Lost - "Eggtown"

Episode Title: “Eggtown”


Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: Before we start this week, here’s a scary thought – we’re past the halfway point of the current run of new episodes of Lost. The schedule for the remainder of the strike interrupted season has finally been revealed, and it’s looking like we get new Lost episodes for the next four weeks, ending on March 13 (coincidentally, my birthday). Then, we get six new episodes starting on April 24 (I’m still working out how I’m going to Blog from my honeymoon, but I’ll figure something out).

Also – it looks like Lost is going to get bumped back to 10:00 pm in April, to allow room for Grey’s Anatomy to return at 9:00. Sad – I was really enjoying the 9:00 Lost hour, since it allowed plenty of time for Instant Reactions and got me to bed at a decent hour. But the good news is that we get 13 total episodes of Lost this season, instead of the mere 8 that were completed pre-strike… and the Lost writers have confirmed that this season’s storyline is going to end the same place it was always planned, they just have to get there faster than originally intended. For me, this was always the biggest concern. Clearly, they had a well thought out plan for how seasons four, five, and six should go – and I would have hated to see those storylines altered because of a strike.

With that administrative stuff out of the way, let’s get back to this week’s Kate-centric episode “Eggtown”.

A quick Google search reveals 44,300 results… all of them referring to this episode of Lost, none of them providing any insight of any other use of “Eggtown” on the Internet. Not a good start.

Changing the search to “Egg Town” reveals a few Easter-related websites, along with some notes about Winlock, WA (named Egg Town because there is apparently a giant egg statue by their railroad tracks). While there is always a chance that this is where Kate spends some time in her flashforward (it’s only 75 miles from Portland, another Lost city in the Pacific Northwest!), it seems to be a stretch.

So what is Eggtown?

Since I’m forced to make an educated guess (between last week and this week, it’s getting tougher and tougher), I’d say that Eggtown is none other than the Others’ Barracks. I don’t want to get too fifth grade sex ed on you, but we all know that Ben was obsessed about Others having babies the same way that you and I are obsessed about Lost. As the female egg is a critical component in the process of creating a baby (gross!), you could see where a nickname like Eggtown might spring up to describe a little town where there is such a strong focus on pregnancy. Simple enough – but there’s more.

There was a scene from last week’s episode that I intentionally left out of my “The Economist” analysis, because I thought it was more relevant to bring up this week – the touching scene between Sawyer and Kate inside an Eggtown house (where they discuss how long they can “play house”). It was subtle, especially with the way Sayid hinted at a prisoner exchange, but the fact that Kate didn’t return with Sayid may indicate that after a brief flirtation with Jack (and Team Rescue), she’s decided to put in some quality time with Sawyer (and Team Island).



Which brings us to a very important point – and one that might further the “Eggtown” deeper meaning: Kate might be pregnant.

The audience shouldn’t forget that it seemed like even after their horizontal cage action (actually, they seemed more vertical), Kate and Sawyer seemed to be hooking up fairly regularly back at the Beach – and I didn’t see a lot of Dharma Birth Control lying around. It’s entirely possible that Kate has a small, sarcastic name creating baby growing inside her, and that the “Eggtown” name means something a little bit more to her in particular.

Note that I said “possible” – as you see in the episode breakdown below, there’s an entirely different way this episode might play out…


ABC Description: Kate's need to get information out of the hostage may jeopardize her standing with Locke -- as well as with Sawyer. Guest starring are Ken Leung as Miles, Jeremy Davies as Daniel Faraday, Rebecca Mader as Charlotte, Shawn Doyle as Duncan Forrester, Susan Gibney as Melissa Dunbrook, Traber Burns as judge, Fred Q. Collins as bailiff, Beth Broderick as Diane Jansen, Tania Kahale as nanny and William Blanchette as child.


Episode Breakdown: Can I just say again how much I love the lack of reveals from the ABC descriptions this season? Do you remember a few seasons ago when the on-Island action was slow and yet we’d still get a paragraph describing how Hurley and Sawyer were going to play ping pong? Nowadays the story is flying by at breakneck pace, yet we still are only given a few words about what’s actually happening. I love the surprise.

Having said that, let me try to over-analyze this episode so that I can attempt to ruin any surprise for you.

Our one sentence this week confirms that the action will remain solely focused on Team Island, where Kate remained after last week’s trip with Sayid and Miles. However, once again there is the question of which “hostage” the description is referring to – Locke now has both Ben and Miles stashed away in different parts of the Barracks, and both would seem to be good candidates to have a wealth of information that Kate would care about.

On the one hand, Ben seems to be the man with the plan, the one who knows exactly who the Freightors are, what they want, and if they hold the key to Kate finding a way off the Island.

On the other hand, Miles would be able to fill Kate in on the “real world” perspective of the crash, why they are looking for Ben, and what’s happened on her favorite soaps over the past three months.

So you have to ask yourself, how could getting information out of either person jeopardize her standing with Locke and Sawyer? Wouldn’t both Locke and Sawyer want to gain the same information as well? The only logic I can apply here is that Kate had ample time to get information out of Miles over the past two episodes, since she spent pretty much two straight days with him, which makes Ben the more likely candidate for Kate to interrogate.

The only way I could see her need to interrogate Ben as causing unrest among Locke and Sawyer would be if she had to go behind their backs in order to talk to him – maybe breaking into his “jail cell” in the Barracks, maybe accidentally letting him out, or maybe intentionally letting him out in exchange for information.

Why would she do any of this? I have no idea – but that’s the only thing I can come up with.

So we get one lousy sentence and one lousy analysis of a sentence? This episode preview is a pretty big letdown so far – but luckily there is some very interesting stuff in the guest star list!


Helicopter. Scanning through the list of guest stars, the first thing that should jump out at you is who is NOT there. No Frank. Miles, Faraday, and Charlotte are all listed – but Frank is conspicuously absent this week. And no Frank means no Desmond and no Sayid. Before you start freaking out thinking that the helicopter crashed while trying to leave the Island, I should mention that next week’s episode is a Desmond-centric affair, so it’s clear that they at least survive another week. But the lack of their inclusion in this episode means one of three things:

Frank didn’t follow the same bearing out of the Island as he did coming into the Island (against Faraday’s warning), and they’re currently flying around in circles, bouncing around the electromagnetic Bubble surrounding the Island, lost in time for a bit.

This week’s episode takes place during the same timeframe from when Sayid left the Barracks and when he and Desmond left on the helicopter, bringing us up to speed on what happened with Kate / Miles after he left.

The writers decided to build suspense this week and focus heavily on the helicopter ride / arrival at the Freighter next week, much like we had some “split storylines” last season between Alcatraz and the Main Island.

The first option is the most exotic, the second is the most “Lost-style” way to do it, and the third is the most logical, so take your pick – but don’t get your hopes up on finding out too much more about the Funky Time / Funky Space / Bubble / Freightor’s True Intentions for at least another week.


Diane. The other name in the guest star list that should sound familiar to you is Diane Jansen, better known as “Kate’s Mom”. Since this week’s episode is clearly a flashforward (more on that later), we should remind ourselves of where we last left ol’ Diane… and it was on her death bed.



If you recall, the most recent (timeline-wise) of Kate’s flashbacks showed Kate in the hospital, visiting her mother who was seemingly dying of cancer. Diane then screamed, forcing Kate to run away – which eventually led to the death of Kate’s boy-toy Tom.

For me, this makes is pretty puzzling that Diane appears in this episode. However, since this episode clearly takes place right after the arrival of the Oceanic Six back in the “real world” (as evidenced by the trail of Kate for her pre-crash crimes), I guess it’s possible that Diane hung on for a few more months and lived to see her daughter return from the Island and stand trial.

(Note: fans of the “alternate reality” theories will likely point out that this is a future where Kate’s mom didn’t have cancer at all, but I don’t buy it.)

For me, a far more intriguing twist would feature Ben offering to cure the cancer from Kate’s mother, just like he did for Juliet, in return for something. Could we have back-to-back weeks where it is revealed that one of the Oceanic Six is in cahoots with Ben? It would offer a plausible explanation for who the “he” is that Kate referenced during her meeting with Jack during the Season Three finale. In fact, you could even take this theory as far as using it to explain how Kate was able to avoid lengthy jail time for her numerous crimes – perhaps she received both “prizes” from Ben (or Dharma / Hanso / Widmore) in exchange for keeping the Island secret or performing some other equally important act.


Child. That brings us to the end of the guest list, to by far the most interesting guest star of the week – one that opens up a world of possibilities for where Kate’s storyline is headed – the generically named “Child”.

Of course my immediate thought was “this is Kate and Sawyer’s love child! Kate was pregnant after all, escaped the Island, delivered the baby, and is living happily ever after!” But that thought bothered me for two reasons.

First, that would mean that every main female character on the show (from Season One) would have been pregnant or dead at some point in the show – which seems a little unlikely, and a little too repetitious for a show as smart as Lost.

Second, why would they name him / her “Child”? If it really was Kate’s jail-baby, wouldn’t they simply list the child’s name? That would actually keep it much more of a secret than listing “Child”, since “James” (the most logical name for Kate and Sawyer’s hypothetical baby) could be anyone in the flashforward.

Then I had an even crazier idea – what if the naming of the character of “Child” was meant to keep the surprise, and the character is actually someone we already know – like Aaron?



Remember how “important” Aaron was supposed to be back during the first season of Lost? The Psychic (who may or may not have been a fraud) was adamant that Claire be the one to raise him, the Others (and CFL) seemed to be obsessed with him, and even the show’s producers hinted that Aaron would be a very important character to the show.

Ever since then, he’s pretty much been an annoying crying baby in the background, providing a prop for Claire and Charlie scenes over the past two seasons. His importance was seemingly dismissed as being mistaken for Walt’s importance to the Others, and could have easily simply been tied to the Others’ obsession with making babies since they were unable to do so.

But what if Aaron really is important? It’s a little “Terminatory”, but what if Aaron really is some critical future piece to the battle for the Island between the Others and the Freightors? What if Jacob knew his importance and arranged for our Oceanic Six to find a way off the Island for the sole purpose of Aaron being taken with them, so that he could grow up, come back to the Island, and return it to the Others? After all, the biblical Aaron is the great-great-grandson of Jacob – who’s to say that Aaron isn’t somehow tied to the Hanso family through his deadbeat dad who ran away before he was born?

Even if you don’t want to go down that path, it’s also logical to see a scenario where Claire dies (and Brian rejoices!), and Kate is left as the most logical person to raise baby Aaron. Heck, maybe Claire and Jack realize that they are siblings, and Jack realizes that he has some duty to raise this baby – making sure it secures a seat (or lap) onboard the vessel that carries the Oceanic Six off the Island. Then he slips into crazy-town and begins dabbling in the drugs again, forcing Kate to step in and raise the child.


Any of these scenarios are extremely likely in my mind. The best part is, they would all accomplish two things – get rid of the storyless and annoying character of Claire on Lost (and probably save Sawyer / Desmond from “Death Watch” for a few weeks!), save us from the “Kate is pregnant with Sawyer’s baby” storyline (which I liked the first time I saw it – when it was called “Sun is pregnant with Jin’s baby”), and provide a simple explanation for who the “he” was that Kate referenced during her airport meeting with Jack last season!

So, in the end, it seems as though the “Eggtown” title might be trying to intentionally mislead us into thinking that Kate is pregnant – when in reality she is far from it, but is revealed to be an adoptive mother in her flashforward this week.

Pretty sneaky, Lost.

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