that Kate and Shannon both have access to shaving equipment. Either that or they're blessed with exceptionally slow hair growth. The men on the island all have long stubble, but the island's female inhabitants (the ones showing skin, that is) don't have a single sign of underarm or leg hair.

That's it for now. Be sure to drop by our "Lost" Forum for stimulating conversation and conjecture.