Review: Lost 5.11: Whatever Happened, Happened

Kate says goodbye to Aaron

Oh goodie, another Kate episode. Except this time... it's good. It's brilliant. For the first time in my viewer history, Kate is written like a compassionate human being and her actions make sense. Whatever Happened, Happened deals with the issue of making sure that Ben doesn't die a death, thus protecting the timeline; if Ben died in 1977, then he couldn't have rearranged the Oceanic Six in 2007 to return. Instead of focussing entirely on the issue, WHH does a LaFleur and mixes it in with some great characterisation, which makes the episode on par with that previous episode.
       In 2007, Kate rejects Ben's offer through some stock footage. She visits Cassidy, Sawyer's former lover who has been bringing up his daughter Clementine (I'll have a satsuma, thanks) for the past three years. Cassidy tells Kate that the only reason Sawyer jumped off of the Helicopter was out of cowardice; he didn't want to accept his responsibility to his daughter. Later, after Kate temporarily loses Aaron in the supermarket, she works with Cassidy and visits the boy's grandmother, Carole Littleton. Kate explains that her daughter is alive, and that Carole must look after Aaron while Kate returns to the Island to look for her.
       Back in Dharmaville, and Jin arrives with Ben's dying body. Juliet looks after him, and Kate does the wise thing and offers to use her magical universal blood for transfusion. Jack, however, refuses point-blank to treat the man who would later torture him. He then spends the rest of the episode being a collossal douchebag, quoting destiny as an excuse for refusing to help a sick and dying child, even to save the entire Universe by preserving the timeline. This is our protagonists, folks. Ben takes a turn for the worse, and Juliet can only offer one option - take him to The Others. Kate and Sawyer, although reluctant due to their knowledge of Ben's future, take him across the border and Richard takes him off to be healed.

Richard takes Ben into The Temple.

      As I said, something refreshing throughout this whole episode is that Kate finally admits to us that she's been a bitch, and she commits not one selfish act during the episode. Not one. Every second, she is expressing compassion and she finally does the right thing by helping both Aaron in 2007 and Ben in 1977, regardless of personal opinion. All it really does is show up Jack, who I've always seen as an unlikeable jackass. How typical for a Kate episode (see Something Nice Back Home) to make Kate, the often despicable eptiome of emptyness, a much more morally centred being than our own protagonist.
       Whatever Happened, Happened did what LaFleur did and put it in a different light. Kate was finally given some development to make her likeable, and with this she neatly tied up several strands of the show's messy continuity. It was fun in places, potent in others, and like LaFleur before it I was thoroughly impressed by what this less fortunate season of Lost can do.

Thanks.