'Lost': Not in Portland

After the long hiatus following a disappointing initial arc, Lost roared back with two of its finest Season 3 episodes. The next one actually probably sent a lot of people running, given how plain WEIRD it is, but this one rewarded long-time fans with a combination of character work, rich mythological expansion, and one of the better flashbacks the show ever produced.

(Read my initial take here.)

Not in Portland

4) In Short

"Hey Karl, Netflix just sent us a new movie...you're gonna love it."

8) On the Island

We see Juliet over Ben's body: she's watching Jack talking to Kate via walkie talkie. Sawyer and Kate soon escape from Pickett and run into the jungle. Tom wants Juliet to fix Ben; she confesses that she can't. However, she orders an Other in the room to find Pickett and hunt down the fugitives. Jack insists that he'll let Ben die if they do so; Juliet doesn't believe him. She's a cold-hearted snake: look into her eyes.

Juliet tells Jack about Island #2, which pretty much throws a monkey wrench into Jack's plan. Jack then tells Tom about Juliet's plan to kill Ben, which causes just a mite of tension in the room. Looks like Jack's words get into Tom's head, as he kicks her out of the room. Tom and Jack are surprised when Ben starts talking to them. Apparently, the anesthesia has worn off, and he wants to see Juliet.

As Pickett gets released from his cage, Kate and Sawyer make it to the beach. Kate's stunned to see the larger Island in the distance. She radios Jack to get a boat, but the radio is destroyed by Pickett's gunfire. The two retreat into the jungle, and fortify their position behind some trees. One gets the drop on Kate, but Alex managed to slingshot him into unconsciousness. She then leads them to a hiding spot underground, which sends Pickett and company scurrying by unawares.

Tom grabs Juliet from outside: he tells her Jack's more of a surgeon than an anesthesiologist. Inside, Ben wonders how he didn't see this coming. He wants to talk to Juliet alone; Jack initially resists, but agrees to give him three minutes alone with her. Boy, those Others and their three minutes. From the observation window, Jack sees Ben talking to Juliet, but can't make out what they are saying. But he does see her bury her hands in her face while Tom tells him they have "history." When he returns, Juliet tells him to finish the surgery, and in return, she will help free his friends.

Alex reveals she has a boat, but she wants something in return: help freeing Karl from captivity. Juliet spies them approaching a facility via the surveillance room inside the Hydra. Alex pretends to bring them into the facility as prisoners, but her main man Aldo isn't so sure. He radios Pickett, which gives Sawyer a chance to disarm this lover of Stephen Hawking's A Brief History of Time. Also confesses that Karl is down the hall in Room 23. Oh baby.

Inside Room 23, Karl's subjected to some type of audio/visual over-stimulation. Loud, percussive music plays as phrases such as "God Loves You as He Loved Jacob" and "We are the causes of our own suffering" stream over a seemingly random array of imagery. Karl is watching this clip through LED googles while an IV drip pumps Lord knows what into his veins. Insanely creepy scene that doesn't lose its power to this day.

Outside the facility, Pickett is standing over Aldo's unconscious body, furious that Juliet is telling him to let them go per Ben's orders. He tells Juliet he thinks Ben would rather die than let them go, and gives chase.

Back in the operating room, Tom is dry heaving: guess he doesn't like blood too much. Jack wants to know why they didn't simply take Ben off the Island for this surgery. Tom replies, "Ever since the sky went purple..." but is interrupted by a glorious stream of blood from Ben's back. Looks like Jack nicked an artery by accident. Lovely. He orders Tom to help with the surgery lest Ben die.

Alex finally takes them to the aforementioned boat on the shore. As Sawyer puts Karl in the boat, Pickett arrives, gun cocked and loaded. However, Juliet shoots him before he can shoot Sawyer and Kate. Action galore! She tells Alex to stay, as the only way Ben will let Karl live is if she remains. The two say their tearfully, semi-brainwashed goodbyes.

Kate radios in from the beach to Jack. She says she's safe, but Jack insists he tell her the story from the first day on the beach. She does so, and the story calms Jack's nerves while repairing Ben's surgery. It's a gorgeous payoff, one earned in the way that only long-form television storytelling can. Jack makes her promise to never come back for her, and turns off the radio on his end. Kate and Sawyer then run the sailboat into the water, leaving Juliet and Alex alone on the beach.

Jack watches Ben's body from the observation window. Juliet enters and stands beside him. He confirms he removed the tumor from Ben's spine. He wants to know what Ben whispered to her: she tells him Ben promises to let her leave the island. She's been there three years, two months, and 28 days, and finally, he's going to let her go home.

15) Off the Island

Juliet stares at the ocean while clasping a small kit. She passes by Ethan Rom in the hallway. She comes to a room with a woman asleep on a pull-out couch. This woman is her sister Rachel, and Juliet injects her with a syringe. One notes that Rachel is bald: cancer-striken or recently cured. Juliet pulls the curtain back and reveals they are in Miami.

Juliet sneaks into her medical lab in the middle of the night. While sneaking about, she gets a call confirming her 2 pm appointment the following day with a "Dr. Alpert." While stealing vials of the same drug she injected into Rachel, two people enter the room: a balding man and some saucy little minx. Juliet's phone goes off while they conduct, um, biological experiments. Awkward. Juliet lies about why she's there, and gets introduced to the woman, whose name is Sherry.

The next day, Juliet learns that Sherry is the new research assistant. And the man from the night before? That's Juliet's ex-husband, who wants in on Juliet's secret project. He thinks her research is "potentially genius," but also raises moral, even criminal, concerns. He thinks his involvement turns a murky project into "cutting-edge science." He gives her some time to think about it.

Strap yourselves in: it's Richard Alpert, ladies and gentleman! He's here from Mittelos Biosciences, which is just outside of Portland, don'tcha know. They're privately funded, which means "freedom." She wants to know why they want her; he wants to know if it's true they she successfully impregnated a male field mouse. He then shows her a series of womb CT scans. She ascertains that she's looking at a woman in her 70s; Richard reveals that she's in fact 26. After one more offer of employment, Juliet tearfully says that short of getting hit by a bus, her ex-husband would never let her leave. As she leaves the room, she tells him she's not a leader.

Juliet returns home from her interview and talks to Rachel. Rachel reveals that Juliet's work in fact does work: she's pregnant. She shows her a pregnancy kit, courtesy of Widmore Laboratories, and the appropriate blood work. Rachel and Juliet cry happily. Soon after, Juliet tells Edmund about the good news, and how she doesn't want this work to turn into a series of papers and awards. Edmund doesn't like this idea, and gets pancaked by a bus for his troubles. Hey, didn't Juliet just tell Richard this was the only way she could join Mittelos?

Standing over Edmund's corpse, Juliet gets a tissue from Ethan Rom. Behind him? Dr. Alpert.  He tells Juliet that they saw the accident on the television and wanted to express their condolences. Turns out Ethan is a colleague, and they promise to have Juliet back in six months, before Rachel gives birth. Between the bus accident and their knowledge of Rachel's pregnancy, Juliet's pretty nervous about these two. She wants to know if Rachel can come with her; Richard thinks their facility is too remote to get Rachel the type of treatment she needs. Juliet doesn't think Portland is remote. Richard confesses they are not quite in Portland. Understatement of the year.

16) The Mythology

"I Do" contained nearly no mythology. "Not in Portland" all but chokes you on it. Just a ridiculous number of universe-expanding elements dropped in this episode. Since doing them adequate justice would take up a chapter of a book, not a section of a blog entry, I'll do a quick overview of everything introduced and let you discuss your favorites in the comments below.

Fertility. While we've heard Juliet confess to be a fertility doctor before, we didn't know what kind of fertility doctor she was, nor to what extremes she went to in the name of love. Ben's obsession with pregnancy dominates Season 3, and may still dominate Ben until the end of the show. To wit: whose CT scan is that? Could it be someone from Ben's past, perchance?

Mittelos Biosciences. An anagram for "lost time," Mittelos is the public front for a host of Others activities. We know they have recruited as far back as thirty years (thanks to a brochure sent to John Locke in high school), but that doesn't necessarily mean Mittelos was formed thirty years ago. How can I explain the seeming paradox? It's all in the company's name. As the show delves more and more into space/time paradoxes, I think we'll learn that Richard's seeming agelessness will play a huge part in explaining the events of the show.

Richard Alpert. You beautiful bastard, you. Few characters have done more with less screen time to excite the imagination of Lost viewers. I think reader JeffC's thoughts that Richard will die this year; not because I'm rooting for his death, but he's so crucial to helping Locke achieve his potential as Island leader that he would be a prime target for the opposition.

Room 23. Well, that's one way to earn loyalty. Nothing like a little brainwashing to do the trick. The big question: is this the Ben Linus edit of the film, or the Degroots' original film? Learning about stations such as the Tempest calls into question just how benevolent the original Dharma Initiative project was, and while it's likely Ben and company altered the tape to their tastes after the fact, I'm not sure we can really put it past the original DI to have constructed this room as is. Hopefully Season 5 will shed some light on this.

23) The Moment

Room 23's crazy-go-nuts home movie.

42) In Retrospect

1. Love Ben's ultimate reason for putting Karl in the room: to avoid impregnating and therefore killing Alex. Course, Ben doesn't have much trouble having the rest of his clan volunteer to risk life and limb in order to fulfill Ben's obsessive desire to ensure procreation in New Otherton.
2. Are we supposed to not think about where Karl came from, given that Alex is the only other person under 25 amongst the Others that was not stolen (that we know of)?
3. How did Elizabeth Mitchell not win an Emmy for this episode?

108) In Summary

A top-ten all time episode, both for the sheer dramatics and mythological expansion inherent in the 42+ minutes. Juliet's flashback not only gave her character development, but context to the Island's mysteries. Too few flashbacks had given both; afterwards, they were the norm, not the exception.

Putting Juliet on the backburner in Season 4 was one of the only things I didn't like about that season: her character is too rich and important to place in the background. Hopefully, Season 5 corrects this mistake. She's an unmistakable leader, despite what she tells Richard in this episode, and deserves to be at the forefront of all things Island-related in the season to come.

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.