(Prev) Many Happy (or Unhappy) Returns

Tonight. Lost. “One of Us.”
10/9c.
But wouldn’t it be sweet if it was called, “Just the Two of Us,” and the first five minutes would be the music video from the Will Smith classic, “Just the Two of Us” in which he raps about his impending fatherhood? Dang, that would be so awesome. And relevant.

Us vs. Them
Last season, one of the most talked-about episodes was "One of Them", in which Rousseau "captured" Henry "Ben Linus" Gale in her crazy jungle net. This prompted the “Is he who he say he is? Is he good or bad?” question among most viewers. Fast forward to now, and tonight’s episode: “One of Us”. Jack, Kate and Sawyer return to the beach with Juliet in tow, amid speculation about her motives and questions as to her allegiance. A very similar situation here, and a deliberate parallel created by the writers. This time around, we’ve got a head start on our skepticism, as we’ve already been wondering all season what Juliet’s true purpose and motivation was, and we know she’s at least a pseudo-other. Last year, Ben took on the task of deceiving an entire culture of people, opting to play his manipulation and exploitation cards in the hopes of gaining more information and driving a wedge between the survivors. Juliet may not be as manipulative as Ben (and who is?), but she’s no stranger to deception. She’s got the best poker face on the island, to the point that even her greatest ally, Jack, occasionally doesn’t trust her.

My take? Juliet’s not good. She’s also not bad. She’s just surviving. We have to remember that she is not a natural Other, but she is, like the Survivors, held captive by this island and these people. In the same way that Jack and Locke are beginning to abandon their notions of what’s right in favor of doing whatever it takes to survive, Juliet has developed a keen survival instinct. As we’ve discussed, this instinct has manifested itself in a few ways. When she came to the island she was manipulated, easily persuaded by empty promises that, even at the time, seemed too good to be true (I imagine that sales pitch went something like: “Come to a place where you can run all the experiments you want, experiments that will change the face of mankind and, on a more personal level, help people like your sister. What? There’s no memory-regurgitating smoke monsters or miles-long force-fields. Electro-magnetic anomalies? A society of cult-like scientists hell-bent on achieving some sort of seemingly devious initiative? No, Juliet, that’s all in your head. It’s just a research facility.”). Now, in addition to some serious martial arts training, she’s received her masters in manipulation and is working on a doctorate in mind games. But like I said, it’s not as simple as “good or bad”, it’s a more complex tapestry of, “Will the Good Juliet or the Bad Juliet show up today?” And the answer is, “Whichever side Juliet needs to show to survive, she’ll be there.” Remember, she was supposed to be let go after three months, in time to see her sister give birth. It’s been three years. Fair Juliet may be a little angry, and as such she is most certainly out for herself. We’ll see what information Sayid can extract from her tonight, and if she survives the episode with all her fingers and toes in tact.

Note: The literalist would say, “In ‘One of Them’ the survivors are introduced to Ben, who turns out to be an other (one of them). So because this episode is titled, ‘One of Us’, and the survivors are introduced to Juliet, then Juliet must be good. (one of us)” But it couldn’t be that easy, could it?

That’s What She Sayid
Sayid. Here’s a character whose stock is rising on the CSLSE (Charlie Stephan LOST Stock Exchange). Is this guy ever wrong? He’s one of the most perceptive characters on the island, he’s like Locke without all of the internal struggles and past issues. Locke’s perceptive vision is often clouded by the trials of his personal past, but the only hindrance for Sayid is the remorse he feels for things he did in the war. The only time his mind gets in the way of his might is when he must torture someone (like he did to Sawyer in Season One). In the same way, though, that we’ve seen characters abandon their normal patterns in the interest of surviving, we may see Sayid come to that same crossroads soon. He seems more and more fed up with being left in the dark. He also seems to longer be satisfied sitting on the beach, making Kate-like efforts to be included on every excursion and fact-finding or rescue mission. But, to quote 18th century philosopher Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Sayid is stepping up to more of a leadership role, which may force him to make a tough decision: the return to torture. The pressure to investigate Juliet is going to mount, as the beach crew is more distrustful than ever, especially of a confirmed Other (cuz, you know, they captured and killed a bunch of their people. So they’re not exactly trustworthy right now). I’m guessing Juliet will be relegated to Suburbia status, much in the same way that Ana Lucia was after she killed Shannon, when emotions ran too high for her to stay on the beach. I’m also guessing that the survivors will elect Sayid to be their ambassador to Juliet, and not exactly because of his “diplomatic prowess.” So here’s where Sayid comes to the fork in the road: continue his internal mission to forgive himself for wartime atrocities, or do what he needs to do to get the information he needs from Juliet?

From the preview. Juliet says, “If I told you everything I know, they’d kill me.” Sayid responds, “What do you think I’ll do if you don’t?” Chills, baby. Chills.

We Don’t Know Jack. Hell, Jack Doesn’t Know Jack.
Remember the last time Jack was on the beach? Me neither. I think the first Bush was president, and snap bracelets were all the rage. In LOST time, he’s only been gone about a month (give or take a few days). But the Jack who left the beach under the delusion that he was going to get Walt back is not the Jack who is returning to the island. It’s amazing what a few weeks in Othersville will do to someone (or a few years, eh Juliet?). He’s got Other mentality now (yes, I believe he’s still good), but if we thought Jack was difficult to walk all over before, we haven’t seen anything yet. He’s a little older, a little wiser and real pissed at Locke for squandering his chance at rescuing himself (and, presumably, everyone else). I think he’ll be in a take-no-shit-from-anyone mood, finally restoring a sense of legitimacy and seriousness to the beach.

But since the cat’s been away, the mice have played. And changed. If Jack had a personal assistant on the beach (like, I dunno, Nikki. Wait. Buried alive. Damn.), she might welcome him back from vacation like this:

As they walk through the various corridors of the office, Nikki walks two steps behind Jack, with pages up on pages of messages that have amassed in his absence. She would try to catch him up to speed in the time it takes him to get from the front door to his office. Something like: “Welcome back, sir! How was vacation? Great? Oh not great? Okay. Well a lot has happened, where do I begin? Ummm, that hatch thing blew up with Eko, Charlie, Desmond and Sawyer inside — that’s why the sky turned purple and stuff. So afterwards, Charlie and Eko were okay, but Locke couldn’t speak until he rescued Eko. But then Eko confronted his past demons and got killed by Smokey. Bummer, he was a nice guy. And get this, something in that explosion gave Desmond ESP! Crazy, right? Anyway, he keeps having premonitions about Charlie’s untimely death, so everyone’s all like, ‘Oh no, Charlie’s gonna die,” but we dont’ know if he’ll die but Desmond has to look out for him. Ummm, so then me and Paolo showed up, and nobody liked us, and Medusa spiders bit us, paralyzed us and then everyone buried us alive. Seriously! Ummm, Charlie admitted to Sun that he, not the Others, kidnapped Sun. She was pissed! And last week, Sawyer made an effort at civility, so Hurley crowned him as the new leader. Phew, I think that’s about it. Hey where’s Locke?”


See what I mean? It’ll be a readjustment for Jack, complete with a power struggle with Sawyer, who really is the new sheriff in town. Should be a classic.

Enjoy
Okay, enjoy this one tonight. And check out Dharma Bonus Tracks (on the right-hand side of the page) for some added thoughts.


Coping with the sneaking suspicion that tonight’s episode probably won’t include Nikki stripping OR Juliet/Kate mud fights,
Charlie.