Lost: Season 4, Episode 4 "Eggtown" Review

 "No use having in having rules if there's no punishment for breaking them."

-John Locke

"Eggtown" picks up with Locke (Terry O'Quinn) having locked Ben (Michael Emerson) in the basement of his house at the Barracks.  Meanwhile, Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is hanging around because she wants to find out how much the people on the freighter know about her.  She asks Locke if she can speak to Miles (Ken Leung), but Locke refuses.  Kate tricks Hurley (Jorge Garcia) into revealing where Miles is being held.  She and Miles make a deal; if she gets him one minute to speak to Ben, he will tell everything he knows about her.

Kate gets Sawyer (Josh Holloway) to distract Locke and get him out of the house, so she can bring Miles in to see Ben.  Miles offers to tell his employer that Ben is dead in exchange for 3.2 million dollars and gives him one week to come up with the money.  Miles then tells Kate that the people on the freighter know all about her criminal recored and that she's a fugitive.  Locke catches both of them.  He banishes Kate from the Barracks and ties Miles up with a grenade in his mouth.

Kate spends the night with Sawyer, who offers to let her stay with him no matter what Locke says.  When Sawyer expresses relief that Kate isn't pregnant, she gets angry and leaves the Barracks.

At the beach, Jack (Matthew Fox), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Daniel (Jeremy Davies), and Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) arrive, but Jack has a difficult time getting ahold of the freighter.  When they finally do get through, they learn that the helicopter has not arrived.

In flashbacks, Kate goes to trial for her crimes while on the run.  With Kate's mother, Diane (Beth Broderick) testifying against her, Kate doesn't have much hope and won't let her lawyer put her son on the stand to generate sympathy.  Jack is brought in as a character witness who describes how Kate saved him and the 6 other survivors of the plane crash.

Diane approaches Kate and says she will not testify if she can meet her grandson.  Kate refuses.  Diane decides not to testify anyway.  A deal is made and Kate takes 10 years probation and agrees to not leave the state.  Jack meets with her and reveals he still loves her, but Kate says they can't be together unless he can accept her son.  When she gets home, her son is revealed to be Aaron (William Blanchette).

What Works:

While as a whole, "Eggtown" isn't a spectacular episode it has a lot of smaller scenes that work wonderfully.  I love the scene where Kate tricks Hurley into giving up Miles' location and we also get an all-time Locke moment when he puts a grenade in Miles' mouth.  It's some amazing stuff.

We don't spend a lot of time on the beach in this episode, but the final moment with this story is chilling.  Why hasn't the helicopter made it to the freighter?  What happened?  Three of Lost's best characters are on that chopper.  Is Lapidus okay?  

I'm a sucker for courtroom dramas, so seeing Lost go into Law & Order was fine by me.  Jack's testimony of lies is another really intriguing moment of the flash-forwards.  Why is he lying?  It's another moment that really ramps up the excitement to figure out what exactly happened to get us here.

Finally, the reveal that Kate is now raising Aaron blew my mind the first time I watched this episode.  Even more disturbing implications!  What happened to Claire!?  In short, this episode does a great job of setting up and continuing to develop intriguing mysteries for the season ahead.

What Sucks:

The problem with this Kate-centric episode is...you guessed it...Kate.  She is incredibly frustrating in this episode just because she is so bad at communicating and thinking things though.  All she had to do was tell Locke "Hey, I want to talk to Miles just to find out if they are aware of my criminal history."  If she told him why, I'm pretty confident he would have been ok with it.  Nothing Kate wanted to know was some big secret from the Oceanic 815 survivors.  The entire conflict between her and Locke was entirely preventable.

Not to mention she refuses to communicate with Sawyer about anything and slaps him when he calls her out on her bulls**t.

Even in the flash-forwards, she refuses to put Aaron on the stand or let Diane meet him to avoid jail time.  Yeah, I get your mom sucks, but let her meet Aaron once and you don't go to jail and can be with Aaron!  Think about things for more than a second Kate!

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For "Eggtown," I'm giving this award to Kate even with all of my complaining about her.  Despite her lack of communication, she managed to trick Hurley, get Miles in to see Ben, and learn what she wanted to know.  Plus, there weren't any other good candidates, so Kate wins by default.  This is Kate's 4th time winning this award, which ties her for 6th place with Sawyer and Desmond.

Verdict:

As per usual, Kate is a very frustrating character and this being a Kate episode means there are more than a few frustrating moments.  That said, there are a few all-time amazing moments and a lot of great development for the ongoing mysteries.  Despite Kate's best attempts, this episode has still got it going on.

 8/10: Really Good