What to expect when you're not really expecting[Editor's Note: Down the Hatch is divided into two sections - an in-depth recap of last week's show and an analysis portion that offers insight and theories about the episode. To skip straight to the analysis portion, click here.]
First and foremost, my apologies ahead of time for the unusual truncation of my sometimes-verbose ramblings. This is a busy week for me and since this week's episode wasn't completely filled to the brim with minute details we should go over with a fine-tooth comb, I am just going to cut some of the fat off this pig. I'm sure some of your eyes could use the break. At any rate, this week brought us "Eggtown," which has to rank up there with one of the strangest titles in Lost's four seasons. What does it have to do with the content? Beats the hell out of me, unless they're talking about women's reproductive systems. The episode was chock-full of goodness, though, so let's get down to it.
Previously, on Lost:
Eye, closed again. It's Locke. He fixes up some good-looking eggs and melon, grabs Phillip K. Dick's book VALIS Locke wants information and chooses to get it in the worst way possible - by playing with Ben's head. It's not long before Ben has planted doubt, self-loathing and pity into Locke's ear with his forked tongue, and an even shorter time before Locke is outside the door, throwing that breakfast against the wall same as he was when Ben was down in the hatch two seasons ago. Locke, goddammit, get it together man. Locke storms out of the house in front of Kate and Claire, who are enjoying a fine cup of Dharma coffee in their Dharma mugs outside their Dharma house. It's not long before Sawyer comes sniffing around like some old Tennessee hound dog, begging for some scraps. Kate makes short work of the ol' confidence man, though, telling him they aren't destined to play house and that she doesn't trust him. "This is about the pregnancy thing," is all Sawyer can add before he has to give it up and head home. Ahh yes, the pregnancy thing. We had almost forgotten about that little nugget from last season. Flash-present time. Kate's dressed in some smashing couture and walking the paparazzi gauntlet into a courthouse, escorted by her lawyer. This is probably the first time in the entire series when Evangeline Lilly was able to wear her normal Rodeo Drive ensemble from off-camera. She looks smashing in white, a sharp contrast to the dull gray of the courtroom she's now standing in. The bailiff reads her rap sheet for about two minutes straight and I wonder how many crimes she didn't commit before hitting the island. She pleads Not Guilty, of course, and we know she probably wins out somehow, seeing as she was able to drive to meet Jack in that little flash-forward without police presence. Back on the beach now. Hey, Sun and Jin are still on the show, look at that! And Jin can speak English pretty well at this point. Quick learner. No time for the Koreans, though, as Jack is back with Charlotte and Dan. Jack then tells Sun that Kate chose to stay with Locke. Speaking of Kate and Locke, they're chatting outside Locke's bungalow now, and Locke has blood on his hands, having just killed a chicken. Yummy. Kate wants to talk to Miles, but that's out of the question, naturally. Kate starts to protest, but Locke informs her that this is not a democracy. "So it's a dictatorship," sulks Kate. "If I were a dictator, I would just shoot you and go on about my day," quips Locke. I don't know if the writers are trying to make Locke seem creepy, but it's damn near impossible, no matter what he says. It takes Kate about two seconds to dupe poor Hurley into telling her where Locke's keeping Miles. "You just totally Scooby-Dooed me, didn't you," says Hurley. Awesome line, says I. Kate pays Miles a visit in the boathouse, and they do a little negotiating after Miles is done being his snarky self. Miles agrees to tell Kate exactly what he knows about her if she can get him one minute with Ben, which seems like the dumbest deal in the history of dumb deals, but Kate's desperate. Back in the present, Kate's lawyer lays the reality smackdown and tells her that if they don't cut a deal then she's going to spend the majority of her life in the pokey. Kate has lost all sense of reality from her time on the island and insists that she won't do time. In order to do that, though, Mr. Lawyer says that they need to make the case about character - they need to bring "him" in. Absolutely not, says Kate. "You are not using my son," says Mama Kate. Wow, maybe Kate really is preggers on the island. Back on the beach, Jack can't get a signal out to the freighter and Charlotte and Dan don't really seem to care, each working, instead, on a refreshing island cocktail at the bamboo bar. Meanwhile, Kate and Claire are doing laundry. Aaron starts crying and Claire asks Kate is she'd mind picking him up. Kate balks. You're gonna have to get past those fears and right quick, Mama. Back in court, Kate's lawyer has a surprise - Dr. Jack Shephard is now a key witness. He's clean-shaven and surprisingly sober. Jack takes the stand and proceeds to paint Kate as the holy Madonna of the Oceanic Six, at least until Kate stands up and says she can't take it anymore. The prosecutor cross-examines and has only one question: Does Jack love Kate? "No. Not anymore," says Jack, painfully. Back on the island, the Oddest Couple - Sawyer and Hurley - are playing house. Sawyer's reading what looks like Jack Kerouac and Hurley is trying to decide what to watch: Xanadu or Satan's Doom. Looks like it's Olivia Newton John night. Kate is soon at the door and she and Hurley start the outlaw shuffle once again. They share some boxed Dharma wine and Sawyer calls Kate on her bullshit, telling her to be woman enough to admit she wants to use him for something, as usual. Yup, she does - she wants him to help her bust Ben out. The traveling house tour continues as Sawyer is at Locke's door now, wanting to play some backgammon. Locke wants to know Sawyer's opinion - if Locke is doing the right thing, if Sawyer is worried about what might happen. Sawyer admits that he'd be a lot more worried if he was sitting on the beach. "And the rest of the group, what are they saying?" asks Locke. "I think they're saying Baaaaa," quips Sawyer. "Good thing about sheep - they're predictable." Kate, not so much, James admits as he tells Locke exactly what Kate is planning. Locke grabs a gun and runs to the boathouse to find... nothing. Of course. Sawyer is just a diversion, while Kate takes Miles down into the basement to meet with Ben.
"Why not 3.3 or 3.4? And what makes you think I have access to that kind of money?" asks Ben. "Do NOT treat me like one of them," yells Miles, obviously forgetting his anger management class. He wants his money in two days, but Ben remarks that it might be a little hard to do that in his current situation. Miles agrees on one week to get the money to him, which should be plenty enough time for Ben to be out of chains and running things on the island once again. Times up, says Kate, and drags Miles back into the hall. She demands to know what Miles knows, at which point he spills the beans that they know everything about her. Miles advises her to stay on the island, just before Locke charges down the stairs and orders her back to her house. Oooh, Daddy's pisssssssed. Patsy Cline's on the ol' Victrola, so that must mean Kate is decompressing back at home. Locke barges in and wants to speak to Kate about her little antics, to which Kate tells him about the money and extortion. Oh, and he also tells her to pack her bags and get her petite little fanny back to Jack and the rest because she's not welcome on his island of misfit toys anymore. Flash-present. Kate's got a few moments in an antechamber off the courtroom. Her mom's wheeled in, wearing oxygen and looking like death eating a cracker. They engage in the usual family banter of a daughter who has murdered her mom's husband and then ran off, got in a plane crash, and then came back several months alive. You know, like most families at Christmas. The long and short of it - Kate's mom doesn't want to testify, Kate doesn't want her to, and her mom wants to see her grandson. Kate's having none of that, though. Back on the island - more specifically, Sawyer's bedroom - Kate has run to James to cry about Locke kicking her out. Sawyer tells her she can stay and they start making kissy faces and then swapping spit. On the beach now, Charlotte and Dan are playing a little precognition game with some playing cards. He correctly guesses two out of three of the cards and is then interrupted by Jack, wanting to know why the hell no one is answering on the boat. Charlotte - whose eyes look especially radiant by the light of the fire, might I add - tells him there's another number that they're only supposed to use in an emergency. Juliet insists that its an emergency, so ol' Red dials it up and gets Regina. Charlotte asks her about Frank and the others and if they're safe. Regina is puzzled. She thought the helicopter was with them. Dun da DUNNNNNNNN. It's morning now in the boathouse and Locke has had it up to here with Miles. He has him tied up and hanging from the ceiling by his hands. What Locke has learned is that there is no sense in having rules if there's no punishment for breaking those rules ... and then he sticks a grenade in Miles' mouth and pulls the pin. Yipes. He'll be fine if he just bites down on the pin. Let's hope Miles' mouth is strong from all that flapping he does. Bed now with Kate and Sawyer. Sawyer wants some nookie, but Kate has a "headache." Or whatever. Ugh. Sawyer chalks it up to her worried about the pregnancy thing, again, to which Kate tells him that she's not worried because she's not pregnant. Sawyer breathes a sigh of relief, which apparently pisses Kate off and she starts to leave. Then, when Sawyer tells her she'll be back after Jack does something to piss her off she smacks him. I'll tell you, if she's not pregnant, she sure seems hormonal enough to be. Flash-present once more, courtroom. The DA is perturbed. Kate's Mom isn't going to testify. Shocker. Now Kate's lawyer and the prosecutor are negotiating, until Kate signs off on an agreement for 10 years probation and a promise not to leave the state. Kate, having won her freedom, decides to let her hair down as she leaves the courthouse. Jack's in the parking garage, waiting for her. They posture like teenagers and Jack tells her that he didn't mean what he said in the courtroom, which gets him an express invitation back to Kate's house. Jack's a little uncomfortable about that, and Kate chalks it up to the baby. It's obvious that Jack's bothered by the baby, maybe because it's Sawyers ... but then again, maybe not. Kate's cab pulls up outside a house. She goes inside and makes her way up the stairs and into the nursery. There're monkeys on the wall. And robots. Awesome. A little tow-headed dude is yawning and coming out of a nap. He seems to be about two or three years old. Kate starts crying, and pulls him to her. "Hey, mummy," the kid says, sleepily. "Hey, Aaron," says Kate. The Oceanic Fifth, says I. Well, holy crap, says America. Cue the thonk! Next time: Sayid, Desmond and Frank are in the chopper, headed straight for a big ass thunderhead. Desmond's screaming, guns are being waved around - yep, must be Tuesday on the island. Oh, and Naomi's still dead. At least for now. We think.
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from the bookshelf (we'll cover that later), and carries it all down to Ben in the basement. Ben disregards the book - he's already read it - to which Locke replies, "You might see something you missed the first time you read it," an obvious ploy by the writers to get us to buy Lost Seasons 1-3, now out on DVD and available on
. Well, maybe.
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