After a glorious streak of rich and moving episodes, the writers of Lost take a bit of a step back with Born to Run, a filler episode that, no matter how interesting, is merely used as a basic set-up for the season finale.
The major incident that occurs on the Island is that Michael gets seriously ill while working on the raft. While everyone suspects Kate and/or Sawyer, Jack looks elsewhere to determine the cause of the apparent sabotage. He also has to deal with finally being shown the hatch: despite Sayid's skepticism, he agrees with Locke that they should try opening it. Even an explicit warning from Walt who, like Locke, seems to understand the power of the Island, is ignored.
The flashbacks focus on Kate, revealing more of her story in light of her fugitive status being brought up as a possible motive for attempting to poison Michael. In this chunk of back-story, which takes place before her trip to Australia, Kate, already on the run and with few people to trust, relies on the assistance of an ex-boyfriend to get a chance to see her hospitalized mother. She also teams up with the ex to recover something important, with unpleasant results.
Considering the events taking place in the present time, it's surprising that the flashbacks add so little to this episode's specific development, despite the mythological hints provided by a new appearance of the numbers. The main problem is that the episode focuses on Kate when the key characters are Locke and Walt. In particular, the latter comes off as an increasingly more important player in the mythology arc, and Kelley makes the most of it in his scenes with Terry O'Quinn and Harold Perrineau, providing a satisfying payoff to an old subplot (the burning of the raft) and planting the seeds for new ones, obviously looking beyond the confines of the finale towards the following season. Most shows would be afraid to think that far ahead. Then again, Lost is a different breed of genre TV...
The major incident that occurs on the Island is that Michael gets seriously ill while working on the raft. While everyone suspects Kate and/or Sawyer, Jack looks elsewhere to determine the cause of the apparent sabotage. He also has to deal with finally being shown the hatch: despite Sayid's skepticism, he agrees with Locke that they should try opening it. Even an explicit warning from Walt who, like Locke, seems to understand the power of the Island, is ignored.
The flashbacks focus on Kate, revealing more of her story in light of her fugitive status being brought up as a possible motive for attempting to poison Michael. In this chunk of back-story, which takes place before her trip to Australia, Kate, already on the run and with few people to trust, relies on the assistance of an ex-boyfriend to get a chance to see her hospitalized mother. She also teams up with the ex to recover something important, with unpleasant results.
Considering the events taking place in the present time, it's surprising that the flashbacks add so little to this episode's specific development, despite the mythological hints provided by a new appearance of the numbers. The main problem is that the episode focuses on Kate when the key characters are Locke and Walt. In particular, the latter comes off as an increasingly more important player in the mythology arc, and Kelley makes the most of it in his scenes with Terry O'Quinn and Harold Perrineau, providing a satisfying payoff to an old subplot (the burning of the raft) and planting the seeds for new ones, obviously looking beyond the confines of the finale towards the following season. Most shows would be afraid to think that far ahead. Then again, Lost is a different breed of genre TV...