Lost Recap: Not in Portland

Title: “Not in Portland”
Original Airdate: February 7, 2007
GMMR Recapper: MichelleLet’s see, what was happening on Lost the last time we saw it? Kate and Sawyer hooked up in a cage, and Jack was letting Ben bleed to death on the operating table so that they could escape. Yep, that’s about all we need to know (hell, that’s all they LET us know half the time on this show…and what we think we know we may not really know, anyway). Entertainment Weekly said this week’s episode would rock, and they were pretty accurate, so let’s dive in.

FLASHBACK: Juliet is walking down a dimly lit, concrete hall. She says hi to Ethan (remember, he messed with Clare and Charlie killed him) in the hall; we also see a record player so, of course, we know she’s in a hatch somewhere on an island. She walks in to see an obviously sick woman in a bed and makes preparations to give her an injection. She says they should really stop doing this, and the woman asks her why: does she think it won’t work, or is she afraid he will find out? Juliet tells the woman – who is her sister, Rachel – she doesn’t like her living alone, but when she’s met with Rachel’s protests that she doesn’t want to move because she likes living on the beach, Juliet reminds her that they live in MIAMI, so everything’s on the beach, and she opens the curtains to show her the skyscrapers to prove it! Surprise! No hatch, no island. (I like the way they did that reverse-you-think-you’re-in-the-hatch-but-really-you’re-in-the-real-world thing, which is exactly the opposite of what they’ve done in the past. Nice).

PRESENT: Per Jack’s instructions over the walkie-talkie, Sawyer and Kate overpower the guards near the cages and make a run for it. Back in the operating room, Juliet gives orders for some other Others to find Sawyer and Kate, and, if necessary, kill them. She is unwavering in her command, even though Jack promises that he’ll let Ben die there in the OR. Either Juliet doesn’t care about that or she doesn’t believe him.

FLASHBACK: Juliet, who is a researcher/doctor, is in a lab, stealing some sort of drugs. When the door opens and she’s about to be discovered, she hides behind a cabinet, only to have her cell phone ring, and she is discovered by her ex-husband, Ed, and his apparent newest floozie girlfriend who have come there for a bit of canoodling.

PRESENT: Juliet tells Jack that Kate and Sawyer will never be able to escape, since they’re on an island two miles offshore of the original island. She asks for a “peaceful resolution” to their situation, which makes Jack scoff. He tells Tom, the Other we used to think was the redneck with the long beard, about Juliet’s plan to let Ben die. She’s been ratted out! Tom orders her out of the room, but before she leaves, Juliet tells him that she knows that Jack will never let a patient just die. Looks like she’s done her homework.

Kate and Sawyer are running through the woods. They see “their” island and realize they’ll need a boat to get there. After a short talk with Jack over the walkie-talkie, they engage in a gun battle with some of the Others, who have pursued them to the shore. Alex (Danielle’s teenage daughter) comes to their rescue with her slingshot, hitting one of the Others in the head with a stone (I’m not making this up – totally David and Goliath right here. Don’t let anyone ever tell you that this show isn’t rampant with Christian symbolism). Alex, Sawyer and Kate escape into Alex’s underground bunker and wait it out.

FLASHBACK: Juliet’s ex-husband, also a researcher, is sort of blackmailing her. Apparently he’s questioning some of her research as being unethical. You can tell he’s just slimy. Maybe he’ll get hit by a bus.

PRESENT: Inexplicably, Ben has awoken from his anesthesia, and he’s lying awake on the operating room table, his back wide open and the wound gaping (I’ve seen shows on the Discovery Channel about this – people who wake up from anesthesia in the middle of surgery, but they can’t communicate at all and they can still feel the agonizing physical pain of the surgery, but no one knows they’re awake. I can’t say I’m sorry Ben is going through this). He asks for a few minutes alone with Juliet, which Jack reluctantly agrees to. While watching them through the OR glass, Tom tries to make friendly overtures to Jack, but Jack is having none of it (and I can’t blame him at all – the Others have proven themselves to be cruel and bizarre so far). He tells Jack that Juliet and Ben have a history. When she’s done talking to Ben, Juliet asks Jack to finish the surgery and sew up Ben’s back. In return, she’ll help Kate and Sawyer escape.

FLASHBACK: Juliet is at a job interview. I don’t know the real name of the guy who is interviewing her, but to me he’ll always be Batmanuel from the live-action version of “The Tick.” He’s excited by her research and wants her to join his team. He says that he heard she was able to impregnate a male field mouse, and she sounds like his kind of gal (I’m only half kidding, and not about the pregnant male mouse part, either). She tearily tells him that the only way her ex-husband would let her take such a position is if he were hit by a bus. Yup.

PRESENT: A “guard” is reading “A Brief History of Time” on the steps of one of the Dharma hatches. Alex’s boyfriend, Carl (Sawyer’s original cage mate from way back last fall) is inside. Sawyer, Alex and Kate get inside when Alex pretends she’s holding the other two at gunpoint after they tried to escape (and in the midst of this, we discover that Ben is Alex’s dad. Chew on that). They quickly overpower the guard, and when they get inside we’re treated to what may well be the creepiest scene from this entire series, which is saying a lot. Carl is strapped to a chair in one of the dank, dark hatch rooms. He’s wearing freaky light-up glasses that are apparently holding his eyes open, and he’s propped in front of a movie screen flashing rapidly-changing and incredibly-disturbing disjointed images and messages such as “We are the causes of our own suffering.” The accompanying music is loud and jolting, and the entire scene feels like it’s the uglier cousin of something from “A Clockwork Orange.” Sawyer is mesmerized, but they manage to get Carl out of the room and into the boat.

FLASHBACK: Turns out Juliet’s research DOES work, as her sister is pregnant, much to her joy. Juliet goes and tells Ed…and stands and watches as he gets hit by a bus. Yup. (I feel a little bad that I almost always giggle when people get blindsided by a bus on TV or in the movies. It’s always so unexpected, and it must be such a weird way to go. I think my giggling is partly out of shock, though). Ed is gone.

PRESENT: Jack asks Tom why, if they can leave the island, did they not just take Ben to get surgery somewhere else? Tom begins to answer, “Ever since the sky turned purple…” when Jack accidentally nicks an artery, and Ben begins to bleed again. Answer averted.

The Really Angry Other, Danny, is about to shoot Sawyer and company on the beach, when he is suddenly shot by Juliet. She was serious about helping them escape. Unfortunately, Alex must stay; Juliet reminds her that her DAD – Ben – will be angry if she leaves (I’m not sure exactly what this means, but I’m guessing that Ben has options at his disposal beyond that of most dads who just get pissed when their daughter’s creak curfew). Kate calls Jack and recites his “five seconds in surgery” story, as promised, to let him know they’re OK. She’s obviously emotional for Jack. Now I want Jack and Kate to be together. I’m fickle. Jack makes Kate promise to never return there to rescue him, and Kate, Sawyer and Carl sail away to the strains of the beautifully haunting music that plays on this show when someone is dying or leaving. I hope they’re just leaving.

FLASHBACK: Juliet is in the morgue with Ed’s body (and, I must say, he doesn’t look THAT bad for a guy who just got hit by a bus). In walks…Ethan. And Batmanuel. It’s like a weird dream when people show up unexpectedly in all the oddest places. Juliet begins to get freaked out – and rightfully so, I imagine – when she recalls that the last time she saw Batmanuel, she mentioned something about her ex-husband needing to get hit by a bus. And he did. And now here’s the man she told that to. And he’s presenting an “opportunity” for her at a job that’s in a place that’s “not exactly Portland.” I don’t think Juliet has a choice about accepting this job, given Batmanuel’s intense and creepy facial expressions (beware, next time you’re on an interview for what seems like a dream job). And I think we know now how Juliet got to the island.

PRESENT: Jack asks Juliet what Ben said to her to make her abandon her plan to kill him. She tells Jack that she’s been on the island for three years, two months and 28 days, and Ben promised her she can go home soon. So, apparently, Juliet is not there of her own free will at this point. Join the club.

Michelle is the frazzled mother of two very young kids. In lieu of taking a shower every day, she writes TV recaps for GMMR to keep the remaining shred of her sanity intact. This also helps her justify her insanely intense TV-watching habit, which was spawned in her early childhood because she was allowed to watch an unlimited number of”Sesame Street” episodes when she herself was a preschooler.