One of Them (S:3,E:16)

"One of them, was named "the Demon," from his treachery."
(Divine Comedy of Dante, Purgatory Canto 14)

1) Looks like the writers were hellbent on answering a lot of questions. So many things were tied together. I found it funny that they called the Benry episode in season 2 "One of Them" and they called this one "One of Us" and they both turned out to be one of them in the end.

2) I'm a little unsure about the orange juice and tranquilizer thing. Was there any implication that the Sub took longer than a day to get to the island? How long to tranquilizers knock you out? I know that if a tranquilizer is strong enough, it can kill you. So...I guess what I'm saying is...the island might not be that far away.

3) Speaking of things I'm unsure about. Is Jack a good leader? Jack is getting on my nerves, much like at this same point in last season. His character just bothers me. So much authority, yet so many bad decisions. Weak intuition. I mean, wouldn't he be more careful?

4) So, we see one of the issues the Others are having with the island. They can't procreate there. In fact, it works backwards. Instead of augmenting their numbers with child birth, pregnancy eventually brings the numbers down with the deaths of the pregnant mothers. The Others are becoming extinct. On the Hanso Foundation website, the company vision is to "bring rebirth to a dying land and a dying people". I liked the part where Juliet mentioned this among the losties when helping Clare, then the camera panned on Sun. Does this mean Sun will die? However, this problem wasn't always there. Benry said he was born on the island. Aaron was born there. So what's the deal? Rousseau had Alex on the island. If there is a situation with Dharma and "Hostiles", maybe Dharma poisoned the "Hostiles" and that is why they die from their pregnancies.

5) So, we've heard "Him" before...but, now we are sure it's someone named Jacob. His name was mentioned in the Room 22 scene with Karl, which Karl muttered again on the pontoon boat. Apparently, Jacob has special powers like the ability to cure cancer.

6) It's too bad that we can't see Ana Lucia tell Juliet that she killed Goodwin. We could always use another cat fight. Will the topic ever come up? I'm surprised it hasn't yet, then again, I may need to go back and watch some early episodes this season to see if it did.

7) So we see that Mikhail was the main inhabitant of the Flame hatch. He was pretty adept with the equipment there, especially when they coordinated with the camera-man to show Rachel to Juliet. This could (emphasis on "could") feed the theory that the island isn't as far away from the U.S. as we've been led to believe.

8) The most chilling scene of the episode was Juliet reciting "the plan" to Benry. Handcuffing herself to Kate. Setting off the implant in Clare, giving her symptoms. Gaining the trust of the Losties.

9) Speaking of Kate, we all saw her embrace with Sawyer. Now that they've been apart, and Kate has seen that Jack's allegiance is to Juliet, I can see Kate and Sawyer rekindling something. Then again, I can see Sawyer going back to his old ways and pissing her off again. Sawyer is evolving, but the old Sawyer thrived on everyone hating him. You don't exactly turn that around overnight.

10) What did Sayid do in Basra? Basra was the site of a major revolt against Saddam in 1991, which was put down with heavy force.

11) Here's a number for you:

Picture Courtesy of www.lostpedia.com

12) Speaking of these "implants" (like the one in Claire), does Juliet have an implant? Maybe when they brought her in the "submarine," they put an implant in her.

13) Next episode is called "Catch-22". Not sure who it's about but, I'll guess. I say it's Desmond. But, I'm a little disappointed. From what I understood from interviews with the writers at the beginning of the season, we could possibly see flashbacks of Benry, Rousseau or even an episode about Penny in realtime searching for Desmond. Four episodes left. I'm guessing the final episode could be Ben's flashback. Will we find out anything about Michael or Walt? They got the entire season off. Of course the kid that plays Walt is probably getting close to 6 feet...so he may never return to the show...as the show is at about 90 days now.