Last week’s season finale of Lost, The Incident, pissed me off through the one medium of the show that always pisses me off—Kate. After getting past all the mystical shits and unpredictable events that always make up a Lost season ending episode, what you’ve got to notice is the predictable reactions from the show’s weakest character, Kate Austen. In it I saw Kate fucking Austen being Kate—which is to say she was incredibly annoying and all acting like she knows what she’s talking about and generally slowing down the story and getting in the way and getting a more interesting character killed (although not so interesting in this episode)—and I don’t think I can take much more of her crap. When the show ends, I have two things that must happen for me not to be seriously disappointed. The first, previously mentioned, is that the real Locke had better be ruling the Island when shit comes to a close, and the second, is that Kate had better die. I am fed up with her whole sanctimonious, self-righteous bullshit—using her sex to get the shit she wants, slapping any number of men, just letting cooler people die, etc.—and I can’t wait for the show to hold its little tribal counsel and finally vote her off the fucking Island. The only episodes of Lost I have hated were episodes that focused on her. She’s manipulative and stupid and self-absorbed and boring and pointless and makes others around her seem like tools. It’s like she is Meg Griffin. A while back I found someone’s assessment of Kate’s character which came in the following four phrases, which are spot on:
1. I’m pretty.
2. What should we do, Jack?
3. Shut up, Sawyer.
4. I’m coming along whether you want me to or not!
Yeah, Kate in a nutshell. So with that finale, I am finally prompted to write out my Ten Reasons Why I Hate Kate Austen. Here goes.
1. She’s Fickle- We can never be sure whom she is going to sleep with this week or how her sexual escapades will end up because she is constantly changing her mind about what the hell she is doing using her sexual allure as like a female executive trying to sleep her way to the top. She makes out with Sawyer one minute and then beats him down with a suitcase or slaps him across the face or whatever. Then once she gets off the Island she hops in bed with Jack and they were supposed to get married even, but she is sneaking around doing things for Sawyer. When Jack gets all fussy and points out that he has repeatedly saved her and what not she says she doesn’t want him acting like that around her “son” and Jack utters a serious burn with “you’re not even related to him.” Woo, ultimate face. So now she hates Jack for speaking the truth and the wedding is off. For Christ’s sake Kate, either pick Sawyer or Jack, quit bouncing back and forth to whichever one is more useful at the time. She is always turning these leader types into heartsick idiots that she walks all over when she wants something. She’s like a parasite befriending Sawyer for the shit he hoarded when they first crashed and then sidled up to Jack because he was the leader and saw the power of his position as her opportunity to be the Island’s Lady Macbeth or something. It pisses me off that she keeps using everybody for her own personal gain and just keeps on lying to them to get it. I pity the both of them for mainly just having to deal with her bullshit. Next season, look for the reemergence of Skate (Sawyer + Kate = Skate) since Kate pretty much did nothing to help Sawyer help save Juliet (See Reason #2 for more on that), her competition, and hey hey, he’s now single again and Jack has sort of spiraled down the down the drain and lost his faith in humanity. But maybe the existential Jack will grow on her. Who knows with her.
2. Gets People I Like Killed (Or Seemingly Killed)- As hinted in Reason #1, she keeps on getting more interesting characters killed for absolutely NO reason whatsoever. In the Lost time-line, the first death she was responsible for was that of her abusive father, which was justified I guess, but I don’t care about that. Then came her childhood sweetheart Tom who she got killed when she was escaping from the law by busting through a barricade and he got hit by a bullet meant for her. What does she do, nothing, she just leaves. Again I don’t care; there isn’t anything of interest that has to do with Kate’s back-story. But then once she gets on the Island is when the her getting people killed starts to drive me crazy. There was the guy who was extraditing her back to the states who was dying anyway, maybe, and I assume Kate practically begged Sawyer to “end his pain” by giving him a quick death but only makes it way worse by shooting him in the lung instead of the heart. Around the same time, she as well as Jack and Charlie let the pilot of 815 go walking around outside of the cockpit with the Monster making noises, failing to warn him that there might be danger. He then gets eaten by the Monster and we later see him up in a tree all mutilated and all—yeah, I acknowledge this one might be a stretch, but the rest are not. When they find Charlie in the jungle pretty much dead, having been hanged in a tree by Ethan, who was a serious bad ass, all she did was stood there and cried. Way to help out, Kate. Great effort there just standing there in the way and crying while Jack has to do everything. But Charlie lived that near-death-experience. Then there was the most infuriating one where she was supposed to go get Jin from the inside the freighter but instead stood around on the deck with her thumb up her ass. Ten minutes after Kate was all, oh don’t go, Sun, you’re holding Aaron and pregnant and stuff, I will go get Jin for you, you get on the chopper, we see Kate finally try to go down into the freighter. What was so goddamn important Kate, that’s what I’d like to know? But Jack stops her saying something about him not leaving without her and they all look down at Jin as the ship explodes, again an inspired performance from Kate. Way to make the extra effort there. That made their flight back toward the Island pretty awkward. So when Sun said to her old man, that she blames two people for the death of her husband and one of them was him, I figured the other one must surely be Kate for dicking around and not doing what she said she was going to do. But frustratingly this turns out to be false and Sun and Kate are great old friends back on the mainland. What the shit? If I were Sun I would be pulling me some hair and punching the so called tough girl in the face instead of taking care of her stolen kid. But Jin somehow survived, we think, but he could just be an incarnation of his form as the counterpart to the Locke imposter or something. We shall see about that next season. Then there was the death of my second favorite character (Locke being the first), Daniel Faraday, which she just let happen as she always does. When Kate and Jack go along with Faraday on into Crazytown as he was about to go into the Others’ camp where he gets shot and killed by his mother, then pregnant with him, Jack was about to stop him but Kate was all “no Jack, don’t go.” Thanks Kate, thanks for stopping Jack from ending the whole Infinite Jest-ish “the woman who kills you is always your next life's mother” thing. Yeah, that was awesome. Ugh, fucking Kate. And then there was the season finale, when Juliet was dangling there above that electromagnetic hole with Sawyer trying to pull her up and Kate did what Kate does and just stood there. Nicely done. I mean did I expect anything more from her than to stand around awkward doing nothing when lives are at stake. No, not really. She was predictably unhelpful. That bitch.
3. She’s Annoying- First, there is that whole bit about her trying to be the tough, strong, kick-ass-and-take-names female on the Island but then she does things like cry over a toy plane. Its like we get it Kate, you are a fugitive, but that doesn’t make you a hard ass. Give up the act and stop making everyone’s life harder by trying to prove you’re a free spirit who doesn’t need anybody’s help. Because Kate, if anyone does, its you. Just stop. Its getting embarrassing how everyone else keeps having to save you. Also, she is ALWAYS interrupting people, suggesting that she feels what she has to say is way more important than whatever Hurley and Miles are saying. What Kate has to say is rarely that important or interesting. I can’t really remember any positive contribution she has ever made to life on the Island. All she does is whine and lie and make a mess of things. Its like to get anything useful or truthful out of her you have spend an entire episode twisting it out of her when she could have just said or done whatever in the first minute or so. This is connected to another annoying fact about her, which is that she is a busybody, always butting into people’s business (like she did when she screwed everything up by talking to Ben’s dad) and asking about their pasts and all that but won’t say anything about hers. When we finally figure out what she is doing it is always something really stupid, again I reference the goddamned toy plane, that really infuriated me. I guess she did get some information out of Miles but that was only for her own personal gain (See Reason #4).
4. She’s Unbelievably Self-Centered- She is unable to think about anyone but herself, ever, and is the most egocentric character in the show. The only thing she really ever did was pull some bullshit con to take Miles to Ben but that was done only to get information about herself. Always begging to be included and whining when being left out, she just has to tag along no matter who protests for whatever sound reasons so as to not to miss out on any of the action. But she never follows orders so even when she is ordered not to come along, of course she follows the group anyway which always ends with her getting captured and her needing to be rescued thus ruining whatever mission the group is on. Sneaky bitch. She is a manipulative liar that lacks all empathy and care for others showing no conscience whatsoever in doing stupid things that she thinks she must do to survive. Her megalomania is such that she couldn’t even get over herself when delivering Claire’s baby, Aaron, saying, “I’m scared too.” Why is that do you think? Maybe because she is a sociopath, I mean she does steel that baby later.
5. She’s Got The Worst Backstory- Her whole ridiculous pre-Island life was basically a way to give her character cause to whine for the entire run of the show. It doesn’t make her look tough or anything and her flashbacks don’t really make any sense when you think about them long enough. A fugitive from law being chased by the whole world it seems for blowing up some douchbag? I think not. I just want to grab her by freckled arms and scream “We get it, you’re a victim, you’re the way you are because your dad (that you thought was your step dad) beat your mom, but you blew him up. And instead of being grateful that you blew him up your mom betrayed you and still made you stand trial when you got back from the Island, but hey, she got over it and you didn’t go to jail. Seriously, we get it. Poor Kate. Now stop bitching about it every other freaking episode, we aren’t going to forget it so you can stop reminding us all the time.”
6. Gets Away With Everything And Constantly Whines- Which brings me to the obvious fact that she gets away with everything. No one seems to care that she is constantly ruining whatever people are doing to better their lives on and off the Island. She didn’t get in any trouble for murdering her old man, ducking the conviction by clinging to her stolen child and with the help of Jack and that incredibly dumb story he told in court that made her into some kind of a hero, which she isn’t, that was so lame and impossible it just made me want to throw up; no one lets the Others kill her for sneaking around when she should have stayed put; people defend her when her actions screw up their lives directly, as was the case when her erratic behavior tipped off Ben’s dad to the fact that she knew more about all that was involved in the shooting of little Ben than she let on, having Jack, Juliet, and Sawyer stick up for her, resulting in the end of Suliet (Sawyer + Juliet) and the comfortable life they had developed with the D.H.A.R.M.A. Initiative; etc. She manages all this simply by putting on a pouty face (her only face) which affords her anything she wants.
7. Steals Babies/Screws up Children- Another thing she got away with was steeling Aaron away from the Littleton family to use him for all her emotional needs, for shame Kate. How does the media not follow up on the apparent problems with the time-line/pregnancy stuff? I think that would have been something that people would have noticed when they captured her. In any case, Kate was well on her way on her mission to screw up a little kid before she finally did the right thing and gave Aaron to Claire’s mom while spilling the beans, as she always does, on the real story of Flight 815. So when the blond lady who looked like Claire from behind appeared that she was running away with Aaron to live amongst the crazies or wherever, for a second I thought she would lose him, which would serve her right, and we would be rid of Aaron, at least for a while. Yeah, he is a little kid… but he has to be the most irritatingly bad child actor ever, way more so than those Olsen twins on Full House, which is no small feet. For a while I thought he had Down syndrome. Every single time he says “mommy” or “juice box” I have to fight back the feeling that I am about the spill the groceries all over the couch and coffee table in the living room where I watch TV. So why all of the sudden did she give Aaron over to an actual blood relative? So she could basically watch him for a while as she goes back to the Island to find Claire and bring her back to raise her son. Yeah right, she was tired of playing house like (in one of her painful-to-watch flashbacks) when she married Captain Hammer (from Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog) only to drug and run out on him when things got difficult.
8. The Producers Have Serious Kate Love- Cassidy was right about Sawyer and his motivation for jumping off the chopper, the reason he deplaned in such a dramatic way wasn’t to save the woman he loved, oh no, it was to get away from the succubus that is Kate. Yeah, Sawyer had the right idea. Get a clue Lindeloff/Cuse. Not even your own fictional characters can stand her. But they have themselves some serious love for Ms. Austen.
It would be great if they would get over her apparent hotness like everyone else and realize there is no use for Kate and kill her off which they won’t. She’s a criminal with a heart of gold just like every chick in Brisco County Jr., Cuse’s first show, staring one Bruce “Jack of All Roles” Campbell, which is pretty awesome, yeah yeah, we understand that you love this type of female character…but this has got to stop already. Jack, who seems more annoyed with her than anything else, was willing to go back in time and take incredibly drastic action by blowing up the Island either erasing the 3-years he knew her which she of course is against because that would mean her going to jail since her celebrity status couldn’t possibly save her or killing him. Whatever happens, or doesn’t, its clear that Jack is hell bent on removing her from his life by any means necessary. Her only merit was as one in a boring love triangle (or square I guess) that was the worst part of the show. Any episode that focuses on her ends up sucking, therefore, they should have done the thing that talked about doing where Vincent had a flashback, which would have been awesome, I love that dog, but instead we got Kate overload. Boo. It isn’t so bad, I guess, that she is irrelevant as far as the story goes but the screen time she gets is unreal. The episodes without Kate are almost always great but these are few and will probably disappear as the two camps, in 1977 and 2007, start to bridge the time gap. Like that kid in your neighborhood growing up that was an asshole and everyone hated but always found out when and where you were hanging out or the guy trying too hard to get laid at a party, Kate never goes away.
9. She Lacks Self-Awareness- This, I think but cannot prove, is one of the reasons her mother hates her. First of all, she killed her dad because she could tell her mother really loved him and took it upon herself to end the relationship. Of course she didn’t see her mom turning her in coming because she can’t tell what people think of her. All she sees is this persona she has constructed and follows that without looking back, ever. On the Island, she believes her place is that of a strong semi co-leader instead of the wimpy, annoying, crying waste of space she really is. She has always been weak link of the show/the Islanders with her whining and inability to make a rational decision for herself basing her actions on her unreliable emotional state at that exact moment. It’s like she never developed the ability to look at the facts as they are when doing something and not just follow her impulses. That is probably why she can’t help but jumping into bed with Jack and/or Sawyer seeing as how she can’t really function without a man around to manipulate first, including stolen baby Aaron.
10. Fucks Everything Up- This is her main problem, this constantly turning things into shit for everyone while offering no help in fixing things. Usually the Losties are correcting some mistake she made or was in some way responsible for while she just sort of stands around all pathetic. When she didn’t cause whatever new development, she is more than likely working on her own agenda that opposes what the majority has decided is right. The most predictable part of Lost is that Kate will defy everyone with her ridiculous horseshit and do what she wants consensus be damned. Like when Kate, in her ever-stupid-way, rushes to save the young Ben that Sayid tried to kill in order to spare their past selves that are confusingly in the future from the manipulating maniac he grows into. Pretty much everyone agrees that Ben’s death here would be a good thing and they should just let him die, but oh ho, not Kate, who doesn’t think any child should die, after all young Ben is a victim too. Not even if you know that he’s eventually going to kill a bunch of your friends, the entire D.H.A.R.M.A. Initiative, and a bunch of people who may or may not deserve it, not to mention tried to take the baby you rightfully stole and then telling those incredible lies that is just one series in a long and proud career of manipulation that gets you and the few friends that the adult version of this dying kid has yet to kill trapped-once again-on the this crazy patch of land that happens to be a time machine to boot that you flings you back some thirty goddamned years in the past. Really Kate? Fucking really? Well, if anyone were to snatch away the hope that Sayid gave them by nearly de-mapping some asshole little kid who grows into a mass-murdering genocidal maniac, it would have to be Kate.
