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'Lost': A Tale of Two Cities
We're onto Season 3 here in the We Have to Go Back Campaign. I know, time flies when you're recapping all the episodes of Lost in anticipation for the start of Season 5. I know my hands and wrists sure can't wait for that glorious day. In this episode, we have underwater hatches, French presses, and a new perspective on the crash of Oceanic 815. Literally.
A Tale of Two Cities
4) In Short
"I can haz grilled cheez?"
8) On the Island
A woman we don't know puts the song "Downtown" on her CD player as she wipes the tears away from her eyes. Why is she crying? Hey now, don't be so hasty. She rushes to her kitchen, realizing she's burned her muffins in preparation for her book club meeting that day. The book in question? Stephen King's "Carrie." There's a tense argument over the merits of the book and the absence of a man named Ben. Just as the host argues about the state of free will on the...well, there's a rumblin'. And a tumblin'.
Everyone leaves to see the ruckus. And we soon realize this is a flashback, but an on-Island flashback, and we've been watching a scene of the Others. They aren't so hillybilly anymore: instead, they live in a bungalowed community deep in the jungle. We watch them see Oceanic 815 split in two above their little enclave, with "Henry" giving orders to Goodwin and Ethan to infiltrate the respective groups that landed on opposite sides of the Island. He then looks at the host's copy of "Carrie" and notes that he must be out of the book club. The Artist Formerly Known as Henry is officially known as Ben.
Best. Intro. Ever.
Jack wakes up in an eerily lit, metallic room. He notes a bandage on his arm, rips off the gauze, and tests the door. No go, he's trapped done good. He presses a "Communicate" button, but it doesn't work either. On one side of the room is a thick, clear glass wall. Above him? A large gurney, almost as if for hoisting some sort of large animal. A shark, perhaps. Just sayin'.
Kate wakes up to the sound of running water. She sees Tom, sans beard, who suggests she take a shower. She doesn't wanna shower in front of him; Tom laughs and says she's not his type. (Damn skippy, given his Season 4 paramour.)
Sawyer wakes up in what looks like an animal cage, noting both a large edifice nearby (replete with an unfamiliar Dharma logo) and a young man in an adjourning cage. He tries to engage the young man in conversation, but the young man isn't going for it. Sawyer then notes a series of contraptions inside his cage, including a red button with a fork and knife on it. Sawyer presses the button twice, but nothing happens. Before the third time, his partner in captivity suggests Sawyer shouldn't do that. Too late: Sawyer presses the button and gets a major electrical shock for his efforts.
While Jack tries to find a way out, the host from the book club introduces herself: Juliet. She tries to talk him down from the table, noting his stubborness. (Damn, didn't take her long to note that.)
Kate emerges from the shower to find all her clothes gone, and a locker with the sign "Wear This" on it. Inside? A rather pretty sun dress, standing in stark contrast to her previous garb. Tom whistles, and says, "He's waiting." He and three other Others lead her down a path towards the beach, where Ben is waiting under a makeshift canopy with what looks like an elegant lunch. He pulls a chair out for her, which is somehow terrifying. He asks her to slip on handcuffs, which is apparently the Others' form of good manners.
Kate wants to know what happened to Sawyer and Jack. Ben notes that she mentioned Sawyer first, and finds that interesting. Kate asks why he's giving her the Sandals treatment: he tells her that she'll need something nice to hold onto over the next two "unpleasant" weeks.
Back in Jack's cell, he hears static over the com system. He then hears what sounds like his father saying, "Let it go." Just at that moment, Juliet returns with food: a grilled cheese sandwich and water. The rules for food: if Jack sits with his back towards the far wall, she'll come around and leave the food at the door. Jack isn't so interested in Others' cuisine. Juliet starts asking Jack questions, and his responses are sarcastic and untruthful until she starts asking about Oceanic 815. This leads to talk about Christian, which leads Jack to quietly ask, "What the hell is going on here?" Juliet leaves, nibbling on the grilled cheese sandwich.
Back in Cageville, the young man is inquisitive about the Lostaways: how far away are they, what kind of people are they, etc. Sawyer answers in typical Sawyer fashion until he realizes his compadre has escaped from his cage, and has come over to free him as well. The words "Subject Escaped" is heard over a PA system while the two run in opposite directions. Sawyer doesn't get very far before running into Juliet, who instantly tases him. The Great Escape, this is not. Tom brings the young man, Karl, over to Sawyer's cage and make him apologize for involving him in the breakout attempt. Karl looks bloody and beaten. Cheerful start to Season 3 so far, eh?
Juliet returns to Jack's cage, explaining that the drugs administered to Jack will cause dehydration, which will lead to hallucinations. She knows Jack feels like he's giving up if he agrees to her food terms, but eventually breaks through. Or so she thinks: as soon as she opens the door to bring him food, he surprise attacks her. Holy crap, a Jack plan worked!
He leads her into a hallway, looking for a way out. They finally come to a door with a large wheel on it, ordering her to open it. She screams that doing so will kill them all, a statement Ben corroborates. He seems oddly disinterested in her well being. Jack pushes her away to turn the wheel (non-frozen donkey variety), while Ben and Juliet both attempt to get the hell out of Dodge. Why? Because Dodge gets flooded with water as soon as Jack opens the door. Ben locks the two of them inside, thereby removing any chance Ben ever had of getting back into the book club. The two make it into the observation room, where Jack presses an emergnecy button and Juliet cleans Jack's clock with one punch. Juliet's officially a a badass character. Let's hope the show doesn't completely forget about her in Season 4, which would make this blogger all sorts of unhappy.
In Cageville, Sawyer successfully learns the series of actions needed to "win" his little cage game. The University of Michigan fight song starts playing, which is interesting, in that a certain married pair that founded the Dharma Initiative were also Michigan alumni. Sawyer's elation is muted when his "prize" is a fish-shaped biscuit, some peanuts, and some water. He's brought even further down the ladder when he sees Kate brought into the adjoining cage. Tom congratulates Sawyer on his fish biscuit, and then notes that the "bears" solved the same puzzle in less time. Sawyer tried to keep Kate's spirits up, but neither are in the smilin' mood. Sawyer shares his fish biscuit with her, which is a lot more adorable onscreen than in print.
Jack wakes up from his Juliet-induced sleep session, with Juliet nearby. She's got a file nearly a foot thick, full of Jack-specific info. And not just the basics: things like Christian's autopsy report. Jack wants to know if she has information about Sarah; Juliet says she does, and wants to know what he would like to know. "Is she happy?" he asks. Juliet says she is, while brings Jack to tears. Once again, Juliet offers Jack food, and this time he follows orders to a T.
When Juliet moves outside the room, Ben is waiting for her. He compliments her on a job well done. Juliet's mouth says, "Thank you, Ben." Her eyes say something else entirely.
15) Off the Island
A stubbly Jack sits in his car, looking worse for the wear as he stalks Sarah. He sees her at work, and notes that she's flirting with a fellow pre-school teacher.
Jack arrives at a lawyer's office. Sarah wants to know where his representation is. Jack tells her he fired him. He tries to apologize, but halfway through, she receives a call from someone, which pushes Jack's jealousy buttons. He says she can have everything: the cars, the house, everything, so long as he knows the name of the person she's seeing. She walks away silently.
Jealous Jack is on the case, trying to find out who the mystery man is. Christian walks in, and tells Jack to let it go. While Jack rants and raves, Christian gets a call from Sarah. Bad timing, Sarah. Jack plays the "drunk" card on his dad, which cuts Christian to the quick. "Let it go, Jack," Christian says as he leaves Jack's office.
While dealing with a patient, Jack sees Christian answer his cellphone, laughing at whomever is on the other line. He follows his father to a hotel, where he find Christian not with Sarah but with a group of fellow AA members. The group leader wants Jack to join them, and Jack opens up: he opens up a can of verbal whup ass on his father, finally directly accusing him of sleeping with Sarah. Christian doesn't outwardly deny it, merely asking him once again to let it go, which leads Jack to tackle his father. Brutal scene.
Sarah posts Jack's bail, which makes her a much better person than me. She says Christian informed her of his state, that there's a cab waiting for him, and then leaves. He gives chase, seeing her walk to a strange man. "Is that him?" he asks. "It doesn't matter who he is; it just matters who you're not." Ouch. She then tells Jack that his father was so drunk while calling her that she could barely understand him. Double ouch.
16) The Mythology
Two ginormous elements introduced in this episode.
1) New Otherton
The Others have a village! Like, a really nice village! With CD players and ovens and book clubs and real clothing! Comparing the fakeouts of Season 2's opening sequence and Season 3's is a matter of personal preference. I prefer this one, but only barely. There's something inherently creepy about trying to mentally match up what we know about the Others and what we see in this opening sequence.
2) The Hydra
Yet another Dharma station: this one zoological in nature. We learn that at least dolphins, sharks, and bears (oh my!) saw time in this station back in the heyday of the DI. Those crazy polar bears from the pilot episode finally get a logical explanation. Only took two years, which in Lost time is next to nada.
23) The Moment
For some reason, Christian's anguished face upon being accused of sleeping with Sarah just kills me. (Actually, there's a good reason, read below.)
42) In Retrospect
- In keeping with the ongoing exploration of Christian's potential knowledge of events to come, could Jack's accusation in this episode be the straw that broke the Christian back? If one assumes, as I do, that Christian has a sense of future events in the way that a Ms. Hawking might, and one assumes, as I do, that Christian sought ways to avoid the pain of that future for his son, couldn't one assume his time in AA was part of a plan to sidestep fate? If so, the Jack attack in this ep might have shown Christian just how fickle a b#tch fate can be, sending him once and for all into an alcohol-induced hell on earth.
- One of my absolute favorite Sawyer moments ever happens in this ep: watch his absolute heartbreak at seeing Kate handcuffed and led to the cage, and his absolute refusal to let know Tom how he really feels. It's masterful stuff, pulled off effortlessly by Josh Holloway.
- What Elizabeth Mitchell does with Juliet is this season is really miraculous: the character has no tells whatsoever. What I mean by that is you can't possibly know any more than any character on the show what she's thinking, a trait she learned after the events of Season 4's "The Other Woman." But it's fascinating to go back and see how thin a line they had to walk with her (keeping us as intrigued/repelled as Jack) and how successfully they pulled it off.
108) In Summary
In some ways, the episode goes downhill after that insanely cool opening sequence. After that, it's almost torture pRon from there on in, with Jack, Kate and Sawyer beaten down for the entire ep (and most of the ones to come as well). I'm of mixed feelings about these first six eps: at the time, it was brutal to watch our heroes consistently get outwitted, outplayed, and outsmarted by the Others. However, 1) I HATE when shows resolved huge cliffhangers in the first ep of the next season, and 2) so many losses makes the ultimate triumph that much more earned and impressive later on. Not sure you'd get the same catharsis if the losses were equally earned all along the way.
Leave your thoughts about this episode below!
Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude, then peruses Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group. He also encourages you to leave questions for the producers and cast of Lost here.
I have to say this was the most shocking season premiere (or at least opening scene) ever for me. Just seeing that they LIVED there was unbelievable. And then seeing the plane crash... The middle part of season 3 may not have lived up to this premiere, but couple this scene with the season finale and everything can be forgiven.
As far as Juliet goes, it is true how mysterious she stayed throughout the season. The whole time, I couldn't tell if she was playing both sides, or was a bad Other, or was on the Lostaway's side. For that matter, I'm still not completely sure.
A-Rob | Oct 19, 2008 9:55:39 AM | #Definitely a GREAT intro to season 3. And, like Ryan, I really hope Juliet doesn't get lost among the other characters in the two seasons to come. She has become one of my favorite characters on the show. She strikes a nice balance between hardcore bad-ass and compassionate intellectual.
Marc | Oct 19, 2008 11:30:31 AM | #I'm with you guys, I like this opening sequence even better than season two's. For a minute I wasn't sure if I was watching Lost or Desperate Housewives. What are we doing on Wisteria Lane? Muffins? And then Ben walks out the door...
Okay, I love Juliet. I think she's the best female character the show's come up with. And this was a great introduction for her. I also had no idea which side she was on the entire season, but it was fascinating to watch. Too bad that other than a lame episode in season four, we barely saw her anymore.
Other than the opening, my favorite scene from this episode is Ben throwing a beach luau for Kate. Sooo creepy. Evangeline Lilly can be uneven at times, and she definitely got stuck with one of the thinner characters, but she's had episodes where I thought she's done a pretty good job. And this was one of them.
About the first six episodes...I agree with Ryan. I don't like when a cliffhanger is resolved right away. I think six episodes would have been fine, if not for the fact that we hardly saw any of the beach folks. I don't think (judging from comments I read then) that people liked that they were left with a cliffhanger at the end of these. Maybe if the fall episodes had had a little more closure for the alcatraz storyline, more setup for Desmond's "I see the future, brotha" story back on the beach, and more of the other characters, people wouldn't have gotten so upset with them. But I see the showrunners' dilemma: how do you fit all that in six episodes? You know who had a hand in Lost's rough start to season three? ABC. They should've just let it run straight through in the spring.
Wow, for an episode that isn't my favorite this sure is a long post. But aside from the flashbacks, I don't think this was that bad. In fact, it had some pretty good moments.
Two final thoughts:
1. What the heck was Jack doing pulling on that chain?
2. I love grilled cheese.
Natalie | Oct 19, 2008 11:52:05 AM | #guess i never figured out how so many people lived after falling that far out of the sky. looked pretty high up in this ep
lost guy | Oct 19, 2008 12:14:30 PM | #Thinking back to that opening, the part that intrigues me is that Ben is not at all suprised that a plane is falling out of the sky and chrashing into the island. He quickly has a plan and assumes that a significant number of people will survive the crash. An assumption that would be far fetched anywhere else based on what we saw
Natalie_w | Oct 19, 2008 1:02:03 PM | #Ok, i know this is offtopic and its from the last post but here it is anyway
i dont know if anybody else thinks the same and dont care but im tired of reading about his dd dark disiple whatever dude. hes an asshole sounds like so forget him and talk about lost
sorry the rant but its annoying k
Interruption | Oct 19, 2008 2:00:12 PM | #The opening scene reveals were pretty awesome, in the overall scope of Lost.
The thing about this episode, and a few of the next six, was that they may have seemed slow but sorta became neccesary when we reach the finale; as Ryan said, what we're seeing is our favorite characters just totally being dominated by the Others. It's these actions that have to happen to make Jack go all Rambo in the finale; he's so fed up with Ben, Tom, the Others (and Jack's anger is a metaphor for all of the Lostaways anger) that he just decides "Hey, I'm going to start the final battle with these guys." Of course, the end result of this Others vs. Losties war is they completely ignored the forces that came to call in Season 4.
But back to Season 3 for a moment; the way Ben treated Juliette, starting with this episode, is probably his greatest mistake and what led to his downfall.
(Season 3 spoilers follow)
He basically says he owns her, then goes and risks her life just to mess with Jack's head, then repeatedly asks her to do things that goes against her morality, and all of this is in addition to a) sending the man she really loved to be killed, b) denying her access to her sister and nephew, and c) threatening to execute her and then branding her with an iron. All of this, and then he puts his plan to invade the Lostaways entirely into her hands...brilliant, that guy. I'm just saying, knowing what we do about Ben and how fiercly he guards his secrets and his ideas, he sure took a uncharacteristic gamble with the one person who probably suffered the most under his leadership.
Other Sean | Oct 19, 2008 3:28:05 PM | #Other Sean-
I can see your point about Juliet. It is an odd move for Ben to put so much faith in someone who clearly hates him. My only guess is that he used this reasoning:
"I find out what people are emotionally invested in and then exploit it."
Maybe after seeing Juliet beg him over and over with such desperation to let her go home so she could be with her sister, he assumed she would do absolutely anything to get what she wanted. What he didn't understand is that, unlike him, some people will not do whatever it takes to get what they want. There are some lines that people won't cross. And it didn't occur to him that she would sympathize with the Lostaways.
So you're right. That was definitely a tactictal error on his part. Who knows? Maybe Ben doesn't just realize how eeevil people find him to be. Perhaps he should've sent Juliet to room 23 as soon as he sensed she wasn't completely in line with the Others...but he cared about her too much to do that. And as Ben said himself, bad emotional responses lead to bad command decisions...or something like that =)
Natalie | Oct 19, 2008 6:12:49 PM | #OK.. SO I HAVE to mention a few things.
ONE being... The song Jack is listening to in his car when he is spying on sarah is "moonlight serenade" whiwch is the same song hurley and sayid listen to in " the long con" after sayid fixes the radio from bernard. Not so important but still very interesting.
SECOND I MUST mention...I very rarely guess thing on lost that are going to happen. I try to guess and am usually wrong... BUT when this episode first aired... and Tom told kate " Your not my type" I was 100% convinced he was gay.. NO ONE believed me everyone thought I was crazy and dumb for thinking that BUT then in " meet kevin johnson" we are to assume he is gay I believe.. So I was very proud of myself for guessing that because like I said I hardly ever guess such things b ut I actually was right about soemthing AND it was a little over a season in advance. so huzzah! I was happy about that. :)
I like this episode. the opening was AMAZING.. But th shock of season twos opener.. " whoses flaskback is that? is it sawyer? no who is it???" that was suprised me a lot more.
I love this episode though. it is GREATNESS.
cerberus vent | Oct 19, 2008 7:23:56 PM | #Yes the opening was INCREDIBLE!!!! And Juliet is awesome (in so many ways). But how awesome could the others be if they fell apart so suddenly after we just got to know them.
Jeff M | Oct 19, 2008 9:18:10 PM | #Total shocker of an opening. As someone mentioned, the first viewing I was trying to figure out whose flashback we were watching. I remember sitting stunned during the opening/commercial break ... what just happened? It is those turn-you-upside-down-and-shake-you-around moments that make me love this show. Such a roller coaster.
I, too, love Juliet and hope we see much more of her in seasons to come. She is written/played so well that you (a) are not sure what side she's working for and (b) you feel sympathetic towards her for the manipulations/games she's been put through.
And that "lunch" Kate had with Ben totally creeped me out as well. Actually, BEN creeps me out, period, but I'm with others who wonder if something else happened to Kate off camera between when we last see Kate with Ben and when she's brought to the cages.
Keep up the great observations, folks! I pretty much read every word.
djc | Oct 20, 2008 8:13:06 AM | #It does not matter what altitude you crash from on Lost island, if the island needs you, you will survive.
With or without the eye of the tiger.
Have we ever discussed how occasionally the Others seem to have super strength? Juliet's ability to knock Jack out with a single punch and Ethan's fight to the death come to mind as examples.
DP | Oct 29, 2008 10:08:42 AM | #
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