Episode Title: "Not In Portland"

Flashback Character: "Juliet"

Episode Number: 3.07 (Overall: #54) Production Number: 307
Air Date: 02/07/07

Synopsis: Back nearly three years ago (from late 2004, which is the present day in Lost's world), when Juliet was a medical doctor engaged in fertility research in Miami, Florida, she was approached by a couple of men who claimed to have been sent from a Portland, Oregon company interested in the cutting edge research Juliet was doing at the time. That research included causing a male field mouse to be impregnated. It also appears to have included helping her own ailing sister to become pregnant. One of the two men was Ethan Rom, who can also be seen in the very first scene of Juliet's flashback: she passes him in the hallway of her research lab. They exchange the casual hellos of people who have never met.

The Juliet that we meet in her own flashback is disheveled, downtrodden and meek. She appears to work for her ex-husband. He is controlling and manipulative and appears to be something of a slime ball, hiring beautiful women as research assistants. One could infer Juliet was once one of those assistants. But by the time we meet Juliet in this flashback, she has come into her own as a researcher, and as one can further infer, has since been discarded by her one-time mentor.

The Juliet in the flashback seems to care about one thing only: her sister, Rachel, who appears to be bald from chemotherapy, although that is never stated. It is possible that she is bald from the treatments Juliet is giving her.

In the present (again, 2004).....

Juliet, in the operating room with Jack, an unconscious Ben lying face down on the table, is helpless to repair the tear in Ben's kidney sack. Tom tells her to leave the room and then asks Jack about Juliet having asked Jack to kill Ben on the table. Jack tells Tom that she did indeed ask him to kill Ben.

Meanwhile, back in the jungle, Jack has made contact with Pickett, the other Others who were there to see Sawyer killed by Pickett, as well as Kate and Sawyer. The message: Kate and Sawyer escape, or Ben dies on the table. In the ensuing chaos, Kate and Sawyer make their escape and are quickly joined by Alex, who tells them that she has a boat and can help them escape....If they help her free her boyfriend from the Others. "Would your boyfriend's name, by any chance, be Karl?" Sawyer asks. It is indeed.

We find Karl locked up in "Room 23" of an otherwise seemingly abandoned building, guarded by some guy who isn't clever enough to see through the ruse Sawyer, Kate and Alex pull over on him. For his gullibility, he gets rifle-butted in the head and is left for unconscious as Sawyer, Kate and Alex work to free Karl; which turns out to be something of a challenge because Karl is tied up and dazed in a chair, his eyes are forced open to take in the overwhelming sights and sounds of what appears to be a brainwashing video, with huge crashing noises and giant, large visual images, all interspersed with text that makes little sense to anyone but, I suppose, an Other (or a Scientologist, perhaps? Kidding).

Mission accomplished, Karl is freed and knows who he is and who Alex is, which is a good sign. They run to the boat that Alex has hidden in the beach brush, when suddenly they find themselves being shot at by Pickett. No worries, because Juliet suddenly appears and takes aim, Pickett dies. Juliet reports to the others that Ben awakened on the table and told her to let Kate and Sawyer go. But not Alex. Karl, okay, he can go too. But not Alex, because her "DAD" would be upset if she were not there when he woke up.....her Dad, being BEN LINUS!!!

Ben obviously wasn't married to Danielle Rousseau because she said her husband's name was Robert. The Others took Alex when she was a baby and may have told her that Ben was her dad, being the leader.This question will not be answered in the next episode. But for the moment, let's backtrack to how it came to be that Juliet came out to the beach to save Kate and Sawyer.

Since Jack is a spinal surgeon, not an anesthesiologist, his patient ended up waking up while all of the kidney-sack-slice related drama was happening. When he made his awakening clear, and made clear that he knew what was going on, he asked to speak to Juliet alone. Jack gave them three minutes. Tom noted: "They have history." After a three minute conversation, Juliet tells Jack that if he agrees to save Ben, she will see to it that Kate and Sawyer are set free. No promises about Jack's freedom, but Jack relents. He saves Ben, but not before a bit of artery-rupturing drama plays out. Juliet runs off to the wall of island monitors, locates Kate, Sawyer, Pickett and the others, and sets off to stop the killing. Incidentally, she is the one who ordered them killed if necessary to keep them from escaping. Ah, bygones.

Cut to the last scene, where Jack asks Juliet what it was Ben said to her that made her change her mind. Before she answers, she flashes back to the moment when her ex-husband gets run over by a bus, conveniently, since this is what Juliet told Ethan's colleague would need to happen for her to go with them to Portland. Ethan and his colleague materialize soon after and tell her, "Well, now I guess you're free to go! Yay!" Juliet is momentarily horrified as she wonders whether these guys were somehow involved in her ex's death (or perhaps whether her own wish materialized somehow? like Walt and the Polar Bear, and Walt and his mother's death?), but apparently puts aside the possible negatives in favor of agreeing to join the boys from Portland. Foolish, apparently, since (a) they admit to her that their lab is not "exactly" IN Portland and (b) she ended up on the Island and is still there nearly three years later.

So, what is it that Ben said to her? That she could go home.....


OMG Moments:

• Edmund getting hit by a bus. Even though it was a widely spread spoiler, it was still a shocker.
• Juliet isn't one of the Others and just wants to get back to her normal life.
• Karl in Room 23 (it freaked me out!)
• Juliet referring to Ben as Alex's Dad.
  

New Clues:

• "Your dad will kill him." Alex believes that Ben is her dad, but Rousseau said her husband's name was Robert and that she was already pregnant when she arrived on the island.
• Sources claim that an anagram in this episode reveals clues to the Adam and Eve skeleton in Season 1. The messages in the brainwashing tape may be the anagrams. The messages were: "Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit", "Everything changes", "We are the causes of our own suffering", "God loves you as He loved Jacob", and "Think about" "Your life" (shown in 2 frames, but obviously one sentence). Haven't tried to unscramble them yet.
  

Questions:

• What does Juliet want? Is there really a group that wants Ben dead? Who are they and will they take action later?
• Does Ben not want Alex to leave Alcatraz Island because he doesn't want her to encounter her mother?
• "Since the sky turned purple..." What was the rest of Tom's sentence? And if that kept them from taking Ben for medical attention, then how could Ben have promised Juliet that she could leave, if they apparently can't leave?

Trivia:

• Pop Culture References: "Star Wars," "A Clockwork Orange," "A Brief History of Time"
• Out of the entire regular cast, only Jack, Sawyer, Kate, Ben and Juliet appear in this episode.

The Surreal of Not In Portland: The Orginal Surrealists' major complaint was against the "Dualistic Existence" of mankind. By that was meant being conflicted by the black or white choices, the right or wrong, the yes or no. The conflict between the exterior world and the interior world of any human being. Achieving the Surreal is to resolve the conflict. This episode begins in conflict. A beautiful sunset with Juliet crying. This episode just continues heaping on the "conflict". Exaggerated Polar Opposites are everywhere. Impregnated Male Mouse? Trying to artificially impregnate a dieing woman? Heck the two Dr. Burkes, the base lecherous Edmond and the "genius" Juliet, and Juliet's own conflict in the form of Betrayal or being honest. Juliet's situation is the Conflicted existence of mankind in metaphor. Juliet is compromised everywhere and she rose above it.. she resolved the conflict..Juliet " negated" the hate and set Free Will and Instincts Free. She shot Pickett and let Kate and Sawyer go.

The room 23 scene was a nod to another surreal work of art, A Clock Work Orange. The conditioning of the human being explored. On that note LOST continues the motif of parental conditioning of off spring with that little phone conversation between Edmond and Mother. And of course, Juliet telling Alex that she can't be seen with Carl for now because her Father might to do what? Classic acknowledgments of the conflicted existence between Fathers and Daughters.

Take note that Ben now has promised to let Juliet and Jack leave the Island in exchange for saving his life. And Both remain rather conflicted by that. There was no Love between Juliet and Edmond. No love between Ben and Juliet. No love in Room 23, just the young naive love between Alex and Carl. Which seemed to almost disgust Kate after her highly passionate walkie talkie exchange with Jack. As Kate did with Sawyer, perhaps Juliet and Jack can find a way to escape the Island, yet never leave it.

Theories: If the video that was being played in room 23 is played backwards, it says "Only fools are enslaved by time and space." (hint hint to all you internet junkies, who waste your time on here instead of living in the real world) Audio clip available at http://losteastereggs.blogspot.com/2007/02/only-fools-are-enslaved-by-time-and.html