dammit I suck.

It's been almost 2 weeks since I posted a recap, and I must admit, it's part laziness, part insecurity.
For the record, there a lot of great recappers out there already. This is not the place to come to read great re-caps, which nobody does, so it's fine that I felt too embarrassed to post last weeks recap; or to even attempt one this week.
Better late than never, as they say.
(For the record, 'Better Late Than Never' will be the title of an episode in season 6. I forsee it. And, so long as I'm prophesying here, I fortell that it shall be a Claire flashback, if only 'cause I think that would be really sweet. Does anyone else besides me care that Emile de Ravin must work in order to eat?)

Anyway, my thoughts on Whatever happened, Happened; followed (as soon as I write them) by my thoughts on Dead is Dead:

What the Hell Happened, Happened.

I’ve been saying this a lot lately, but Best Episode Ever.
And then I’ll go onto say something like “okay, so it wasn’t the Best…” (which is still the Constant, really), and this time around is no different. Whatever happened, happened, man. The Constant was the best episode ever before, and it still is.
Whatever Happened, Happened was the best Kate-centric episode ever, however, and it turned enough gears and pulleys of the plot wheel to keep this monster of a story lurching onto it’s inexorable conclusion.
This episode had a lot of ‘twists’ in it, but what I enjoyed the most was that they weren’t gimmicky in the slightest; they revolved around old, familiar characters acting in new and unexpected ways.
Jack as a man of faith, but also using a powerfully consise and reasonable argument for why he wouldn’t save the life of Little Ben.
Sawyer helping Kate for Juliet’s sake was a nice touch also but of course, the true kudos this episode was (and I can’t believe I’m writing this) Kate herself. Evangaline Lily pulls out all the stops, Michael Giachinno backs her up on the music front and for a change, the writers don’t completely undermine the character of Kate.
We see her make selfless, difficult decisions after painful soul-searching; we literally see the character grow before our eyes.
She didn’t come back to the Island for Sawyer. Not really. She came back for Claire.
When I heard that I almost balled in my relief. Finaly somebody cares about Claire!
Also, and is it just me, or does Kate’s excuse for ‘the Lie’ seems pretty flimsy when going up against a deprived grandmother’s rage? There was no mention of ‘protecting’ anybody in that scene. The truth was stark and cold and… a bit a lame, really.
We left them.
This episode played like a symphony, although I’ll be honest, Cassidy sucks my ass. Never has a woman appeared less impressed to receive a giant envelope of money in my memory.
One other thing that really a struck a false chord…
“He’s not going to remember any of this.”
Are the writers seriously going to cop out on us here? Because to be perfectly honest, I saw no problem with Ben remembering everything – it added a ‘Holy Fuck’ element for later viewing: You could watch “One of Them’ again and get chills knowing that ‘Henry Gale’ has come face to face at last with the man who shot him as a boy.
It made sense also, in that Ben has always shown a prescient side.
But no.
Whatever else he’s getting out of his deal with the Devil in the temple, it is like drinking from the River Styx. No memory.