Lost: Season 3, Episode 16 "One of Us" Review

 "You created life where life wasn't supposed to be."

-Richard Alpert

"One of Us" kicks off with Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell), Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) making their way back to the beach.  Jack has suspiciously little to say about the time he spent with the Others and refuses to let Sayid ask Juliet any questions.  They return to the beach, where Juliet receives a frosty reception and as the group debates whether or not to let her join, Claire (Emilie de Ravin) collapses after having been sick all day.

Juliet tells Jack and Kate that pregnant women die on the island because the body turns on the fetus.  Ethan (William Mapother) was getting blood samples from Claire and discovered she was showing the same symptoms.  He only kidnapped Claire when he was discovered.  It was never part of the plan.  Juliet had created medication that helped Claire safely deliver the baby and was suffering from withdrawal and would die without it.  Jack sends her to get more.

Sayid and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) follow Juliet to where the medication is stored and attempt to interrogate her, but Juliet puts them in their place for acting as the moral police of the group with their morally ambiguous backgrounds.  She returns to the beach and administers the medication and Claire fully recovers.  Juliet is allowed to build a shelter at the beach, but Jack warns her the group will eventually need answers, even though he considers her part of the group.

In flashbacks, we see Juliet and her sister, Rachel (Robin Weigert), arrive at Mittelos Bioscience in Oregon, though Rachel is not allowed inside.  Richard (Nestor Carbonell) and Ethan offer Juliet a drink with tranquilizer for the journey to the real destination.  Juliet is hesitant, but Richard convinces her to do it.  She wakes up onboard the submarine and arrives on the island, where she meets Ben (Michael Emerson).  Juliet gets to work trying to save the pregnant women on the island from dying, but fails.  After 6 months, she asks to go home, but Ben reveals Rachel's cancer has come back.  He says he will let Juliet go home or she can stay and he will cure the cancer with help from the mysterious Jacob.  Juliet agrees to stay.

2 and a half years later, Juliet discover that Ben has a tumor and believes he lied to her about saving her sister, but he sets up a live feed to show her Rachel is still alive and he will let Juliet go once she figures out how to save the dying women.

Finally, we see Juliet and Ben laying out their plans for the next week.  It's reveled that Juliet dragging Kate into the jungle was all part of the Others' plan and they had activated an implant in Claire to make her sick, so Juliet would be able to save her and be welcomed into the group.  It appears Juliet really is a mole.

What Works:

The best part of this stellar episode is Elizabeth Mitchell who gives a kick-ass performance with an incredible range.  We see her being incredibly emotional, distraught, and angry before becoming deceptive and cold as ice.  Mitchell does an incredible job and shows us a lot of the character, but still leaves us in doubt to her actual motives.

We also get a lot of answers in terms of the Others.  We finally learn just what was going on with Claire's kidnapping and why Juliet was brought to the Island.  I love seeing some of the inner workings of the Others, like Mikhail (Andrew Divoff) gathering all of the intel on the Oceanic 815 survivors.  It's an info dump, but it plays well with the emotional character driven story of Juliet.

One arc that I really love from season 3 is "can we trust Jack?" and we get more seeds of that here.  Jack trusts Juliet and defends her from everyone without giving a good reason as to why.  Everyone is skeptical and Sayid straight up says it isn't enough that Jack trusts her.  I love this internal conflict.  Taking our rock, the main protagonist, and introducing some doubt into the audience's ability to trust him is pretty brilliant and some exciting storytelling. 

One of the highlights of the episode is where Sayid and Sawyer confront Juliet.  She is facing the prospect of possibly being tortured and yet, Juliet doesn't back down and puts the two of them in their place.  I appreciate them being surrogates for the audience in demanding answers, but I loved watching Juliet wiggle out of it and it didn't feel cheap from a writing perspective.

Finally, the big reveal that Juliet is still working with Ben is amazing.  This episode spends the entire time making us like and root for Juliet.  She gains the audience's trust as well as the survivors', but we've all been duped it seems.  It's an awesome cliffhanger that continues the trend of excellent episodes in the back half of season 3.

What Sucks:

I got nothing for you.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character in the episode.  For "One of Us", this award goes to Juliet for fooling literally everyone into accepting her into the camp.  She played her part perfectly and even managed to lay a verbal smackdown on Sayid and Sawyer.  This is her second time winning the award, which ties her for 9th place overall, with Kate, Ana Lucia, and Rose.

Verdict:

"One of Us" is a fantastic episode of Lost and does an excellent job of showing off the acting talents of Elizabeth Mitchell.  We get some amazing storytelling, lots of answers, and plenty of emotional moments as well.  It's everything you could want from an episode of Lost and it has definitely got it going on.

 10/10: Amazing