WHAT KATE DID

If there was an episode that could peel away the layers of LOST, it may be "What Kate Did."

"What Kate Did" is the ninth episode of Season 2. Kate begins to believe that she is going mad after she sees the black horse from her past and hearing her father when speaking to Sawyer.

A 24-year-old Kate is sitting on her porch, playing with a lighter, when her father, Wayne, arrives inebriated. As Kate helps him to bed, he complains and makes advances toward her. Kate soon leaves. As Kate rides away from the house on a motorbike, the house explodes.

She rides to a diner where her mother, Diane, works.  Kate confronts Diane about an injury caused by Wayne and then presents her with a homeowners' insurance policy, telling Diane she'll be taken care of. Despite worried pleas from her mother to explain what she did, Kate leaves, fighting back tears. Later, we would learn that her mother rejected all Kate had done.

After Kate is arrested by the FBI agent, a black horse appears before the car, causing the car to hit a pole. With Agent Mars momentarily stunned by the opening of the driver's airbag, Kate grabs the handcuff keys and tries to unlock the handcuffs, but the marshal revives. After a short fight, Kate kicks Mars out of the car. She reverses the slightly damaged car and turns on the headlights and drives away. To her surprise, the lights show the black horse standing next to the road quietly looking at her for a few seconds before leaving into the darkness.

Kate travels to a recruiting station to visit her stepfather. She tells Sam she recently discovered he was her stepfather and Wayne was her biological father. Sam says he had known all along, but hid the truth because he knew Kate would kill Wayne if she ever found out. He informs Kate that he must call the authorities, but gives her a one-hour head start.

So we learned what Kate did: she committed murder, insurance fraud, and resisted all arrests. She is a very bad and dangerous person.

On the island, a distraught Sayid digs Shannon's grave while Jack tends to the injured Sawyer in the Swan bunks. who mutters, "Where is she?" which Jack assumes refers to Kate. Sawyer whispers, "I love her" twice, stunning Jack into silence. While collecting fruit,  Kate is shocked to see the black horse from her past standing in the undergrowth. She returns to the Swan to attend to Sawyer and computer  so Jack can attend Shannon's funeral.  At the funeral, Sayid tries to say a few words, but, overcome by emotion, can only declare that he loved her before walking away. Jack, Locke and the other survivors continue the improvised ceremony by each pouring a handful of sand into the grave.

As Kate tends to Sawyer, he begins to mumble, and as she leans in to hear better, he grabs her by the neck and says, "You killed me. Why did you kill me?" Kate is shocked by the statement, and flees her post. Jack and Locke return to the Swan to find the computer alarm blaring, Sawyer on the floor, and Kate nowhere to be seen. With only 23 seconds to go, Locke hastily enters the Numbers, resetting the clock to 108.

Jack tracks Kate down and accosts her for leaving the Swan. Kate shouts, "I'm sorry I'm not as perfect as you. I'm sorry that I'm not as good!" She tries to run away, but Jack grabs her forearm and pulls her back. With emotions reaching a fever pitch, Jack pulls Kate close and holds her. Without warning, Kate kisses Jack passionately and, seemingly shocked by her actions, runs off into the jungle. Jack calls after her, but she does not turn around and he does not follow.

Later, in the jungle, Jack is cutting wood when Hurley approaches, making small talk, eventually leading into the topic of Sawyer. Hurley asks Jack if he is mad at Sawyer, which Jack denies. But Hurley says Jack is cutting wood which Sawyer used to do. Hurley tells Jack about "transference," a medical term he heard at the mental institution, to explain what Jack is doing, but Jack is flippant at the remark.

Sayid goes to Shannon’s grave to place his prayer beads on her cross; he discovers Kate sitting there. She apologizes for missing the funeral and says she thinks she's going crazy. When asked if he believes in ghosts, Sayid says he saw Walt in the jungle just before Shannon was shot and asks if that makes him crazy too. 

Kate returns to the Swan and relieves Sun, who has been tending to Sawyer. Kate asks Sawyer if he can hear her, first saying "Sawyer?" then "Wayne" Sawyer stirs and mumbles inaudibly. Kate, believing that Wayne's ghost has possessed Sawyer's body, confesses aloud that she killed him after finding out he was her biological father. It was too much for her to bear to know that the man who she hated would always be a part of her. Furthermore, whenever she had feelings for Sawyer she couldn't help remembering Wayne.  Following Kate's confession, Sawyer awakes as his normal self, and his comments reveal he has heard the whole conversation. Kate is embarrassed but relieved.

Sawyer believes that they had been rescued, seeing the kitchen, beds, and such in the hatch. Kate shows Sawyer around the Swan, before taking him outside to prove they have not been rescued. The two talk until something catches Sawyer's eye; Kate turns to see what he is looking at and sees the black horse standing nearby. Kate asks Sawyer if he sees it and Sawyer says he can. Kate approaches and pets the horse before it walks back into the jungle. Back at the beach, Jack approaches Ana Lucia, who is sitting carving a stake with her hunting knife. Jack offers her one of three miniature bottles of Tequila, recalling their first meeting at the airport. They commiserate, smile, and share a moment together.

The other important aspect of the episode is Locke and his deepening ties to the Swan station.
Locke shows the orientation film to Michael and Eko and says he has set up two-person shifts every six hours to enter the Numbers into the computer.  When Locke asks Eko what he thinks, Eko leaves without saying a word.

Locke demonstrates to Michael that the keyboard only works when the alarm sounds - Michael asks to inspect the equipment and Locke hesitantly agrees, but only if he doesn't break it. Eko calls Locke aside and, after leading in with a story about Josiah and the book found during Josiah's rule, reveals a hollowed-out Bible which contains a small reel of film. The book was found by the tail-section survivors in a Dharma station they inhabited on the other side of the Island. Locke unrolls part of the reel and recognizes Dr. Candle, the narrator from the original film. Locke discovers that the film found in the bible was cut from the original Swan orientation film; Eko and Locke splice the film back into the main film reel. Locke marvels at the odds of them finding the missing piece, but Eko advises him not to "mistake coincidence for fate." This statement will be the core to Locke's later downfall.

Locke and Mr. Eko watch the missing section of the film, in which Dr. Candle expands on his warning that the computer is to be used only to enter the code. He explains that while the isolation of Station 3 may tempt one to use the computer to communicate with the outside world, such action would compromise the integrity of the project and may lead to another "incident."  At the same time, as Michael examines the computer equipment, he hears a beeping from the terminal and goes to inspect. He notices there are still 51 minutes remaining on the timer and the text "Hello?" is shown on the screen. Unlike Locke's attempt earlier, Michael is able to enter text and types "Hello?" A moment later, "Who is this?" appears and Michael responds, "This is Michael. Who is this?" After a few seconds, "Dad?" appears on the screen. Michael is stunned. 

"What Kate Did" brought to the forefront various conflicts.
The Other Others, the Tailies, had joined the beach survivors with deadly consequences.
Sawyer was shot and not doing well, but Jack did not want to deal with him because of the conflicting emotions with Kate's apparent relationship with Sawyer.
Kate was conflicted - - - she breaks down to Jack that she could never be as perfect or good as he is; and later she would make a similar confession to a sleeping/medicated Sawyer. Kate appears to know that she has been terribly bad, and she breaks down to realize that she will never be good. She has judged herself harshly, but cannot choose between a good man or a bad man.

When he comes to, he asks if they had been "saved," and Kate says no. Sawyer, with his long hair parted in the middle, looks like a painting of the Savior, but all he can say is "damn."

We learn that Kate blew up her biological father, Wayne, in order to allegedly save her mother the abuse of a drunken spouse. But Kate grew up thinking Wayne was her stepfather. When she was told that her first dad, Sam,  left her because her mother was in love with Wayne, Kate could not accept it.  And her real stepfather, Sam,  a military man who knew Sayid in Iraq, told her that he had to call the authorities.

But it was with the recovering Sawyer, Kate's horse appears in the jungle. She goes over to it and pets it. The horse is calm. Sawyer also sees the horse from Kate's memory. Collective illusion?

Locke has saved Eko from the polar bear who dragged an injured Eko away from an encounter with the smoke monster. Eko tells Locke the story of the book that rebuilt the ruined temple. It was not gold but the word of God. In the bible he found, Eko gives Locke a piece of film which is spliced in the orientation film. It is Dr. Chang telling the Hatch operators not to use the computer terminal for anything but inputting the Numbers, otherwise another "incident" could occur. But Michael goes by the computer terminal - -  which beeps "Hello?" He answers the question, then the shocking response from the other end was "Dad?" Walt had been captured by the Others - - - and this sets Michael on his frenzy quest to get Walt back.

Kate killed her father. Killing one's father or parent was the key to leadership on the island. It showed you could cast away your own family for something greater. Perhaps that is why Kate was a candidate, and actually the true leader who brought down MIB in the End.

It is the recall of the story, especially the formation of the horse, that binds what Kate did and what Kate will do in the future.  If she is only striving to prove that she could be good, she would have to personally defeat the bad or evil that threatens the greater good. 

The episode puts into the LOST cabinet of major clues: life and death, good and bad people, crazy, illusions, transference behavior, coincidence not fate, false salvation and the unknown (like the Numbers or "the incident.") If you add all those elements together, you may get the real premise of the show.

It still comes down to the improbabilities of island situation, whether it truly real or not. Consider the fact that Hurley brings to light psychology to a medical doctor. It that an odd coincidence or was that Hurley or his mind generating the island story line?

Or is Hurley or his mind merely an enabler for other character's imagination release? This episode is clearly the centerpiece of the original framework of how the series was supposed to focus in on the Kate character (with Jack's death in the early pilot script). If Kate was going to be the center of the show universe, this episode brought possible criminal psychological issues to the forefront of the female lead character.

Every young person considers personal fantasies and indulges in flights of fancy to relieve boredom or anxiety. However, such natural, transitory digression isn’t severe enough to warrant identification with specific, categorical terminology. Some  psychological affectations  refer to mental statuses that noticeably affect an individual’s social behavior: anti-social interaction; bipolar personality shifts;  psychotic anti-social tendencies; self-delusions and fantastic aspirations to influence their behavior to a degree that evokes social stigmata and even potential harm. Depending on the nature and extent of a person's fantasies, they may change from merely harmless, to momentary distractions, to dangerous behavior.  If Kate firmly and intractably believes that she is right and everyone around her is wrong that she unwittingly digs herself continually deeper into her own dissatisfaction. Her effort to psychologically appease herself and escape from distasteful reality actually counter-productively reinforces the very situation that she’s desperate to alter. Kate is adverse to open and beneficial discussion of mental health issues so she merely relegates her responses to any psychological impairment as a slap, slur or a joke. Instead of growing out of their childhood issues, many individuals are ignored, ridiculed, or just accepted as idiosyncratic instead of needing psychological counseling to become stable in their own mental health.

Daydreams are entirely ordinary and harmless. However, someone that allows daydreams, fantasies, and exaggerated unrealistic self-identification to become so compulsive and consuming that the behavior affects and obstructs positive social interactions and hinders productive maturation, or even places the individual in potentially harmful circumstances.

Whether Kate truly did all those bad things, or she has convinced herself that she did so in some psychological madness, her world including the island would be wrapped up in those inner conflicts. It ties back to the old theory that the island events are the collective dream of a group of mental patients and/or institutionalized criminals, possibly a test subject group for Dharma scientists.

This notion is reinforced in the episode where Hurley brings up the subject of "transference" to Jack snaps back whether Hurley is analyzing him but Hurley says that is what was said at the mental institution. The transference concept has been a long running theory of the show: that the characters are not whom they seem to be - - - either in personality, or reality. Jack may not really be a doctor, he just imagines himself as one. In turn, Kate is not a murderer but a confused child trapped in her own nightmare world with a set of vivid imaginary friends and foes.

This episode was the tipping point for the entire series. It raised the key factors and confirmed them through other characters. It shows that like her or hate her, Kate was a central figure in the series. And perhaps that is why Kate winds up with her Jack in the end, because that is the fairy tale ending that most young girls dream about.