Lost - Not in Portland

***½ / ****

Juliet told Jack she was a fertility doctor. But she’s no garden variety fertility doctor. No siree. If anything she’s a genius in the fertility field and how this really damn good episode of Lost ties her to Ben and the island works out masterfully well.

Not in Portland is quite the clever title which functions also as a twist when Juliet learns that the location for which she’ll be allowed the freedom of “private research” isn’t in Portland, Oregon, but on a particular island. Recruited by Nestor Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) to come work for a private company, with Ethan From, of all people, accompanying him, Juliet has to turn them down due to her husband (Željko Ivanek) having evidence of theft of drugs from the hospital they work (to help her sister get pregnant). A comment regarding her husband getting hit by a bus in order to be free of his influence to stop her from fertility research work and how it actually happens right before Juliet’s eyes is quite the knockout!

A bona fide Juliet episode, this lets us see her in Miami, Florida, sneaking into the hospital to secure some fertility drug, encountering her husband in the middle of his eventual fling with a “new research assistant”. He knows why she was there, realizes Juliet is in a pickle, and exploits her efforts to help the sister so he can continue to control her. That is until hubby is hit by the bus and is no longer a nuisance! Being able to impregnate her sister is quite the success so Juliet eventually relocating to a certain island due to her genius tells us how she ended up under the control of Ben. A certain dialogue shared between Juliet and an awakened Ben (the anesthesia didn’t quite keep him asleep during the surgery!), held from Jack or Tom, was reason enough to see that Sawyer and Kate leave Hydra Island for the main island…Juliet sees that they are off the island and Ben is “surgically repaired” by Jack, she’ll finally get to “go home”.

Since losing Colleen, Danny has set out to execute Sawyer at any given moment. Kate and Sawyer needing to get away was of the utmost importance. With Danny and a few gunmen out to find them, Alex leads Sawyer and Kate away from harm due to a well hidden pit. Alex’s boyfriend, Karl (the prisoner once held in Kate’s cage, taken off to be put in another cell, as some bizarre rock music noise blares across the room with a clipshow of various images and sayings appearing on screen, with him wearing these odd glasses, as if put under a brainwashing torture), is kept away from her and she wishes to rescue him. Karl’s help off the island through Sawyer and Kate is of importance to Alex, even if she must stay at Ben’s order. It is revealed that Ben is Alex’s father! So Ben is Rousseau’s former lover?! That sure packed a wallop with me! Just the same Alex stays behind because it means Karl, Sawyer, and Kate could get away. And finally Danny is out of the picture. Danny proceeded to try and disrupt Ben’s orders to Juliet to make sure they left the island and was killed by her for doing so! Goodbye, Danny…and good riddance.

Jack nicks an artery while working on Ben. This is quite a development as Juliet is away at Ben’s orders to get Kate and Sawyer off so Tom must help Jack. Tom is a bit sensitive around blood so this is not an easy feat! Ben’s vulnerable position and Jack capitalizing on it is indeed the development that assists Kate and Sawyer. A price for doing so, though, includes the proviso that Kate cannot return to rescue Jack. Jack must remain behind while she gets away. Yes, Jack is in his own difficult situation. But he is able to help others and that is important. Jack gets to outsmart Ben and serve, once again, as a hero. But the past history involving a surgery involving a mistake Jack made and corrected serves as a nice comparison to his situation with Ben and the bleeding artery. Removing the tumor and repairing the artery while Kate repeats that story back through the walkie-talkie certainly gets Tom’s attention due to the ongoing surgery on Ben as Jack is comforted to know his friends are in position to get off the island. So Ben is on the operating table, Jack agrees to fix him if Sawyer and Kate are off the island, and Juliet might just be released to go home. The episode is quite chock full of plot development!

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Episode 7 of the third season