Lost Recap: Stranger in a Strange Land

Title: “Stranger in a Strange Land”
Original Airdate: February 21, 2007
GMMR Recapper: Michelle

After last week’s episode back in the real world (I think) with Desmond, it was hard to get back to the goings-on on the island(s), which are dark and dank and depressing (and where, apparently, young adults have never seen an episode of “The Brady Bunch,” which is a tragedy that severely limits their ability to make and appreciate pop culture references, I would think. Yet another casualty of the island). I felt a little let down. This episode, while good, did nothing to shed light on any mysteries, so people who are confused…are going to remain confused. Hell, we’re ALL confused, it’s just that some of us have made peace with our lack of knowledge and have made the conscious decision to still watch every week. This recap is for everyone, the confused and the enlightened, the angry and the content, the Team Jack and the Team Sawyer. I’m going to tell the Jack/Juliet story and then the Kate/Sawyer story, since they were two distinct stories that did not cross in a discernable way.

Jack, in his cage, is told by Tom, one of the Others, that they’ll be moving him. Jack thinks “move” is a euphemism for “kill,” and Tom is offended by this assumption, since by his estimation The Others are just like you and me. Except, as Jack points out, they murder, kidnap, and hang people, among other misdeeds (I’m really glad Jack pointed this out, since this is Obstacle #1 for me regarding why the story of The Others cannot ever be satisfactorily explained to me; I can’t fathom a rational explanation that would make me say, “Yeah, that totally make sense that they had to hang Charlie.”). Jack is led away from his cage, only to see Juliet being led into a cage in handcuffs. Apparently she’s being held in Danny’s murder (remember, she shot him on the beach so Sawyer and Kate could escape), and now she has to answer for that.

Juliet asks Jack to look in on Ben. Apparently his stitches are infected and he’s in rough shape. Jack refuses (good for him), even though Juliet says she’s asking as a personal favor to her.

FLASHBACK: A relaxed (but still unshaven) Jack emerges from a beach hut and exchanges pleasantries with a native kid on the beach. He puts together a kite with a comely Asian woman. Is this a Corona commercial? A dream? Another camp where The Others live? Nope, just a flashback. Jack and the Pretty Asian Lady eat a meal together, but apparently their relationship remains superficial for quite a while (or maybe forever – who really knows what makes people tick?), because when he starts to talk about his father, she stops him and says, “I have no interest in your father” (join the ever-growing club, lady. But I want to interject here and comment on how much I admire the forthright manner in which she tells Jack that she doesn’t want to hear his story. She doesn’t even pretend to be pleasant about it. Imagine how liberating that would be if we could all get to a place where tact and decorum are obsolete, and we just start telling people what we think: “I don’t want to hear about how your kid will only eat red foods.” Or “I don’t want to hear about the fact that my electric bill is past due.” The world would change for the better, I think). Anyhoo, she also tells him that she has a “gift” (and a fairly lucrative one, given the amount of money she seems to have on her). I’m wondering if the gift entails anyone being naked. It just feels that way.

The “sheriff” of The Others comments on Jack’s tattoo and tells him she knows what it says (the sheriff is the wonderful Diana Scarwid – you know her as the wacky mother on the criminally-cancelled “Wonderfalls” and, more recently, as the ridiculously naïve and horny homeowner who comes on to T-Bag on “Prison Break.”). Meanwhile, Juliet is being brought up on charges for killing Danny. During her interrogation, it is revealed by the sheriff that most of The Others don’t live on that island or even like going there (so is she saying that there’s another island? Or that they come and go from and to the Real World on a regular basis?), but they’re apparently there for the sake of Juliet’s “trial.” When The Others ask Jack if it’s true that Juliet told him she wanted him to kill Ben, Jack says no – he lies and says he made it all up, because he realized that the best way to save himself and his friends was to make The Others all turn on each other. And he asks to go back to cage.

Later, Jack wakes up in his cage to find a gaggle of gawkers staring at him from the outside (I swear, I may never go to the zoo again. Imagine how the giraffes must feel). Among the crowd is Cindy, the stewardess from Flight 815, along with some of the children who had been kidnapped. She tells Jack they are there “to watch” (to watch WHAT?) and she seems taken aback by his anger at her statement. She doesn’t look upset or as if she’s being held there against her will at this point, and I honestly have no idea, still what’s going on. Later in the day, a pissed-off Alex comes to ask Jack why he decided to save her father. “Because I said I would” is his response. I totally believe this. Jack is a rules boy, and he keeps his word. But his talk with Alex gives him an idea: he goes to attend to Ben and his obviously serious infection (being that Charlie killed their other surgeon, Ethan, quite some time ago, The Others are in a bind regarding medical assistance), with the condition that Ben halt Juliet’s trial and potential execution. Having no real choice, Ben does just that, commuting Juliet’s trial and sentencing with the stipulation that she be “marked.” That can’t be good.

FLASHBACK: Jack follows his girlfriend to her “job.” At first it seems obvious that she’s some sort of prostitute walking the streets, but then it becomes clear that this is not what’s going on at all. Jack follows her into a tattoo parlor, but she says that what she does is “definition, not decoration.” She’s not a tattoo artist; her gift is that she really sees who people are. After Jack strong-arms her, she tells Jack that she sees he’s a leader and a great man who is lonely and angry. He asks her for a tattoo that says just this. At first she resists, telling him “There will be consequences.” “There always are,” says Jack, and so she inks him. Later, men that Jack saw previously at the restaurant, including his girlfriend’s brother, beat him savagely on the beach and tell him to leave. Apparently it’s a consequence.

Juliet brings Jack a grilled sandwich, complete with toothpicks (this is common courtesy when a guy intervenes to save your life, just so you know). She has been “marked” by a burn that looks like a star. Jack medicates her burn with an aloe plant and tells her that Ben promised both of them a ticket off that island, and if they work together, they can make sure they get him to keep his word. So that’s why he’s helping her. That, and the fact that he likes her (I can’t back that up, but I think it’s obvious that he’s into her, and that must be a pretty powerful motivator). She tells Jack that they’re all getting ready to go “home,” since Kate and Sawyer know where they are now, and we see Jack, Juliet, Ben, and some of The Others take off in a boat. Before they leave, The Sheriff tells Jack that his tattoo says, “He walks amongst us but he is not one of us.” He tells her that’s what it says, but that’s not what it means. Take that, know-it-all sheriff lady.

Now the other (much shorter) story, not about The Others, per se: Sawyer and Kate. Sawyer and Kate, along with a pretty strung-out looking Carl, are paddling away from Island #2 in the boat Juliet secured for them. Kate wants to go back and get Jack, but Sawyer vetoes the idea. They set up a temporary camp before it gets dark, since they don’t have time to find their way back to “their” beach, and constant bickering ensues. Looks like the bloom has already fallen off the rose that was Kate and Sawyer’s “relationship” (or “act of wild sex in a cage” – call it what you will). Sawyer talks to Carl, who apparently has no qualms about being raised as an Other (and maybe he knows no differently) because The Others, he says, are just trying to give the kidnapped kids a better life than they could have otherwise (but still, no “Brady Bunch,” so how much better can it be, really?). He’s just pissed that he had to leave Alex, whom he loves. Sawyer, after telling him to “cowboy up” and stop crying in the jungle, listens to his stories about Alex, and it’s obvious that Sawyer is drawing parallels to his feelings for Kate. But not so fast….it’s apparent that Kate has feelings for Jack, and Sawyer finally acknowledges this, telling her he knows that she only had sex with him because she thought he was going to die. Bingo! Kate doesn’t deny it. I am Team Jack all the way, but I feel really bad for Sawyer. They grimly continue their hike, Sawyer’s heart breaking with every step.

There you have it: no real answers. Some broken hearts. More mystery. And we’ll all watch again next week. Must be an inexplicable power of the island drawing us in.

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.

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