The first episode of season 3 starts with an eye, for the first time in a long time. It is Juliet’s eye. We see her baking, and then at a book club, discussing her favorite book. The house shakes, and they run outside. We see Ben, and then in the sky, we see the break-up of Oceanic 815. Ben sends Goodwin and Ethan to listen, learn, and not get involved, and to bring lists. Once again, LOST shows us something and then surprises us. We never would have imagined that the Others lived on the island in normal homes, with anything as mundane as a book club.
We learn that Jack is being held in a holding cell, behind glass. Kate is somewhere where there is a shower. Sawyer is in a cage outdoors. Juliet comes to see Jack. Kate is taken to see Ben, who gives him breakfast. He tells her that the next two weeks are going to be unpleasant. A teen named Karl in the cage next to Sawyer lets him go, but Juliet reapprehends him.
Jack thinks he hears his father saying “Let it go, Jack” over the intercom. Juliet tells Jack that the intercom has not worked in years. Juliet tells Jack that it is a side effect of the drug they gave him when they captured him that he will get dehydrated and then will start to hallucinate, and so tries to persuade him to eat and drink. Jack manages to grab her, threatens to kill her. Ben says, “OK – if she opens the door, we die anyway. It turns out the door is underwater and the place begins to flood. They close the door, then Juliet manages to subdue Jack. He learns that the station is called the Hydra.
Sawyer manages to get a fish biscuit. Kate is put in the cage across from him. He gives the biscit to her.
In a flashback, we see Jack coming without his lawyer, whom he fired, to a meeting with Sarah. Jack refuses to let it go. He wants to know whom she has been seeing. Jack follows his father to a hotel. He humiliates him in front of what seems to be an Alcoholics Anonymous group, tackling him in anger, accusing him of sleeping with his wife. He ends up in jail. Sarah bails him out. Jack says he needs to know who the man is that she has been seeing. She says it doesn’t matter who he is, it only matters who you’re not, adding, “Look on the bright side – now you have something to fix.”
Juliet has a file about Jack’s life. He asks about Sarah, whether she is happy. When he hears that she is very happy, he cries.
While the episode offered revelations that answered mysteries and humanized the Others, it also was quite poignant in its depiction of how a life falls apart when we don’t devote time to someone we claim to care about, or allow ourselves to be eaten away with jealousy. If Jack had focused on Sarah’s happiness all along, things might not have gone the way they did.
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