Lost: Season 5, Episode 11 "Whatever Happened, Happened" Review

 "Welcome back to the land of the living."
-The Man in Black



"Whatever Happened, Happened" picks up with Jin (Daniel Dae Kim) waking up and finding young Ben (Sterling Beaumon) shot, but still alive.  He brings Ben back to the Barracks where Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) operates on him, but she isn't skilled enough to save his life.

Sawyer (Josh Holloway) figures out that Ben was one the one who freed Sayid (Naveen Andrews).  He asks Jack (Matthew Fox) to operate on Ben and save him, but Jack refuses.  Kate (Evangeline Lilly) is furious with Jack and gives some of her blood to Ben.  

With no way to save Ben, Kate takes him into the jungle to see if the Others can save him.  Sawyer joins her and they bring him to Richard (Nestor Carbonell).  Richard agrees to save him, but warns them that Ben will never be the same.  He will forget the shooting and always be an Other.  They agree and Richard takes Ben to the Temple.

In 2007, Ben (Michael Emerson) wakes up and is shocked to see Locke (Terry O'Quinn) apparently alive.

In flashbacks, after returning from the Island, Kate goes to see Cassidy (Kim Dickens).  It's revealed that Sawyer told Kate where to find Cassidy and Clementine (Olivia Vickery) and asked her to take care of them.  Kate tells her the truth about the Island.  

Years later, after leaving the meeting at the marina, Kate decides to go back to the Island to find Claire (Emilie de Ravin).  She gives Aaron (William Blanchette) to Claire's mother, Carole (Susan Duerden), and tells her everything before saying goodbye to Aaron and leaving for the Island.


What Works:

This is probably my favorite Kate episode of the series.  In early Kate episodes, we frequently didn't understand Kate's motivation and it seemed like she made extremely illogical decisions.  This time around that isn't the case.  She wants to save a kid's life.  It doesn't need to be anymore complicated than that.  Paired with the scenes of Kate being a mother to Aaron and it makes even more sense.  Kate works better when she isn't a mysterious character.  We know her and understand her this time.  Plus she has the moral high ground in the conflict.  It makes Kate easy to root for.

Evangeline Lilly also does a really great job in this episode.  She's great throughout, especially when she reads Jack the riot act, but her saying goodbye to Aaron is genuinely heartbreaking.

I love the conflict between Kate, Sawyer, Juliet, and Jack.  They all want to save Ben's life, except for Jack.  It's in interesting moral dilemma and our main protagonist is fine with letting the kid die.  It's a really unusual direction to take the main character of this show and it puts him into direct conflict with the others.  It's awesome and the scenes between them are some of my favorite of the episode.

I love having Cassidy return to the show.  I loved that character and I'm really glad we get to have Kate and Cassidy get to talk about their connection to Sawyer.  There are a ton of character connections on this show, but the characters frequently never find out about them, so it's nice that we actually get that for once.


What Sucks:

My only problem with the episode is that there are a few moments that are a little too silly.  The discussion between Hurley (Jorge Garcia) and Miles (Ken Leung) about time travel doesn't always work for me and I've never liked the scene where Aaron disappears in the grocery store.


Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For "Whatever Happened, Happened," it was a close race between Kate and Sawyer, but because Kate was the one who initiated to mission to save Ben, I'll give it to her.  Her plan to save Ben worked.  She might not have succeeded without Sawyer, but it was her plan.  This is Kate's 5th time winning this award, which ties her for 6th place with Mr. Eko and Desmond.


Verdict:

"Whatever Happened, Happened" is the strongest Kate episode in the series with a strong motivation for the character, a great performance from Evangeline Lilly, an extremely interesting conflict, and the return of Cassidy.  Some moments were too silly for me, but this episode has still got it going on.

 9/10: Great 


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