Most episodes of “Lost” are usually filled with the kind of “wow” moments that make for great water cooler discussion, but in the case of tonight’s episode, it was a different kind of “wow” – as in “Wow, that was kind of boring.” I’m not exactly sure this was the best way to follow up such an eventful season premiere, because while I’m all for the slow burn of discovering what’s going on with this mirror universe (henceforth to be known as Earth-2 for all my fellow geeks out there), Kate’s stroll around L.A. didn’t seem to really achieve anything – at least, not to her benefit anyway. In fact, while I’ve expressed my displeasure for almost every Kate-centric story thus far, this had to be one of the worst.
Why? Well, because with the exception of a funny cameo by Artz, Kate’s entire Earth-2 storyline was a bit lackluster. There was definitely a feeling of déjà vu from when Kate took Claire to the DHARMA medical facility in Season Two, but what really tied the hospital visit together was the arrival of Claire’s doctor, who turned out to be none other than Ethan Rom, going by his given surname of Goodspeed. I guess that means the island sunk before he returned, which lends credit to the theory that the detonation of the hydrogen bomb is what caused it. Then again, if the bomb was detonated on the Earth-1 version of the island, why did it sink the one in Earth-2? It looks like we won’t know that answer for a while, so for the time being, we’ll just have to accept the fact that the only thing we really learned tonight was that Claire is probably going to keep her baby. The fact that she unconsciously had the name Aaron picked out for him also seems to indicate that there might be some kind of shared knowledge between the two worlds.
I’m certainly hoping that’s the case, because the Earth-1 story is totally kicking Earth-2’s ass at the moment. Even the scenes between Kate and Sawyer were better, as Josh Holloway got a chance to show off his acting chops with arguably his character’s most emotional scene yet. It’ll be interesting to see if he retains any semblance of the leader he became during his relationship with Juliet, because it’s only been a few hours since he lost the woman he loved and already he’s slipping back into his old self. It didn’t take him very long to hang his friends out to dry, so we probably shouldn’t expect him to be much of a team player this season.
Meanwhile, the resurrection of Sayid is causing quite a stir around the temple, and though Jack wants answers, Dogen the temple master simply wants him to stay out of his way. After putting Sayid through some sort of test that included a little shock therapy and a hot branding (ah, the torturer becomes the tortured), Dogen comes to the conclusion that Sayid is infected. Infected by what, however, he won’t exactly say, but that doesn’t stop him from trying to convince Jack to give Sayid a mysterious pill that will “cure” him. When Jack refuses and takes the pill himself, Dogen forces him to spit it out before finally admitting that it’s poison. So what’s this mysterious infection that has taken over Sayid’s body? My guess is that it’s the same “sickness” Rousseau’s been preaching about for years. Dogen even tells Jack that the same thing happened to his sister Claire, and from the looks of the gun-toting Aussie in the final seconds, I’d say he might be on to something.
