"Lost": Keep Your Friends Close ...
By Sarah Carlson
April 12, 2007
Oh, Juliet. Her soul isn't quite as tortured as those belonging to other "Lost" characters, but she is one of the hardest to figure out. We’ve never known where her loyalties truly lie, but in last night's excellent “One of Us,” we stepped much closer to discovering her motivation for cooperating with the Others and who’s side she’s really on: Her own.
Juliet made it back to the beach with Jack, Kate and Sayid, and the question on every survivor's mind was whether she could be trusted. Jack stood by her, using his position as leader to demand respect for, or at least tolerance of, his new friend -- someone who happens to be “one of them,” a group that kidnapped Claire, nearly killed Charlie and held several of them captive. Juliet has Jack convinced, and she almost had the viewers as well … that is, until the final minutes of the episode.
But first, her background: She went to the island under the false pretense that she’d be able to return to home to Miami in six months. The Others needed her medical skills and research to try and solve their community's problem: Women can’t stay pregnant. Their bodies attack the fetuses as a foreign object, and they die. Considering Juliet made her infertile and cancer-ridden sister, Rachel, pregnant, she was to be the community’s hope. The details for her job were vague, and Richard Alpert and Ethan Rom, under the guise of employees at Mittelos Bioscience, wouldn’t tell her where she was going. But with the promise that she’d be able to make a difference in the world, to use her special talents to help others, she quickly signed up for the journey. That was three years ago.
No matter what she tried, she still couldn’t find a way to cure the island community’s women. Mothers kept dying, but Juliet’s pleas to Ben to let her go back to the states to see Rachel give birth were denied. When her six months were up, Ben told her that Rachel’s cancer had returned. If she stayed to do more work, he’d have Rachel cured. If she left, she’d be going home to say goodbye to her sister for good. She stays, and we learn later that Rachel was indeed cured and is now the mother of a healthy boy, Julian. Ben couldn’t cure his own cancer -- Why can he cure cancer anywhere but on the island? Why can Juliet make infertile women pregnant anywhere but on the island?
Back at the camp, the survivors were arguing over whether to trust Juliet when Claire, who had been feeling bad earlier, became violently ill, vomiting blood and passing out. Jack tried to figure out what was happening until Juliet shared one of her many secrets: She’s the reason Claire is sick. Ethan was placed in the camp to take blood samples from Claire and inject her with Juliet’s medication to see if her body would react differently than the other pregnant women. It worked, and the medicine kept her alive and allowed her to give birth to Aaron. But once Hurley discovered Ethan was an Other, Ethan kidnapped Claire on his own and administered the medication. Now, as Juliet told Jack, Claire is suffering delayed withdrawal symptoms and needed the medication, which happened to be hidden in Ethan’s old hiding spot, to survive. Juliet retrieves the medication, gives it to Claire who recovers, and gains acceptance among the survivors -- all as planned.
A final flashback showed Ben coaching Juliet on how she was going to handcuff herself to Kate in the jungle and pretend to have been left behind by the Others, going back to the camp with Jack. Claire wasn’t suffering withdrawal symptoms -- Ben triggered something in her system that had presumably been implanted, timing it out so that Juliet would save her life just in time and be accepted. Now, she just has to wait, lying to Jack and the rest of the survivors until the Others show up in less than a week.
Most of the flashbacks showed Juliet depressed, missing her family and begging to leave. She still wants off the island, which is what makes Jack trust her. So why is she still playing along with Ben and the Others? What’s motivating her to betray Jack? "Lost's" characters all have dark pasts and shady motives, especially Locke and Sawyer, but Juliet remains one of the island's biggest mysteries. She's not a bad person, but I can't figure out why she carries out the Others' biddings.
With the submarine destroyed, there's no telling what Ben has in store for the survivors, or what Juliet will try to accomplish before his arrival at camp. For now, we can only sit and wait, just like the survivors will, until the inevitable showdown.
Previous Entry:
« THE SELLECK® Might Return to TV Along With Its Owner, Tom
Next Entry:
Disturbance in the 'Burbs »
Comments
This site does not necessarily agree with comments posted below -- responsibility lies with the relevant reader alone.
Posted by: Brandon on April 12, 2007 3:49 AM
Picked up last week's TV Guide (big CSI fan, Caruso was on the cover). Elizabeth Mitchell grew up in Dallas. It's surprising how many people in Hollywood have ties to Texas. Also, Elizabeth boxes and knows some Karate. Another reason not to be caught in a dark alley on a deserted island with "Juliet"!