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Well, add one more mystery to the pile of unanswered questions about what's happening on this show: "Why aren't people in ABC's promo department allowed to watch the episode before crafting their wildly inaccurate commercials?" Why promise that three mysteries will be solved, when the one thing that is actually revealed (the story behind Jack's tattoo) isn't really a mystery, or even anything most viewers have even been wondering about.
But since that's what this episode was about, here goes: Jack spends some time in Thailand, where he meets up a mysterious Thai woman who says she has a gift, and they have a lot of sex, despite Jack apparently being suspicious that she might be a prostitute. He finds out she's just a tattooer -- well, she says she's more than that, because she can see who people really are or whatever, and marks them thusly. Which to me sounds like a bunch of nonsense in order to charge a hell of a lot more that a regular tattooer, because you don't suppose she'd ever say to a client, "Well, you seem to be a douchebag, so that's what I'm going to tattoo on your arm." I mean, Jack acts like a dick to her and she still tells him he's a leader, a great man, and he makes her tattoo him. She doesn't want to do it, because he's an outsider? So it would be wrong? I guess? but he makes her anyway. Why? Well, "why" is not a question that gets answered a whole lot this episode. On the plus side, Jack gets a royal beatdown because of his tattoo-demanding. Hit him in his magically-already-healed shoulder, guys!
On the island, we meet some new character who's known as the sheriff; she's there to find out what exactly happened with Juliet and Danny, and also she can coincidentally read Jack's tattoo. Well, thank god someone can provide a loose connection to the flashbacks! She's older and severe and -- dare I say it -- strangely erotic. The Others plan to execute Juliet for killing Danny, but Jack trades his continued care of Ben to spare her, which is noble, if I could shake the feeling that he only did it for the grilled cheese.
Kate wants to go back to rescue Jack, but Sawyer refuses. And Carl cries because he misses his girlfriend Alex so badly, and Sawyer punches him and tells him to "cowboy up" and seems to endorse Carl embarking on a suicide mission to go be with Juliet. Sawyer's just cranky because he thinks Kate only did him because she thought he was going to die. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Kate and Sawyer are sailing their boat blissfully across the water, back to camp. Well, maybe "blissfully" is the wrong word; Sawyer's half-heartedly singing, "Show Me the Way to Go Home" ("... had a little drink about an hour ago") and apparently Kate decides that facing the Others is far preferable to having to listen to Sawyer sing all the way back to camp, because she tells Sawyer that they have to go back, because they can't leave Jack behind. Sawyer's not interested, though: "Yes we can, Freckles. Because he asked us to," says Sawyer. I'm sure if Jack hadn't, Sawyer'd be leading the rescue charge, hmmm? He asks Kate what she thinks "Captain Bunny-Killer" will do to them if he catches them back there. Carl, sleeping in the bow of the boat, stirs, and says, "He'll kill you." Unfamiliar with rhetorical questions, are we? Then he says, "God loves you as he loved Jacob," which was one of the slogans being flashed at Carl during his Clockwork Orange sequence; that, or the Big Guy Upstairs is big-upping theBattlestar Galacticarecaps. Sawyer sarcastically thanks the poor guy for his input, then tells Kate that Jack's on his own.
Zeke (Tom) enters Jack's cell to say that they're moving Jack, who sits there and smirks when Zeke's evasive about where they're taking him and why. "So this is it, huh?" laughs Jack, who thinks since he saved Ben's life, that if the Others are going to kill him, they can at least respect him enough not to call it "moving." "Now why would we kill you?" asks Zeke. "Because you're done with me," says Jack, and Zeke takes offence, all, "What kind of people do you think we are, Jack?" Jack starts running down the laundry list of complaints: taking a pregnant woman, hanging Charlie, kidnapping, and on and on. "That's the kind of people I think you are," he says.
Zeke slowly walks over the window in Jack's cell and taps on the glass. "You see this glass house you're living in, Jack? Let me get you some stones," he says. Jack looks he might briefly think that Zeke's got a point, which is pretty much nonsense. Comparatively speaking, I think the Lostaways can chuck as many rocks as they want right now.
Anyway, a couple more Others come in, and Zeke wants to do this "the easy way," and Jack allows himself to be handcuffed and led out of the cell. Walking down the corridor, Jack sees Juliet being led under armed guard in the opposite direction. "Hey," she says softly as they pass, and Jack sees that her hands are bound behind her as well. Confused, he also spots an older blonde woman with quite severe eyebrows and what is practically a Hilary Duff haircut with a little poof thing on top. You know that kind of hair? I mean, it's short, and what's there is pulled back in a ponytail, but... see, this is why I never describe hair and clothes. I'm terrible at it. Anyway, Juliet is led into Jack's cell, and Jack is taken outside. You mean, they're not going to be allowed to mate like Kate and Sawyer were?
The sky is clouding over as a very perky Jack strolls out of a huge hut on the beach. Nice prison! Club Fed! Looks like Ben's soft on crime. Or we're in flashback. Jack dons some sunglasses and slings his bag over his shoulder as he steps down onto the beach, which turns out to be Phuket. A little urchin comes running up, yelling for "Dr. Jack" and asking if he wants any soda. Jack holds up two fingers, and the kid pulls two bottles from his bag, and then babbles excitedly as Jack gives him clearly more than they're worth, and Jack patronizingly says that he can't understand a word the kid says, and then smugly says, "You're welcome."
But Jack's got better things to do than single-handedly boost Thailand's economy; he's got a kite to fly. Except the genius doctor can't seem to figure out how to put it together. He struggles in vain to put the various sticks in the right places, until he hears someone giggling at him down the beach. He looks up, and some woman, played by Bai Ling, is laughing at him. Jack chuckles at himself, so it's fortunate for her he's in a good mood today, and she comes over and without a word, expertly puts the kite together. Also, she shows off her boobs.
They get the kite together, and Bai Ling holds it up while Jack unwinds the string, and then we're subjected to an eternity of whimsical kite-flying, with Bai Ling touching Jack's arm and then trying to hog the damn kite all to herself, and it looks all the world like some kind of public service announcement warning horny travelers to always make sure to use protection when they're overseas.
Jack thanks her for helping him. "You're not from around here, are you," she says, in heavily accented English. Check out the big brain on Bai Ling! They introduce themselves; Bai Ling's name is "Achara," which -- and this is true -- is Thai for "the clap."
Back on Alcatraz, Jack's been stuck in Sawyer's old cell. Dude! Right over there is where Kate and Sawyer had sex! Tom approaches with a cheese sandwich on a paper plate that he has to fold in half like a cardboard calzone to slip between the bars to Jack, who -- get this -- whines that Juliet used to grill those for him. Tom doesn't say anything, but kind of looks chastened, instead of pointing out that Jack's not exactly the client of a luxury hotel here. I'd like to Jack whine like that to Danny, god rest his angry, violent soul.
But Jack's got more questions: who was that woman down there? "That'd be the sheriff," says Tom. Jack's all, "You have a sheriff?" and Tom says, "Not literally," and I hate to tell Tom that a sheriff is someone who keeps the peace, and doesn't necessarily have to strut down the main street of a dusty western town with a gold star and a pair of six-shooters. Never mind that, though. "Why are you moving Juliet into my room?" says Jack. "My room"? He says that like a kid who has to give up his bedroom to make way for a nursery. Anyway, Tom says, like it's self-evident, "'Cause she's in trouble, Jack." Jack doesn't ask why, probably figuring that it's got something to do with him. He's so vain. I bet he thinks this recap's about him. Don't you?
Anyway, Tom tells Jack not to do anything stupid. Yeah, and later he should shut the barn door, because the horse got out. Jack just laughs and points out that he knows there's a camera watching him. After reminiscing about the time Jack got into the surveillance room, Tom asks him how he feels about risking his neck to spring Kate and Sawyer, "and they run away and don't ever look back." Jack just thanks him for the sandwich.
Elsewhere, Kate and Sawyer are nearing Craphole Island, and Sawyer says he never thought he'd be happy to see it. Then they bicker, because Sawyer wants to head into shore now because it'll be dark soon and they don't know how far they have to go around Craphole to get to their camp, while Kate wants to keep going. It looks to me like there's plenty of daylight left to go a least a little farther, but Sawyer makes a good point. Kate, however, stares at him in open-mouthed disbelief, like Sawyer just denied the Holocaust or something. He says that they're going to go ashore and make camp, and if she wants to contribute, she can make a campfire while he carries Carl. She just glares at him, and Sawyer takes this to mean he won the argument. I guess if you get her to shut up, that pretty much constitutes a win.
Now they're ashore, with a tiny little fire flickering, and Kate sitting and sulking, refusing the food Sawyer offers. "No, James, I ain't hungry," she says, refusing to even look at him as she mocks his diction. Refusing food, that'll help things, Kate. God, grow up. A little ways away, Carl, lying on his back, says they shouldn't fight because they're lucky to be alive. I know you're not going to believe this, but Sawyer responds with sarcasm.
Kate asks Carl, who sits up and stares at the sky, if Alcatraz is where his people live, and Carl says it's just where they work. On what, Sawyer wants to know. "Projects," is all Carl says about that. "Like the steal-a-kid-off-the-raft project? That was a humdinger," says Sawyer. Hopefully Carl won't try to pull the same "glass houses" nonsense that Tom did on Jack. Kate asks if they live on this island, and Carl says, "Yes, ma'am." Kate and Sawyer exchange glances, and she presses further, asking what they did with the people they took, the kids, and Carl says, "We give them a better life." "Better than what?" asks Kate. "Better than yours," says Carl, looking creepily straight at her. Kate and Sawyer look at each other again, and neither of them says anything like, "Yeah, but... kidnapping? Not cool."
Carl goes back to looking at the sky and says there's not going to be a moon tonight. Then Carl tells a story about him and Alex lying in the backyard and making up names for the constellations; they can't see it yet, but over there is where "Ursa Theodorus" ("the Teddy Bear") will be. Sawyer's dumbfounded that they have backyards, like Carl might as well have mentioned the Others' space program. "Well, ain't that quaint."
Over in the bear cage, Jack pushes the food pellet button a couple of times, getting the warning signal. Oh please, oh please, oh please... damn. He actually listens to the warning, and doesn't press it a third time. He paces the length of the cage, and then he notices Juliet walking towards him. She's still being escorted by armed guards, but she's not cuffed this time. Jack goes right up to the bars so their noses practically touch. This must be nice for Juliet, given that it's been a while since his mouth has seen a bottle of Scope. She explains that she was let out to examine Ben; his vitals are low and he's got a fever. She hands Jack a Polaroid of Ben's stitches, and Jack confirms her suspicion that they're infected.
She asks Jack to examine Ben; Jack says no, even though Juliet says she's asking as a personal favour to her. "You want me to help Ben again," he says, and she says yes, and Jack starts laughing, as he always seems to, and asks if she's sure about that: "Is this because he said he'd let you go home?" She says it's not that; it's that she's in trouble. She tells him she killed someone, but when Jack asks who it was, she says "it's complicated" for some reason. That's okay, because Dr. Jack is going to make things real simple: "I'm not going to help him. And I'm not going to help you." Disappointed, Juliet leaves with the guards, and the camera lingers on Jack for about five hours before we finally go to commercial.
When we come back, we're in Thailand, with Jack and Achara at an open-air restaurant, and the friendly chef is dropping off a couple of plates of "special Thai dish for you, you try." Jack plows right into it, and the cook laughs and calls Jack "very brave." After he leaves, Achara says, "My brother likes you." Jack stops shoveling food into his face long enough to say that he's a very likable guy, and I guess he figures he doesn't know anyone in Thailand to contradict that.
Achara teases him about not knowing how to fly a kite, and Jack says he just never learned: "My dad worked a lot and wasn't exactly the kite-flying type anyway," he begins, and thank God Achara cuts him off by saying that she has no interest in his father. Still, that seems just the teensiest bit rude, but fortunately Jack just laughs and says that's a "relief" because he's "pretty tired of talking about him." Whatever, Jack, she didn't force you to start behaving like you're on your therapist's couch. "Some things are personal," agrees Achara, and the two of them are silent a moment before Achara predicts that Jack's in Phuket to find himself. "Why would you say that?" asks Jack, smiling, and Achara simply says, "You are an American." Jack doesn't know what to make of that. I suppose it's better than assuming he's there to find underage prostitutes (not to give away the plot of Sawyer's upcoming Thailand flashback episode or anything).
Fortunately, before we can get into some trite discussion of Jack finding himself, a man approaches their table, and he and Achara exchange greetings in Thai, and then the man hands her an envelope, thick with what looks like cash. They speak a little more and the man leaves, a bemused Jack taking it all in. Achara puts the envelope in her purse, and notices that Jack watches. "I have a gift," she says. "Must be one hell of a gift," says Jack, good-naturedly, but if he's hoping for more details, they're not forthcoming.
Jack's sitting in his cage. The camera pans around, and the sheriff is there, looking at him, and she starts speaking Chinese, much to Jack's consternation. "Oh, I was just reading your tattoos," she says, calling the five and the stars "very cute," but the Chinese she finds ironic. "You find what ironic?" says Jack, like maybe Jack is one of those idiot white frat boys who get Chinese tattoos for words like "strength" and "courage" or whatever, because they're so proud of their Asian heritage, I guess, and I like to think that people with tattoos in languages they don't speak got screwed over by the tattooer and are actually walking around proclaiming themselves to be a "douchebag" or "syphilitic." Jack laughs and says he knows what it says. "Are you sure?" asks the sheriff. "Chinese is a very complicated language." Yep, so complicated that there isn't really "a" Chinese language but a family of languages, so let's hope the Others have appointed someone else sheriff of linguistics (although to be fair, a dissertation on Mandarin, Wu, and Cantonese and whatever else would kind of bog down the show).
Anyway, Jack testily says again that he knows what his tattoo says, and I kind of like how he didn't feel the need to prove that by revealing it just now. The sheriff accepts this, or at least pretends to, introduces herself as "Isabel," and gets to the real reason she's here: "If you'll come with me, I'd like to talk to you and ask you a few questions." She's very icy and cool. I'm finding myself strangely attracted to her, the same way I kind of have a thing for stern librarians.
She leads Jack down a corridor, and encounter Alex being led down the hallway in the other direction. "Why don't you check on your father, sweetheart? I know he'd appreciate it," says Isabel, although it looks like Alex is in custody. Jack doesn't know what to make of it, so he just follows Isabel, and they continue into a room where Juliet and Tom are waiting. "Have a seat, Jack," says Isabel, and we see that Juliet is handcuffed to her chair.
Isabel sits down at a desk, with Tom, Jack, and Juliet facing her. "As you may have gathered, we don't live on this little island. In fact, most of us don't really like even coming here," she says. She has kind of a half-smile all the time; it's kind of disconcerting. Maybe that's intentional on Isabel's part. She explains that there's been an "incident" she's investigating, and she needs to ask Jack some questions, in the hope he can help her clear up a few of the "inconsistencies" (and she flashes the enigmatic half-smile Juliet's way). She turns to Tom: "Now, correct me if I'm wrong, Tom. But you said that in the midst of a surgical procedure, Jack made several comments indicating that Juliet had asked him to kill Ben." Tom says that's right, and Isabel asks Jack to confirm this: "Did Juliet ask you to kill Ben?" Jack doesn't respond right away, and Isabel doesn't really wait very long before she asks again: "The question's simple. Did Juliet ask you to kill Ben?" Jack does that thing that he always does, where he shakes his head and laughs. He's always laughing, that guy, sometimes incongruously. It's kind of like the real-life version of people who sprinkle "lol" through bulletin board posts like punctuation. I mean, it's annoying even once, but you know how it crops up in strange places, like, "It's really snowing hard here, so hopefully the city's sending out the snowplows lol," or "That whole thing with Anna Nicole Smith is so sad, especially since she just had a baby lol" -- that kind of thing, you know? Where you want to email the person and say, "Were you really laughing out loud just then? And if so, why?" Jack is kind of like that sometimes. But not here, I suppose; here he's trying to downplay Tom's claims.
He says he was lying: "I would have done anything to get my friends out. And turning you people against each other was my best chance of creating chaos." Juliet should try a little harder to hide her surprised reaction.
The smile's gone from Isabel's face now; she looks pissed. I am actually scared of her (and yet still attracted. It's the damnedest thing). She gets up from her seat and walks around to the front of her desk, glaring at Jack. Even he has the good sense not to lol right now. "Why are you lying for her, Jack?" she practically hisses at him. Tom and Juliet seem just as interested in the answer. "I'd like to go back to my cage now," he says.
Slender legs in big clunky heels skulk into Jack's hut, where he stirs in his bed, covered in mosquito netting. He watches Achara get undressed and crawl into bed with him. "What time is it?" he says, sleepily. "It's late," she says, kissing him. He says she tastes salty, and she says she went for a swim in the ocean. "Washing the day off of you, huh?" he says. Jack, if you really think this stranger in Thailand is a hooker, I hope you've got more protection than mosquito netting. Also, DON'T SLEEP WITH HER. Achara's English is good enough that she understands the implications of what Jack's said. "Is there something you'd like to ask me, Jack?" He says that it would be nice, after a month of her coming and going (um, and coming?) whenever she wants, to find out something about her. She rolls off him and lies on her back. "There are things that happen here that you could never understand," she says. Well, that ought to satisfy his curiosity. Good job, Achara. "Like your gift?" guesses Jack. And she says, "Yes, like my gift." And they start making out, and roll off the bed, laughing. "Are you having fun with me, Jack?" He says he is. She tells him to stop asking questions then, and just have fun. Oh -- now I get what's going on here! Jack is the Lost viewership, and the dirty Thai prostitute is the show itself! Quit asking questions! Just have fun! There are things going on you couldn't possibly understand! And I'm not going to explain! Now shut up and let me screw you!
Jack wakes up in his cage on Alcatraz, and is surprised to see a bunch of people milling about outside, looking at him. "What?" yells Jack. Nobody says anything. And then Cindy -- former stewardess for Oceanic -- steps forward and is all, "Hey, Jack!" He doesn't recognize her at first, like he would ever forget someone who brought him booze. After a moment, though, he recalls her as the stewardess, and Cindy reminds him what her name is. He asks her what she's doing with them; he thought she was captured. "They're not, um... it's not that simple," she says, which means they haven't quite worked things out in the writers' room yet. Jack wants to know what they're doing, and specifically, what Cindy's doing. He's yelling at her by this point. And Cindy seems weirdly surprised by Jack's anger -- like she thought he'd be all happy to see her. "We're here to watch, Jack," she says. "Watch what?" he asks, and she doesn't answer, as Emma -- remember the little girl Emma, from the tail section? -- strolls up and whispers in Cindy's ear, and then stands there smiling. "She wants to know how Ana-Lucia's doing," says Cindy brightly. Jack's all, are you fucking kidding me? And again, Cindy's confused by how pissed he is. This genuine bafflement on the part of the Others over the Lostaways' reaction to their mistreatment better have a good explanation -- oh, who am I kidding. Jack yells, "If you've got something to watch, Cindy, go watch it! Go!" Cindy leaves with Emma, and the other Others shuffle off. And there's Zach, who gives his teddy bear to Emma and then stares at Jack before leaving too. I think one of them yelled back, "Yeah, well, I hear Heroes is pretty good, so whatever, Jack," but I can't be sure.
Over on Alcatraz, Kate wakes up at the campsite, and notices that Carl isn't there. She gets to her feet, and wakes Sawyer up to tell him. But the two of them don't have to search very far before they hear the sound of crying nearby. "I got it," says Sawyer. Kate wants to go talk to him, but Sawyer insists on doing it himself: "Boys only," he says, heading through the brush, generating ideas for yet more disturbing Lost slash fiction.
He finds Carl sitting on the ground, bawling his eyes out. Hearing Sawyer approaching, Carl wipes his eyes, but Sawyer still punches him in the shoulder anyway and tells him to "cowboy up," which is one of the most annoying phrases I've ever heard in my entire lifetime. Sawyer mocks Carl for crying in the jungle: "I thought you people were supposed to be tough." After a moment, Carl shoves Sawyer, and says he is tough, and Sawyer calls him Bobby Brady, but Carl doesn't get the reference, partly because he's been raised on a deserted island but also because he's YOUNGER THAN THIRTY-FIVE.
Sawyer starts his advice with, "I've been with a lot of girls," so you know it's going to be good. Sawyer says some are worth the trouble, others not. But "every now and again there's one, one you name dumb stars with." Then, just in case you think Sawyer's getting soft, he calls Alex "Sally Slingshot," and Carl corrects him. Sawyer asks Carl if he loves Alex. "More than anything," he says. Awww. "Then go back to wherever the hell your yards are and get her back," says Sawyer. Carl thinks about this a moment and says if he gets caught, they'll kill him this time. "Well," says Sawyer, standing up, "at least it'll be worth it." Yeah. Plus, it's not like there are a whole lot of other prospects for Carl on the island. Although I didn't see the sheriff wearing a ring...
Speak of the devil: Alex chucks a rock at the camera keeping an eye on Jack's cage, and then runs over so she can talk to Jack. "I want to ask you something. They're not watching anymore, so you can tell me the truth," she says, and asks why, after everything Ben did to him and his people, Jack helped him, even though he should hate him. "You still fixed him up, even after your friends got away. Why?" Jack deduces that Alex is Ben's daughter, but Alex has no time for the small talk and tells him to just answer her question. "I'll answer your question if you answer one of mine," says Jack, and he asks where Juliet is. Alex says she's with the rest of them: "They're going to read her verdict." Alex says everyone knows what the verdict's going to be: "We're pretty strict about killing one of our own. Eye for an eye." Tsk. It'll leave the whole island blind, guys. Jack asks who Juliet killed. "The man who was going to murder your friends," she says. Jack hangs his head. "No wonder you're so worried about her. If it wasn't for you, she never would have done it." Then she starts to get a little angry because Jack's asked three questions already, so now she wants hers answered. "I saved your father because I said I would," says Jack. This doesn't seem to impress Alex very much (what exactly was she looking for?), and she turns to go, but Jack calls her back and asks if Ben's still in charge. "Will that woman, Isabel, do what he says?" he asks, and he is totally up to five questions now and Alex is really getting hosed on this deal. The answer is yes to both questions, and Jack tells Alex to get him out of the cage.
Back from commercial, Jack goes busting into the operating room, where the other Other who's always in there and whose name I don't know is about to inject Ben with something. "I wouldn't do that!" says Jack, and Ben is actually awake, and he cheers the arrival of the "cavalry."
Jack says he'd be more impressed with the Others if they had a good surgeon. Well -- yes, I suppose, Jack. They wouldn't have needed you, then. Oh, no, wait; Ben says they did have a good surgeon: "His name was Ethan." Right -- and what happened to him? Charlie shot him, true. After you guys sent him on a spy mission to infiltrate the Lostaways camp. After he killed Scott. Or Steve. After he kidnapped Claire and Charlie. After he tried to hang Charlie. Jack doesn't say any of this. Wouldn't want to throw stones in a glass house, right?
Anyway, Jack bluntly tells Ben that he's got a serious infection, and the infected tissue needs to be "reincised" and "debrided," which would have been my diagnosis too, especially if I had any idea what "debrided" means. ["Trimming of dead tissue, basically. Thanks, years of ER recapping." -- Sars] Jack says Ben needs to be closely monitored from here on out: "There might be nerve damage or any number of other complications. You might not walk again." Ben croaks out a joke about Jack's terrible bedside manner, and Jack laughs and says it's too bad Ben's stuck with him, and Ben is all hopefully "am I?" and Jack says. "You need a doctor, Ben. Someone to stay with you, bring you back to good health." Even groggy, Ben knows Jack's not going to do this for nothing: "I've already given you a ticket off this island, Jack. What's it going to cost me this time?" Oh, just promise him something else you don't plan to actually give him, would you? Jack says that right now Ben's people are in a room deciding whether or not to execute Juliet, and says Ben's going to stop it. "Juliet doesn't care about you, Jack. It doesn't matter what she's done. No matter what you think, she's one of us." Jack ignores this and asks if they have a deal or not. Ben lifts his head as best he can and asks Alex (who I don't think I even realized was there) if Isabel has a "walkie." This unfortunately set my dog off running in circles by the front door. "They're already in the meeting," says Alex, so Ben asks for something to write on.
Jack's in some kind of seedy outdoor street market, with women seductively dancing on tables for the customers, and -- hey, is that Gary Glitter? I think it is! And there's Achara, wending her way through the throng. Jack watches her, thinking, I presume, that any moment now she's going to hop on a table and help another woman polish a brass pole with her ass. He takes a swig from something in a brown paper bag. Because drinking in public is probably the worst crime that's being committed in this part of town, so his clever attempt at concealment will keep him from being arrested.
Achara nods at a person or two as she turns off into an alley, and then into a building. He follows her, and there doesn't appear to be any door, just a beaded curtain, behind which is some kind of lounge, lit by dozens of candles, and there's also what I guess is some kind of tattoo station.
"You're following me," says Achara. She's wearing some kind of shrink-wrapped red dress. She goes to light another candle, because this place isn't quite enough of a fire hazard just yet. Jack wants to know what this is. "This is where I work. And you shouldn't be here." Jack's sort of incredulous: "This is, uh, a tattoo parlor. That was your big secret? The envelopes? Your gift?" Jeez, Jack, I would've thought you'd be relieved, instead of acting like a dick; you can probably go cancel your appointment at that clinic.
Achara angrily denies that she's a tattoo artist: "I am able to see who people are. My work is not decoration; it is definition. And this, this is my gift." Jack looks like he's not really buying this nonsense. "So, you see who people are?" He says. "Yes," whispers Achara, "and I mark them." Jack wants to know who he is, and Achara initially refuses, because he's an "outsider." "So you can sleep with me... ?" says Jack, as though that means she has to use her magical vision-tattoo or whatever gift on him. "I'm not allowed," she says, and he GRABS HER BY THE THROAT and pushes her up against the wall. What the hell, guy! "Do you see who I am, Achara?" he hisses, and she whispers "yes." She tells him he's "a leader, a great man," and I think the sound on my television must have gone out because I didn't hear her more accurately describe him as a "drunken douchebag with daddy issues." She says that Jack's greatness makes him "lonely and frightened, angry." It's not the drinking? Jack, don't sweat it. Achara's not actually very good at this.
Calming down somewhat, Jack tells her to put it on him. She doesn't move (of course, Jack's still holding her). "Put it on me!" he says again. She says that this is against her people, but Jack couldn't care less. He sits her down at the tattoo station and takes his shirt off. "There will be consequences, Jack," she says. "There always are," he says. She takes some sort of little wand and dips it in a pot. If you've ever seen the tools used to paint Ukrainian Easter eggs (pysanky), it looks kind of like that. They stare at each other for five hours or so, and then she holds the rod against his shoulder, and uses another little rod to tap it...
... and we smash-cut to a slow-motion close-up of Jack's fully tattooed shoulder as he and Alex race over to Juliet's sentencing. Before they get to the door, Alex tells Jack that he shouldn't be here, so he should just hang back and not say anything. I can't believe people don't say that to Jack all the time.
Alex knocks on the door, and it's opened by Tom, who looks like he's about to chew her out for interrupting the meeting. Behind him, we can see Juliet sitting down behind a lectern, in front of a group of seated people. Then Tom sees Jack, and he's really pissed and gets ready to scrap, but Isabel's already out there, ready to stop any kind of fight with her creepy monotone; she tells Tom to let Jack go, and asks Alex what's going on. Alex hands over a note from Ben, and Isabel reads it. She looks pissed, but she kind of always does. "Ben has commuted Juliet's sentence," she says, and Tom looks really surprised. Isabel continues: "Execution is off the table. He says the rules don't apply." Jack sighs in relief, but wait! There's more! "He has, however, ordered her to be marked," says Isabel. Alex looks shocked. So does Jack, even though (or maybe perhaps) he doesn't even know what that is. Even Tom is like, "She's going to be marked? Daaaaaamn." Um, guys, she was supposed to be killed. Whatever "marked" means, it can't be anything worse than death, especially if it turns out to be something bored gangster-wannabe kids do to each other for thrills. Isabel heads back into the "courtroom," and Juliet and Jack stare at each other until Isabel closes the door behind her.
Back in Thailand, Jack strolls out of his hut and slings his backpack over his shoulder, showing no effects of having recently been tattooed, so either it's been a few days or the writer has never gotten a tattoo.
That little urchin is on the beach again, and Jack holds up two fingers for soda, but this time the kid fearfully runs away. Jack's all, "Where you going?" But he'll soon have bigger worries; a group of men, including Achara's brother, Chet, approach him from behind. Jack doesn't seem to notice their murderous glares, as he's all, "Hey, I know you!" They still look pissed, so Jack's all, "I'm Achara's friend!" Friend? Was he so drunk he doesn't actually remember what happened? Chet lifts up Jack's sleeve, and sees the ring of Chinese characters around his arm (no number five, no stars). "Let go of me, man," says Jack. In response, Chet and his friends suddenly start whaling on him, knocking him to the ground, kicking and punching like a good beat-down in a prison movie. Jack's too outnumbered to do much else than turtle and eat sand. Chet's friends stand back to let Chet finish Jack off with a couple of good slugs to the face. "You will get off of beach!" he yells, pulling Jack up to his face. "You will leave this country! Do you understand me?" Not waiting for an answer, Chet lets Jack drop back to the sand, and he and his friends leave, walking past a tearful Achara a short distance away. Jack looks at her, and she turns away, crying, and walks away.
Back on Alcatraz, Juliet, looking like hell, slowly approaches Jack's cage, limping, carrying a sandwich. She manages a smile as he gets up and approaches the bars. "I heard you only liked them grilled," she says. Jack says he misses the toothpicks as well, and she slides the sandwich to him through the bars. Then Jack's all, "So, about this mark... " and wants to see it. She turns and lifts up the back of her shirt -- she's got what looks kind of like an asterisk, with the top centre arm a little longer than the rest, branded into the small of her back. I think it looks kind of bad-ass, actually. Jack tells Juliet to break off a branch of a nearby aloe plant. Juliet says it's okay, but Jack insists. Juliet probably just doesn't have the heart to tell him about the Body Shop they have back home in the Craphole Island mall. But this way, Jack gets to put his big comforting doctor hands all over her skin.
She asks why he helped her. "He told you he was going to let you go home. He told me the same thing. We're going to make sure he keeps his word." Juliet wants to know how they're going to do that, and all Jack can say is, "Together," so make sure you've got your bags packed and ready to go, Juliet. She tells Jack that everybody's going to be vacating this place, since the Lostaways know where it is. "We have to leave this island to go back to where we live," she says. And where's that, Jack asks. "Well, Ben calls it home," she says. Are we to infer that this is where Ben was promising to let Juliet go? That seems to have been a significant remark.
I don't think the Others have to be too worried about Kate and Sawyer knowing where they are; when Sawyer comes back to the campsite sans Carl, Kate flips, because Carl could have shown them how to get back. Isn't Alcatraz actually a relatively tiny island? What's so difficult about it? Sawyer says he let Carl go because he's a target: "Ben ain't never going to stop looking for him," he says, and Kate's opinion is that all Ben wants is Carl as far from his daughter as possible. Sawyer gets a look on his face like that never occurred to him but is probably true, so he stops arguing and just says they should get back to camp. Kate scoffs at him and doesn't move, and when Sawyer eventually notices and asks if she's coming, she says, "Should I walk beside you, or ten paces behind you? You've gotten so good at telling me what to do, I can't think for myself anymore." Aw, look at her stamp her feet when she doesn't get her way.
Sawyer tells her not to take it out on him because she feels guilty. "I don't feel guilty!" she says, telling Sawyer that they had to leave Jack behind. But that's not what Sawyer's talking about: "I'm talking about you and me. I know you did it because you thought I was a dead man. So don't beat yourself up because the doc's left behind." God, sleep with Sawyer once and he gets all clingy. Instead of saying, "What the hell does any of that have to do with anything," Kate says she's not beating herself up. "Of course you're not. So now that we got that out of the way, let's go," says Sawyer. I like that: "out of the way." I'm sure we won't have to hear any more about this, the endless battle for Kate's devotion. Kate looks awfully stunned, either because Sawyer's right, or because she can't believe what a fucking baby he's being over a little prison booty call.
Back on Alcatraz, the Others gather on the beach in advance of the awesome retaliation sure to come their way from that crack commando unit known as the Lostaways over on Craphole Island. Jack's looking at Ben, lying on a stretcher, when Isabel says, "'He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us.' Your tattoos -- that's what they say." Dude, I think she's hitting on you. She's digging Jack. "That's what they say," says Jack. "That's not what they mean." But that's all he says, saving what the tattoos mean for the tattoo flashback episode, I suppose, and he walks down the beach to join Ben, who gets lifted into a rowboat so they can be ferried out to a larger craft.
Hey, a montage! It's been a while! Kate and Sawyer walk through the jungle, carrying torches. In retrospect, Sawyer might have let Carl leave with the boat after they got back to camp. The camera lingers a long while on Sawyer's melancholy face, just so we know how much he loves Kate. Somewhere else, Carl sits by himself at a campfire. He looks up at the night sky, at the stars, and when the camera eventually comes back down, it is, of course, on Alex, also staring up at the sky. I'm not sure that was corny enough; couldn't they have thrown in a shooting star or two?
Now on a larger motorboat, Jack and Juliet sit on opposite sides, looking over the bow out onto the water. Juliet looks over at Jack, and when he looks back at her, she smiles. Jack plays it cool, clearly thinking, "Yeah, that's right. I know you want to get with this," and looks back over the water.