Episode 6 - I Do
17 September 2009
Review
Present: Locke buries Eko with his Jesus stick and sees a message on it. The Others tell Kate to convince Jack to perform surgery or they will kill Sawyer. Kate and Sawyer sleep together and when Jack sees them he agrees to do the surgery. During it he threatens to kill Ben unless Kate and Sawyer are allowed to escape.
Flashback: Kate is marrying a policeman who doesn’t know who she really is. She calls the Marshall to beg him to stop chasing her. After a pregnancy test she finally tells Kevin the truth. But not until she had drugged him so she can make her escape and spare him from suspicion.
The Good: The producers of Lost are trying to tell a love story here, a complicated one and although lots of what they do works, overall it fails.
But first, what works. The acting is really strong throughout. Kate genuinely looks like she is in love with both men. They both look like they love her. The reunion of Jack and Kate is very well performed, the affection and stress they feel are clear to see. Kate and Sawyer sleeping together looks suitably passionate and it is a really strong scene (see Best Moment). It’s a good episode for Sawyer who has become more and more likeable as the show has gone on. Finally under threat of death his gruff exterior melts away and he tells Kate he loves her.
The cliff-hanger (which led into the Christmas break and was designed to be this way) is a decent effort at creating tension. We know that Kate and Sawyer will have trouble getting off the island and we can only guess what the Others will want to do to Jack once they get their hands on him. Jack looks like a good guy for his decision. He has been consistent in not believing anything the Others have said to him, so his decision to hijack the surgery makes sense. It seems that seeing Kate and Sawyer together convinces him to sacrifice his own freedom to save theirs. It’s a noble gesture and it fits his character to take matters into his own hands, especially in this reckless way (just as he always wants to charge into the jungle e.g. 111 or 208).
Locke and Sayid begin to dole out some needed logic on the other side of the island. It’s always a pleasure to see Sayid refuse to accept lies and demand the truth. It’s equally good to see Locke finally talk to someone about the monster and Eko’s stick seems to provide the next step on his journey.
The Bad: There are several overlapping problems here. I will break them down into three parts: Kate, the Others and the need for a “fall cliff-hanger.”
Kate has always had the least convincing flashbacks of all the survivors. Partly this is because although she can act sensitive and vulnerable with ease, she doesn’t seem at all like a killer or criminal on the run. She is just too nice and sweet. But the larger problem is that her story actually makes her look selfish and thoughtless and not sympathetic at all. She killed her father (see 209 and my comments), not really for her mother’s benefit, but because of her own anger. Now she marries Kevin, knowing that she is deceiving him and when things become tough she leaves him. Not just leaving him but crushing him and doubtless doing some serious psychological damage to a clearly nice guy. The writers don’t intend to paint Kate as a selfish, thoughtless person though. I am confident that the story is meant to make us feel sorry for her – just as she finds happiness it is robbed from her again. But it isn’t, she chooses to leave instead of confiding in him.
The flashbacks also paint an unconvincing story. It’s clear that Kevin doesn’t know her at all (“what you see is what you get” is his reason for loving her) and their marriage doesn’t seem convincing as a result. There is also the mystery of her relationship with the Marshall. They talk to each other as if they have a long history and yet we haven’t seen them spend much time together at all.
The unconvincing parts of the story bleed over into the Others. I have complained a lot about how weak and disorganised they look and there is more of that here. Jack and Kate escape from their cages with ease (though it’s possible Jack was by design) and Danny seems to be running wild when Ben would (presumably) not want him to kill Sawyer. More than these lapses though is Ben’s need for Jack to do the surgery. His master plan is to bring Kate to Jack and get her to beg him to do it. Why not just put a gun to Kate’s head and then ask him to do the surgery? It just seems ridiculous that they allow Jack to taunt Ben when surely they could force him to do their bidding. Again when he cuts Ben, why not march men in with rifles and threaten him? Why not shoot him in the foot? Maybe not entirely practical but you get my drift.
Tying this together is the need for the cliff-hanger to this mini-season within a season. It’s become clear that the producers are focussing on events on “Alcatraz” to avoid those Sayid, Claire and Charlie stories from becoming lost in the long hiatus. As a result we get more melodrama. Despite the good acting it’s never likely that Sawyer is going to be executed in the mud. Nor does it seem likely that Ben is going to snuff it on the operating table. Sadly Lost has become 24 or some other drama where contrived dramatic events are masquerading for real tension. It’s sad to see and we can only hope that the second part of the season won’t be similarly afflicted.
The Unknown: What is the relationship between Alex and Ben? Who is Jacob and why was he making a list? Why wasn’t Jack on it and who was? I thought Ethan was making the list.
Best Moment: Sawyer and Kate having sex feels very natural. His life is under serious threat and their emotions and the immediacy overcome them. Afterward Sawyer shows his insecurity “when that block head was beating on me and you said ‘I love you’, that was just to get him to stop right?” She kisses him and curls back up in his arms. So he says “I love you too” in a very alien tone for him. It’s a lovely moment for his character but it begs the deeper question of whether she really does.
The Bottom Line: It seems like those in charge of Lost changed course for these six episodes and the changes have largely failed. Lost feels more like a generic drama right now and we have to hope it will find its way home along with Kate and Sawyer soon.
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