[LST] Stranger In A Strange Land

TV Programme: Lost
Season: 3
Episode: 9
Date I watched this episode: 01/01/2010
Time since I last watched this programme: 4 months, 1 day.
Centric for: Jack

This is the second Jack-centric episode this season, and quite forcibly so as the "present-day" portions of the episode focussed mainly around Jack and his time with The Others. As with other episodes like this during season 3 ("A Tale Of Two Cities", "Every Man For Himself", "Not In Portland" etc), we see Jack and Ben pitted against each other. And here even more so than ever we see that Jack and Ben are alike in a lot of ways: specifically Jack is a man of his word, just like Ben. And that makes for a very dignified battle of the minds between these two otherwise opposite characters.

We get to see a glimpse into The Others' sense of justice, which is not at all like I expected. Well Ben seems to be very much on Juliet's side in this fight, saying she is "one of them", but surely he must know this is no longer true or he wouldn't have offered her the incentive to get her to help him. Maybe he is just delusional, wrapped up in his own archaic loyalties. Or maybe Juliet's trial was just a setup to get Jack to help...because otherwise how would Isabel know for sure that Jack was lying? Maybe the whole thing was a setup! In any case, Jack is suitably wary of Juliet, and only wants to help her because on the surface she saved his friends lives to get into this mess.

In general The Others are not definitely bad or definitely good, but a very mysterious group. They certainly seem to have brought happiness into some peoples lives, like Cindy Chandler (I think it was just a coincidence that her daughter asked about Ana-Lucia). However it does seem at times like they are just trying to create mystery, such as all the talk in this episode over which island The Others live on, even though we already found this out in "A Tale Of Two Citites".

Kate and Sawyer were going through a very complex period in their relationship in their little side-story this episode. Sawyer thinks that Kate only slept with him because she likes him a bit and prefers Jack, but Kate doesn't really know what she thinks, and so it's hard for them to have a meaningful conversation about practically anything. Sawyer and Karl have a great chat here in probably the best character scene of the episode - where he inspires Karl to go after Alex because she really is "worth the trouble". Now no matter what happens - if Karl lives or dies - it will be in some sense a happy ending.

I really didn't get the flashback story of this episode, for pretty much the first time ever. Sure, it was a cute little story but I didn't see the relevance it had. I can concede that maybe "He walks among us, but is not one of us" has meaning in both situations, but this doesn't really fit with the original fortune told by Achara. This wasn't the only bad part of the episode - I really didn't like the final sequence, and thought the camerawork didn't fit very well with the music played over it.

This episode marked in a sense the end of one chapter of the programme and the beginning of a new one. No doubt next time we see Jack he will be on the main island again, looking after Ben while the other survivors regroup and try to launch an attack. We're not too far from the half-way point, and surely it won't be too long until they are all re-united again.