Lost: "Eggtown"

The show's track record with female characters is spotty at best. Claire was only really important when she was pregnant, back when Aaron was the anti-christ or something - despite the fact that she was the first castaway kidnapped by the Others, and that she's JACK'S FREAKING HALF-SISTER, she's had practically nothing to do in two seasons but hang around on the beach and carry Aaron. Sun is a more complex character (slightly), but the Sun/Jin story was also way more interesting back in season one, when it was filled with tension, distrust, years of pent-up anger and frustration, like every good TV marriage. Don't you kind of wish that Jin could find out about Sun's bald english-teaching lover, just so they'd something to be angry about, again?

Oh, and Sun is also pregnant now, and for a few minutes last night, we all thought that Kate was, too. A Pregnancy plotline is usually a show-killer (see - "Friends," "Mad About You," "The X-Files," more and more and more) - perhaps because, much more so than when two romantic protagonists finally get together, it so completely upsets the balance of the show - adding in a baby just makes everything just a little bit less fun - and, more to the point, makes it more difficult on the writers to do anything. You have to give the "Lost" writers credit - they not only have one pregnant chick, but thanks to the odd properties of the island, practically every woman might be pregnant. (Did Ana Lucia die carrying Sawyer's two-hour-old baby?)

So Kate's not pregnant, but you had to agree with Sawyer (with the best line of the night): Kate asks him, "Would having a baby really have been the worst thing?" "YES!" says our favorite con man, "It WOULD'VE!" Kate's not made to be a mother, at least not yet. Her marriage flashback episode last season was, in many respects, somewhat lame, but it also shaded an intriguing new layer into her personality. Before, Kate was always on the run because the evil Marshall was only a few steps behind her - but in that episode, she was married, clearly happily, to a policeman, and the evil Marshall had no idea where she was. The episode, predictably, ended with her having to leave again - nominally, because her husband had booked an international vacation, for which she would need a valid passport, so he would find out the truth about her eventually, etc, etc.

That was the APPARENT reason (also the one that Lostpedia uses). But I think it was something subtler. Throughout that flashback, Kate seemed settled into a nice, boring suburban life - taco nights, shopping for her man, in-laws who liked her, a husband with a steady job who wasn't abusive and who was played by Nathan Fillion, awesomest guest star in the universe. The Marshall (grinningly evil though he was) called it - Kate just had to keep moving. For no real reason. At some base level, she just doesn't want that normal little life.

More and more, I think this episode may hold a key to one of the slowly dawning revelations of the show's overall course. The flashbacks in the first two seasons established what we thought was the common thematic link among the characters - that they were all, in small ways and large, seeking some kind of redemption. Charlie the heroin addict, Sayid the torturer, Kate the criminal, Sawyer the con man, Jin the gangster - all people with shady histories who would be tested on the island. This was also back when we thought the island was Purgatory, and that all the castaways were "sinners," etc, etc. Call it the Eko theory, since that character came to view his existence as a constant penance for past crimes.

But we know what happened to Eko, and since his death, if you look closely, the overall thematic arc of the show no longer seems to be "redemption" per se, so much as Acceptance (and, dare I say it, self-realization). We now know that at least 6 people get off the island, but it doesn't make their lives better - far, far from it. So it makes sense that, in last night's episode, Kate jumps at the chance to be trapped in California for 10 years - she wants to hunker down, build a family, raise her (adopted) child. She wants to just stay in one place, just like Sawyer and Locke want to just stay on the island. In the process, "Lost" may be morphing from an essentially Catholic show (Confession of past sins and Penance leading to a state of grace) to something more zen.

All of this theorizing is actually more interesting than most of last night's episode, the least action-packed so far this season. That's actually not a bad thing - because we're so deep into the show, and because there are so few episodes this year, everyone seems to think that every episode needs to answer everything. But "Lost" was great, first and foremost, for its little character moments. Sure, last night was slow-moving, but how perfect was the scene where Sawyer and Hurley re-enact the Odd Couple - Sawyer, wearing those hilarious glasses they built for him a couple season ago, trying to read, while Hurley tries to watch "Xanadu." Kate comes in, and Hurley gives Sawyer his patented "Dude, You're Gettin' Some!" thumbs up, and just when the scene can't get more perfect, Sawyer pulls out a box of official Dharma Initiative Franzia wine.

Hilarious. At times like this, the show makes up for all the times when the mysteries get too overly oblique - you could see practically an entire series (or at least a full episode) made out of Sawyer and Hurley, living in the former barracks of the Dharma Initiative, in the middle of a mysteries island. With crazy Wilson-esque neighbor John Locke and occasional guest star, The Black Smoke Monster.

What else happened yesterday? Miles cemented his status as this year's Eko/Juliet, the new character who steals every scene. Ben proved yet again that he's never more powerful than when he's locked up, and everyone is swirling around him - just how did he go from an awkward kid with coke bottle glasses to the master schemer he is today? Locke had the scene of the episode, feeding Miles a grenade and instructing him to be careful with it. Good old Locke: just when you're starting to like him, he does something like that, and you love to hate him even more.

We still haven't seen the freighter, but next episode looks promising - what is the helicopter going to see, as it gets further from the island? Please be a Desmond episode. Pleasepleaseplease. Desmond is 3 for 3 so far on awesome episodes - one more and he beats Eko's record. (Also with perfect records: Juliet (2 for 2), Ben (1 for mesmerizing 1, "The Man Behind the Curtain" - although that may just be because all three of these characters always offer some tantalizing glimpse of the Truth, as "The X-Files" used to call it. For my money, of the original castaways, Claire has the best record - perhaps just because she's had so few. Hurley's episodes are almost always interesting, Sawyer always guarantees a few twists and an added dosage of brilliant Sawyerisms, Jack's are either brilliant or revolting, and Locke's, besides the pot-farm hippie episode, are about as fun as Greek tragedy.)