Review: Lost - "The Other Woman"

As with all of my reviews, this review contains spoilers.

This week's episode of Lost was not as epic as last week's episode, but it was good. It dealt with Juliet and her backstory with Ben and Goodwin (if you don't remember Goodwin, he was one of the Others that was sent to spy on the tail-section survivors. He was killed by Ana-Lucia). Another key issue in the episode was the disappearance of Daniel and Charlotte. Here is a recap of the most important parts of the episode. I'm not going to cover everything that happened, so head on over to abc's website to see the episode in full.

Daniel and Charlotte have disappeared overnight, causing a lot of confusion and contempt towards them. Juliet's old therapist appears out of nowhere, informs Juliet that Charlotte and Daniel have gone to The Tempest, to release a gas that will kill everyone on the island. Then, without a second glance, the therapist was gone. Despite her quick disappearance, however, she was around long enough to establish herself as a bitch.

Charlotte and Daniel run into Kate on their way to The Tempest. Charlotte makes up a story about why they are in the jungle, but Kate immediately questions their motives. Charlotte realizes this, and knocks Kate out. Go Charlotte.

Now we switch over to Locke. Sick of making no progress with Ben, he talks to him. They make a deal: if Ben tells Locke the information Locke wants, then Locke will grant Ben more freedom. Ben takes Locke to his house and shows him a video. The video reveals that Charles Widmore is the owner of the freighter, and that he will apparently murder anyone who defies him. Locke tells Ben that he still wants to know who his spy is on the freighter, but before Ben can answer, the scene changes, in classic Lost style.

Back to Jack and Juliet. They find Kate just waking up, and Juliet offers to go get her water. Kate tells Jack that Charlotte and Daniel had gas masks. Jack calls out for Juliet, only to realize that she has ran off and abandoned Jack and Kate.

At The Tempest, we see Daniel typing commands into a computer. Juliet shows up and points a gun to his head, but Daniel reveals that he is not trying to kill anyone. Instead, Ben is trying to use the gas as a weapon, and Daniel is simply trying to render it inert. Charlotte then comes up behind Juliet and attacks her, and the two fight while Daniel continues typing into the computer. Finally, right before the gas is about to go off, Daniel stops it, which causes Juliet to believe him and trust him and Charlotte. Jack and Kate catch up to them, and Jack wants to know what is going on with Juliet. Juliet tells Jack that if he stays around her, Ben will kill him, because Ben thinks that Juliet is his own, and he knows that she has feelings for Jack. Jack then kisses her and says that Ben will know where to find him.

The episode ends with Sawyer and Hurley playing horseshoes, only to see Ben come out of his house, walking freely. Sawyer demands to know why he is out roaming, but Ben merely responds that he will see them at dinner.

This was the first episode in a while to use a flashback. It dealt with Juliet coming to the island and meeting her therapist, Harper. The two don't quite hit it off, and small feelings of tension develop between the two. Juliet then meets Goodwin, and they become friends quickly. We find out that Harper is Goodwin's wife, and that Juliet and Goodwin have been having an affair. Harper finds out, and confronts Juliet, ultimately telling her that she needs to end the relationship with Goodwin, or there will be consequences with Ben. We then fast-forward to the day Oceanic 815 crashed. Ben told Goodwin to go to the tail section, knowing that he would not survive. After he has been confirmed dead, Ben takes Juliet to his corpse, and tells Juliet that she is his.

End recap.

The episode did a fantastic job of revealing a more sympathetic side to Juliet, as well as portraying her as a very likable character. In contrast with the "Eggtown" episode, this episode actually left me liking Juliet a whole lot more. At this point, she is one of my favorite characters. It also established Ben as an even more diabolical, yet ingenious villain.

We still do not know much about who Charles Widmore is, aside from being Penny's dad, but he's becoming more and more a central part of the show. Hopefully, before too long, we will get to see who he is.

All in all, the episode was pretty good. It let us know more about who the people on the freighter are, but we still do not know why they are trying to wage war against Ben. Ben has been established as an evil mastermind, and at this point, it seems likely that he would kill everyone on the island if he had to.

If there was any area of complaint about the episode, it felt like not enough happened. In comparison to last week's episode, no major answers were given, and the flashback subplot, while very emotional, was not very exciting. Still, a good episode overall.

8 smokey monsters out of 10.