In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close. Talk about a terrible surgical assistant; despite the fact that Ben's undergoing tricky surgery (made even more complicated by the fact Jack's pulling a whole diva routine and refusing to operate until his friends are safe), Juliet's daydreaming about injecting her sister (who hasâ¦I want to say cancer?) in some sort of beach clinic/holistic healing place on Miami Beach, where Ethan Rom is some kind of intern/member/creepy guy wandering around for ambience. Kate and Sawyer kick some ass on Danny and the other Others so they can hightail it out of there, and you know what? IT'S ABOUT TIME. Six episodes of watching the A-Team being beaten down was enough for me. Then Juliet, back to reality in the operating room, grows a pair and calls Jack's bluff: she doesn't think he'll let Ben die.
See, Kate doesn't know that Jack doesn't know that Juliet knows that Jack doesn't know that they're not on the original island anymore, or that Monica and Chandler are doing it. So duh, Jack amends the demand to telling Kate and Sawyer where they can get a frickin' BOAT, but Danny and his posse have by this time caught up with K&S on the beach, and they fire off many bullets, but nobody gets hit -- until Alex Oakley the slingshot wizard shows up in time to spitwad the Others into submission and squirrel Kate and Sawyer into a little underground hidey-hole. Jack spills the beans to Zeke about Juliet asking him to kill Ben (which she denies), and Zeke's unsure what to make of this. And then Ben starts to wake up. He asks for a little alone time with Juliet, after which she asks Jack to finish the surgery, and she'll help his friends escape. Alex is already trying to do that, but she wants them to help her rescue her boyfriend first, like some kind of Lost Quest video game where you have to complete a side mission before you can get the key or the boat or whatever.
Back in Miami, Dr. Juliet (Burke, we learn) is using her sister as a guinea pig for experimental treatment, for which she's pilfering the injections from the lab where she works. Too bad her ex-husband, who happens to run the lab (when he's not busy boning sexy potential research assistants, or being a bureaucratic dick on many other shows), finds out, and he blackmails her into giving him a piece of whatever benefits her genius reaps. So when a dashing rep from a privately funded lab just outside of Portland tries to recruit her because she can get male mice pregnant, she (rather inappropriately) says the only way her ex-husband will let her go is if he gets hit by a bus. Turns out her sisterly injections are to see if she can get pregnant, which she does. She tells her ex-husband, whoâ¦gets hit by a bus. I understand the driver will be written out of the show soon, but the official word is it's because he's pursuing other projects.
Kate and Sawyer and Alex rescue Carl fromâ¦well, from A Clockwork Orange, actually. Contrary to Ben's orders, Danny tries to stop them, so he's shot down by Juliet. More gunfire is more better! Less Kate blubbering into a walkie-talkie as he makes her promise not to come back for him would also be better, but what are you gonna do? Oh, and Ben is Alex's father.
So what did Ben say to Juliet so she'd let Jack (who, despite a slight bobble, successfully removes the tumour) fix him? Interspersed with flashbacks to the Portland recruiter (and his colleague, ETHAN ROM) knowing way too much about Juliet's situation and admitting that this Portland lab is not in Portland, we find out Juliet's a prisoner on the island, has been for the last three years and change. And Ben has said he'll let her go. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
After one-quarter of a year on hiatus, Lost kicks off with what looks like the opening to an old Duran Duran video. There's a woman sitting on a beach, with the light rapidly draining out of the western sky. What's that you're holding in your hands as you sit on the sand, possibly saving a prayer 'til the morning after? It's some sort of leather case. It looks like the kind of case that heroin addicts -- at least, the kind who have their shit together enough to keep their needles nice and tidily organized -- keep their works in. So maybe these flashbacks will show us how Juliet's former life crossed paths with Charlie? A solemn bass note plunked on an unseen piano turns out to be Juliet's Theme. Dum. Dum. It's strangely compelling, but given that I have a seven-month-old daughter, any music that isn't "The Wheels on the Bus" seems fresh and exotic to me. Juliet stares at the leather case, and out at the gentle waves breaking on the shore. She looks perplexed. Hard to believe, I know. She gets up, gathers her jacket, and leaves.
She's now in a dim hallway. What light there is comes from a row of flickering fluorescent lights on the ceiling. It looks like a hospital in a slasher movie. You know: it's the sequel, which begins right after the last one ended, and the hero from the movie is recovering in one of these low-security, low-light places, like the hospital can't afford to change half the burnt-out light bulbs, and still no one believes her story despite the huge body count, and then the murderer comes in and kills her before the opening credits? This is that hospital. Adding to the creepiness, as Juliet sashays down the corridor, is Ethan Rom coming out one of the hallway doors, ready with a shit-eating smile on his considerably heavier cheeks. Juliet, cold and icy even in her flashbacks, barely acknowledges him as she continues on her way.
The room she enters has a record player, the LP spinning away with the needle long since finished playing any music. Juliet shuts it off and sits by a sleeping woman, head wrapped up in -- well, I don't know what they're called, but when a television program shows you one, you're supposed to know this woman has been through chemo.
Juliet blinks back tears and unzips the leather case, which contains syringes and vials of a clear yellowish fluid. The sound of Juliet blinking back tears wakes the sleeping woman, just in time for Juliet to gently chide her for falling asleep with candles burning. The woman flicks on a light, and Juliet says they don't have to keep doing this.
"Are you saying that because you don't think it's going to work, or because you're afraid you'll find out?" asks the woman. Juliet wisely doesn't answer that non-question but tells the woman to lift up her shirt, which she does. Juliet swabs the skin and inserts the needle, the woman giving a pained squeak. "Some doctor you are," she teases. "I'm not doing this as your doctor, I'm doing this as your sister," says Juliet, who adds that she doesn't want her sister alone; she should come stay with Juliet. And never be able to find the CD she needs? No thanks. Her sister just says she likes living on the beach, so Juliet tells her that this is Miami, and everything's on the beach. She goes to the window and flings open the curtains, then steps back so the camera can zoom in on the Miami skyline, over top of which has been superimposed a phoney-ass plane landing for some reason.
This is apparently what Juliet is thinking about as she stands in the Others' operating room, an insistent heart-rate monitor beeping loudly, Jack on the walkie-talkie to Kate. We're overlapping with the end of the cough "fall season finale," so we hear Jack go on about how when she's safe she's got to tell him the dumb story he told her way back when. "You know, Kate, the one we made up so I wouldn't have to get my Party of Five tattoo covered up anytime I wanted to go shirtless," he says.
In the bear cage, Kate screams, "I can't!" enough times to distract Danny, who has his gun trained on Sawyer. A moment's distraction is all Sawyer needs: he grabs Danny's gun and punches him. Kate instantly reacts too, knocking out the other Other. It's like they do this all the time. The closest I ever came to establishing a telepathic link with someone was with a college roommate who was practically aphasic. I mean, not really, but he was always saying stuff like, "Hey, where's the thing with the things?" and by the time we graduated I pretty much always understood him. Unfortunately, or perhaps fortunately, we never had the opportunity to perform a split-second co-ordinated attack like this.
Back in the OR, Zeke nervously tells Juliet to stitch Ben back up. Jack says she can't, because she's not a surgeon and can't fix this, and Juliet confirms this. Duh, Zeke. That's why you guys needed Jack in the first place.
Meanwhile, Sawyer's still beating on Danny, grabbing him and ramming his head into the bear pellet dispenser button. Sawyer looks like he could merrily spend the hour doing this, but this is, naturally, not the correct way to operate the machine, so on the third headbutt, Danny gets a nasty shock on the head and goes flying backwards. Kate and Sawyer lock the Others in the cage and run off.
In the OR, Zeke wants to know what Juliet thinks they should do. Juliet calmly tells him to go get Danny, as well as "Austen" and "Ford," and bring them back. "You do that and Ben dies!" yells Jack, who you think would be getting used to his crappy plans failing by now. Juliet calls Jack's bluff, saying he wouldn't let Ben die. Juliet repeats the instructions to the other scrub-wearing Other, who -- wasn't he knocked out? -- seems a little unsure. "If you have to, kill them," says Juliet, flicking her eyes over to Jack for a moment. Define "have to," please? Like if Sawyer uses too many nicknames, is that grounds for a bullet to the head? ["Yes." -- Joe R]
Back in the flashback, Juliet, her hair still long and blond but a lot curlier than on the island, strolls up, at night, to a "Bio-Research Building" at what looks like some university. She furtively looks around. The sign urgently warns us that this building is Security Level 5. It's so secure that all Juliet has to do is wave a plastic card in front of a scanner and she's in. Awesome. What's Security Level 1, the honor system?
As she strolls down the hallway, her cellphone rings, and she answers, speaking quietly to a woman who asks for "Dr. Burke" and is confirming her appointment with a "Dr. Albert" from Mittelos Bio-Sciences at two o'clock the afternoon.
Juliet enters one of the labs and walks over to a medical fridge, where she grabs more of the vials she injected her sister with. Just then, someone enters, flicking on a light, and she ducks down behind a counter.
It's some weaselly little guy, played by the admittedly awesome Zejlko Ivanek, who's been on -- you know what? It would actually probably take less time to list the TWoP shows he hasn't been on. ["Governor Devlin!" -- Joe R] Anyway, he's with a woman who's rather out of his league, but they're going to start making out in the romantic laboratory of a bio-research building.
Juliet's cell phone rings again, which is why you should set your cell phone to vibrate when you're sneaking into a high-security location like this. It's loud enough to attract the attention of Zejlko and his date (fortunately, Juliet's ring is a standard cell phone ring and not something like Gnarls Barkley), and he strolls down the lab to where Juliet has frantically shut off the phone. "Hello, Juliet," he says, nonplussed, and she actually tries to play this casual, saying that she screwed up some numbers on the day's lab work. He's not buying it, but doesn't have time to press further, because the woman in the black floral-printed dress says "Edmund?" and Zejlko gets all "where are my manners" and introduces Juliet to "Sherry," and Sherry to his "ex-wife," as though there are certain rules of etiquette for when you're interrupted from rutting with a chippie by your ex-wife skulking around a bio-research lab. Then he pastes a smile on and says Juliet was just leaving. Which she does. "Jules?" he calls after her. "Will you please turn off the lights?" He's awesomely gross. Instead of pointing out that he was the one who turned them on, Juliet just shuts them off. Maybe she's hoping that in the dark they'll sit on some deadly virus.
Back on Alcatraz, Juliet lectures Jack about how he hasn't thought his plan through. Yeah, Juliet, you're new here, aren't you? "Your friends aren't going to make it back to your side of the island because we're not on that island," she says, and explains about Alcatraz, what with it being two miles offshore. Jack's stunned. "'Fraid so," smirks Zeke. Here we go again with this. Juliet, OBVIOUSLY THERE'S A WAY ACROSS. Instead of demanding that Kate and Sawyer be given a boat or whatever it is the Others use to cross, Jack sneers at Juliet's request for a "peaceful resolution" to this, and tattles on her asking him to kill Ben. "That's ridiculous," she says, for Zeke's benefit, who looks a little skeptical. Jack and Juliet yell over each other for a while, and Zeke kicks her out of the operating room. Not because he necessarily believes Jack, but because if, as Juliet says, she can't fix Ben, then she doesn't need to be in there. "Go, Julie," he says. Julie goes. "Don't let him fool you," she says. "He'll never let a patient just die." She wheels on Zeke, and Saint Jack and stomps out of the OR.
Back in the bear cage, Danny has recovered and is yelling his head off to be rescued, and when some anonymous Other comes running up, Danny can't even be bothered to explain what happened, just screams for the poor guy to open the damn cage. This is one of the many reasons why no one ever wants to be Danny's partner in the Others' summer picnic three-legged race.
Kate and Sawyer arrive at the beach, and Kate seems absolutely stunned to see that they're on another island, despite Sawyer having already told her this. "We need a boat," she no-duhs, and starts walking purposefully along the beach, while Sawyer sarcastically says, "Yeah, couple towels and a buffet lunch," whatever that's supposed to mean. Kate says there has to be something around, or how else would they get back and forth? It's amazing how when someone is the first to grasp the obvious, it seems like genius. Sawyer, instead of realizing that Kate's right, sneers that they should ask for directions. Oh, Sawyer. Help Kate or shut up. Don't squander the goodwill you've earned by acting selflessly (if sometimes stupidly) during the first six episodes this year. Kate gets back on the walkie-talkie and yells for Jack. Then she asks if Jack's okay, and Sawyer rolls his eyes. "Tell him I said hi. Get to the point!" Hee. Okay, Sawyer. I like you again. Kate tells Jack that they need a way to get off the island, so Jack yells at Zeke to tell them how to get off the island, but Zeke just defiantly folds his arms.
Kate and Sawyer's beach party is interrupted, anyway, by someone shooting from behind Kate who manages to hit the walkie-talkie she's holding in front of her. Nice, that. It's Danny and the two other Others, who hit the sand, guns blazing. Kate and Sawyer return fire and head for the cover of the jungle, while Jack futilely yells and screams some more in the operating room.
After a little runnin' and a little shootin', Kate and Sawyer duck behind a couple of trees, so they can employ a somewhat risky strategy of Sawyer blindly firing off all his ammo until his gun goes click. It would have been just fine with me if he'd followed the action movie convention of then impotently throwing his gun at his adversary. Instead, he and Kate exchange despairing looks, and then get the crap scared out of them when they see an Other has flanked them and has the drop on them.
But God hasn't let their luck run out just yet; he's sent a young woman -- Alex -- armed with a slingshot and a sniper's eye, and the Other's taken down. Alex hisses for Kate and Sawyer to follow her, which they do -- Sawyer after some hesitation, like maybe he'd prefer and take his chances with the three armed guys chasing him. They run into a bit of a clearing, overgrown with tall grass, and Alex quickly locates a door hidden in the ground, camouflaged with foliage on top. The three of them duck inside and pull the door back down, then wait, as Danny and the others creep through the grass, oblivious to our heroes right nearby. After a few tense moments, the bad guys keep moving, and Sawyer feels safe enough to snidely whisper, "Nice to meet you, Sheena," and all I can think is that the instant bestowing of a nickname on Alex is Sawyer's way of showing begrudging gratitude. She just saved their asses twice in about thirty seconds, right?
Back in the operating room, Zeke wants to know if Jack was telling the truth about Juliet wanting him to kill Ben. "Yeah. And in about forty minutes she's going to get her wish," says Jack. Thanks to 24, whenever someone mentions a length of time less than an hour, my eyes instinctively check the cable-box clock to see if they're subtly telling us to expect the development to happen during the episode.
Anyway, before Zeke and Jack can discuss this further, they're interrupted by a groggy Ben, who haltingly tells them that this isn't helping anything. Zeke and Jack stare at him, still face-down on the operating table. A close-up fills the frame with his face, oxygen tube still in his nose, as he carefully says, "Now. Will someone please get Joooliet." Still creepy, even half-anesthetized. I partly expected him to also request some fava beans and a nice Chianti.
Juliet's in the lab, working at a computer. Sherry strolls up, wearing a lab coat, not even like the skanky tight cleavage-revealing Halloween version of a sexy scientist, and says Edmund wants to see Juliet in his office. "Do you work here?" says Juliet, confused, and Sherry says she's the new research assistant. "Of course you are," says Juliet. Be nice, Juliet. Someone has to study the effect of hot beef injections on career trajectory.
In her ex-husband's office, Edmund's doing that dick thing that supervisors do where they ignore you and look over papers while you stand there waiting like an idiot.
Eventually, he says, "I want in." "In on what?" asks Juliet, who plays dumb while Edmund says he knows what she's doing: "I read your notes. I know what you took from the lab. The only thing I don't know is who's your guinea pig." Juliet tries to tell him that she's been doing her research in her own lab, on her own time, but he interrupts her: "It's your sister, isn't it?" Well, he figured it out quick, I guess.
She doesn't answer. Ed gets up and walks around to sit on the front of his desk, which makes it easier for him to lean in all conspiratorially and tell her that there are two ways this can play out: "One is your research is potentially genius. And the other -- it raises some very serious ethical questions." I'm assuming Juliet doesn't want to lose her job there, which is why she doesn't suggest asking the new "research assistant" what she thinks about ethical dilemmas. She does have a slight smirk on her face, though. What Ed wants, naturally, is to collaborate with her, because with his reputation, this will be viewed as "cutting-edge science." Sounds iffy to me, but Ed's looking forward to, in this order: winning prizes and drinking champagne. Oh, and doing a lot of good for people, he adds. Juliet's wry smile has been replaced by despair -- she thinks she's trapped. And as we'll learn later, she's not doing this for money or recognition. Ed says he'll give her some time to think about it, which means give her some time to realize she doesn't have much choice.
Back on Alcatraz, Juliet's pacing around outside, and Zeke strolls up and tells her Ben's awake. "How?" she asks. Tom shrugs: "Shephard says he's a spinal surgeon, not an anesthesiologist." That's Jack's excuse for everything! Zeke tells Juliet that Ben's asking for her.
Kate, Sawyer, and Alex crawl out of their hidey-hole, and Sawyer says, "This a hobby of yours, Underdog? Digging holes?" I can easily imagine that the whole time they were down there, Sawyer did not shut up with the snide comments. Alex's comeback: "Yep. That and basket weaving. Want one?" and I have no idea what that's even supposed to mean. Sawyer asks if she's got a tunnel to the mainland. "No, but I've got a boat," she says. Don't expect Sawyer to be any nicer to you just because he wants that, Alex. Kate asks if they can use it. "Yeah, but we've got to hurry," says Alex, in case Kate and Sawyer have no idea how urgent their situation is. Sawyer's not buying it, though. "You just happen to find us in the woods. You just happen to have a boat and you're getting to let us use it, huh?" Alex says there's something they need to do first. "Oh, gee," says Sawyer, who obviously really hates it when people don't act strictly out of selflessness. "My boyfriend is being held prisoner. If you help me rescue him, I promise you I'll get you back to the other island." Sawyer's already a step ahead, though: "Your boyfriend -- his name happen to be Carl?" Alex is surprised that he's right. Sawyer tells them to come on, probably figuring that rescuing Carl will also make him look really good to Kate.
Back in the OR, Jack tells a still groggy Ben that he stopped the surgery. "I know," says Ben. "I've been able to hear you for a few minutes now. It's very clever of you. I should have seen it coming." Yeah, you should have. You really, really should have. It's hard to believe, but the spinal surgeon whom you desperately need to save your life hasn't really liked all the kidnapping and beatings and killings and whatnot. Jack asks if Ben's in pain, about to say something about being able to do something, but Ben tells him, "No, but thanks all the same."
Juliet comes in, and Ben says he'd like to speak to her alone. Jack ain't havin' it, though. "Please, I'm asking you, one gentleman to another [or, in this case, to Jack]. It won't hurt you to give me three minutes, will it, knowing I have only twenty-seven left?" says Ben. Man, you don't know how many times I've said that to my wife while I'm on my lunch break. Unlike my wife, Jack gives in, and warns Juliet not to touch him. She says she won't. Jack says they've got three minutes, and he leaves, going to the observation window, where he and Zeke watch the two of them speaking. We can't hear what they're saying. Zeke breaks the ice by saying, "I'm Tom, by the way." Jack just looks at him, and Zeke seems kind of put out by Jack's rudeness. They both continue watching Juliet and Ben, Juliet now putting her head in her hands. "They've got history," says Tom. Juliet stands up, her back to them, and appears to be taking a moment to compose herself. Then she leaves the OR, and walks into the observation room. Jack walks down the steps to meet her. "I would like you to go back in there, put Ben under, and finish the surgery," she says. "And why would I wanna do that?" says Jack. "Because I'm going to go help your friends escape," she says. Looking somewhat emotional, she glances up at Zeke, who doesn't say anything, and leaves. Jack and Zeke look at each other too, like, "Women, huh?" Although, bulletin board speculation has it that Zeke would be more interested in Jack than Juliet anyway.
Flashback to Juliet sitting through what seems to be a one-on-one sales pitch for some sort of time-share thing. But it's just that appointment with "Dr. Alpert" that she confirmed on her cell phone the night before. Dude's got a little slideshow going, and he explains that "Mittelos Bioscience" is based in Oregon, just outside of Portland. We see shots that look straight out of a university brochure -- happy people strolling around modern facilities. "Uh, these shots might seem a little cheeseball, but our people really are this happy. Why? Because we're privately funded. Privately funded means freedom." That's right: private donors never expect to see any results. He blathers on about how they organize trips every week and how the Portland area is "just awesome" for hiking and biking, etc., like how much do I not believe you're an actual doctor (but I'll tell you, Dr. Batmanuel, what was "just awesome": The Tick). Juliet interrupts to ask why his company would want her. "Is it true that you successfully impregnated a male field mouse?" he says, with a look that indicates that he thinks that is also "just awesome." Juliet demurs that "he didn't carry to term," and smiles, and maybe she could consider that the poor mouse might not think it's so funny that he lost his child.
Dr. Alpert says "Mind if I ask you something?" even though that's what he just did, and he changes the slides to X-rays -- well, not X-rays, but some sort of medical photos that pique Juliet's interest. Alpert asks what she sees, and Juliet stands up and moves over right in front of them. "Well, that's a human womb, obviously. Judging from the decomposition of the endometrium, I would say that the woman was somewhere in her seventies." I was just about to say the same thing! Alpert says the woman is actually 26, surprising Juliet, who wants to know what happened to her. "What if I told you that you could have complete freedom and money to find out? We think you're special, Dr. Burke. And we want you to lead a team of highly trained people because we think you're just that good." Don't believe him! That's the same pitch Sars and Wing Chun give prospective recappers! Then you get Bachelorettes in Alaska!
Anyway, Juliet then starts burbling about how she can't do it, because her ex-husband won't let her, and then there's a weird exchange in which Alpert suggests Mittelos "reach out" to him on her behalf. "There must be something that he would respond to," he says. "If he were hit by a bus. How about that? That would work," she says, and she's practically crying at this point, and she at least admits that this is totally inappropriate, and Alpert tries to play it down, and she apologizes for wasting his time. "Whatever you think I am, I'm not. I'm not a leader, Mr. Alpert. I'm a mess," she says, gathering her things and leaving.
Contrast that blubbering mess with a very focused, very determined Juliet stomping through Hydra station. She checks the bank of surveillance monitors, and quickly finds Sawyer and Kate and -- this seems to be a bit of a surprise for her -- Alex as well. "Oh, hell," she says.
Kate, Sawyer, and Alex skulk in the bushes outside a building, being guarded by an Other who's so committed to his sentry duty that he's reading a well-worn copy of A Brief History of Time. "Carl's got to be in there," says Alex, and Sawyer -- you're never going to believe this -- sounds all pissed off that she's not sure. Alex says it's the only place she hasn't looked. Turns out Alex knows the guard, and his name is Aldo. "Okay, Lollipop," says Sawyer, "you want to tell me how we're going to get by him with one gun and no bullets?" Dude, did you see her with that slingshot? Kate says she has an idea, and Sawyer says, "Of course you do," and maybe he could JUST ONCE not sound like an asshole when he opens his mouth?
So the plan is for Alex to approach, pretending to hold Sawyer and Kate at gunpoint. A side benefit is that it prevents Aldo from making any more notes right in the book, wrecking it for the person who signs it out. He scrambles to his feet and aims his rifle, but he seems more scared than anything and asks Alex what the hell she's doing. "They must have gotten out of their cages. I caught them in the jungle. Now open up, Aldo!"
But a guard who's reading A Brief History of Time presumably isn't that stupid, and he tells Alex that she's not supposed to be here: "If your dad finds out, he's going to kill you." Alex says her dad (at this, Sawyer and Kate exchange looks) was the one who told her to bring them here, to Aldo, and sarcastically says maybe he should call her dad: "I'm sure he's got nothing better to do." After some hesitation, Aldo decides to do just that (which I can't imagine was what Alex actually wanted), and gets on the walkie-talkie. "Danny, I need Ben." Again, Sawyer and Kate look at each other, while Aldo says Alex has "Austen" and "Ford" with her. Sawyer's already slipping off the loose bonds around his wrists, and then tackles Aldo. Pickett yells into the walkie-talkie for Aldo not to believe anything Alex tells her, and to hold them there. He's on his way. But Alex stomps on the walkie-talkie, smashing it, while Sawyer holds the rifle on Aldo. "Don't get mad at me just because you were dumb enough to fall for the old Wookiee prisoner gag," he says. You know, Sawyer, back in the real world, we have a term for grown men who are constantly referring to Star Wars. And it's not a flattering expression. Alex asks him where Carl is, and Aldo says he has no idea what she's talking about, so Kate tells Sawyer to shoot Aldo in the knee. Both Aldo and Sawyer seem freaked out by this, and Kate actually rips the rifle out of Sawyer's hands: "Give me the damn rifle. We don't have time for this. I'll do it," she says aiming the rifle at Aldo's knee. This is enough for him to start yelling that Carl's in room 23 at the end of the hall, and the keys are in his back pocket. Kate flips the gun and slams the butt into his head, knocking him out.
Inside, the three of them race down the hall, and Sawyer's got nothing but praise for Kate: "Damn good con, Freckles. I almost believed you were going to shoot that boy." "It wasn't a con," says Kate. Either she means that she was prepared to actually shoot Aldo, or -- and I prefer this theory -- that Kate's chastising Sawyer, who once again is showing himself to be one of the worst con artists ever. I mean, pointing a gun at someone to make them do something is a lot of things, but it ain't a con.
They find the room and can hear loud techno music coming from behind the door. When they enter, it sounds like a Prodigy concert, with the music blaring and images being projected on the walls, a lot of random images, like coins and flowers and keyboards, and slogans: "Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit," "Everything changes," "We are the causes of our own suffering." Meanwhile, Carl's sitting in front of the projection, being forced to watch, something like in A Clockwork Orange, only wearing glasses that seem to have super-magnifying lenses, encircled by lights. He's also hooked up to an IV. Alex moves to free him, and Kate helps as well, but Sawyer's completely entranced by the show, at least until Kate's shrill yelping snaps him out of it. They pull Carl, who's completely out of it, out of the getup, and Sawyer slings Carl over his shoulder and they head out the door. "Is he okay?" asks Alex, but Sawyer's not interested. "Look, we got your boyfriend back. Now, where's your damn boat?"
With the four of them presumably long gone (after the commercial break), Danny arrives to slap Aldo awake and call him an idiot. Aldo says he doesn't know where they are, but Alex is with them. Juliet comes running up to tell Danny that they're letting the Lostaways go, which means Danny can let his anger-control issues go just a little bit, and he freaks out. Juliet explains about Ben giving the order (having woken up from surgery), but Danny's not buying it at all: "I know Ben would rather die than let them go," he snaps, and draws his gun and scurries off, Juliet watching him. He might have a point; we never heard ourselves what Ben said to Juliet, but I'm leaning towards the likelihood that that's so what she tells Jack at the end of this episode will be a surprise.
Flashback to Juliet entering an amazing apartment, windows on all sides. Her sister's there, and she asks how the interview went. "It's not for me," says Juliet, making up excuses about how they're too far away, given that it's in Portland, after all, like it's called MOVING, Juliet, you wouldn't be COMMUTING. Rachael immediately thinks Juliet said no because of her, but Juliet tells her that isn't the case: "Why would I want to go all the way to Portland for research that doesn't even work?" And Rachael starts smiling. "Because it does work," she says. "I'm pregnant. I'm pr -- I'm pregnant." She's shining and stammering, and shows a shocked Juliet a pregnancy test stick -- good 'ol Widmore labs! She says she took a blood test too, because she didn't want to tell Juliet until she was sure. "It worked," says Juliet, still stunned, but she hugs her sister and smiles and now they're both crying, which means Rachael gets really hard to understand as she starts blubbering about how all she ever wanted was to have a baby, and now because of Juliet she can, and now she has to get healthy, so she "can see the bugger get into an Ivy League school," but NO PRESSURE OR ANYTHING, ZYGOTE. Juliet tells Rachael she's going to get healthy, and Rachael's got something else on her mind: "Now you can tell that bastard ex-husband of yours what he can do with his ethics." I'm not clear on how the fact the research is successful means Juliet's less under Ed's thumb now, because wasn't the point that he was going to be able to take credit for her "genius" work? Is it because it was earlier that day that she talked to Ed, and he hasn't actually done anything yet? Well, it'll all soon be moot.
Because Juliet catches up with Ed strolling out of a building onto a city sidewalk. He's talking on his cell phone: "Because you're insufferable. And you're mean." Pause. "Well, you asked me for the truth, Mom." Hee! Kind of throwaway dialogue, there. (Is Ed the long-lost older brother of Michael Bluth?) I presume it's meant to distract us from the bus down the street in the distance. Anyway, Juliet gets Ed's attention, and he ends the call to his poor mother. "Hello, Jules. What's up?" Juliet tells him Rachael's pregnant. Ed's just as surprised as Juliet was, but he gathers himself together enough to say that he needs to see her labs so he can verify her data, but Juliet says no. "I'm not interested in publishing, Ed! It's my sister!" Ed says, "Excuse me a second; before I continue this conversation, I am going to, for some reason, step off the curb and STAND IN THE STREET WHILE I TALK TO YOU." Which he does, and then he starts to ask her something about why she's concerned, if she's not interested in publishing, but he's suddenly hit by a bus, to the surprise of very few. Which is not to say it wasn't still pretty funny. Well, maybe not to Juliet, who stands there looking shocked, while bystanders all around rush to help.
Back in the OR, Jack's back to work on Ben, with Zeke helping out, although Zeke looks like he's not much better than Hurley as an assistant surgeon. Jack asks if he's okay. Zeke says he just doesn't like blood too much. "Well, then, you probably won't want to be look at that," says Jack, holding up a piece of tissue, which he holds up long enough for Zeke to start getting ill, and then tosses in a tray. Jack asks why, if they can really get off the island, they didn't just take Ben to a facility.
"Because ever since the sky turned purple," begins Zeke, and I would really like to hear the end of that sentence since when the sky turned purple the Others were already holding Jack, Kate, and Sawyer hostage. But we don't get an explanation, because Ben suddenly starts spurting blood, and the heart monitor starts beeping.
"What the hell happened?" asks Zeke, and Jack says he just nicked an artery. "Isn't that what you already did?" yells Zeke, and Jack says, "Yeah, well, that was on purpose." Heh. Zeke asks if Jack can fix it, and Jack's too busy working on it to answer.
On the beach, Kate, Sawyer, and Alex have arrived at Alex's boat, which is some kind of outrigger. Kate's carrying Carl. "Nice ride!" says Sawyer, and Alex snaps at him to help her push the boat out into the water. "So, you're the boss's daughter, huh? I never saw that coming," says Sawyer. Alex doesn't say anything, probably already fed up with Sawyer's bullshit.
Sawyer grabs Carl and eases him into the boat, while Alex -- who really looks like a less elfin Liv Tyler -- comforts him. Carl mutters, "Danny," which seems to really piss Sawyer off for some reason, and he says, "No, Sawyer!" and Carl says "Danny" again, only this time it's clearer he's looking behind Sawyer, who grimaces as he realizes what's up, and he turns to see Danny, pointing a gun at them, slowly approaching. Sawyer puts on his best frowny face and takes a step or two towards Danny, who cocks the gun. Kate yells "no!" and runs toward Sawyer like she's ready to throw herself in front of a bullet for him.
But she's not going to have to; "Danny!" yells Juliet, and Danny turns to see Juliet standing there with a gun aimed at him, and before he can react, she guns him down, or, as I like to call it, she Ana-Lucias him. Blam, blam, thank you, ma'am.
Jack's working away on Ben, with Zeke doing his best not to hurl, which might be difficult as Jack's yelling that there's too much blood, and he needs Zeke, and not to put too much on your shoulders, Zeke, but Ben's going to die if you don't get over there RIGHT NOW.
Back on the beach, Juliet tells the gang of four to get out of there, except she's not talking about Alex, whom she says is staying: "We both know your father. The only way he'll let Carl live is if you're here when he wakes up. I'm sorry, Alex." Alex crouches by Carl, and they coo at each other for a little while about how much they've missed each other. Alex tells Carl he has to go away now, but she'll see him soon. Carl tells her he loves her, and then says he has to go to sleep. Which is lucky, because she didn't say "I love you" back! Awkward! Kate and Sawyer start pushing the boat out to the water, but Juliet tells them to wait, holding out her walkie-talkie.
In the operating room, Jack's working away while Zeke holds a suction tube, getting all the blood and gore out of Jack's way. The heart monitor's beeping away, and Jack's snapping at Zeke, who isn't holding the suction tube steady enough for Jack's liking. So: not a good time for a call from Jack's potential non-Kate love interest. When the walkie-talkie crackles with Juliet's voice, Jack hesitates, then asks Zeke to hold it up to him. "What about the surgery?" says Zeke, and Jack, big surprise, yells at him to just do it. And it's not like Zeke's sorry to get out of Ben's blood and guts, so he grabs the walkie-talkie and holds it up to Jack's face.
And then the half-hour (or so it seemed) is Kate blubbering on the walkie-talkie to Jack. She tells him that they've got a boat, and "the blond woman" is letting them go, and she and Sawyer are safe. Not to nitpick, but shouldn't Kate and Sawyer be clear of Alcatraz before telling Jack they're safe? And not, say, in the presence of an armed Other who just gunned down someone else?
And of course Jack wants her to tell him the story he related the first day on the beach. "You think this is the best time, doctor?" says Zeke, who is clearly anticipating just how boring this is going to be, bringing the momentum of what was a pretty damn good episode right to a halt. So Kate blathers on about Jack being scared while doing surgery, and then he counted to five, and blah blah blah, and remember, we have Party of Five to thank for this. And I have to wonder, does Scott Wolf have the same tattoo? Would it have been worked into the storyline for The Nine had that show survived? Does Jennifer Love Hewitt have that tattoo? What about the chick who was in Mean Girls? Was the cast all joking around one day about getting matching tattoos, only Matthew Fox thought they were serious, so he went out and got one? I'm very strangely fascinated by this.
Anyway, after about five hours (during which Ben seems to stablize), Kate finally finishes telling the story, and Jack says he needs her to make him a promise: "Promise me that you'll never come back here for me. Don't come back, Kate." Kate's not down with that and starts saying his name, and the music and Matthew Fox and Evangeline Lily really make amends here for relaying that clunky tattoo explanation a moment ago. Pretty affecting. Jack ignores Kate's pleas and tells Zeke to turn the walkie-talkie off, and he does.
Sawyer has wisely kept quiet the whole time, and after Kate's done sobbing and turned off the radio, he takes it from her and softly says, "The trades are coming. We've got to go." Kate rubs her face and nods, and the two of them push the boat into the water and hop in. Alex sadly watches them hoist the sail. Juliet sadly watches Alex, and then looks out over the water at the boat, where Kate and Sawyer are paddling furiously.
Juliet's in the morgue, with Ed's body, which looks remarkably good for someone who you'd think they'd STILL be scraping out of the bus's front grille. Some morgue guy says there's some paperwork to sign, but she can take her time; there's no rush. I guess he's not going to get any deader. She thanks him, and he leaves. She seems to be holding it together pretty well, at least until she goes to actually sign the whatever papers, and she starts sobbing.
Back in Hydra station, Jack's apparently done the surgery. He's watching Ben from the observation window when Juliet comes in and walks up the steps to the deck. She asks if he was able to get the tumor out. He says he was, and she'll want to do a biopsy and see if it's malignant. "So what now? I just go back to my cell?" Yeah, pretty much, says Juliet: "Until they figure out what to do with you." Jack snorts at her saying "they" instead of "we." Then he asks what Ben said to her that made her want to save his life. Juliet, gazing down on Ben, smiles a little and says, "It doesn't really matter what he said." "It matters to me," says Jack quietly, standing up. "After everything that I have been put through, you owe me an answer. I want to know what he said." Juliet says nothing, just stares straight ahead, hoping her flashback will provide the answer. Usually the final flashbacks wind up posing more questions, but maybe this time it'll be different, hey?
Juliet's still sobbing in the morgue. Footsteps approach, and someone says, "Tissue?" and lays down a little Kleenex pocket pack in front of her. "Thanks," says Juliet, glancing up, and we see that the Kleenex-profferer is Ethan, dressed smartly in shirt and tie, which is the nicest we've ever seen him (although he does look an awful lot heavier than he did before Charlie killed him -- island life must have been good for him). Juliet wipes her nose and looks at Ethan again, who is still staring at her. "Have we met?" she says, not remembering that she saw him at her sister's hospice or wherever she was.
Ethan doesn't answer, but Alpert strolls up and says hello. Juliet's surprised to see him here. But sadly not surprised enough to be more freaked out than she is. "I'm so sorry for your loss," he says. She asks what he's doing here. "I saw what happened on the news, and your office said you were down here." Red flag, Juliet! Red flag! He says he wanted to express his condolences in person before going back to Portland. Then he introduces Ethan, one of his "colleagues." Ethan takes a break from staring at her like he's Randy from My Name Is Earl to say it's a pleasure to meet her.
Juliet's getting freaked out, I think. "He was hit by a bus," she says, and Alpert soothingly says he heard she was there when it happened, but that's not Juliet's point: "No! No. In our interview, I said... I said that I wanted him to get hit by a bus." So what's her problem, then? She got what she wanted! Alpert says she's a little shook up right now, but this is just a tragic accident. "You can't blame yourself. I don't even remember you saying that." Really? You don't remember being turned down by Juliet because her ex-husband won't let her go and that she wished he'd get hit by a bus? Red flag! She wants to know why he's here. He acknowledges that the timing is horrible, but they're that serious about getting her to come work for them. "Just give us six months. If you need to, you can be back before your sister gives birth." Juliet's surprised that they know about her sister, but Alpert says they're very "thorough" in their recruitment process. Damn. They should be screening job applicants at CTU. Instead of saying, "Okay, this is highly inappropriate, and more than a little creepy, and possibly homicidal as well, so you need to LEAVE NOW," Juliet asks if her sister can come. "Won't work," says Alpert. "We're pretty remote. She wouldn't have access to the treatment that she needs." Juliet's all, "whuh? I thought you said this was in Portland, not Kabul?" "Well, actually we're not quite in Portland," says Alpert, and he and Ethan both half-smile at her. RUN AWAY RUN AWAY RUN AWAY Juliet!
We flash back to Hydra station. Jack's still waiting for an answer from Juliet, and here it comes: "I've been on this island for three years, Jack. Three years, two months, and twenty-eight days. He said that if I let him live and I helped you... that he would finally let me go home."
So: Juliet's a prisoner? So I guess we're supposed to infer the Others bumped Edmund off so Juliet would be free to go? But... since they wanted her to go to a remote island, why didn't they just kidnap her outright? Why did they set up this elaborate recruitment process if they we were willing to kill to get Juliet? Was it maybe a show of power, to demonstrate to Juliet what they're capable of? I guess. Which means that, after a highly enjoyable episode, all new questions get raised. Chief among mine: didn't there used to be OTHER PEOPLE on this show?