5 out of 5 stars from me!
FINALLY got a chance to watch the next episode! I've been so busy AND there was a ton of reading to do from my Lost books about season 2 in whole and an intro to what's to come in season 3. Obviously lots of new characters!
So excited to be starting in on the next chapter of Lost! How about that opening sequence? Lost has always been amazing at opening a new season in a mind blowing way. This is yet another of those times when you're watching it live on TV and you're like, "Wait, is this Lost? Is this another show ending or did they reschedule the premiere or something?" All these people we've never seen before in a place we've never seen before all gathered for a book club. The suddenly, the shaking and them running out and we get the incredible scene of the Others' point of view of the crash.
It was so neat to see the plane breaking apart in the sky and to see Ben assigning Goodwin and Ethan to their infiltration roles in the Tailies and fuselage group of survivors and telling them to make lists. Now we know why Ana Lucia found a list of names on one of the Others and how the Others knew so much about the survivors. So love it when the fill in little blanks like that!
There's definitely some animosity on behalf of Juliet to Ben. You can tell she's got a problem with him, but why? At the beginning in the flashback when they were at the book club, the guy mentioned that Ben wouldn't even read that book in his bathroom and Juliet said she's absolutely thrilled that he and Ben didn't like it and when they run outside, after seeing the plane break apart, I totally laughed when Ben said, "So I guess I'm out of the book club."
At the end, Ben tells Juliet "good job" for getting Jack to cooperate and she very snidely said, "Thank you." Sure, he had slammed the door in her face and let her be taken out by the water along with Jack but there's something more there.
Man, I feel so bad for Jack and Sawyer and Kate but I feel the worst for Kate. What the heck did they do to her? They made her put on that dress and have lunch with Ben while he told her that the next two weeks would be unpleasant, then when she's led to the cage, you can see her wrists are raw from the handcuffs and the look on her face and in her eyes is so heartbreaking. Seriously, WTF did they do to her?
Even though I'm not a Skater, I do have to admit that the scene in that part with Kate and Sawyer was very touching. Some amazing acting on both their parts. Sawyer looked so compassionate and was so great in that moment. If he was always like that, I could see myself warming to them as a couple but it's just not Sawyer's usual nature. I'm still hardcore Team Jate!
Speaking of Jack, he was incredibly unhinged and stalkery in his flashbacks. That definitely was a turnoff toward my feelings for his character. Still though, everyone goes through dark times and when you're heart is broken, you can do some really stupid stuff. I think with him, it was more the fact that he's always had an obsession with fixing things and with failure more than the fact that he's actually heartbroken over losing his wife. He's obsessed with finding out the identity of the man that Sarah left him for and really goes off the deep end when he thinks it's his own father. Man, I felt so bad for Jack at the very end when Sarah told him that it was his father that called her and that after 50 days of being sober, he was so drunk that she could hardly understand him. In his obsession over Sarah, he majorly damaged the progress his father had made and again, amazing acting. You could see the light go on in his mind that he'd gone too far and that he'd caused so much damage. Sarah really twisted the knife though when she told him to look on the bright side, that he had something to fix now. Damn girl. That day when she'd told him she was leaving him, she'd said to him that he'd never be happy unless he had something to fix. She seems to have him figured out. It seems that learning what this obsession did to his father made Jack a better person in that moment. Sure, we still see him trying to fix things in current time but not as obsessively as he did then.
We know that he's changed and grown as a person because at the end, when Juliet asks him what he wants to know, he had the opportunity to learn the name of the man Sarah was with but instead, he asks if Sarah is happy.
After that, I felt myself getting teary-eyed at seeing Jack so broken. He went and sat in that corner looking like he was totally defeated. My heart went out to him. I thought Juliet was genuine but when Ben tells her "Good job" I had to wonder if this was all a psychological game. Her animosity toward Ben had me wonder if it wasn't. Then again, maybe she hates Ben because he makes her do things she doesn't want to do, which means that it may have been her job to break Jack down psychologically.
Despite the horrible situation they were in, I couldn't help laughing at a couple funny moments. Jack walking into the glass and Sawyer getting electrocuted by pushing that button too many times. Then later when Sawyer figures out the Skinner Box and pushes the buttons and levers at the right time and is all excited, only to be rewarded with a fish biscuit. Lol, so funny! Even funnier when Mr. Friendly told him that it only took the bears two hours to figure out!
Speaking of, I wonder what bears he was referring to? I'm guessing polar bears since we've seen those. When Sawyer escaped and was running around, we could see a lot of cages. There's also the huge aquarium that Jack is being held in that Juliet said held sharks and dolphins even. Remember that shark at the beginning of season 2 with the Dharma logo on its fin? This Hydra station, as Juliet called it, must have been used for animal research.
So back to the Others knowing so much about the Oceanic survivors. We know that Goodwin and Ethan collected information but what they know goes far beyond that. Juliet has an entire folder on Jack's life. How in the world did they get that? How do they have this whole Othersville village with plumbing (that Ethan was fixing), baking muffins, book clubs, CD players, furniture... basically everything that made you think we were watching some flashback off-island? Who are these Others? Jack asked if they were the leftover Dharma Initiative people and Juliet simply said, "That was a long time ago." So does she mean that they used to be but Dharma kinda fell apart or were Ben, Juliet, and the other Others never a part of the Dharma Initiative? If not, then who are they and what happened to the Dharma Initiative people?
There were a lot of neat winks back at previous episodes and situations. While Jack is sitting in his car spying on Sarah at the beginning, he has Moonlight Serenade playing on his radio. That's the song that Sayid and Hurley got to play on the radio back on the island when they happened to find a frequency that worked.
There's also a really neat character connection that I never knew about before! Thanks to my pre-watch reading, I found out that that nurse that was talking to Jack in the OR room right before Jack left to follow his father was the same nurse that was checking Locke's vitals and telling him what a brave thing it was he did to donate his kidney to a stranger. I never noticed it before but after reading it in my book and after having seen the first and second season so much, I totally recognized her. So does that mean that Locke and his father had gone to that hospital for the kidney transplant or did that nurse end up changing jobs? Not sure if we'll ever know but it's not really important. Just another fun thing that the writers added for the hardcore fans!
Favorite moments/quotesBen: So I guess I'm out of the book club.
Ben:I brought you here so you'd look out at the water and feel comforted -- comforted that your friends were looking out at the same ocean. I gave you the dress so that you'd feel like a lady. And I wanted you to eat your food with a real live fork and feel civilized. I did all those things so that you'd have something nice to hold on to. Because, Kate, the next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant.
Jack: So, you're a doctor, huh?
Juliet: No, I'm a repo woman.
Tom: Hey, you got yourself a fish biscuit. How'd you do that?
Sawyer: I figured out your complicated gizmos, that's how.
Tom: Only took the bears 2 hours.
Juliet: It doesn't matter who we were. It only matters who we are.
Sarah: It doesn't matter who he is. It just matters who you're not.
