LOST- Claire's Return

It seems that when our good friends Lindelof and Cuse said that this final season of Lost would resemble the first season, they weren't joking around. When we started with the Oceanic 815ers, the story telling would switch back and forth between the chaos that was occurring on The Island* and the back story of a certain character by way of a flash back. As we begin to conclude the greatness that has been this series, the story telling is of a similar fashion. Only now it seems they will switch back and forth between the chaos that is occurring on The Island and a quasi-back story of a certain character by way of the parallel universe.

*EW's Doc Jensen asked his Twitter followers if it was supposed to be The Island, the island or the Island and The Island won the vote.

Last night that certain character was Kate. And in her parallel reality where Oceanic 815 does not crash found her fleeing for freedom by way of a cab driven by the Puppet Master. The only part of this story that had any significance was the fact that Claire was involved throughout. She was in the cab that Kate commandeered, and Ms. Austen eventually made her way back to the pregnant Aussie in order to return her stolen bag of baby stuff. The problem was that Claire began her labor and needed Kate to help her get through it. Of course Kate, being the extremely nice murderer that she is, helped Claire get through her tough time in the hospital. The connection between these two is important because back in the parallel universe that we know and love, Kate took care of Claire's baby Aaron after leaving The Island as part of the Oceanic Six. Whatever the case may be, all this parallel story did was take away from the intrigue that was the story on The Island.

Of course I am upset that we did not get to see what was going on with the Man In Black, Linus and Richard, but the people on the list made for some good stuff at The Temple. The most interesting aspect of this whole episode was the dynamic between Dogen (Asian Temple Leader), Lennon, Jack and Sayid. Jack, like a sane person, wants to find answers for why Sayid is alive and why The Temple people have them captive. Obviously Dogen is all about secrets and won't say a word (of English anyway).

Dogen and Lennon explain that they need to take Sayid for a moment, now that he is once again alive. In their back room, Dogen just tortures him for a bit* and then sends him on his merry way. Lennon explains to Sayid that they were testing him and he passed. He then admits to Dogen that he just lied to Sayid about passing. So he failed the test? Why because he could feel the pain of the hot poker? So after failing this so called test, their next move is to kill him by way of poison? Interesting. What is the reasoning for all this? They go through all the effort of saving his life in the Magic Water, and then they go ahead and want to mirk him with poison?

*My first thought was that they were going to do to everyone on the list the bad things that they have done to others. So after they finished torturing Sayid, they would murder Kate, con Sawyer out of money, operate on Jack's back, marry Jin and then be a jerk to him, and then win the lottery with unlucky numbers which causes bad things to happen to only Hurley.

Instead of giving Sayid the poison like Dogen wants him to, Jack needs to find out what it is first. His attempt to swallow the pill has Dogen immediately giving him the heimlich in order to save him from the poison Jack is about to intake. Why is Jack so important to keep alive, but Sayid needs to be dead? Aren't they both on the list?

The Temple story finishes with Dogen explaining to Jack that Sayid has been claimed, which led to this fantastic moment from the wise man, "There's a darkness growing in him and once it reaches his heart, everything your friend once was will be gone." Jack of course asks the question of how does this dude know this. Dogen's response, "It happened to your sister (Claire)."

Cue Claire at the end of the episode sniping two of The Others beating up Jin. How hard was she, looking like a little Rousseau-esque. Although the title of the episode was What Kate Does, it seems this episode was almost more about Claire with her role in Kate's parallel story, and the fact that we see her on The Island for the first time in forever.

Other Thoughts

-Two mentions of people being on the list in this episode. When Sawyer is trying to leave The Temple, Dogen simply states, "You have to stay." Again, for some reason all of the people on this list have to be at The Temple. Then we had the two dude that were trying to keep track of Kate and Jin. One of them claimed "He's one of them," about Jin. Again this has to be about him being on what we think is Jacob's List. What all of them are need for is yet to be figured out.

-Could Sawyer get any better? This dude is so ridiculously hard as he makes his way out of The Temple with his gun pointed at all of The Others. He then gets back to Dharmaville where he finds the ring that he was going to use to propose to Juliet and starts to shed some. Then he up and chucks the ring into the the water. Stud.

-Sawyer explains why Sayid gets to come back from the dead. "He's an Iraqi torturer who shoots kids. He definitely deserves another go around."

-Miles jokes about what the audience was thinking the entire first episode of the season. "As you can see, Hugo has assumed the leadership position...so that's pretty great."

Anyone have any new theories?