KATE LIVELY

Kate Lively is a resourceful and intelligent woman driven by a profound sense of duty to her country, willing to sacrifice personal relationships and opportunities for the greater good. Her internal conflict becomes evident over time, though, as she often argues with Carl and the way she sees the world and the way he sees it. She was Carl Berkowitz’s “true love,” but left him for a job in DC. What he thought was that it was a law firm, but what she later discloses is that she was in the intelligence community and following jobs as they were needed. She shows that she’s willing to break a certain level of confidentiality when she tells Carl she works in the intelligence community for an un-named government agency, and also when she tells Carl she’s working with Steingold undercover to get him on terrorism charges. Kate drinks beer and talks game like a pillar of strength and focus, but Carl discovers her vulnerability when he sees her crying in her car after spending time with him when only a few minutes earlier – when she was acting like she barely cared to see him. Kate’s role in the story seems primarily marked by her work in taking down Steingold, but we gain insight into Kate’s personal flavor of loyalty when she decides to protect Carl and take down his adversaries in a complex situation. In fact, she goes so far as to run an operation to protect Carl while she is simultaneously working undercover to take down Steingold. Kate’s character arc is partly disguised as a slow revelation of her actual job, but the real arc is internal as she is challenged by Carl to set aside her thirst for justice in favor of possibly allowing a criminal to walk away from their past to mitigate Carl’s conflict over discovering he’s related to the perpetrator Kate has been pursuing. Kate’s re-entry into Carl’s life is chaotic and fast-paced, but there’s a sense that it won’t last and she will leave as quickly as she returned. Kate’s moral compass allows for her to take action that is morally questionable because it serves a greater good, like when she offers to kill Drake Grove to protect Carl.