User Reviews

Michael Dawson is advised by another survivor that the monsoon season will begin, and he needs to sail on the next morning. Kate Austen requests the spot of Sawyer in the craft, since its full capacity of four persons is fulfilled. When Michael is poisoned, the group suspects of Kate. She remembers her past with her friend Tom Brennan (Mackenzie Astin), when he was accidentally killed. Locke shows the hatch to Jack and Sayid.

In "Born to Run", another part of the dark past of Kate is disclosed, inclusive the fatal accident with the owner of the miniature of airplane, and the survivors finally know that she was a prisoner of the federal agent. The weird advice of Walt to Locke seems to be a hint that another mysterious situation will happen. My vote is nine.

Title (Brazil): "Born to Run"

Note: On 23 March 2013, I saw this episode again.

After a glorious streak of rich and moving episodes, the writers of Lost take a bit of a step back with Born to Run, a filler episode that, no matter how interesting, is merely used as a basic set-up for the season finale.

The major incident that occurs on the Island is that Michael gets seriously ill while working on the raft. While everyone suspects Kate and/or Sawyer, Jack looks elsewhere to determine the cause of the apparent sabotage. He also has to deal with finally being shown the hatch: despite Sayid's skepticism, he agrees with Locke that they should try opening it. Even an explicit warning from Walt who, like Locke, seems to understand the power of the Island, is ignored.

The flashbacks focus on Kate, revealing more of her story in light of her fugitive status being brought up as a possible motive for attempting to poison Michael. In this chunk of back-story, which takes place before her trip to Australia, Kate, already on the run and with few people to trust, relies on the assistance of an ex-boyfriend to get a chance to see her hospitalized mother. She also teams up with the ex to recover something important, with unpleasant results.

Considering the events taking place in the present time, it's surprising that the flashbacks add so little to this episode's specific development, despite the mythological hints provided by a new appearance of the numbers. The main problem is that the episode focuses on Kate when the key characters are Locke and Walt. In particular, the latter comes off as an increasingly more important player in the mythology arc, and Kelley makes the most of it in his scenes with Terry O'Quinn and Harold Perrineau, providing a satisfying payoff to an old subplot (the burning of the raft) and planting the seeds for new ones, obviously looking beyond the confines of the finale towards the following season. Most shows would be afraid to think that far ahead. Then again, Lost is a different breed of genre TV...

When 'Lost' was in its prime, it was must-watch television. Remember first watching it, found it remarkably easy to get into, was hooked from the start and was on Season 3 by the end of one week. The general consensus is that the final season is a disappointment and cannot disagree.

"Born to Run" is not one of 'Lost's' best episodes. It's not even one of Season 1's best episodes, and somewhat of a step back agreed after a few very emotionally powerful outings ("Do No Harm" being a prime example). There is a lot to like about "Born to Run" but it is a case of the flashbacks being its weak link and the island events being far more interesting. It is easy to dismiss it as a filler episode and there are elements of that but there is also foreshadowing of what is coming, especially with the hatch.

It is always good to see some development to Kate and Evangeline Lily is growing all the time in the role. There are far better written and illuminating flashbacks however that do a better job adding to the story and developing the character in question.

The flashbacks certainly advance what we know already about Kate, but the writing is clunky and the flashbacks themselves distract from the island events and considering the characters that are focused on on the island most here didn't seem relevant, seemed more of an excuse to make Kate more interesting.

However, the present-day island events are very compelling and suspenseful. Michael's illness and Walt's warning are handled brilliantly, and we do see some great acting and chemistry between Malcolm David Kelley, Terry O'Quinn and Harold Perrineau.

Visually, "Born to Run" is slickly shot as ever, the island beautiful and mysterious. The music is understated and chilling, while the writing is taut on the most part apart from the flashbacks and the direction skilful.

Overall, very good but not great or classic. 8/10 Bethany Cox

"Born to Run", despite being practically the definition of filler, is at least much, much easier to sit through than "Whatever the Case May Be" and even maybe a little better than "Tabula Rasa" (if only because the cast of characters on the island are better-developed in "Born to Run" and hence more interesting). Still, "Born to Run" is one of the natural consequences of the long 20+ episode American season structure- a filler episode of little interest with an insultingly ridiculous explanation for Kate's insultingly ridiculous actions in "Whatever the Case May Be".

"Born to Run" is notable for being the first episode of the show to be scripted by the writing team of Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, and their later achievements like "Ji Yeon" and "Greatest Hits" are far better than this middling, silly script, not that they had much story to work with. What's fascinating about this episode is that it really displays how low-key season one is; in the other seasons this episodes plays the role of a 'setup' episode for the finale, but here it is almost completely unnecessary. For all of season one's strengths, one can't help but feel that there wasn't enough storytelling done in this season. Then again would the following seasons have worked at all if the characters weren't well-developed enough for us to understand their motivations? Tucker Gates directed this episode very well, in keeping with his excellent work on "Confidence Man" and "... In Translation". There are some beautiful shots here, and the tolerable pace at which the episode moves is due in no small part to his work here.

Ultimately "Born to Run" is a decent filler episode if you try your best to ignore the horrendous Kate flashback story (giving her such a stupid and uninteresting story was the writers' biggest mistake on the show). Not up to much, but not too hard to sit through.

6.5/10