Lost: Season 1 Episode 12 "Whatever the Case May Be" Review:

"If you pick the lock on a Halliburton, I'll put you on my back and fly us to L. A."

-Michael Dawson

In the 12th episode of Lost, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) discover a lagoon and a waterfall and decide to go swimming.  They find a part of their airplane in the bottom of the lagoon as well as some bodies and a briefcase that Kate says belongs to her.  Sawyer deduces she is lying and takes the case with no protest from Kate.  Sawyer tries and fails repeatedly to get the case opened while Kate tires to get the case away from him.  Sawyer eventually offers to give it to her if she will tell him what's inside, but she refuses.

Kate goes to Jack (Matthew Fox) and tells him that the case belonged to the Marshal escorting her back to the U.S. and that there are four guns inside.  She also says the key is in the Marshal's wallet, which is buried with his corpse.  Jack presses Kate to find out what else is inside, but she denies that there is anything.  They dig up the corpse and Jack catches Kate trying to take the key without him knowing and takes it from her. He then threatens to stop giving Sawyer his antibiotics for his stab wound unless he gives up the case.  Sawyer relents and Jack and Kate open it.  Besides the guns, there is a toy place inside.  Kate tries to leave without telling Jack what it is, but she eventually tells him the plane belonged to the man she killed.

Meanwhile, the tide has shifted suddenly and violently and is eroding at the beach near the plane crash.  The castaways are forced to move to a new beach away from the plane.  Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) is still depressed about the kidnapping of Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and isn't helping with the move.  Rose (L. Scott Caldwell) manages to guilt him into helping her.  The two of them talk a lot and that evening Charlie breaks down in front of her.  Rose comforts him and they pray together.

Sayid (Naveen Andrews) recruits Shannon (Maggie Grace) to help translate the notes written by the the French woman.  The translations are nonsensical and Sayid and Shannon become more and more frustrated and part ways angrily, but later Shannon approaches Sayid and tells him they are actually song lyrics.

In flashbacks, we see Kate, under the name Maggie Ryan, in a bank applying for a loan, when several robbers break in.  We learn that Kate is actually working with the robbers and when the leader, Jason (Victor Browne), attempts to kill the bank manager, Kate shoots and wounds all of the thieves.  She reveals she wasn't actually after the money, but a safety deposit box containing the same toy plane.

What Sucks:

I'll be starting with what sucks this time because "Whatever the Case May Be" is my least favorite episode of the first season of Lost.  This episode wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't for the timing.  The previous episode gave us two excellent story threads: the kidnapping of Claire and the discovery of something metal buried in the ground by Locke (Terry O'Quinn) and Boone (Ian Somerhalder).  We make exactly zero progress on either of the those stories and it's frustrating.  We even see Locke and Boone going off to the metal thing, but we don't learn anything new.  There was a one month gap between this episode and the previous one.  To wait that long for a new episode only to get this was extremely disappointing.  Had it aired at a different point in the season, I would like this episode more.  The stories we did get in "Whatever the Case May Be" weren't great in all honesty.  The cartoon cat-and-mouse games played between Sawyer and Kate simply weren't that interesting.  I didn't care all that much about what was in the case.  I wanted to get back to the more interesting storylines.

Kate is incredibly frustrating in this episode.  First she claims the case is hers, but immediately gives it up to Sawyer without any protest only to repeatedly try and steal it back from him.  Why not just hold onto it in the first place?  When Sawyer makes the deal to give her the case if she tells him what is in it, I understand why Kate doesn't tell him.  Sawyer should not be aware of the guns, but you could at least lie about it.  Make something up, isn't that what you're good at Kate?  Her interactions with Jack are also extremely frustrating.  This whole conflict could have been solved easily by her saying, "Jack, there are guns in the case.  There is also a personal item that is very important to me.  As my friend, would you help me with this?"  She didn't have to lie and manipulate Jack into doing this for her and it doesn't make any sense why she did.

The ultimate reveal of both the flashbacks and the case is disappointing as well.  We have no idea what the toy plane is and it makes the whole thing seem rather pointless.  We eventually do learn what the significance of the plane is, but, in hindsight, it doesn't make this episode much more interesting.

What Works:

All that said, I like both Holloway's and Fox's performances in this episode.  All of Sawyer's actions actually make sense and you can tell he's kind of enjoying Kate trying to take the case from him.  In rewatching the scene where Jack and Kate dig up the Marshal's corpse, I found watching Jack to be very interesting.  He's eyeing Kate the entire time hoping that she won't end up lying to him.  His quick turn to feeling betrayed is excellent and well acted by Fox.

The scenes with Charlie and Rose were very sweet and by far the best parts of the episode.  This story did feel like a decent follow-up to what happened with Charlie in the previous episode.  Taking a moment to show the deep effect these events had on Charlie was great.

Finally, I did enjoy the scenes between Sayid and Shannon.  They have such an odd dynamic that it's interesting.  While I don't love where this story goes in the rest of Lost, I still liked what we got here even if it doesn't add much to the mythos.

Platinum Polar Bear:

One could make an argument that since Kate found guns for the camp, she should win the Platinum Polar Bear, which goes to the most useful character in a given episode, but she was so frustrating that I can't, in good conscious, give it to her.  Instead, the award goes to Rose for helping to get Charlie out of his funk and to make some progress on coming to terms with what has transpired.  This is Rose's first time winning the award.

Verdict:

While "Whatever the Case May Be" is my least favorite episode of season one, I still enjoy it somewhat.  The side-plots are solid and both Matthew Fox and Josh Holloway do a good job.  It's mostly just Kate's frustrating behavior that bring this episode down as well as the uninteresting story while ignoring the really juicy storylines.

 6/10: Okay