Image from Lost: Left Behind
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Mania Grade: A
Episode: Left Behind
Stars: Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Mathew Fox, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell
Created By: JJ Abrams, Damon Lindelof

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"Lost: Left Behind"

There’s a pattern forming on LOST and I must admit I like it.  See, it goes like this, let’s get Hurley to mess with Sawyer.  On the beach, Hurley approached Sawyer and told him that the castaways are having a vote the next day on whether to banish Sawyer from the beach or not.  At first, Sawyer acts as if he doesn’t care but after trying to handle a fish on his own and feeling alone he goes to Hurley and asks him what to do to turn things around.  So, Hurley sets Sawyer on an amusing campaigning tour that includes complimenting Claire’s baby and culminates with a BBQ boar feast.  Eventually, Sawyer catches on that there was no planned vote at all.  Before he can get angry, Hurley explains that with Jack, Kate and Sayid away that Sawyer has to be the leader and he needed to be nice to get people to follow him.  After stepping back for a minute Sawyer actually enjoys making everyone happy.  As has been the case for the past several episodes, this part of the episode made a nice light hearted parallel to the rest of the episode which included a flashback for Kate. 

Kate’s flashback picks up after she has killed her stepfather, escaped from the Marshall, and she’s on her way to visit her mother to find out why her own mother would turn her in.  She meets Cassidy, Sawyer’s long con, the woman that ended up being pregnant with Sawyer’s baby.  Cassidy has just been conned by Sawyer and she relates to Kate’s situation and decides to help Kate get past the FBI to visit her mother.  Kate finally talks to her mother, Diane, and asks why she turned in her own daughter.  Diane explains that even though he beat her that she loved Kate’s stepfather that Kate took the only man from her that she ever loved.  Kate says that she did it for her and Diane says that Kate in fact did it for herself.  This back-story gives weight to the current situation on the island where Kate went back to save Jack from the Others even though he told her not too and like in the flashback Kate’s attempt only made things worse.  

At the camp of the Others, Kate is still tied up in the game room.  Locke enters the room and tells her he is leaving with the Others.  He tells her that he’s not leaving the island because he doesn’t want to; he’s just going to a new destination with the Others.  It’s funny with Locke because it almost seems like he’s going to heaven or something because he obviously feels that he’s going to a better place and he tells Kate that he made an argument for her to go too but after the Others inform him of what she did he understood why she couldn’t go.  Locke has gotten very condescending when it comes to the island and feels he deserves everything that the island offers.  Remember he even felt that Ben didn’t deserve the island’s magic because Ben wasn’t getting healed like Locke did but then Ben revealed daddy and Locke changed his tune.  So, Locke leaves and Kate gets gassed. 

When Kate wakes in the forest she finds herself cuffed to Juliette and a c-c-cat fight follows leaving Juliette with a dislocated arm.  Kate is again determined to go back to the base to find Jack and Sayid.  She learns from Juliette that Jack saw her and Sawyer have their little tryst in the zoo and it broke his heart and that’s the real reason he told her not to come back and help him.  Jack never verbalized this but I believe it to be true based on his actions previously and in this episode.  Kate also learns that the Others know about the smoke monster but they didn’t create it and that they don’t know what it is.  The smoke monster can’t penetrate those sonic barriers set up on the perimeter of the Others base though.  When the smoke monster chases them Kate discovers that Juliette had cuffed herself to Kate in an attempt to make Kate believe that Juliette had not only been left behind but she was also in the same boat with the Others as Kate.  Now, I don’t necessarily believe that Juliette was just left behind like Kate, Jack, and Sayid, or at least not for the same reasons.  Why were Sayid and Jack gassed and left in the Others camp but Juliette and Kate left in the forest a good distance away from the base?  Was it simply to delay Kate from getting to Jack and Sayid quick enough to organize a pursuit of the Others?  If that’s the case, was Juliette supposed to help delay them?  It’s all very fishy to me and I don’t trust Juliette.  Once Jack and Sayid and Kate are all back together Jack tells them that Juliette is coming back with them, against Sayid’s better judgment.  It’s going to be very interesting to see Juliette back at camp knowing what she does about every other castaway.  Also, I’m sure Sawyer will have a bone to pick with her too.  I have to talk about the reunion of Jack and Kate for a second.  When Kate finds Jack she apologizes because she knows what she did to Jack, breaking his heart and destroying his chance of getting home (because she brought Locke along for the rescue) all because she had to again save someone that didn’t want to be saved.  As I mentioned earlier her flashback did a great job of deepening this scene between her and Jack. 

Left Behind was a set up episode for the next leg of the story and along with the set up there was some good humor and some more expansion on the mythology, all things considered a very solid episode.  It was good to see the smoke monster again and to hear some discussion of it from an Other, although based on Juliette’s attempt to lie about it before admitting knowing about it makes it easy to believe she hasn’t come near to revealing everything she knows yet.