Katherine Anne Austen is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost, played by Canadian actress Evangeline Lilly.

Born in 1977 and raised in Iowa, Kate is the daughter of diner worker Diane (Beth Broderick), and Sam (Lindsey Ginter), a U.S. Army Ranger and Gulf War Veteran.

At an early age Kate's parents divorced, and Diane married an abusive alcoholic named Wayne Janssen (James Horan).

Kate fled to Miami under the alias "Monica", where she dated and soon married a police officer named Kevin Callis (Nathan Fillion).

After a pregnancy scare and Kevin's purchase of two Oceanic tickets to Costa Rica for their honeymoon, Kate confessed her fugitive past and laced his drink with a sedative before disappearing.

[1] After months of traveling around the country under numerous aliases, Kate learned that Diane was dying of cancer, and decided to visit her.

A policeman opened fire on their getaway car, killing Tom and forcing Kate to flee the scene of the accident.

Kate grabbed the wheel and crashed the truck into a field but instead of running, she helped the unconscious farmer from his vehicle, giving Mars time to pursue and arrest her.

Escorting her to the airport in handcuffs, Mars briefed local security officers on Kate's fugitive past and revealed his locked carry-on case containing four firearms (and a fifth in an ankle holster).

Kate stole the keys to the handcuffs and attached an oxygen mask to Mars and for herself, as the plane splintered and crashed onto the island.

[3] Having survived the crash, Jack Shephard noticed Kate walking out of the jungle and asked her to stitch his wound, to which she agreed reluctantly.

During their second day on the Island, Jack, Kate and Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) went to retrieve the cockpit's transceiver from the plane debris.

When they returned, Kate, Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) and several other survivors hiked to higher ground of the Island to transmit a distress signal on the transceiver.

Jack suggested that the survivors move to the caves that he had discovered, but Kate refused because she was afraid of "digging in" and settling down.

[1] They encounter Alex, who gives them her boat [14] When arriving on the beach, she scolds Sayid and Locke for not bothering to rescue Jack.

[20] Kate is then shown Jack and Juliet's plan to deal with the Others' imminent attack while the majority travels to the radio tower.

Upon learning of the location of the final team member, Charlotte Staples Lewis, Kate accompanies Sayid and Miles to the barracks.

In "Something Nice Back Home", Kate is seen living in an established relationship with Jack, who is also acting as a surrogate father for his nephew Aaron.

[21] Kate is surprisingly confronted by Dan Norton, a lawyer who is asking for a blood sample from both her and Aaron to determine their biological relationship.

Sayid shoots a young Ben Linus and Kate and Sawyer save his life by bringing him to Richard Alpert.

Kate assists Jack in getting the bomb to the required location, but when he drops it down a tunnel, it does not go off, despite the fact that it is supposed to explode on impact.

When she eventually finds her, she discovers that a dark side has grown in Claire, who has become unstable due to many years of living alone, in the belief that the others are holding her son hostage in a Temple.

Sawyer escapes from the Temple and Kate follows him to apologize for the loss of Juliet and to ask him to help her find Claire.

Sawyer inadvertently causes the timer to count down faster and Sayid, Jin and Sun are killed in the resulting explosion.

Before the pilot was shot, and during the writing phase, Kate was to emerge as the leader for the survivors, motivating them to build shelter and begin considering life as permanent residents of the island, however when it was decided Jack should survive, she was a second-in-command.

Kate is involved in a love triangle with Jack (Matthew Fox) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) and is seen as very protective of Claire (Emilie de Ravin) and her baby Aaron.

She was supposed to start on the first day of filming, but the schedule was rearranged to give her more time and, in the meantime, the producers began auditioning again in case the visa did not come through.

"[37] When discussing the mistreatment of women and minorities in the series finale "The End" and the later seasons as a whole, Sady Doyle of Slant gave a negative assessment of Kate's arc stating, "Spunky, disobedient Kate was passed between Jack and Sawyer like a football before motherhood gave her life true purpose.

Assessing her mistreatment in relation to both writing and fandom as a whole, Bernstein remarked: In a chicken-or-egg type of paradox, Kate became one of the least favorite characters among fans during Lost's original run, which poses the question of whether she was hated for bad plotlines and inconsistent personality or given bad storylines because the writers didn't know where to go with her character beyond a certain point.

[39]On the other hand, Robert Bianco of USA Today said Lilly's performance in the season four episode "Eggtown" was worthy of a Primetime Emmy Award nomination.