Hating Kate, by Tyler Smith

Why can’t it ever be Kate? There have been a lot of casualties on “Lost,” but Kate is never one of them.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. She’s very attractive. I’m with you on that.

But Kate is my least favorite character. From the very beginning, the writers and producers of the show tried to make her seem interesting. They hinted at a sordid past, in which she broke the law and lived life on the run.

Then came the day when an episode aired entitled “What Kate Did.” I’m sure, for some, the opportunity to finally get Kate’s backstory was an interesting prospect. I’ll admit, I was looking forward to it, but for different reasons. I was excited about it because, once it was revealed to us, the show would stop trying to intrigue me about an essentially bland character.

Then, when we finally saw what Kate did, my disinterest turned to frustration. Because, for the better part of a season, we were meant to view Kate as some kind of badass; a tough chick who could go round and round with any of the men on the island, because she’s got a dark side that we don’t even know about.

Turns out she killed her abusive stepfather to keep him from continuing to hurt her mother.

Could there possibly be a more sympathetic, more relatable, more noble crime than that? Had Kate actually killed an innocent in cold blood- perhaps to support a drug habit or something- then we would really have something here. We would have a hardened criminal trying to redeem herself by helping her fellow island dwellers. In short, an complex character.

But, no. Instead we got somebody who is basically a decent person. And she has failed to be interesting ever since. From then on, any time a Kate-centric episode airs, I roll my eyes and soldier through it, knowing that I’m going to be told that Kate is a world-weary loner trying to outrun her past and that she’s just as interesting as Locke or Sawyer or Said.

And, as more memorable characters die around her, I’ve resigned myself to the fact that Kate is in it for the duration. And I’m told that this is a good thing.

Oh well. I guess it could be worse. Her crime could have been stealing a loaf of bread for her starving children.