Amongst much fanfare and anticipation, Lost is FINALLY back! A lot of fans have been pretty disenfranchised with the show, as a whole, since the first season. I really do think a lot of the criticism is unfair. In fact, I had planned on writing a column defending Lost before the premiere, but due to a really hectic week I was unable to.
Basically, the abridged version is that many fans refuse to acknowledge what has been answered, instead harping on what we still don’t know. Consider this: Most of season one was devoted to the question of “What’s inside of the hatch?” In season two, we found out. From that new knowledge a new question was asked: “Does the button actually do anything?” At the conclusion of the season we discovered that yes, it does. On top of that, we found out what happened to the French chick’s daughter, we found out why the plane crashed, we found out the story behind the Nigerian airplane, we found out how Desmond got to the island, and more.
A lot of people were wondering what the deal was with the four-toed statue. We discovered that there was no deal with it, and that it was simply a decoy to scare off or confuse intruders.
Not to mention what we’ve discovered about the Others. We once thought they were uncivilized savages. Now we know that they live in a comfortable society, are actually quite intelligent, and actually host book clubs. There also appears to be “warring” factions, with supposed “good” Others and apparent “bad” Others.
Is the show perfect? By no means. I won’t deny that the writers need to be a little more conscious of giving us SOME answers before (or at least while) asking some new ones. However, fans also need to realize that the allure of the show is the mystery behind it, so giving away too much won’t work either. Hopefully the fact that the producers are asking ABC to give them an indication of how long they want the show to be on for means that they’re trying to come up with a happy compromise.
Anyway, onto this past week’s episode
I loved the little fake-out at the beginning, by leading us to believe that Juliet was actually on the island (by saying hello to Ethan while walking down a dimly-lit hallway), only for us to discover that she’s in Miami. It also led to some very interesting implications that not only CAN the Others leave the island to go to the main land, but they actively do.
In a sense, this episode also gives a bit of an indication of the hierarchy amongst the Others. We’ve now learned that Juliet is on the island against her wishes. When Ben was under the knife, Tom appeared to take a leadership role (he clearly outranked Juliet, ordering her to leave the room). And Ethan was apparently in a position that he was able to leave the island and travel to the States (a far cry from Juliet’s current situation).
Juliet is surely an intriguing character, as we don’t quite know where her allegiances lie. When she gave the order to capture Sawyer and Kate, by any means, she seemed sincere, and it didn’t appear as if she had a contingency to rescue them. By that same token, she seemed to willingly help Sawyer and Kate eventually escape, and her apology to Alex (that she must remain with them) seemed genuine.
To me, it seems like Juliet’s situation is very similar to that of Jack’s: She was essentially taken captive to be used for her scientific and medical knowledge. One question remains, though: Who is the pregnant woman that the supposed Other was showing Juliet during the job interview? With the Others’ seemingly obsession with children (kidnapping a baby Alex, Aaron, Walt, and the tailie children), something is definitely up.
While I don’t quite know what to make of Juliet, I was very surprised by how quickly Jack revealed that she asked him to kill Ben. Clearly Juliet had intentions and reasons for wanting Ben to die (which likely would have benefited Jack), so I don’t know what he planned on accomplishing by making this revelation, other than getting Juliet (the closest thing he has to an ally) in trouble.
I did enjoy seeing Tom take a more aggressive, leadership role in Ben’s absence, since I feel like his character was castrated, in a sense, once he lost the beard and it was revealed he isn’t the leader after all. Before we knew about Ben or the fake beard, Tom was this dark, sinister character that intimidated people. This past season, he’s seemed meek and submissive. That said, I got a great kick out of the role reversal between him and Jack during Ben’s surgery, with Jack bossing him around and yelling at him, with Tom following his every word. It was a far cry from their interaction last season when Jack and the crew went searching for Michael.
There were also some further connections between the Others and the Dharma Initiative. When Carl was being brainwashed (or what I assume was brainwashing), there were quick clips of the founders of the Dharma Initiative. Along with that, the logo used for the faux-company that was trying to woo Juliet looked an awful lot like the Dharma logo.
The brainwashing is something worth mentioning as well. Perhaps a number of the Others have been brainwashed. They were drugging Claire when she was in their care, and we still don’t know what they did to Walt (or the other children they have). To the best of my recollection, we have not seen any indication that Alex knows her mother is still on the island, and she believes that Ben is her father (which, based on the French chick’s story, does not match up).
We did not get quite as many revelations as I expected, based on previews provided by Entertainment Weekly and TV Guide but hey, at least Stephen King decided not to spoil THIS show for me. Nevertheless, I was pleasantly surprised with the episode as a whole, and look forward to the 15 additional episodes this season. Welcome back.
