BORN TO RUN

Or, The Piña Colada Song

[Originally Aired May 11, 2005]

Kate is a blonde in Iowa (or maybe it's Nebraska at this point) and she swaps her car's plates and dyes her hair back to black and visits a mail drop and picks up a letter addressed to (Melissa) Joan Hart. It's stuffed with cash and a letter, which makes her cry. On the beach Charlie talks about his big comeback with the impending rescue and Kate is nervous about becoming famous. Daniel Roebuck shows up and delivers a couple lines about how monsoon season is approaching and tells everyone the raft should have left yesterday so Jin and Michael rush to get it finished but then Michael gets a wicked case of cramps and has to stop working. Jack figures out Michael was poisoned. But by whom? Everyone suspects Sawyer, which doesn't make much sense, but wevs, these are the same people who give no thought to the big-ass monster (and not to mention the occasional polar bear) lurking in the jungle. Kate tries to visit a hospital in Iowa but the cops seem to be waiting for her, so she visits and old doctor friend of hers. He was her old boyfriend when they were kids. Sawyer gives Michael some Pepto-Bismol™, and as a way of thanking him, Michael boots him off the boat and gives his spot to Kate. Sawyer gets pissed and accuses Kate, then snatches her backpack and dumps it out revealing she's stolen the drown woman's passport. Kate then admits to everyone that she was the prisoner on the plane and she will be sent to prison if they're rescued. Now Michael thinks she poisoned him and gives her seat back to Sawyer. Kate and her doctor friend kill time by digging up an old New Kids on the Block lunchbox they buried as a makeshift time capsule. Inside is that damn toy plane Kate stole from the bank in an earlier ep, and an old cassette of them as kids talking about how they'd be married some day with nine kids or something. Then they kiss. Jack figures out Sun poisoned the water (he's a doctor and a detective!) and when he asks her about it she says she was trying to make Jin sick, so he wouldn't die out on the raft. Turns out Kate's mom is A) Aunt Zelda from Sabrina the Teenage Witch and B) dying of cancer. The doctor/ex-boyfriend helps Kate sneak a visit with her mom but when mom realizes who she is starts screaming for help. Walt and Locke talk and when Locke touches Walt's hand he has a Dead Zone moment and tells Locke not to open it (presumably the hatch) before running away. Sun and Kate talk and it turns out the poisoning of Jin was Kate's idea. In Iowa Kate makes a getaway in the doctor's car and he goes with her and the cops shoot up the car and the doc is killed. Kate flees on foot, leaving the dead doc and his toy plane behind. Walt tells Michael that he burnt the first raft, and dad says they can stay on the island then, but Michael is really insistent they go.