[LST] Not In Portland

TV Programme: Lost
Season: 3
Episode: 7
Date I watched this episode: 15/08/2009
Time since I last watched this programme: 1 month.
Centric for: Juliet

I've been on holiday and so just getting round to reviewing the other eps I watched on the weekend of 15th/16th August. This was the midseason premiere for the 2007 part of Season 3 and, like the season premiere itself, it only focussed on the Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Ben and Juliet. This was also the first centric episode for the mysterious Juliet, giving some insight into the background of this relatively new character.

As is fairly normal for Lost, though, we only got a small part of the story. Juliet was recruited to the island first of all as a researcher. But far from research, she now seems to be some kind of survivalist leader in Ben's group. Quite how that jump was made will I'm sure be the subject of some future episode. But as for the story told in this episode, it was intriguing to see the first real link between the island and the outside world in the form of Mr Alpert and his company "Mittelos Bioscience" which is presumably a front for the DHARMA Initiative itself.

It was good to see Zelkjo Ivanek here too, one of my favourite TV actors whom I didn't know was going to be in this episode (his performance as "Ray Fiske" in Damages is absolutely amazing). His character almost seemed as if he actually wanted to do some good in the world through Juliet's research. I couldn't quite work out whether he was conniving or genuinely looking out for Juliet's best interests.

Going back to the present, it was a bit unclear (perhaps even to the characters themselves) of the level of authority Juliet has within Ben's group, especially with Ben incapacitated. Early on in the episode, Juliet seemed to be ordering some of the men about, but then later on Tom sternly told her to "get out". It's not really clear who out of her and Tom has more authority.

Tom indeed seems to be a lot more "human" than the rest of them, preferring to settle things peacefully and not resort to violence or threats. He's kind of one extreme, while the other extreme is Danny Pickett and his group of essentially thugs. They are like a breakaway group, although that rift has been resolved now that Juliet has put a bullet in his head.

The synopsis for this episode teased that Juliet would "make a shocking decision that will endanger her standing with her people." Not quite sure where that came in; she seemed to be doing things very much by the book, following Ben's orders and not openly turning against the group. In fact, it is perhaps her loyalty that now leaves her within a stones throw of actually getting home.

Jack's bravery and fallibility shone through brilliantly in this episode as he tried so hard to help his friends escape. He's right: he's not an anaesthesiologist, he's not perfect, and the depth and dimension of this character is really compelling.

As for Kate and Sawyer, they spent a lot of their time with Alex. Strange that she claims to be Ben's daughter, when we know that Alex's father is called Robert. Perhaps Ben lied to her to stop her from trying to escape? I wouldn't put it past him, but it hasn't really worked and she seems more rebellious than ever.

We also saw Karl again, who presumably will be in a few more episodes now he's on a boat back to the main island. The sensory deception he was exposed to in Room 23 was just incredibly scary, and freaked me out more than anything I've seen on this show so far. Knowing the editing on these shows (and I'm thinking of something similar in [ALS] "The Descent") there was probably a huge amount of information in those video clips, but I could hardly bear to watch it.

There have been a few near-death experiences for Kate and Sawyer. Last episode saw them almost get shot by Danny, and they almost got shot a couple more times in this episode. It really reminds us of how high the stakes are, especially with Danny's thuggish nature. Kate and Sawyer are in a hostile environment where they are not being protected by anyone and escape by the skin of their teeth.

But not anymore - now they have escaped from the small island. It's pretty surprising to see an actual escape quite so soon, but it blows the door right open for some action-packed stories in this part of the season, especially with Jack's commandment not to come back for him, and Locke's commitment to do just the opposite (well no surprise there then). Altogether this was a gripping, interesting and intriguing episode and not only did it kick off the midseason well, it set things up well for a very exciting few episodes. I've got a smile on my face.