Season 2, Episode 9:
What Kate Did
"Do you know that horse, Freckles?"
Written by Steven Maeda and Craig Wright.
Directed by Paul Edwards.
"You asked me why I — why I did it. It wasn't because you drove my father away, or the way you looked at me, or because you beat her. It's because I hated that you were a part of me — that I would never be good. That I would never have anything good. And every time that I look at Sawyer — every time I feel something for him — I see you, Wayne. It makes me sick."
— Kate Austen
In flashbacks, Kate murders her abusive stepfather Wayne by blowing up her house with him inside. She is arrested by U.S. Marshal Edward Mars, who tells her that her mother turned her in. She escapes when a black horse runs in front of the road, causing Mars to crash his car. She visits her father, Sam, and it is revealed that Wayne is her actual biological father.
On the Island, Sayid holds a funeral for Shannon, which Ana Lucia does not attend. Kate looks after Sawyer at the Swan, until he almost strangles her in a fever and yells "Why did you kill me!" She runs off into the jungle, where Jack finds her and they kiss. Kate confesses her reasons for killing Wayne to Sawyer, who she believes is possessed by him. Kate sees the black horse from the flashback in the jungle twice, with Sawyer confirming he sees it too the second time.
Locke, Eko and Michael watch the Swan Orientation video together. Eko shows Locke the Bible he found at the Arrow, that has the missing frames from the video hidden inside. Michael sees a message on the Swan computer, and responds to it, before realizing it is from Walt.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Abusive Parents: Kate's step-father Wayne only appears for a minute, but he's drunk and it's clear he beats Diane.
- Arc Words: When Locke comments on the unlikely coincidence of Eko finding the missing segments of the Swan Orientation video for him, Eko tells him "Don't mistake coincidence for fate." This will be a regulary spoken phrase throughout the series.
- Asshole Victim: Wayne is quickly established to not be a very pleasant man, so the audience won't feel sorry when Kate kills him.
- Audience Surrogate: Michael serves as this when he looks through the Swan and asks a number of questions that the audience still has, like why so much is missing from the orientation film and where the cables from the computer go to. Locke dismisses his questions as unimportant, showing that he still knows almost nothing about the station.
- Book Safe: In "The Other 48 Days," Eko finds a Bible in the DHARMA station and has a perplexed looked when he reads it. It's revealed that it was hollowed out and contained a missing section of the Swan's orientation film.
- Brick Joke: Locke uses the tools at the Swan to finally remove the broken handcuff from Jin's wrist that he's been wearing since "House of the Rising Sun".
- Call-Back:
- Kate's belief that Sawyer has been possessed by the spirit of her father whom she murdered parallels Sawyer's similar belief that the boar stalking him in "Outlaws" was a reincarnated Frank Duckett.
- Jack and Ana Lucia have the drink together that they had planned to have on the plane in "Exodus, Part 2".
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: "What Kate Did" shows...what Kate did.
- Five-Second Foreshadowing:
- While Kate is helping a drunken Wayne into the house, he comments that something smells weird, and she dismisses it as his breath. The house then explodes because of a gas leak.
- Adding onto the above, when Kate is first seen in the flashback, she's playing with a lighter.
- The missing section of the orientation film explains that the Swan operators shouldn't try to use the computer to make contact with the outside world, showing that WAN communications is possible but advised against in no uncertain terms. A few moments later, Michael sees a message on the screen and realizes that Walt is talking to him.
- Foreshadowing: Michael notices that there are blast doors in the Swan, which will become important in "Lockdown".
- George Lucas Altered Version: The scene where Kate and Sawyer see the black horse was edited for the home media release after viewers noticed a hand belonging to the horse's trainer visible on the side of the frame.
- Good Parents: Sam Austen, despite not being Kate's biological father, is shown to be a good and loving father to her, and admits he wanted to take her away from Wayne, but her mother wouldn't allow it.
- Hope Spot: Sawyer has one when he regains consciousness. He realizes he's in a bunkbed and, looking around the hatch, thinks they've been rescued. Then Kate helps him outside and he sees they're still on the island.
- I Am Not Your Father: Inverted. Kate realized that Sam was not her biological father because she asked for pics of him in uniform from one of his COs and they showed him in Korea up until her birth, making her realize that Wayne was her actual father.
- Literary Allusion Title: The episode title is a reference to the novel What Katy Did.
- Love Confessor: A barely conscious Sawyer tells Jack that he loves Kate.
- Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's never revealed whether Sawyer really was possessed by Wayne or he just attacked Kate in a fever-induced haze.
- Mercy Lead: Sam Austen gives Kate a one hour head start before he calls the police on her.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Kate took out a house insurance policy in her mother's name so that she would get some money after it was destroyed. However, Diane realizes what she did and calls the police.
- Real After All: For most of the episode Kate assumes that the black horse she saw in the jungle is a hallucination. The fact that Sawyer can see it at the end of the episode confirms that it is real, or at the very least, some kind of Island vision that is not entirely inside her head.
- The Reveal: Why was Kate a wanted criminal? She blew up her step-father.
- Shout-Out: Charlie notes that the Tailies went through a Lord of the Flies situation on the other side of the island.
- Stating the Simple Solution: Michael asks Locke why he doesn't just push the Button before the four minute alarm sounds. Locke reveals that it is impossible to type anything into the computer before that time.
- Ungrateful Bastard: Kate's own mother gives her up to the police when she kills her abusive husband to save her from him.
- Used to Be a Sweet Kid: The Marshal points out that Kate was a straight-A student without a record, while wondering why she decided to kill Wayne now.
- Wham Line: At the end of the episode, the mysterious message on the Swan computer responds to Michael telling it his name by saying "Dad?"
