LOST- Episode 22: Born To Run

  I'm thinking this episode must be really loaded with exciting action and revelations because we don't even need to know what has happened previously AND we open with a flashback.

  But whose flashback is it?  A blonde woman parks her car at a remote motel in the middle of nowhere.  We cannot see her face, but we get inclinations as to who it could be by the way the woman has a stash of license plates in her trunk.  All the states of the rainbow!  This sneaky woman steals some towels and shampoo off the maid's cart and enters the room of the family that conveniently left the door open on their way to check out.

  The only person in the world who has never seen Psycho, the woman feels it is perfectly okay to dye her hair and jump in the shower.  A close-up in the shower finally reveals what we all should have figured out already- this mysterious woman is Kate.  Don't worry.  She makes it out of the shower alive.  Considering that she is also a fugitive, she really dodged a Psycho bullet there.  All freshened up, Kate goes to the lobby and asks for a letter being held for Joan Hart.  She takes it to her now Ohio-licensed car (the heart of it all) and cries over the bad news in the letter.

  In the present, Kate is playing with her beloved toy airplane when Charlie approaches playing the guitar.  He is in good spirits because Michael's boat is almost done, their rescue is imminent and he will be able to go on a Driveshaft: Back From The Dead Tour.  He figures his tragic "death" has probably boosted record sales.  Charlie can't understand why Kate isn't getting excited over the notion of becoming famous.  She changes the subject by asking what the commotion is at the raft.

  Some chubby guy is explaining why it is imperative that the raft leaves as soon as possible.  Monsoon season is fast approaching which will shift the tradewinds and push their raft south.  They obviously want to go north toward shipping lanes and not south to Antarctica.  By the way, the new guy's name is Arzt and he is a high school science teacher, which seems to lend him some credibility.

  I say this because in the next scene, Michael is hurrying along the beach with no time for Kate's questions.  He is not taking chances and plans to leave immediately, as Arzt suggested.  Michael does stop to ask her why she is suddenly so interested and Kate says, "I'm going with you!"  I don't encourage it, but you could make a drinking game out of that line.  Incidentally, Kate's catch phrase cues the creepy LOST title screen.

   After the break, Kate is still pestering Michael about getting on the raft.  She tries every way she can think of to weasel her way on:  Sawyer doesn't know anything about sailing and she does; it's too dangerous for Walt.  Michael gets a little angry when she brings up Walt and thus ends the conversation. 

  This rejection gives Kate time to flashback to the time she made a flower delivery to a hospital for Diane Jansen.  Kate sees a police officer stationed outside someone's room and shifts the flowers so he can't see her face.  He wouldn't have noticed either way since he was reading the paper.  Later, Kate surprises a handsome doctor by the name of Tom by hiding in the back seat of his car.  She tells him that she owed it to Diane to come see her since Diane is dying of cancer.  When Tom asks why she was hiding in his car, she tells him that she needs his help.

  Sun approaches her estranged husband, who is still working tirelessly on the raft and asks him if he is going.  Jin is reluctant to speak to her but admits that, yes, he is going.

  In the jungle, Sayid is leading Jack somewhere, but he won't say where.  Jack threatens to turn around unless he is told, so Locke appears in front of them and says that he asked Sayid to bring him.  He asked Sayid not to say much because he wanted Jack to have an open mind.  When Jack asks, "An open mind about what?"  they step through the brush and show him the hatch.

  Back at the beach, Sawyer is asking such dumb questions about survival that Michael begins to question if he is the right guy to take the fourth and final spot on the raft.  This angers Sawyer and when he finds out who is going to replace him he stalks over to Kate, who is busy burning the face off of someone's ID.  Kate tries to plead innocent and walk away but Sawyer grabs her by the arm and tells her that he knows her secret.  She wants to escape on the raft because she is a wanted woman.  Kate responds to his threats with a threat of her own- if she wants his spot, she'll get it.

  At the raft, Walt asks his dad why Sawyer wants on the raft so badly.  Michael replies, "Because he knows it's going to work."  Walt tries to make sure that they will come back and resuce everyone else but as Michael tries to explain that finding the island again might be hard, he suddenly keels over and gets violently ill.

  Walt runs off to find Jack but finds Kate and Sun first.  Kate takes the Jack-finding baton and runs into the jungle.  (I think I used that line already.  Somebody check the archives)  Anyway, Jack might be pretty tough to find since he is still at the hatch.  He asks Locke why he has been digging up the hatch for three weeks and never told him about it.  Not 'why didn't you tell anyone' but 'why didn't you tell ME'.  Locke notices this distinction and says he doesn't have to report to Jack.  Jack calls him a liar, so Locke counters with Jack's withholding of the gun case.  Point taken, Jack switches gears and asks how to open the hatch.  This question sends Sayid into a hissy fit because he brought Jack out there to help talk Locke out of opening it.  Sayid is convinced that a hatch with no handle is not meant to be opened from the outside.

  As the three men make their way back to the beach, Kate finds them and tells them about Michael.  Jack makes a routine examination and tells Michael to lay down and relax.  This does not sit well with Mike, who wants to launch the raft tomorrow.  Jack walks off and Kate takes over tending to Michael, which gives her a chance to flashback to Tom's house.  As Tom schedules an MRI for Diane, Kate stares longingly at all the pictures of Tom and his happy family.  With a few hours to kill, Kate decides that they should go on a mysterious night time dig under a big tree.

  Jack and Locke discuss what could have made Michael sick so quickly.  Jack inspects the water bottles and reveals his suspicions of poison.  After waiting patiently for the commercials to end, Jack takes this information to Michael, who suspects Sawyer.

  Jack approaches Locke, who is questioning Hurley about the goings on around the raft.  As Hurley tells Jack about Kate's desire to replace Sawyer onthe raft, he lets it slip in front of Locke that Kate is a fugitive.  Locke raises his eyebrow and questions Jack's decision to not tell everyone else about Kate's potentially threatening past.  Hurley is just frustrated that he can't keep track of who knows what.

  Elsewhere, Charlie is still excited- he is feeling musically inspired.  So much so that he has to continue to play the guitar as Claire tries to give him a haircut.  He invites Claire to stay with him when they get back to L.A.  Then he continues to write his new album: Track 2 is called 'Monster Eats the Pilot'.

  At Cavetown, Kate asks Jack if someone is going to take Michael's place on the raft- a question that could not possibly come off more suspicious.  Jack asks her if she poisoned Michael and she gets offended.  She walks away and resumes her flashback in mid-dig.  She finds what she is looking for and pulls up a small box.  They lean against the car and open their time capsule.  Tom seems particularly excited to see his toy plane.  They find a cassette tape from 1989 and get in the car to listen to it.  The tape was made on August 15th, 1989...you know, 8/15, and it reveals that Kate was pretty much "born to run" as she talks about how she is leaving as soon as she gets her license.  Kate and Tom look sad for a moment over how things turned out and then kiss inappropriately.

  Walt finds Locke to speak to him privately.  He wants to make sure that Locke doesn't think he poisoned his father just because he torched the first raft.  Locke reassures him that he knows Walt would never hurt his dad.  As he touches the boy on the arm, Walt takes a Christoper Walken-esque trip to the Dead Zone and shouts, "Don't open it!"  Locke looks confused as the boy runs off.

  Back at the beach, Sawyer tosses Michael some Pepto which leads Mike to conclude that he feels guilty.  He tosses the bottle back and tells Sawyer that he is off the raft.  Sawyer is shocked and angry at the accusation that he is a criminal, so he grabs Kate and pulls her forcibly into the conversation.  She tries to play innocent but Sawyer grabs her bag and takes out Joanna's ID.  He tells everyone within shouting distance that Kate was going to use the dead woman's ID as part of her escape plan on the raft. 

  As Sawyer continues to spew the cold hard truth, Kate flashes back to the hospital where she is visiting Diane, who she addresses as Mom.  Mom is a little out of it but weeps with recognition that Katherine has come to visit her.  This tender moment is ruined when Mom really puts things together and starts shouting for help.  Kate is forced to flee from the commotion.  She knocks out the security guard who tries to stop her, then she and Tom head for the parking lot.  The cops block the exit to the garage and Kate begs Tom to get out of the car.  He won't do it, so Kate guns it and plows through her obstacles to freedom.  The police open fire and eventually Kate crashes into the side of another car.  Tom has died during this action sequence and though Kate is extremely upset, she has no choice but to leave him and run for it.

  Sawyer snaps her out of her thoughts and she is forced to admit the truth.  Namely, that she was the prisoner on board Flight 815.  Her implied innocence doesn't stop everyone from stepping back from her as if criminal behavior was contagious.

  Later, Jack approaches Sun and gets her to admit that she poisoned the water in the hopes that Jin would get sick and not be able to leave.  Jack says he won't tell anyone, but she should accept the fact that her husband is going.

  That night, Kate is stirring the fire when Sawyer stops by to tell her that he is back on the raft.  She mocks happiness for him and asks if he is there to apologize.  He makes no apologies, however, feeling that she cornered him.  Kate asks him why he wants to leave so badly which allows Sawyer to throw in one last stomach punch- "There ain't anything on this island worth staying for."

  Elsewhere, Walt runs up to his dad and admits that he was the one who burned down the raft because he didn't want to leave.  Michael is stunned but forgives his son and tells him that they don't have to go.  Walt has changed his tune, however, and says oh yes they do have to leave.  Whatever he envisioned in that hatch must be a doozy.

  Suns sits down for a chat with Kate and tells her that Jack knows about the poison but she didn't tell him it was Kate's idea.  Kate tells Sun that Jack is good at keeping secrets.  Sun says that when she was a little girl, she imagined that when she found the man she loved she would be happy forever.  Kate looks sad and says, "Me too."  The End

  Next week on LOST:  Danielle Rousseau enters camp with the news that The Others are coming and our heroes have three choices: run, hide, or die.