Lost, Season 3, Episode 16, “One of Us” (4/11/07)

This episode does a fantastic job of bringing the Others’ and Losties’ stories together, making the episodes at the beginning of Season 3, episodes many people found to be boring and slow, important chapters in this captivating TV novel known as LOST. With only 5 episodes left (though the final episode is a two-hour one I believe), we can see many questions being answered, and many of the story lines starting to tie-in together.

Juliet: Juliet is definitely another of Ben’s victims, as we learn in this pivotal episode. Her work treating and curing her sister’s inability to bear a child is what caught the eye of Mittelos BioScience, and eventually landed her on The Island. We learn that she is brought to Otherville because women on the island are dying from their pregnancies as their bodies view the babies as parasites, and destroy the fetus.. With no chance for population growth, Juliet’s skills as a fertility doctor become necessary for the island, and so she is taken there by Ethan Rom and Richard Alpert. They give her a sedative in Seattle so that she is unconscious when the trip is made, and she takes the juice/sedative right away. Upon waking, she climbs out of the Galaga (submarine) and sees the island. She quickly tries to solve the issue of why the females and babies are dying after the birth, but after 6 months only figures out that something happens at conception, but can’t figure out what, so she tells Ben she wants to go home. Ben, of course, isn’t going to let that happen and tells her that her sister’s (Rachel’s) cancer came back, but if Juliet stays on the island, Jacob will cure her. Two and half years later, still no progress, but Ben shows Juliet live footage from Seattle of Rachel and the now two-year-old nephew, Julian, whom Juliet has never met because she’s been on the island. The crash of Oceanic Flight 815 is shown again, and Ben’s prophetic “Maybe there’s one (a pregnant woman) on that plane” proves true as Claire is the one the Others study. To the Other’s joy, I’m sure, there were also children on the flight. Back in real time, Juliet is not welcome back on Losties Beach, but Jack continues to defend her, and when Claire is suddenly ill, Juliet is able to “save” her with a dose of the serum that The Others had been giving Claire during her brief capture by Ethan at the Pearl . When Claire recovers after the serum treatment, the Losties begin to accept her, and give her the materials to make her own shelter. But, as the closing flashback shows, she’s there to infiltrate the Losties, and expects to meet back up with Ben: “See you in a week”. I so want to hate this lady, but is she so desperate to get home that she’s do anything, including betraying other human beings? See, to get out of the trap, she has to become that which she hates: the manipulator.

Jack: The body language between Jack and Sayid is subtle, but it’s telling me that they are both in on the con being pulled by Juliet and Ben. Jack is the good cop (“she’s under my protection”) to Sayid’s bad cop. I think Jack is well aware that Juliet is not to be trusted. He’s just waiting for the moment to pop whatever plan it is he’s working on his head. And with Jack back at camp, it was easy to see how much the Losties see him as their leader: when addressing their concerns about Juliet, he says “the fact that I trust her should be enough”. And nobody says a thing, they just go along with Jack. But he’s a smart fella, that Mr Sheppard. He knows something’s up….

Ben: Ben’s control over people is amazing, and his control over Juliet especially. By hanging the health of her sister over her, he has taken this once decent woman and turned her into a demon like him. But, it shows the strength of his ability to, as Alex said a couple of episodes ago, con people. One thing to note: a few eps back Ben talked about having been on the island his whole life. He wasn’t specific about saying that he was born on the island, only that he had lived there his whole life. Was he a child when he arrived at the island, or was he born there? And if he was born there, did his mother also die after the childbirth? We also learn that Juliet’s coldness towards Ben was because he will not grant her wish of wanting to leave the island. And, we also learn that Ben thinks Stephen King’s book “Carrie” is “depressing”.

Claire: Claire’s sudden sickness, we learn, was brought on by the activation of a chip that the Others had implanted into her when they had her captured. The activation was time to coincide with the arrival of Juliet to the Losties’ camp, and this would allow Juliet to get the serum at Ethan’s secret drop point (brought to this drop site by Richard for this instance), and then ‘save’ Claire. Claire’s recovery is immediate once the serum is administered, but more importantly, Juliet gets accepted (somewhat) in the Losites community, all at the expense of Claire the pawn.

Charlie: Looks like Claire has indeed re-evaluated Charlie’s intentions, and has confidence in him. He is with Aaron for the episode, and very concerned for Claire. When she recovers and finds Charlie with Aaron, she has a look of comfort on her face seeing Charlie there. This, of course, can’t be good for Charlie in the long run, I’m thinking, because Ben obviously has ideas for the Losties that I’m sure involve getting Aaron. This sets up an opportunity for Charlie to be a hero at some point and save Aaron, probably meaning the demise of his character. Just a thought.

Sawyer: Though still under “nickname arrest”, Sawyer still manages to get his digs in: While walking by Hurley and Charlie, who are holding Aaron, he says “Oh look, three men and a baby…I counted Hugo twice.” Ha ha! C’mon…you laughed…you know you did. While Sawyer and Kate were being held by the Others, they told him that they had given him an implant. Remember? They said the implant would explode if his heartrate went above 125bpms, but later told him they were lying about the implant. Now, however, with the knowledge that the Others had an implant in Claire, you have to wonder if they’ll be activating a chip in Sawyer that will make him sick at some point. For now, he seems to be mellowing a bit in Losties Camp, and is probably glad that his daughter, Clementine, who was conceived with Cassidy Phillips, the girl he conned (who we saw last week met Kate post pregnancy/pre-birth of Clemetine), was not on the Oceanic Flight with him, or else she’d probably be in the hands of The Others now. On another Saywer note, it was actually cool to see he and Sayid starting to come together after so many days of mistrust and contempt toward each other.

Hurley: Has a brief sit down with Juliet shortly after her arrival. He says “I don’t remember you from the dock”. She says: “I had the day off.” Ha ha! Hurley then tells her about Ethan’s spying on them, and his abduction of Claire, and how upset this made Charlie. Hurley then points and says, in reference to Ethan: “We buried him over there.” He was definitely letting her know that they’ll take care of themselves no matter what the cost. Though I don’t remember them burying Ethan, maybe they did. My guess is Hurley just pointed in any ole direction when he said it, more to make the point that the Losties will protect themselves than to identify where Ethan is buried.

Sun: If pregnant women on the island do not survive after delivery, what does this mean for Sun? While Claire was treated with Juliet’s serum and this prevented her death, Sun has not been treated. And at this point we don’t know yet if the Others even know about her pregnancy.

Misc:
1. Always nice to see Ethan Rom back in the show, eh? That evil man….just look at him. Eeeek Also had visits in the flashbacks from Richard Alpert, Rachel, Mikhail and The Book Club of Otherville! And Goodwin, later killed by AnaLucia, was Juliet’s lover/boyfriend.
2. Rousseau – if she gave birth to Alex on the island, what has kept her alive? Juliet was not yet on the island when Alex would’ve been born, so how did Danielle Rousseau not die after childbirth?
3. Penelope Widmore and the guys she was with who found the island’s location because of the EMP (electromagnetic pulse) that went off at the end of last season when Desmond imploded the Swan Hatch: are we going to be seeing them again soon?
4. When Rachel dropped Juliet off to be taken away by Richard Alpert and Ethan Rom, she said to Richard, “Promise you’ll bring her back in one piece”, to which Richard said “Well, we’ll do our best”. Bring her back in one piece? We’ll do our best? Makes me think that Juliet’s departure from the island will be in more than one piece…maybe pieces. And not necessarily alive. Just a thought….
5. We get another mention of Jacob in this episode, but still no idea who he is. If Jacob can cure cancer, my thinking is he must be some sort of scientist or doctor. Maybe associated with a medical facility or pharmacy….and what a coincidence that we’ve seen Widmore Pharmaceuticals mentioned before. Is Jacob a member of Widmore, and not Dharma?
6. We heard “Downtown”, by Petula Clark again. This song has been in a couple of different episodes.
7. The mark that the Others put on Juliet’s back is also the same mark Juliet saw on the tree near the spot where she picked up the serum to treat Claire.
8. Galaga Sub – there’s no way that sub could make the journey from Seattle, WA to this island in the Pacific, do you think? It would be a long way to be in a sub, a small sub at that, from Seattle to somewhere closer to Australia. So, the sub must be: a) just a prop (Juliet was unconscious when she awoke ABOARD the sub, but it doesn’t mean she traveled by sub…the Others could’ve put her on it as part of the ruse while she was out); OR, b) used only for short distances, and the Others have an airfield or something like that nearby.
9. Herarart Aviation – Herarat also spells Earhart, as in Emilia Earhart, who disappeared on her flight around the world somewhere over the Pacific. Could it be that she landed on The Island, and it was the bodies of her and her male-copilot that Jack found in the caves in Season 1?
10. Interesting note: Juliet has been on the island for three years, and so has Desmond…
11. The crash of Oceanic Flight 815…must’ve been pre-ordained by someone (Jacob? Hanso? Ben?), and the fact it was so far off course is intriguing…could Mikhail in the communication center (The Flame Hatch) have something that would be able to mislead a plane to follow a wrong path? Could the magnetic anomaly that exists/existed(?) have been focused somehow to screw-up a plane’s compass? And was it really Desmond’s not pressing the button that day that caused the plane to crash? And was it Kelvin’s job to actually distract Desmond so that he wouldn’t push the button in order to bring down the flight?

Well there you have it. You must have theories rolling around your heads….lemme have ‘em!!

Comments? Ideas? I’m waiting to hear from you…….

Until next week,

Namasté…