Episode 7 - Not In Portland
3 January 2009
Review
Present: Alex offers to help Sawyer and Kate if they take Karl with them. They free his from a room where he is being brainwashed and put him in a boat. Juliet kills Danny in order to let them go. Jack finishes the surgery and asks Juliet what Ben said to her in order to get her to help. She says she has been on the island for three years and now he will let her go home.
Flashback: Juliet’s sister is ill with cancer and she is helping her become pregnant. Juliet works for her ex-husband Edmund Burke who insists that she either share credit with him or face criminal charges. She tells a recruiter from Mittelos Bioscience this and that the only way to free her would be if Edmund was hit by a bus. Soon he is killed in exactly that manner and the recruiter and Ethan return trying to convince her to come work with them.
The Good: I’m glad to say that Lost regains some of its former glory with this episode. As the show demonstrated last season, the writers find it easier to show us a character’s first flashback than their subsequent ones. This is the first time we have seen the flashback of an Other and it does an effective job on a number of levels.
As with many of the survivors, Juliet has changed a lot since the events from her flashback. We see her as timid, under the thumb of her ex-husband and highly emotional about the situation. Now in the present she seems cold, her emotions in check and she is able to coolly give orders and make decisions. More than that, in the past she looked horrified at the thought that Edmund had been murdered. While in the present she murders Danny in order to secure her own freedom. This character change does what Lost does best, it fires the imagination. What could have happened to her on the island that has made her this way?
We get a strong hint of it when we discover that she has been a prisoner on the island for three years. This coercion reasserts the creepy and amoral aspect of the Others which seemed to have been lost in the first six episodes. Now we see Ethan and Richard Alpert ruthlessly recruiting her with their lies and of course the assassination. The moment when Edmund is smashed by the bus is quite a shock, not necessarily a surprise but more what it implies about the Others (see Best Moment). Needless to say this murderous behaviour is what was needed to make the Others seem like a real threat and real force once more. And the appearance of Room 23 adds to that greatly. The Clockwork Orange style brainwashing of Karl is also very creepy and raises many questions (see The Unknown), which of course fire the imagination further.
The use of Jack’s story from the pilot is a nice touch to add more emotion to his selfless farewell. It would seem Ben adopted Rousseau’s daughter when the Others took her which should add some melodrama down the line.
The Bad: There is still a lot of sloppiness in this episode though. Ben’s supposedly serious spinal surgery is treated very flippantly. It doesn’t take much medical knowledge to realise that a tumour on the spine would take a lot longer to remove than the implied time shown here. With Ben waking up and arteries bursting everywhere it all seems far too casual. This is pretty lazy writing and direction because there’s no reason that greater care couldn’t have been taken with these scenes.
Similarly does Juliet need to murder Danny? Why does no one shoot at the legs? I just don’t feel murder should be treated in this slightly flippant manner. I assume Juliet will face consequences for this action but during the episode it doesn’t seem like as big of a deal as it should that she unnecessarily kills one of her colleagues.
I have always commented that Kate seems unconvincing when she tries to act like a tough criminal. Her threat to blow off Aldo’s knee cap just doesn’t seem credible. We have seen her rebuke Jack on many occasions for being too forceful or too harsh so when she tried to be the bad cop it just doesn’t seem convincing. Again, she plays her emotional, vulnerable side so well that when she switches to hard-ass it doesn’t work.
The Unknown: What was Ethan doing near Juliet’s sister’s room? How exactly did they engineer Edmund’s death? An awful lot of coincidence seemed to go into that moment. The writers have named another character after a philosopher in Edmund Burke. What is the significance of this, along with Hume, Locke and Rousseau? Why do the Others want Juliet so badly? Are they infertile or does the island destroy women’s wombs? Is that why they kidnap children?
What exactly were they doing to Karl in Room 23? Do all Others get brainwashed? How does the video work? It had images from the Dharma orientation films in it, could it be a Dharma creation? The name Jacob appears in the film, is that a reference to the Jacob (see last episode) who made lists?
Best Moment: Edmund Burke being hit with the bus. More than the surprise is the realisation that the Others exist off the island and are as brutal off it as they can be on it.
The Bottom Line: Definitely a step in the right direction for Lost. This episode re-establishes the Others as a threat and a dangerous coercive force. Jack staying with the Others should be an interesting direction for the story. With Kate and Sawyer heading home, the melodrama should be toned down and the other survivors will rejoin the spotlight.
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