What Kate Does
As usual, I have to point to other sites and outlets as the source of the knowledge below. Since 06.03 was a Kate-centric (read: just ok) episode, I don’t have a ton to ruminate on this time around. That said, there were still some surprising and fascinating things going on (the drama between Dogen and Sayid, in particular).
Basically, I don’t want to recap the entire episode as I felt most of it was exposition and not much about theory. The biggest things to talk about are:
• Claire appearing and acting like a brand new Rousseau
• The fact that fate brought Kate to Claire’s side, and Ethan to her hospital bed, in both timelines
• Dogen’s comment about Sayid being “claimed”
Claire, I give a wait-and-see. I’d almost bet that whatever is inhabiting her is taking parts (or all) of Rousseau’s spirit and melding it to Claire. Maybe Rousseau’s spirit was captured by the Nemesis and that’s what we’re seeing here.
So, who’s Sayid gonna be?
The line about fate above… frankly, it’s just fate. Like Eloise Hawking said, you can’t change it. I bet Jack will heal Locke instead of the Island, but I bet he will still be healed. This alternate timeline is just showing us that some things can’t and won’t be changed. 
Lastly, and I feel most importantly, the discussion about Sayid losing to this force inside him. Wow. The word “CLAIMED” is so significant in that context, no? It’s almost as if the Nemesis is choosing pieces in a game being played out on the Island. I find it so important that Jacob’s list emphatically demanded that Sayid live, and now the Nemesis has chosen him.
Both realize he’s a valuable asset for their respective causes; unfortunately it looks like Sayid’s now batting for the other team. I could see a twisted turn of events take place wherein other Losties on Jacob’s List switch sides (like Sawyer, Jin and Kate, who are no longer in the Temple?). Crazy. Can’t wait to find out.
This of course reminds us of the larger question - War? What war? And what is it good for? Something like that.
Other random things…
The biggest mindblowing thing I read last week has to do with the tapestries in the statue’s foot. This info comes from The Sanitorium and is just, well, insane. 
According to this blog, the text on the rug is from Homer’s Iliad and reads: “Now you must embrace this evil war” “the ground ran with blood” “then death’s black cloud enveloped” Wow. Then the blog references that Jacob’s white tapestry contains lines from Homer’s Odyssey, which opens up some cool ideas.
The Iliad was all about war and The Odyssey more about peace and returning home. The Sanitorium does a killer job of explaining this and the significance, so be sure you read the post in full.
Here’s a cool theory. So far all the episodes have been focusing on the same character that as in Season One. So…
S1E1&2 - everyone, Jack/Kate - yes
S1E3 - Kate - yes
S1E4 - Locke - hmm.
Thinking we’ll see a lot of stuff between Sawyer and Locke based upon the promo, and given what we’re seeing here this might be on track. That said I can’t imagine there being a CHARLIE centric episode in a few weeks, but you never know… Full list of Season One episodes and their central character can be found at the nerd-tastic Lostpedia
Moving on.
Right after this episode finished, we typed the name Dogen into Wikipedia and were pretty blown away. Dogen was “a Japanese Zen Buddhist teacher born in Kyōto, and the founder of the Sōtō school of Zen in Japan after travelling to China and training under the Chinese Caodong lineage there.”
Here’s Dogen’s most famous pieces of text:
“To study the Way is to study the self. To study the self is to forget the self. To forget the self is to be enlightened by all things of the universe. To be enlightened by all things of the universe is to cast off the body and mind of the self as well as those of others. Even the traces of enlightenment are wiped out, and life with traceless enlightenment goes on forever and ever.”
Shortly before his death, he had written a death poem:
Fifty-four years lighting up the sky.A quivering leap smashes a billion worlds.
Hah!
Entire body looks for nothing.
Living, I plunge into Yellow Springs.
Oh, and Dogen wrote a little book called The Treasury of the Eye of the True Dharma. Huh. How about that. More on Dogen at Wikipedia.
Can’t wait for next week’s episode! It’s entitled “The Substitute”. See you then!
As I mentioned, I decided not to recap the entire episode in more detail because other sites just do it so well. Here’s some of my favorite recaps. Do yourself a favor and check them out:
Doc Arzt does a good job of aggregating a lot of killer info and recaps, but the site might have VERY minor spoilers every now and again.
