Goddamnit!
OK, now that that’s out of the way…
I swear, this is the most infuriating show on television! Yes, tonight they let us take a big, giant step in the direction of The Truth, but they still kept the characters in the dark for no good reason! I kept going back and forth — was it great? Was it teh suck (as the kids say)?
I can see the writers’ meeting right now:
WRITER A: Well, we’ve got Juliet at the beach, but won’t everyone pelt her with questions?
WRITER B: We need an excuse for them not to.
WRITER C: I’ve got it! Have her save someone’s life and then everyone will trust her!
REST OF ROOM: Huzzah!!!!
NOOOOOO!
Jesus, people! Just because you trust someone doesn’t mean you give them a free pass! The most likely, reasonable, rational scenario is that Juliet saves Claire’s life and everyone on the beach says, “Wow, that’s great! So you’re really one of us! Terrific. Now since you’re one of us, we know you won’t mind answering some questions…”
I mean, yes — Elizabeth Mitchell knocked her flashbacks out of the park (especially that heart-wrenching moment when she sees her nephew on the Flame’s monitors). And yes, EM is six, maybe seven kinds of hot. And yes, it was great to see Hurley bring up Ethan’s transgressions (though he should have mentioned that Ethan damn near killed Charlie!). And yes, yet again, the twist at the end was fabulous.
But the whole thing was marred by the stupidity of Juliet not being hammered with questions (as mentioned above) and by the absolute idiocy of Jack sending Juliet for the medical supplies alone, as opposed to having, say, Kate go with her. This was done purely so that Juliet could have a scene of faux drama with Sawyer and Sayid, said scene coming off laughable because those two guys should have said, “Exactly, we’re not angels. So start talking, lady.”
God.
As to Juliet not being asked any questions: The solution to this is so simple, it’s absurd. To wit:
SAWYER: Start yappin’, little lady. I got a hankerin’ for some answers and I ain’t too picky about how I get ’em right about now.
JULIET: I would love to tell you everything. But we’ve all been given post-hypnotic suggestions that prevent us from talking about the group or anything related to it with outsiders. Ben has to give me a pre-programmed codeword to break the suggestion. If you can get him to do that, I’ll tell you everything you want to know.
SAWYER: Sounds like hogwash to me. Sayid, get your knives.
KATE: Wait a minute, Sawyer. We saw them brainwashing that kid, remember?
JULIET: Exactly. We all go through that. I can’t tell you anything at all.
Now, was that so difficult? A nice little lie (or hell, maybe it could be true, depending on the arc of the show) resolves the lingering question of why no one ever gets any answers until the producers WANT them to.
Sigh. Lost folks, I’d kill to write an episode of this show. Call my people . 🙂