Kate Austen, Season Five

I wish that I could say I like Kate more than I do. I haven’t quite figured out whether my disdain for her is because of the actress or the character. I rather think that it is the character. I think the actress if perfectly fine, and I really like the way she expresses some of Kate’s stronger emotions without saying a word. But at times I have found Kate to be tedious, judgmental, and selfish.




You would think that with her compelling story I would be more sympathetic. Kate’s mother divorced the man Kate thought was her father, Sam Austen, to marry Wayne Jannsen, an abusive alcoholic. After nearly being caught shoplifting as a girl, Kate apparently led an exemplary life, a straight A student with only a couple of speeding tickets. But her world came apart when she was 24. In creating a scrapbook for Sam, she found evidence that her mother became pregnant while Sam was posted overseas. It was not Sam, but Wayne who fathered her. That night, Wayne came home drunk. While he tried to grope Kate, she helped him get into bed. She sped away on her motorcycle as the house exploded, killing her father. She later told an unconscious Sawyer, as though he were Wayne, that she killed Wayne because: It's because I hated that you were a part of me -- that I would never be good. That I would never have anything good.

Kate was thus a fugitive when she was caught in Australia by U.S. Marshal Edward Mars. Although she took the opportunity to start fresh on the Island, she never wavered in her desire to leave, either. A woman of strong convictions, she was always horrified when someone put another’s life in danger. She stayed in the middle of things because she was never content to sit still when action was needed. And let’s not forget, of course, her attraction to both Jack and Sawyer. This, of course, is the subject of a later posting.

In Season 4, we saw what Kate’s life off the Island was like, and frankly, it looked idyllic. Kate was raising Aaron as her own son, in a nice home, and apparently out of trouble with the law. Thanks to a settlement with Oceanic, money was not a problem. Although her relationship with Jack ended unpleasantly, her life looked pretty sweet.





So the very first episode of the season saw Kate’s wonderful life in jeopardy. Dan Norton came a-knocking, armed with a court order for a blood test to determine maternity. Kate did what she spent a lifetime doing, she packed up and left. I don’t think she had a clear goal in mind, and she accepted Sun’s call with gratitude. It didn’t take Kate long to figure out it was Ben trying to take Aaron from her.

We learned how Kate came to be known as Aaron’s mother. She told Jack (and presumably the remaining survivors) she should pretend he’s her child because “After everyone we’ve lost..Michael, Jin, Sawyer…I can’t lose [Aaron] too.” As if to buttress her argument, she told Jack that Claire had planned to give the baby up for adoption. (That makes it okay, right?) In other words, Kate kept Aaron not because it was what was best for Aaron, but because it was best for her.

We also saw the results of the hinted-at and hardly surprising promise Kate made to Sawyer. Kate found Cassidy and Clementine, bearing lies and cash. She told Cassidy the truth about the Oceanic 6, but not about Aaron. That’s okay, because Cassidy is one of the most intuitive people on Lost, and she figured it out. Three years later, after Kate loses Aaron in the grocery store, it is Cassidy who tells Kate the truth. Kate took Aaron because “Sawyer broke your heart. How else were you supposed to fix it?”

And that’s when Kate does the most unselfish thing she’s ever done. She gives Aaron back. Well, she gives him to his grandmother, who hadn’t even known he existed. Then she decided to return to the Island, not to find Sawyer (yeah, right) but to find Claire.

Kate’s devastation was palpable. She made Jack promise to never ask about Aaron, later admitting her anger at Jack for insisting she return to the Island. On the plane, she sat alone, telling Jack that just because they were all on the plane didn’t mean that they were together.

Back on the Island, Kate remained the Kate we know and love. She is still clearly attracted to Sawyer (more on that in a later post), she is still uncomfortable around Juliet, and she is still a woman of action. When a house was set on fire by Ben’s runaway VW van, she jumped right in to rescue the inhabitants.

And she shone, frankly, when Ben was shot by Sayid. True to form, she was horrified when Jack refused to operate on the 12-year-old Ben. Not being a surgeon, she did the only she knew how to do – she donated blood as a universal donor and tried to comfort the worried father. When Juliet came up with an alternative solution to Ben’s medical care, Kate jumped, even though the plan sounded awfully wacky. When told that Ben would forever be altered if given over to the Others, Kate didn’t hesitate for him to receive care.

Whatever Happened, Happened was Kate’s finest hour.

Despite my growing affection for Kate, I still wouldn’t have been unhappy if Kate had been shot by the Other in Follow the Leader. And how I groaned as Juliet and Sawyer’s tender moment on the submarine was interrupted by the inclusion of a captured Kate (was I the only one who was reminded of the time Kate followed Jack, Sawyer and John as they tried to find Michael, only to be caught by the Others in The Hunting?).

Notwithstanding my fleeting affection and disaffection for Kate, it’s really not her fault that we learned in The Incident that it was her presence, indeed, her very existence, that sparked much of the action that ensued. Jack decided that it was a good idea to blow up the bomb because he lost Kate. Juliet decided that Jack was right to want to blow everyone up after Sawyer looked at Kate, not Juliet, while Rose and Bernard talked about the importance of being together. Kate just wanted to do what was right, and she found it hard to believe that blowing up everyone on the Island to erase the past was a sane option. True to form, she was horrified when Sawyer first refused to help her stop Jack. She was incredulous that Rose and Bernard didn’t care if the bomb was exploded.

But she folded too, eventually listening to Jack, and agreeing to support him. I’m not sure that I bought her conversion. But once she did, she was, as always, all in.

The Actress

The blogosphere was buzzing in February over rumors that Evangeline Lilly was auditioning for pilots that would air in 2009. Did this mean that Kate would be killed? Lilly’s reps denied the rumors as numerous fans rejoiced at the impending end of Kate. Of course, it didn’t happen that way. Kate lives, and Lilly really wasn’t auditioning for a pilot.

The actress made a number of interviews at the beginning of the season, including Good Morning, America, Jimmy Kimmel, Dave Letterman, and Conan O’Brian. In interviews with Entertainment Weekly, she revealed that the science fiction aspect of the show was her least favorite. She also denied a personal preference in Kate’s choices between Sawyer and Jack.

Evangeline Lilly and Dominic Monaghan have been in an on-again, off-again relationship for quite some time. Rarely seen together, they reportedly are currently still a pair.

My Pledge to…Well, Karen

As a regular fan of Lost, I could just join the numerous other fans in the anti-Kate club. But as a blogger, I feel that I should be able to explain my own dislike of Kate better. I can’t explain why I don’t like Kate. And I respect the fact that one of my readers finds Kate to be likable, strong and flawed. So, once I’ve finished with these Season Five profiles, I plan to spend time watching all the Kate-centric episodes, with the goal of giving Kate a chance. Or, giving myself a chance to verbalize just what it is about the character I don’t like. To be continued…