Follow along! The episode guide for “Born to Run” is in Finding Lost, pp. 138-141.I LOVE this Kate flashback. I know I’m always asking shippers to try to keep their thoughts to themselves when it comes to the Jate or Skate ships on Lost, but now I can finally admit why: because I couldn’t care if she ends up with either one. I’ve always been a Tate. Tom is so dear to me, I heart him immensely, and so does Kate. You can see the ease with which she hangs out with him or talks to him. She never has to pretend who she is around him, because he knows his Katie better than anyone. I've often wondered if the reason she can't find love with Sawyer or Jack is because she's always been trying to find Tom again, and neither one of them can live up to him completely. I’m always heartbroken in this episode, even when I know what’s coming.
Fun things I noticed:
• So many Kate flashbacks involve cornfields.
• I still laugh out loud at “This is the second track, and it’s called Monster Eats the Pilot.” Ha!!
• I never noticed Sawyer’s racist tendencies so much before. Notice how he always calls Sayid and Jin “Boy” but he never uses that condescending word on anyone else.
• I’ve always been deeply annoyed by the scene where everyone turns their back on Kate and walks away from her, and CLAIRE is one of them. I mean, hello?? Kate just delivered your baby about 48 hours ago. You can’t cut her a little slack for cripe’s sake? Claire will continue to prove herself to be a fair-weather friend. Watch how Charlie moves in and out of her good graces as the tides change. Sheesh.
• Jack tells Sun that he doesn’t see any reason why everyone else should know what she did. Only, you know, that it might clear Kate’s name, since they now all assume she did it? Thanks, Jack. Between Sawyer exposing Kate in this episode and then Jack covering up the real perpetrator, once again these two men undermine Kate the way they did in “Whatever the Case May Be.” It’s a wonder there are any ships at all. If I were her, I’d be just throwing in the towel on both of them at this point.
Things that have new meaning:
• Charlie’s actually absolutely right about the Drive Shaft album shooting up the charts because the world thinks he’s dead. He’s not so right about coming back alive, though. Wah.
• Walt telling Locke not to open the hatch is even creepier now in season 5 than it was at the time. Pretty much everything that has happened to them since then was because they opened that hatch. Though… the Others were separate from it, and as we’ll see in season 2, were already kidnapping the survivors before the hatch had been opened. But the hatch explosion changes who Desmond is, and because of how important he seems to be now and his link to Daniel, Walt could be hinting at him. Hmm… now I’m wondering if all the chaos of Pandora’s Box could be Desmond himself? (In which case, I’m happy to live in chaos. *cough*)
• To continue that thought, one worry fans have had for some time is that we’ve seen the last of Walt. He didn’t come back to the island, his specialness seems to have been made out to be something big in the beginning and then dropped when he left the island at the end of season 2. But maybe this is what it was meant for. Because he was special, he could see what Locke was doing, and he could warn him that he’s about to do something bad. This is the first time Locke gets advice from someone he trusts (and he does trust Walt’s instinct) and refuses to follow it, getting himself in trouble for his efforts. Walt is kidnapped at the end of the season, which spurs on Michael’s actions right to the end of season 2 and gives us an early indication of the Others and what they’re about (they probably gave Walt the specialness test they tried to give Locke in “Cabin Fever”). And then after a lot of bad things happen, Walt leaves. Do we really need to know more about him? Hasn’t he already proved himself to be a pretty interesting character with an important gift?
• Walt tells Locke not to open the hatch, which made me wonder just how much he could see. Is he like Chuck Bartowski, and he can see a flash like Chuck’s Intersect flashes, that show in rapid succession everything that’s going to happen on the island? Could he see the entire future that way?
• This is such a sad, sweet ending, with Kate remembering her childhood sweetheart and holding the plane and realizing what was lost. If you haven’t gone and watched the childhood video in preparation for season 6 yet, go do so after watching this ep. It’ll break your heart (in a good way).
