Lost Recap: “A Tale of Two Cities”

Lost is back, and I for one couldn’t be more excited. I personally thought last night’s Season 3 premiere was an exciting and enthralling hour of television. The acting was top notch…kudos to Matthew Fox and Julie Bowen for their spectacular performances. I found myself completely engrossed in The Others, more than I ever have been. What is their story? And Kate & Sawyer shared some crazy ‘I want to jump your bones but I’m stuck in a cage’ looks last night. They were on fiyah!! I wished we had seen a little more of The Losties back on the beach, but I’m ok with it…it’s a long season.

The fabulous Michelle is going to be recapping Lost for GiveMeMyRemote.com this season. Recappers get paid in comments, so make sure to take the time to welcome Michelle to the family.

Title: A Tale of Two Cities
Original Airdate: 10/4/2006
Taking a page from last season’s satisfying season opener, we see a faceless woman loading a cd into a player (how well-equipped is this hatch, anyway?), just like we saw Desmond loading the record last September; we even hear a song by The Mamas and the Papas again, but this time it’s “Downtown.” The unfamiliar blond woman bakes cookies, opens her door to her book club members, and discusses the merits of the Stephen King book they’re all reading (Stephen King is a huge fan of this show and has written about it more than once in his column in Entertainment Weekly, so at first I think he’ll be flattered to have one of his books appear on the show…until I hear a book club member trash it and let say that another member “wouldn’t even read it in the bathroom.” That’s gotta sting. Don’t know how Stephen King will feel about that backhanded reference. Maybe he’ll consider the source of the criticism. After all, the guy was an Other). Anyway, life in suburbia is grand until what appears to be an earthquake shatters the calm. After the rumbling stops, book club members rush outside, only to see (yikes!) flight 815 coming apart and crashing through the trees several hundred yards away. And Henry Gale emerging from a nearby house to peer at the sky. It’s at this point that we try to pull ourselves out of our fog and confusion and realize, OH MY GOD, THIS ISN’T SUBURBIA. THESE PEOPLE ARE ON THE ISLAND.

And so begins a new season of “Lost.” Repeat after me: We know nothing. We’re just along for the ride.

FLASHBACK: Jack is in his car on what appears to be a stakeout (do spinal surgeons go on stakeouts now? Doctors get all the fun, I’m tellin’ ya). But, no, it’s really a stalkout, as Jack peers at his wife (ex-wife? We don’t know yet), Sarah, who looks to be getting cozy with another guy. Hmmm. File this for later.

Back on the island: Jack wakes up in a dim, dank cavern of a room. He’s alone and, of course, looks for ways to escape. Thinking he’s found one, he runs…smack into the Plexiglas wall. I saw my cat do this exact same thing once, and when the cat did it, it was really funny. Under these circumstances, it just seems sad…and spooky.

Kate wakes up, too, in what appears to be the locker room at the Y, minus the broken showers. In fact, one of the others (the one who was previously disguised as the bearded redneck) encourages her to use the shower. When she refuses and pulls out her modesty card, he laughs and tells her she’s not his type. I’m guessing he’s gay. Most straight guys I know think Kate is their type. I mean, really their type.

Sawyer wakes up, too, in what appears to be an animal cage, and he sees another prisoner in an adjoining cage. Against the advice of the other prisoner, Sawyer pushes a big red button that has a picture of a knife and fork on it. He pushes it three times. The third time, he gets knocked back on his ass. For some reason, I never get tired of seeing Sawyer get knocked on his ass. I laugh. Sawyer gets pissed.

FLASHBACK: Jack and Sarah are in what looks to be an attorney’s office. Sarah gets a call on her cell phone while she’s sitting next to Jack; it sounds like she’s talking to a new guy in her life. Poor Jack.

Back on the island: Kate emerges from her shower and sees a sign on a locker that reads, “Wear this.” Sounds like the start of a good date, right? Wrong. She puts on the dress (surprisingly tasteful: swingy and pretty) and is led to the shore, where Henry Gale, creepy as ever, is waiting for her in a gazebo with a breakfast of bacon, eggs, strawberries, and coffee. Coffee, I say. Continuing the date motif, Henry tells Kate to put the handcuffs on or he won’t give her any coffee. She begrudgingly puts on the handcuffs. Kate obviously feels the way I do about coffee, and I don’t blame her one bit for giving in and putting on the cuffs. Henry tells her he’s trying to give her something nice to keep in her head, since the next two weeks are going to be unpleasant. I get chills just hearing him say it, and I’m sitting in my living room.

FLASHBACK: Deciding he likes playing the role of deranged stalker husband, Jack tries to track down Sarah’s new boyfriend by calling the numbers in her cell phone. As he’s dialing, he realizes that one of the numbers is to his own dad’s cell phone. Ewww. Dad says nothing’s going on, but we know he’s a drunk who isn’t always on the up and up, so come on…

Back on the island: Sawyer and his new prisoner friend, Carl (Eric from “Judging Amy” – you knew he was bad news then, right?), make a half-hearted attempt at escaping from their cages, but are quickly recaptured. Sawyer gets tasered. I laugh. Sawyer gets pissed. Meanwhile, Jack is joined by an Other named Juliet…the same Juliet who was the book club hostess when Flight 815 literally crashed her party. She wants to bring him some food.

FLASHBACK: Jack follows his dad to what turns out to be an AA meeting, where Jack finds out his dad has been sober for 50 days. But Jack is skeptical AND he thinks his dad is sleeping with his wife, though (ewww), so the men exchange words and Jack punches him.

Back on the island: Jack charges at Juliet when she brings in the food. He tries to open a door that looks like one of the watertight doors in Titanic. Henry Gale warns him not to, then saves himself by ducking into a nearby room…leaving Juliet, who’s not 10 feet behind him, to fend for herself (what’s up with that, dude?). She looks stunned. I was stunned. Jack gets the watertight door open and water rushes in, but he and Juliet make it to safety, where she proceeds to punch him out. But she does make sure he doesn’t drown, so I’m guessing she’s a good person. We’ll see.

Sawyer finally figures out that he’s being held in an animal training cage, and he manages to punch the buttons and press the levers so he can get some food. As he’s munching a Dharma dog biscuit, Kate is brought into the cage previously occupied by Carl (I don’t even want to think about what happened to that kid). Kate looks disheveled and she’s obviously been crying. Sawyer looks upset to see her like that. I’ve never been a Kate & Sawyer shipper, but to see the concern on his face when he looks at her just tugs at me. And when he actually shared his fish biscuit with her….I don’t care that he’s a sarcastic, unshaven con man. Maybe he’s the guy for her. Maybe.

Jack wakes up back in his holding cell, which Juliet tells him used to be an aquarium. She has a huge folder of information, and it’s all regarding him: education, family, career. She even has information about Sarah in there. She has earned a tiny piece of Jack’s trust, and she asks if there’s anything he wants to know.

FLASHBACK: Sarah bails Jack out of jail, where he apparently landed after punching his dad. She says goodbye and walks over to her new man; when Jack angrily asks, again, what his name is, Sarah responds with a zinger: “It doesn’t matter who he is. It matters who you’re not.” Ouch. Ouch, ouch. It’s the very essence of what we don’t want to hear after we’ve been dumped, the one thing we fear is really at the root of everything, and she laid it all out for him. He wasn’t good enough.

Back in the hatch, Jack says he wants to know if Sarah is happy. Juliet tells him she is (that must be some folder of information). Jack cries (just wanna say here that Matthew Fox does crying better than any other guy on TV. He’s good at it, and he’s still a manly tough guy, too. He’s asked to cry quite a bit of it on this show, too, so big ups to him). Juliet leaves the aquarium to get Jack some food and sees Henry right outside. \

“Nice work,” he says.
“Thank you, Ben,” she responds.

Ben?? Who’s Ben???

And fade out (well, really that big BOOM, and then the “Lost” title floating eerily by on the screen. You know).

Wow. To quote Juliet: “It doesn’t matter who we were. It only matters who we are.” So say what you will about last season’s character-heavy backstories slowing down the plot; right now “Lost” is in prime form, ready to share some answers…and bring up hundreds of new questions in the process, but still. I’ll take what I can get.

Watch LOST on ABC.com…

Click the link below to watch last night’s episode in its entirety on ABC.com.