LOST Revisited- Season 2, Episodes 9 and 10

Season 2, Episodes 9 and 10- “What Kate Did” and “The 23^rd Psalm”

Summary:

Kate is shown blowing up her drunken, abusive father Wayne. She is soon captured by the marshal but he is run off the road by a black horse, and Kate escapes. She visits her father, Sgt. Sam Austen, and they discuss Wayne and how Sam has to call the authorities on her. Kate keeps watch over Sawyer but freaks out when he appears to be channeling Wayne, and she sees the black horse in the jungle. When Sawyer recovers, they both see the horse this time. Shannon is buried, and Eko presents Locke with the missing splice of the orientation video that he found in the Arrow. The new segment shows Marvin Candle expressly forbidding the use of the computer for outside communication. Soon after, Michael finds messages on the computer and learns that it appears to be Walt on the other end.

Some warlords attack Eko’s childhood village and force his brother Yemi to execute a man, but Eko does it for him instead. Years later, Eko is now a drug-smuggling warlord and plans to smuggle it out using a Catholic missionary Beechcraft. Yemi, now a priest, is approached to help with the scam but he is outraged. As the contraband is loaded into the plane, Yemi arrives to talk him down but the military arrives and a gunfight ensues. Yemi is hit and Goldie pushes Eko off the plane as they take off. The military confuses him for an actual priest. Claire tells Eko that Charlie carries around a Virgin Mary statue, and Eko reveals that there is heroin inside. He demands Charlie take him to the plane. On their journey, the monster finds them and Eko stares down the large cloud of black smoke, before it turns around. Locke sets a new combination to the gun closet and shows Michael how to shoot. Michael attempts to communicate with Walt again. Charlie and Eko find the plane, and Eko finds Yemi’s body inside. They burn the plane. Claire asks Charlie not to be around her anymore, and we see Charlie has a stash of several statues in the jungle.

Review:

Mercifully, this is the only Kate episode in season two. Unmercifully, it’s still not that great. The big-ticket draw should be the flashback exposing Kate’s original crime, one of the original mysteries of the show, but the reveal is dropped in at the beginning with little build-up or reason to care. Sure, Wayne is made to be an asshole, and a drunken one at that, but do we have enough rage pent up for him that we are just dying to see his house blow up? No. For a better execution, see Anthony Cooper in “The Brig”. They could have done more with Kate’s mom, and the emotional anguish could have come through her instead, but we just spend most of the flashback evading the marshal. A wasted opportunity to dig deep into Kate’s backstory.

I could have done without the channeling-through-Sawyer thing. Never been a fan of those moments, and they never go anywhere with them. Nah, the episode is saved from the bottom by the crackling Locke and Eko chemistry. Two towering figures who were the spiritual gurus of their respective camps now meet to discuss the Bible and mystery stuff. Eko’s speech about the temple and the Bible sounds so much more impressive coming from the soft, rich voice of Adewale Akinnyouye-Agbaje, although it’s meaning to the show is hazy, at best. The point is that people are driven by faith, not money. The faith-driven mission is common in “Lost”, but what money is there as an alternative? Is it safety? Supplies? Well, regardless, the end result of this monologue is to present Locke with the missing film splice, which warns against using the computer. Cut to Michael using the computer. It’s a little confusing, since the clip warns of a danger, but Eko and Locke treat its return as some kind of miracle, but they’re never the ones that have to make the dangerous choice. It’s like the plot points are out-of-sync with the character arcs. Still not sure what to make of it, other than to show the two sides need to work together and combine resources to get a grip on this whole thing. But, it’s better than Kate’s horse.

While we ended 2005 on a bit of a down note, 2006 opens with a bang. “The 23^rd Psalm” was my favorite episode until “Live Together, Die Alone”, and for good reason. It ties in a couple key reveals of the island mythology with an emotional backstory that instantly makes Eko a top-tier character. His journey from warlord to priest is compelling and the scene of him and Yemi as young boys (before everything went bad) helps ground their relationship so that when he finds Yemi’s decomposed body in the plane it’s actually quite sad. Eko feels guilt over what happened to his brother so he takes it upon himself to be the priest that he was responsible for removing from the world. The answer to the Beechcraft mystery works because it’s not just a factual revelation, it’s an emotional reunion of sorts. I now care about the plane because it represents a heavy burden on Eko’s conscience. (Side note: Michael goes to Locke for target practice, sort of like how Locke taught Walt target practice with the knife.)

I was floored when we finally got the full smoke monster reveal because I had not heard a whisper of it beforehand. It’s not given large fanfare, just a soft, ominous gurgling from Smokey as he stares down Eko. This is the first time the monster is stood up to, and if you weren’t onboard the Eko train at this point then there’s no hope for you. The return of Charlie’s heroin temptations had potential to cross-pollinate with Eko’s redemption story but they don’t fully pivot to that point, and it loses steam in retrospect because we know that Charlie’s big episode coming up is…not so great. But that’s nitpicky, because “The 23^rd Psalm” is a fantastic episode of “Lost”, and one of the best non-finale installments. Really makes you wish Eko lasted to season 6.

Connecting the Dots:

Sayid appears on Sgt. Austen’s TV. They met in the Gulf War but why would he be on TV over a decade later?

Lindelof and Cuse referred to the black horse as “undead” in their post-episode podcast but that’s just…unnecessary. I can’t imagine it’s the monster, because for what reason would it assume that form, and not do anything? The easiest explanation is it escaped from that farm near the Flame. Despite what Lindelof and Cuse say, I’m just going to stick with that. As for the horse from the flashback, if we want to have it be more than coincidence, you might say Jacob or someone from the island brought it to the mainland to free Kate so she could end up on the plane.

The spliced clip forbids communication, allegedly to remain pure in the “experiment”. DHARMA controlled all of the stations at this time, so I don’t see how it would be that bad to communicate. If it was post-Purge, then sure, you don’t want to be found out by the Others. But this wasn’t post-Purge. Apparently they were very controlling about the flow of info to and from the Swan. Perhaps the rest of DHARMA didn’t know about how serious it was there.

So…why did Radzinky remove the clip? You would remove the clip if you don’t want people to know that using the computer for communication is bad. Meaning: he wants the computer to be used for communication. But why? For himself? Was he chatting with other stations? He was obsessed with making that map, so maybe he was just trying to get a feel for where everything was. But if he spliced it post-Purge, then that means he was totally cool with Kelvin or some other recruit possibly chatting with the Others. Hm…I guess the guy really just went insane. Don’t even ask me why he hid it at the Arrow instead of at the Swan somewhere.

The season 3 DVD confirms that Walt was the one who communicated with Michael. Was it an actual computer or were his powers able to “log on” to it? We get essentially nothing on this development, as far as I’m aware. It could just be Walt throwing his energy out there to see if it grabs onto anything, and being directed towards the Swan’s pocket. Anyone’s guess.

We see some brief images flashing in the monster’s smoke, as it scans Eko’s memories. At the time we didn’t quite know what its purpose was, but now we know he is looking for someone to impersonate. He will soon settle on Yemi.

Ranking:

1.      The 23^rd Psalm (10/10) (A gripping, emotional backstory entwined in an easily-understood theme. An answer to the Beechcraft mystery and a full glimpse of the monster make this one of the best non-finale episodes ever.)

2.      The Other 48 Days (8.5/10)

3.      Orientation (7.5/10)

4.      Man of Science, Man of Faith (7.5/10)

5.      …And Found (6.5/10)

6.      Abandoned (6.5/10)

7.      What Kate Did (6.5/10) (The answer to Kate’s big mystery was not wholly satisfying. And the rest of the episode did not quite make up for it.)

8.      Collision (6.5/10)

9.      Everybody Hates Hugo (6.5/10)

10.  Adrift (5/10)

Next time: Camping with Zeke, and Locke gets physical.