Episode 15 - Left Behind
2 January 2009
Review
Present: Locke says goodbye to Kate and leaves with the Others. She gets gassed and wakes up in the jungle handcuffed to Juliet. They walk back to the barracks and avoid the smoke monster. Juliet is forced to admit that she handcuffed them together so that Kate would sympathise with her for being left behind too. They return for Sayid and Jack and Jack insists that Juliet return to the beach with them. Meanwhile at the beach, Hurley tells Sawyer that he needs to treat people better or they will banish him from the camp.
Flashback: Kate meets Cassidy (from 213) and they decide to help each other. Cassidy helps engineer a meeting between Kate and her mother. Kate asks why her mother handed her over to the police. She says that you can’t help who you love and that Kate murdered the man she loved. She warns Kate that if she sees her again she will call for help. Cassidy tells Kate she is pregnant with Sawyer’s baby.
The Good: Yet another piece of Kate’s story slots into place and in fairly logical fashion. She asks why her mother told the police what she did and her mother tells us what we already sort of knew. That she loved Wayne and Kate burned him alive. She also goes a step further and claims that Kate did it for herself and not for her mother’s benefit. It is good to hear her mother say that as it validates the theory that Kate acted out of selfishness and anger at the revelation that Wayne was her biological father (see 209). We now know why her mother called for help when Kate came to visit her in the hospital (122). Cassidy’s involvement is interesting but it’s not clear if it means any more than the other flashback crossovers.
On the island Kate learns that Jack saw her with Sawyer and that maybe she broke his heart. It’s good to have her up to speed so that we can see their relationship evolve without any silly misunderstandings. And Juliet’s involvement with the survivors ought to provide answers to some important questions. Well, it really should, I can’t guarantee it will.
Hurley is a loveable character and shows it once more with his wise manoeuvring of Sawyer into a leadership role back at the beach. They play out some obvious comedy well. The smoke monster’s appearance gives us more clues about its true nature (see The Unknown), which is pleasing to see.
The Bad: Kate’s flashback just feels a bit pointless. There’s nothing much wrong with it but we don’t learn anything we couldn’t have otherwise guessed. On the island the tearful accusations about how Jack really feels about Kate aren’t very interesting. As they have never had an honest conversation about their feelings it is difficult to sympathise with all the deep meaningful looks.
The Unknown: The smoke monster seems to scan Juliet the way it did Eko (210). Then we learn that the Dharma Initiative probably built the sonic fence to guard against the smoke monster. The monster is held easily by the sonic fence which implies it definitely has a physical form with certain unique properties. The monster doesn’t attempt to go over the fence either which suggests a limit to its intelligence or its capabilities.
Do these character crossovers mean anything more than coincidence? Where did the Others go and why exactly did they take Locke with them?
Best Moment: The smoke monster hitting the sonic fence.
The Bottom Line: One of the most skippable episodes of Lost I have seen. Fortunately there is nothing infuriating going on but equally there is nothing much to get interested in. It feels like a filler episode because Kate and Juliet get thrown out of the barracks and then walk back in and are leaving again by episodes end. That’s about all that happens, the rest is just chatter.
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