"One of Us"

Much to Sayid’s better judgment, Jack insisted that Juliet was to come back with them (Kate, Sayid, and Jack) to the Lostie’s side of the beach. Kudos to Sayid for finally asking all the hard-pressed questions that fans have been asking, such as who are you people? Why are you doing these things to us? Why are you kidnapping us? Of course, the answers were not forthcoming. After all, we are dealing with LOST.

Juliet did answer by saying that he’d kill her if she told him all that she knew. But gutsy Sayid answered her by saying, “What do you think I will do if you don’t answer my questions?” These were great lines. Jack stops the interrogation. Juliet is under his protection and no one will make her uncomfortable by asking questions she does not want to answer.

Kate did her share of interrogating Jack. And, like Juliet, Jack told her nothing: He made a deal with the Others to take care of Ben and, in kind, he’d be sent home. Jack did what needed to be done, kept his mouth shut, and asked no questions. I frankly, don’t believe that. I think that… I’ll let you know my thoughts on this later in the essay. (And no, I am not playing Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof. I just want to give you more to think about before I formulate my thoughts on this scene.)

During Juliet’s flashback, we learned that while Juliet was driving (with her sister as the passenger) to the meeting point to leave for her new assignment with Mittelos Laboratory, Downtown was playing on the car radio. The scene in “Tale of Two Cities,” where Juliet begins to cry when the song Downtown is playing finally makes sense. Juliet was missing her sister and, upon hearing the song, remembered the last time she saw Rachel.

As the car approaches the airport, which by the way, Juliet didn’t even know existed before, Juliet makes a comment to her sister that is foretelling of her future, “I’m never going to fit in with these people.” And she didn’t really.

At the waiting room of the airport, Juliet is given a glass of orange juice with a megadose of tranquilizer in it. Juliet observed Richard inserting the tranquilizer, she enquired about it and, yet, went ahead and drank it anyway. What is wrong with her? I certainly would not do it.

Ethan declares that the tranquilizer is necessary as the trip is so intense. But how could that be? Juliet arrived at the island finding herself strapped to a bed inside a submarine. A submarine drive is not intense and it takes a lot longer than her trip must have taken. Did they use a supersonic jet prior to the submarine ride? Or was the submarine ride a ruse: A way to fool people that the only way in and out of the island is via the submarine.

What amazes me as well is that Juliet doesn’t even ask how she got there. She climbs the steps of the submarine and finds herself among some amazing scenery. She is greeted by Ben Linus, and her future on the island begins.

At the beach, Jack and his entourage arrive. Sawyer seemed to be enjoying his new role as a leader and seemed genuinely upset upon seeing Jack arrive. Sawyer was also upset about seeing Juliet at the camp. He certainly did not want her there. Of all the prisoners, Sawyer was the most brutalized, and he was not about to play host to this woman who represented all that was bad at the Other’s campground.

Jack exerted his authority that Juliet was rejected by her people and she was to stay at the beach with them. Sawyer, along with Sayid, was not happy about the arrangement. Meanwhile, Claire, who was not feeling well earlier in the morning, was getting sicker. Blood started coming out of her mouth, and Jack tried to administer first aid.

During the flashback, we find out that Juliet was brought over to enable the natives to conceive and bear children to term. Unfortunately, all the women die before giving birth. Three months have passed and Juliet feels that her work is fruitless. She wants to take some women off the island and see whether they would have a better chance at giving birth if they were to conceive off the island. Ben refuses to let anyone leave the island. Juliet then asks Ben to let her go home. Ben, of course, refuses this request as well. Juliet says that she wants to go see her sister give birth, and Ben informs her that there will be no child as her sister is now no longer cancer free and will soon lose the baby.

Juliet does not react to the bad news as Ben wanted her to react. She starts crying and yelling at him to let her go home. She wants to be with her sister during her final hours. Ben reaches for plan B. He promises her that if she stays, then her sister will be cured of the cancer. Jacob would see to it. (I’m beginning to think that Jacob is the “magic” box that Ben mentioned to Locke: The box that will grant all your wishes.) All she needs is to have is faith in Jacob.

My big question is why Ben does not let any one off the island. He seems to be the gatekeeper. He lets Ethan and Richard leave, but not anyone else. Is it because you can only leave the island via the box and not by any other transportation facility? Could it be that in order to be able to come and go via the box, you must completely commit yourself to the island?

Back at the Beach, Juliet informs Jack and the rest of the Losties that she can save Claire. She informs them that since no woman gave birth and survived, Claire was secretly observed by them via Ethan and was given a special serum to enable her to stay alive. Juliet further informed them that Ethan acted alone in the kidnapping process. It was not in the Other’s plan. The serum given was now reacting against her immune system, and Claire needed to be given an antidote that only Juliet knew to administer and where to find it. Jack grants Juliet the freedom to gather the serum and administer it to Claire.

Upon hearing the news, Kate was aware of another problem: Sun was pregnant. Does that mean that she will die? I have another question: Was Kate impregnated by Sawyer? Was that the reason she was locked in a cage across his cage, wearing a revealing dress? Was that the reason that she was picking up rocks wearing that dress? Was she supposed to excite Sawyer? Is that the reason that she was forced to dress herself in front of Sawyer? Was that why her cage was so easy to escape from? Were the Others experimenting with them? Were they considered bad enough that their lives did not matter? These are still questions that need to be answered.

Sawyer and Sayid ambush Juliet while she was picking up the serum that supposedly Ethan hid in the forest to administer to Claire. Juliet is a quick thinker and accuses the men of being hypocrites. What gives them the right to be the moral police when they themselves were immoral people? After all, Sayid was a torturer, and Sawyer was a cold-blooded murderer. Speechless, they let her go. Juliet facial expression was priceless. You could see her thinking, “Got away with this one.”

Juliet administers the serum despite Charlie’s protestation. Jack tells Charlie that if he trusts Jack, he should trust Juliet because Jack trusts her. Jack informs Juliet that if she fails, he will not be able to protect her: She will be on her own. Juliet responds with, “I’m already on my own.” This was an interesting comment to someone who she knew was trying to protect her. I am quite sure that it was clue from the writers to the audience. Juliet is up to no good, for sure.

Back at Juliet’s flashback, we meet her eating ice cream (naked) with Goodwin (naked). Apparently, they are lovers. Someone knocks on her door. She is delivered a set of X-rays. They are Ben’s. He was complaining about backaches and Juliet tried to find out what the caused the aches. Interestingly, she mentions to Goodwin that Karl had developed the X-rays. This, I think, is significant. Karl at some point was an accepted worker. What made him the outcast? I have a theory: If the women who conceive on the island die before giving birth, what would irate Ben a lot about Karl? Karl had romantic interests towards Alex, and it was reciprocated. I think the last thing that Ben wanted was a pregnant Alex. Hence, the best way to avoid such a phenomenon is to get rid of the source: Karl.

Juliet approaches Ben with the bad news that he has a tumor on his back. She confronts him because he always told her that cancer is not attainable on the island, but yet he has a tumor. Ben is baffled at the news. The expression is his face is that of someone who's perplexed and wondering as to what he must have done to have angered the gods so. Juliet calls Ben a liar. She believed that her sister was dead more than likely dead. She was not cured of the cancer.

The next day, the airplane crashes on the island. Ben, who claimed that Juliet had hurt his feelings for calling him a liar, takes Juliet to Mikhail’s lair to let her see that her sister is fine, cured, and has a 2-year-old boy named Julian, with whom Rachel was playing on the swing set in some park in Florida. We also see that the Others had an extremely sophisticated satellite dish to be able to zoom in to such detail to a random park. They were also able to see reporters talking about flight 815 disappearance. The outside world, the plane never crashed. It just disappeared from the air.

Ben tells Richard, who apparently was zooming in on Rachel for Juliet's sake, to come back fast, as he will be needed on the island. How can Richard come back so fast? Maybe they do travel via the box.

Claire starts feeling better and gets back to normal. The Losties are now beginning to accept Juliet as part of them. Juliet asks Jack why he never questions her about her loyalty to the Others. Jacks tells her that he saw how badly she wanted off the island and that cemented his feelings that she was “one of us.” But is she?

Intermittently, we see that Juliet is with Ben. He is instructing her on how to infiltrate the Losties camp, how to gain their trust, and how to save Claire’s life after the implant that they had placed inside of her is activated. We learn that Juliet was never gassed. Ben masterminded the con of her banishment from the Other's camp. Ben is always 10 steps ahead of everyone. However, Juliet seemed to be distance and looked as if she was materminding her own con with perhaps Ben. Juliet, in my opinion, is very dangerous. Moreover, at the final scene, as Juliet is attaching her tarp to her new "home," she is staring towards her new "friends." She smiles when she sees Jack, but as she continues staring, one person (whom we don't get to see) gets a cold face from here and she ties the noose of her tarp a bit tighter. Was she there to spy on someone and that person would somehow get eliminated by the Others? Time will tell.

Now here’s the theory that I was teasing about earlier in the essay: Jack was also prepped by Ben to protect Juliet. Jack wants to leave as badly as Juliet. Why not use his weakness against him? Wasn’t it during “Exposé” that Ben said he uses people's weakness to manipulate them to want to do what Ben wants them to do? I believe that Jack was elusive at answering Kate's questions because he was now part of Ben's plan. He could not divulge a thing. Jack's is not as loyal as he once was.

Here are some implications that I observed. The Others are an eye-for-an-eye believers, and Hurley informed Juliet that Charlie killed Ethan. I think Charlie’s days are numbered.

Next episode is Desmondcentric: “Catch 22.”