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Original
Airdate: February 7, 2007
Writers:
Director: Stephen Williams
The original plan for Lost’s
schedule this season consisted of a six episode mini-arc to whet the appetite
of fans and tease them with sixteen episodes running from February straight
through the end of May. This was to make
it so fans wouldn’t have to wait for seven months for new episodes while
dealing with complaints of inconsistent scheduling. Unfortunately, this plan backfired, and fans
criticized the initial six episodes rather harshly. Instead of building up buzz during the three
month break, some critics were content to stew in their negative reviews,
calling prematurely that “Lost” has j***** t** s**** and that it should be put
out of its misery. Therefore, the return
of “Lost”, particularly these first few episodes, had to be really good or they
could risk testing the patience of fickle viewers teetering towards watching
something else.
Luckily, this episode gave us a few insights
into The Others, focusing on one of the mini-season’s best additions, Other
Juliet. Elizabeth Mitchell, another
great addition to the cast, gets to flex her acting muscles, playing Juliet at
a time when she was timid and insecure and now as the acting leader of The
Others in Ben’s incapacitation. Before
the island, Juliet let other people like her ex-husband walk all over her
(until a bus ran all over him). Despite
doing brilliant work in fertility, impregnating both a male rat and her sick
sister, she underwrites her achievements like that the rat didn’t carry to
term. It’s likely that she saw her
ex-husband, the always welcome Zeljko Ivanek, as someone to control her potential and to limit
her confidence, like hiring a sexy new doctor in the lab where they work.
The only encouraging presence in Juliet’s life
pre-island is her sister, Rachel (the third female “Deadwood” alum Robin Weigert, now where’s Molly Parker?) While she is Juliet’s guinea pig, it works. Juliet gives her sister
hope for her condition, which she had thought would prevent her from her
life long dream of motherhood. It is a
validation of her solo work, and that push manages to get Juliet to stand up
for herself when Edmund tries to steal some of her glory.
If you’re ever going to be hit by a bus, get hit
on network TV, because you’ll just get a few minor scratches at worst instead
of being splattered all over the pavement.
Seriously though, there is reason to suspect that Mittelos
had something to do with the bus crash that killed Edmund, even if they don’t
make a clear implication that they did.
Assuming they really wanted Juliet, their “thorough research” must’ve
found that Edmund would pressure her out of it.
They certainly must’ve known that Juliet
initially would be easy to manipulate, but wanted to be the ones manipulating
her. Things like Ethan in the general
proximity of Rachel in the prologue and Ethan and Richard just happening to
show up in the coroner’s office to get Juliet to work for them show that they
really want her talent for some reason.
However, Juliet is now cool and confident, willing
to do anything to leave the island forever and get back in touch with her
sister. This is a major departure from
the “This is our island” drum The Others have been beating. Some are technically prisoners on this island,
and Ben holds the key to freedom. So it
would make sense that they bond with the castaways, many of whom want to get
off the island.
There are a lot of big pieces of The Other
puzzle introduced in this episode. For
one, The Others aren’t just the native people, and
they can access main land (at least, according to Tom, until the discharge went
off). Of course, they have to trick us
before that reveal, showing us someplace we believe is the island (Juliet on
the beach, seeing Ethan, etc.) when it turns out it is not, a reversal of the
last two season premieres. While Ben has
said that he has always lived on the island, where did everyone else come from? All we know from this episode is that Juliet
was hired because her fertility expertise could help the 26-year-old woman with
a decaying uterus.
Another is Mittelos
(Lost time) Bioscience. The fact that
they have contacts with the outside world adds a lot to The Others
mythology. Is Mittelos
the reason why Dharma drops are still performed years later? Was Mittelos some
rival research group that fought against Dharma? If they were genuinely native to the island,
how could they form a shell corporation?
Juliet arrived on the island around the same
time Desmond did. While there may be
nothing to it, she also arrived six days before 9/11. It’s unlikely that they would incorporate
9/11 into the storyline out of good taste, like they would have the tsunami,
which is about three weeks away on the timeline, occur because of something on
the island.
One nice side note from this episode is that it
develops Tom into The Others’ version of Hurley, down to his uneasiness seeing
blood. They could easily have switched
roles without missing a beat. Tom serves
as comic relief to the dramatic tension, but serious enough to avoid being
silly and to serve as the spokesman.
Introducing himself while he and Jack watch Juliet and Ben is one of the
highlights from this episode.
Alex gets some more moments to shine as she helps
Kate & Sawyer escape from Danny and his men. If anyone was going to help them at great
personal risk besides Juliet, it was going to be her. Knowing that Ben has adopted her as his
daughter (she may not know the truth), that gives her a lot of freedom to dig
holes and weave baskets.
Of course, Alex saving the day was convenient,
so she had to have an ulterior method. Unlike
last episode, where Alex screamed that The Others killed her boyfriend, this
episode upgrades Karl’s condition to “alive”, to steal an old Simpsons joke. He is
being held in Room 23 elsewhere at the Hydra Station, which seems to be far
bigger than any other station we’ve seen so far. Not much is said as to what Karl did to
warrant imprisonment in the bizarre brainwashing room, nor how Alex found out
Karl was a live in the first place.
Could Room 23 be the room that Klugh
threatened to place Walt in last season?
The Room 23 scene was intriguing. Karl’s force feeding of the video recalls “A
Clockwork Orange” among other things. It
must be cool to be a person who gets to make one of these; the crazier, the
better. One Eater Egg worth noting is
that techno beat and screeching played backwards says “Only fools are enslaved
by time and space”. That, the Mittelos anagram and Aldo’s book “A Brief History of Time”,
point towards some kind of fascination with the space-time continuum among The
Others.
Who made the Room 23 video? There are clips of Gerald DeGroot
and Alvar Hanso, two Dharma
members, but there is a reference to Jacob, the possible leader of The
Others. Also, why is Karl in there? What purpose does this treatment
fulfill? Is the video meant to “Otherize” people or brainwash him to do something else? Perhaps sending Karl over with Kate and
Sawyer is part of some larger plan.
Whatever lure the video had, it captured Sawyer’s attention long enough
for Kate to call him out on it.
Considering the only thing they did to make Pickett
sympathetic was give him a wife and make him a widow shortly after, the beat
downs he receives are long overdue. You
can’t help but cheer when Sawyer slams Pickett’s head against the food button
until the electric charge surges through.
Then we have Juliet killing him before he can
kill Sawyer and Kate. Knowing how much
she wants to get off the island, it fits that Juliet would be willing to kill
to do it. It also shows how far she has
come regarding achieving her goals. They
must’ve not meant for it to be read as “Juliet needed to kill her husband to
reach her potential” since she killed someone to achieve her goals in the
present. In both scenarios, she needed
someone out of the way to do what she needed and, assuming The Others
orchestrated the bus crash, The Others took the dark side of that
interpretation with Edmund. Killing
Pickett shows how much The Others’ culture has affected her.
It was a little much to have the “Count to 5”
story be the one piece that helps Jack push through the complication in Ben’s
surgery, but it does create some drama in the dynamic between Kate &
Sawyer. Although they had made love the
night before, Kate still has feelings for Jack.
Plus, they got to reuse the “Life and Death” theme, which is always
great.
This episode was a great reveal into The Others,
showing us a bit about how they bring people into their society. Elizabeth Mitchell proves herself to be
another asset in the superb ensemble, as one of the best elements of the
mini-season gets a big character push, which sets up some of the events that
will play out the rest of the season.
Overall
Score: 8/10