Whatever the Case May Be

"Whatever the Case May Be"

"Whatever the Case May Be" is the twelfth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode focus on Kate's background, and was directed by Jack Bender and written by Damon Lindelof and Jennifer Johnson. It first aired on January 5, 2005 on ABC.

Plot

Kate takes an interest in a silver Halliburton case that she and Sawyer find while swimming. She twice tries to steal it from him before going to Jack, claiming the case contains weapons and money. It belonged to Edward Mars, the United States Marshal who accompanied Kate on the flight and was buried with the key. Kate and Jack exhume the body to get the key and they open the case to find the items, along with a small, metal airplane in an envelope. When pressured, Kate says it belonged to the man she loved — and the man she killed. Flashbacks show a New Mexico bank robbery orchestrated by Kate to get into a safe deposit box (number 815, the same as the flight number) containing the envelope with the small plane.

Meanwhile, the tide moves further inland, and passengers scramble to move belongings from the beach. Rose, who maintains faith that her husband is still alive, coaxes Charlie out of his funk and gets him to help. Also, Sayid seeks Shannon's help in translating some of Rousseau's apparently random notes, which she later recognizes as lyrics to the song played over the credits of "a cartoon fish movie".

Trivia

• The safe deposit box Kate robs the bank to get access to is numbered 815
• The model plane retrieved from the box is a Beechcraft 18, just like the plane flown by Eko's drug-runners that crashed on the island.
• The song on Rousseau's notes is Charles Trenet's La Mer, the French original of Bobby Darin's classic Beyond the Sea.