The episode begins with Juliette speaking to someone named Harper Stano. She has been on the island a week, and feels like a celebrity and the focus of attention. Tom interrupts and brings her to see Ben, who shows her that she has a house, with opera CDs. Juliette says it is unnecessary since she will only be there six months. We know that that was not true.
Then, in the present day, Juliette helps Jack and other people look for Dan and Charlotte. Whispers are heard. Harper appears to her and delivers a message from Ben. They have gone to a place called the Tempest, and she says that if they manage to deploy the gas that is there, everyone on the island will die.
In another flashback, Juliette meets Goodwin. Someone named Henrietta who had been pregnant died that morning. He suggests that she should talk to Harper. Juliette says she thinks that Harper is mean and spiteful. It turns out that Harper is Goodwin’s wife. Later, Harper says that it is natural that Ben likes Juliette, saying, “you look just like her.” Harper also confronts Juliette about her affair with Goodwin.
Juliette tells Jack that the Tempest is a power station for the island.
We see Ben reading a Philip K. Dick novel. When Locke brings him rabbit, Ben asks whether it had had a number on it.
In another flashback, it is suggested that Ben sending Goodwin to the tail section of the plane was motivated by his jealousy since he has a crush on Juliette.
The flashbacks are connected to the present by the fact that Goodwin had been working at the Tempest station with chemicals that could kill everyone on the island.
Ben shows Locke a videotape. It is of Charles Widmore. Ben says he doesn’t know how Widmore knows about the island, but he wants to exploit it. Ben makes a comparison to the Virgin Mary appearing in mold on the side of a building in Gainesville, Florida and attracting 5,000 people. How many people, Ben asks, would flock to see Locke, a cripple who can walk? Ben gives Locke his file on Widmore.
In another flashback, we see Ben having dinner with Juliette. They talk about Zack and Emma, the children from the tail section. Ben asks, “Who are we to question who is on the list?” Ben tries to convince Juliette that Goodwin has inappropriate feelings about a woman named Ana-Lucia.
When Juliette reaches the Tempest, Dan says that he is not trying to release the gas, he is trying to render it inert. Ben had used the gas before, and they are trying to prevent that from happening against them.
Ben takes Juliette to see Goodwin’s corpse. Juliette accuses Ben of having known this would happen and having wanted it. She asks him why. Ben asks her how she can not understand that she is his.
When I first watched and blogged about the episode back in 2008, I was struck by two things. One is the pun in the title – Juliette as “other” woman but also as one of the “Others.” The other was the “soap opera” character of the story. Watching again, I am struck now that the show was always about characters and their complicated relationships. It is interesting that LOST can be (at least) two completely different shows, depending on what one focuses on while watching it. One of the most crucial points, watching it again, is that Goodwin was a human being with a complex life, not the monster that we assumed the “Others” to be.
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