"Born To Run"

OCTOBER 21, 2010

FOCUS: KATE
EPISODE: 1.22
AIRED: MAY 11, 2005

The last episode before the 2 hr season finale, “Born To Run” finally answers one of the most pressing questions Lost fans had – “What is the meaning of Kate’s stupid little toy plane?” Oh wait, I’m sorry – I got that backwards. It answers one of the least interesting questions Lost fans had. In retrospect, it’s sort of foreshadowing Lindelof and Carlton’s approach to Season 6 – answering pointless shit no one really cared about while leaving other mysteries unresolved.

It’s fitting then that this episode provides our strongest evidence yet of Walt’s “powers”, which were also never explained. Somehow he knows about the hatch, and also that it shouldn’t be opened. Granted, he’s right (other than the fact that it provided Desmond, one of the show’s most endearing characters), but how did he know? Does he have ESP? If so, why is it so intermittent? Well, Malcolm David Kelley grew nine inches, so we’ll never know.

Speaking of characters knowing things they shouldn’t, I love that Hurley freaks out over not knowing who knows what. It always seemed odd to me that folks never caught on about certain goings on – it’s not like they’re spread out really far or have much else to do with their time. So when Kate makes her big “reveal”, it’s sort of anticlimactic – I figured everyone knew by then anyway (I assume Hurley’s scene with Locke was put in just to remind us that it was still a secret, but it still fell flat, especially since she didn’t tell us what her crime was).

Nitpicks aside, it’s a decent episode. You know I love Kate, so I’m happy to have her in the flashbacks as well as on the island. And I feel for Tom, the dude who was obviously sweet on her but she never returned the affection in a way that mattered (you can tell she’s jealous that he got married). Been there, dude! Though those girls never got me shot while trying to escape the cops after seeing their dying mother. So I can’t really relate to that part of his arc.

And it introduced Arzt! I love that guy. Daniel Roebuck is one of the nicest actors I’ve met since moving here (in fact, my first “Hollywood” job was as an extra on Navy NCIs, where he was the guest star of the week), and he’s a big nerd as well, collecting old Universal Monster memorabilia and such. It’s a shame they killed him off two episodes later; I would have loved to have him around for a while. It’s also the first major instance of introducing another survivor (not counting Ethan) who everybody seems to know even though we’ve never seen him/her before. It’s certainly the most successful – future folks (Nikki and Paulo, Froberg) would be major distractions because the show had been around for so long at that point. Here it had only been 20 episodes, so it wasn’t as jarring. And he’s lovable enough to welcome the addition.

I also liked the interplay between Jack and Locke, with Locke questioning Jack’s presumption that he’s in charge and Jack mocking Locke’s tendency to hide things. But ultimately, they both wanted to open the hatch (much to Sayid’s dismay), so I like that they were tentatively allies again. Forgot about that. Another little moment I forgot about is when Jin protects Michael from Sawyer – amazing how building a raft with a guy can really make you forget how much you wanted to kill him a week or so ago.

Where are we?