Girlfight

Watching last night's episode of Lost, I couldn't help but enjoy the sight of castaway Kate handcuffed to Others doc Juliet, bickering over who wronged who, slapping each other around, and wrestling in the jungle mud. Oh my, I better settle down there. This Kate-centric outing, titled "Left Behind," was certainly a fine little fable about defiance and pride — not to mention atonement and social responsibility. Perhaps a little more than fine thanks to the chicks in chains. But I digress.

And the Others, they've departed. Packed up their guns and grilled-cheese-sandwich makers and abandoned the Dharma Initiative barracks for parts unknown and for some reason taking Locke with them. Was it just me, or did he look a little loco in the eyes when he came to Kate in the game room that served as her cell and told her that he was leaving with the Others? Even Kate saw it and asked the easily manipulated Man of Faith if he had been brainwashed. Is there something wrong with Jack and Locke? Have they been body-swapped? Maybe the reason they're not acting like themselves — or, maybe, acting more like themselves than ever before — is that they are literally not themselves at all. Have they become puppets under the control of the Others?

Perhaps they are now showing their true selves? Rumor has it a big revelation is coming that will shake up what we thought about the show. People are thinking that someone we know is going to reveal themselves to be the Big Bad that is behind everything- the "he" that the Others refer to. This came out of last week's episode and that TV show Nikki was working on. Something like that was revealed and I'm thinking that's foreshadowing what's coming up.

Anyway, back to last night. Thematically, the most important element of the Locke-Kate interaction came after Locke revealed that the Others had told him what she "had done" — clearly a reference to the season-2 episode, which revealed that the she had killed her abusive daddy by blowing up their house. The curious thing about this scene — besides Locke's odd demeanor — is how Kate didn't protest when she was confronted with this veiled, unspecified reference to her past crimes. The girl's got guilt, and a crushing amount of it. Kate seems utterly resigned to being marked as "a bad person," to use the Others' nomenclature. If the castaways were to learn that this place really is some kind of Dantesque hell, Kate might be the one who's the least surprised.

But resignation is one thing — accepting responsibility for sins and atoning for them is another. Kate found herself grappling with this fact (or at least reminded of it) when she woke up in the jungle handcuffed to Juliet after being knocked out by the Others. Being shackled to her rival for Jack's affections conjured memories for her of the time she formed a shotgun partnership with another illegal lady — someone the rest of us know to be Cassidy, former partner and lover to the other man in Kate's life, Sawyer. With the pregnant grifter's assistance (yep: it's Sawyer's kid, Clementine), Kate managed to sneak past that dogged U.S. marshal Ed Mars and meet with her mother so she could ask a furious question: How come you ratted me out to the cops? Mom's reply: Because you blew up my husband! It doesn't matter if he was an abusive monster — you had no right to take justice into your own hands!

Utterly shamed, Kate left, heartbroken. With this, Lost seems to be making an interesting statement about personal responsibility, especially in an episode in which we are presented with three women — Kate, Cassidy, and Juliet — who have been so profoundly shaped and damaged by the men in their lives. The message: The subjective truth of your experience is valid, but you are still beholden to commonly held values, or what Rousseau would call "the general will."

Nonetheless, Lost loves its island of sinners too much to pass judgment on them — but I do think the series is interested in exploring whether they're willing to put down their rationalizations and live in the conscience of their community. This is where Smokey the Monster comes in. More so than any previous episode, "Left Behind" seemed to suggest a clear, cogent theory to explain Smokey's m.o. It seems to me that the Monster has a bug up its incorporeal butt about human pride. Think back to Mr. Eko. Think back to what he said to the manifestation of his beloved younger brother, Yemi, prior to getting pounded by Smokey. Falling to his knees, the reluctant warlord turned faux priest proclaimed, "I have done nothing wrong!" Eko came to the belief that his sins and all their consequences were justified in the context of the sacrifice he made to save Yemi's life.

Kate's story echoed Mr. Eko's, which would have made her Monster bait, if not for two things: 1. Fortunately, as the flashback revealed, her mother had already confronted her about her self-righteous narcissism, so the lessons had already been implanted. 2. The experience of being tethered to Juliet helped to activate those lessons and make them real. Kate was made to understand, in a personal way, how her allegedly altruistic actions could be compromised by selfishness and have painful, destructive consequences. It was this that allowed her to apologize to Jack at the end of the episode for sabotaging his escape and denying him a chance at happiness.

Now what if the Monster's true target was Juliet. Maybe he was just checking her out — taking psychic pictures of her soul for future reference. Or maybe he was drawn to her sinful pride. After all, Kate was correct: Juliet is culpable for the evil the Others inflicted upon Kate and Sawyer. But given the opportunity to explain herself or apologize, Juliet declined. This might put her at risk for tempting Smokey's wrath.

All of this was mirrored in a much more lighthearted manner in the secondary story line, in which Hurley pulled a scam on Sawyer — tricking him into thinking that the beach community was on the verge of sending him to Exile for his greedy supply hoarding and for orchestrating last season's assault on Sun as part of his gun-seizing power play. "I don't do amends," he grumbled to Hurley, but he soon changed his tune and scrambled to campaign for his place in society like a politician way behind in the polls, doing everything from kissing babies to preparing a pig-on-a-spit feast — anything to win the hearts and minds of his castaways. When Sawyer learned he had been duped by Hurley, who merely wanted to teach him a lesson, Sawyer snapped: "You tricked me into being decent? That's got to be the lamest con in the history of cons!" And yet, by episode's end, Sawyer's Grinchy heart seemed to grow a couple sizes more, even as a look from Sun reminded him that a roasted pig is only the beginning of making good on past mistakes.

And now some questions:

1. I was surprised by Juliet's kung fu. Where did she learn it? How had she dislocated her shoulder three times previous to Kate's takedown? So many unanswered questions about Juliet. Why was she left behind? Is she of no more use to Ben? Is she facilitating the enlightenment mission of the Others? Or is she a Trojan horse on a more insidious mission?

2. Why couldn't the Monster breach the sonic fence or go over it?