WRITERS: Carlton Cuse & Drew Goddard DIRECTOR: Jack Bender
CAST: Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Matthew Fox (Jack), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Michael Emerson (Ben), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Emilie de Ravin (Claire), William Mapother (Ethan), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Tyrone Howard (Airport Guard), Joah Buley (Other Guy), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Andrew Divoff (Mikhail Bakunin), Brett Cullen (Goodwin) & Robin Weigert (Rachel)
Jack, Kate and Sayid arrive back at the beach with Juliet in tow. As Juliet struggles to fit in as an "outsider", her help is required when Claire is struck by a mysterious illness...I think a quality switch must have been flipped in a hatch somewhere. One Of Us is another impressive episode, the latest in a brilliant run of intriguing and revelatory storylines. This time the focus is on Juliet, for the second time this season, and once again Elizabeth Mitchell gives a powerful and nuanced performance.
For anyone desperate for answers, One Of Us gives you one to a question posed way back in season 1. Contrary to popular belief, Lost answers questions fairly regularly, they just tend to give rise to even more, or slip by unnoticed. One thing the show rarely does is give a straight answer without any vagaries whatsoever, but this episode is an exception. What's more, it's great that the answer doesn't conflict with established events and neatly fills a gap in the jigsaw. Maybe the writers do have a masterplan after all...
The flashbacks again involve Juliet's pre-island life, before she's whisked away to the island using Herrarat Aviation (anagram: Earhart, as in Amelia Earheart the aviator who went missing over the Pacific) Once there, we see her own introduction to the island and the Others' community, particularly her relationship with Ben and an unexpected romance with Goodwin.
While the flashback format has become strained in recent months, as the writers run out of compelling background detail for the main character's lives, there's still plenty of mileage with the new folk. When the flashbacks fill gaps in knowledge, they're always more interesting, and we get plenty of that here.
On the beach, Juliet faces the expected mistrust for being an "Other", despite Jack vouching for her good-character, and it makes for an interesting new dynamic. There's no way the writers can let questions go unanswered now, although they have delayed it by forcing Jack's protectiveness of her (annoyingly). Still, she's only been in camp less than a day and a key mystery of season 1 has been answered, so I'm looking forward to Juliet spilling the beans some more. If she doesn't lie, that is...
All said, this is another terrific installment for a season that is going from strength to strength after the turgid six-episode opening. Lost remains a slow-burn for viewers, but big answers are beginning to come now and the prickly relationships remain just as watchable as ever. Lost's place in television history is already assured, but it could achieve legendary status if it avoids getting lost in its own complexities and not quitting while it's ahead.
Don't bet against it happening.
