"Whatever the Case May Be", written by Jennifer Johnson and Damon Lindelof, is just an awful, almost unwatchable mess. The flashbacks are utterly embarrassing as opposed to simply boring like most other Kate flashbacks, with the whole bank robbery feeling extraordinarily fake and clichéd and the reasoning behind it being so amazingly sappy and ludicrous that I wonder if the writers wrote this one as an intentional joke.
If there's one real positive in the entire episode it is Jack Bender's work as director. Very good. We also thankfully have some scenes on the beach with Sayid, Jack, Shannon, and some others. These scenes are definitely not anything special but they really are a relief from the nausea-inducing dialogue and excruciatingly, insultingly obvious attempts to further set up the romantic geometry on the show. Oh, I nearly forgot the only excellent scene in the whole episode, Rose's discussion with Charlie, very nicely-written that.
"Whatever the Case May Be" deserves no discussion or analysis. It is perhaps the worst sort of filler in all four seasons of "Lost" thus far and generally completely worthless. One need not look beyond the hilariously awful swimming scene with Kate and Sawyer to see this.
3/10