The Lost Fantasy League: Week 6 Update

Introduction
What a week this was for the Fantasy League! New leaders for the Celebs and overall! Points were flying all over the place, and if you had the right players on your Fantasy Team, you hit the jackpot!

"The Other Woman" may not have been the most exciting episode ever, but it has injected life back into the League and sets us up for some very close competition from here on out. Many people, especially the top of the leader board are all very close in points, and I'm proud to announce that one of our celebrity contestants has cracked the Top 20!

I didn't make a traditional video this week, so this short little recapper will have to suffice. Yes, that's right- I said short! No 13-minute stutter fests this week! I will be back in all my glorious low-grade video action for the Week 7 Update though, so don't get too excited. :-P

Check all the sections below, because all of the explaining is done through the Important Points Rulings due to the lack of a proper video. Thanks for waiting patiently an extra couple of days for this update. Hopefully you were rewarded with a high Week 6 score! I know I wasn't.

Comments and questions are always welcome. Make your voice heard in the comments section or drop us a line at LFLquestions@gmail.com.

“The Other Woman” (in 500 words or less)
Jack’s latest bright idea of telling everyone that the Freighter Four are friends backfires when he freaks out about Daniel and Charlotte marching off into the jungle unannounced. He and Juliet wander around in the dark and in the rain hoping to pick up their trail. Juliet is confronted by a woman who may or may not be Smokey and is told to stop the newbies before they can unleash deadly gas from a DHARMA station and kill everyone on the Island.

Daniel and Charlotte take a pit stop and discuss his performance anxiety regarding the gas and Kate drops in on them. Kate catches them in a lie but she is swiftly knocked out by Charlotte. After much chatter and hyping up Juliet’s mysterious past, she and Jack happen upon Kate. While Jack plays doctor, Juliet runs away to finish her job.

At the Barracks, Claire questions Locke’s authority and is basically told to go bake some cookies. Locke gives Ben food and clothing and Ben tries to sneak in a quickie mindf**k. Locke finally calls him on it and gets some information out of Bug-Eyes Ben. Charles Widmore has been looking for the Island for some time now and wants to exploit it. Ben shows Locke a video of Widmore beating the crap out of a guy who looks like Jude Law in a blindfold. I don’t know about you, but I don’t want THIS Charles in charge of me! Ben also reveals (off-screen of course) who his spy is on the boat. Locke lets him move in next door to Sawyer and Hurley for this little tidbit.

Juliet reaches the DHARMA station, called the Tempest. My first car was a 1966 Pontiac Tempest and when I bought it, it looked about as dirty and run down as this DHARMA joint does. Juliet holds Daniel at gunpoint and tells him to stop. He tells her that he’s actually trying to render the gas inert so it CAN’T kill anyone. Juliet is then assaulted by Charlotte and a cat fight ensues (sorry boys, no mud or DHARMA Jell-o involved).

Danny boy saves the day and they all patch things up like cautious allies do. Jack and Kate reach the Tempest after all the action is over. Kate wants an explanation but Jack just wants to make out with Juliet. Juliet is worried what Ben will do to Jack because he thinks she’s his, which brings us to…

The flashbacks fill in a few gaps in Juliet’s back story and some interesting information is revealed: the Others have shrinks on call; Ben has the hots for Juliet like a sixth grader smitten with the pretty school nurse; Juliet begins sleeping with Goodwin, who is her shrink’s husband; Ben wises up to their canoodling and sends Goodwin to his eminent demise for it when 815 crashes; Ben is so obsessed that he take Juliet out to see Goodwin’s dead body and proclaims his possession of her in a creepy Gollum-like way.

Before we get to the important points rulings, I want to take this time to shore up any doubt on the Desmond/Flashback controversy from "The Constant". We are sticking by our initial ruling that Desmond's time travel does not count as any kind of flashback or flashforward. The time travel occurs in such a way that creates a very paradoxical situation, one that is impossible to sort out or determine. It's like a "chicken and the egg" scenario. Basically, there is no past or future in the episode. It all occurs in two presents (if you can wrap your mind around that).

However, contestant Chillindude did make an astute observation that resulted in us awarding Desmond with an additional 20 points. When Past Desmond jumps into Present Desmond, the helicopter and everything on it (i.e. Sayid and Frank) are new to him. The event is completely random, so Desmond gets points for discovering the helicopter, Frank and Sayid all in one bundle. This brings the episode total up to -5 points overall.

Now for this week's details:

While the episode may not have excited audiences like "The Constant" did, "The Other Woman" left us with many questions to shore up. Please let us know if we missed anything. Here's what we decided upon:

1) Juliet does NOT get points for meeting Harper in her flashback. Juliet was in harper's office, so Juliet went to her, even though she didn't know her.

2) Juliet does NOT get First Line points. Both Lostpedia and my TV's closed caption system credit Harper with the first line of the episode.

3) We've decided to rule it an encounter with the Smoke Monster when Harper appears to Juliet in the jungle. DarkUFO and I both seemed to think that the swiftness of her entrance and exit was a little to perfectly executed to be the real Harper. So, both Juliet and Jack get Smokey points for encountering Jungle Harper. If we later receive information that proves otherwise, we'll reverse our ruling on Jungle Harper.

4) Juliet double dips on Whisper points. Both instances of the Whispers were close together, but we're counting them as separate occurrences for now. If we find out this season that the Whispers are some kind of side effect of Smokey, some kind of Casimir effect or something else, we may revise this ruling.

5) Juliet has On-Island Flashbacks, not Montage Flashbacks. While there are time jumps between each of Juliet's flashes, a linear narrative is still told. The flashbacks cover Juliet's growing relationship with Goodwin and Ben's growing obsession of Juliet.

6) Juliet does NOT get DHARMA Visit points for her flashbacks. Her time at the Barracks in her flashback is a continuation of her visit that began in episode 3x16 "One of Us". Her date with Goodwin by the water was difficult for us to rule on. Since the Others do not seem to leave the safety of the Barracks very often, we did not rule this as time away from the Barracks. They may have just been at a secluded are withing the sonic fence perimeter.

7) Juliet DOES get points for meeting Goodwin. Yes, Goodwin knew who she was through the Others' grapevine, but Juliet did not know him and Goodwin did not set out to find her. They met by chance

8) Kate does NOT get discovery points for finding the masks and bio-hazard suits in Daniel's pack. In 4x02, Jack opened a box containing masks and suits, so he and Kate already knew the Freighter Four were carrying these items. Also, Faraday let Kate look in the pack.

9) Nobody gets points for discovering the Tempest. Juliet told Jack limited information about it and Jack relayed that limited information to Kate. They all get points for visiting the Tempest though.

10) The fight between Juliet and Charlotte is considered one extended injury session. Juliet only loses points once for getting hurt and for hurting Charlotte.

11) Both Sawyer AND Hurley get Last on Screen points. On my non-wide screen TV, it appeared that only Sawyer was last on screen, but I watched the scene on ABC.com and Hurley does sneak in at the end.

12) Ethan does NOT appear in the episode. The scene where Ben orders Ethan and Goodwin to infiltrate the survivors of the plane crash was edited in such a way that Ethan does not actually appear.

13) Ben does NOT lose points for sending Goodwin to his death. Yes, Ben hoped Goodwin would die trying to infiltrate the Tailies, but Ben was not the actual person who physically killed Goodwin.

14) Charles Widmore is only charged with hurting Ben's man. If we learn later on that Widmore killed him during that beating, we'll adjust the score.

After last week's depressingly low overall episode score, "The Other Woman" was a breath of fresh air. Fitting squarely in the middle of our episode totals, there was enough action and points being dished out to seriously shake up the points standings.

Points giants that had been leading for a while have fallen and newcomers to the Celeb and overall Top 5 have become giant killers. Will next week prove the same? Maybe and maybe not.

I find it rather ironic and amusing that the favorite episode of the season ("The Constant") had very little points action to its name, while the least favorite episode this season ("The Other Woman") provided us with a much needed points boost that results in a lot of people being tied with some very high scores.

Here are this weeks detailed points breakdown:

Group 1-
JACK (+90): Attendance (+5); Encounters Smokey- Manifestation of Harper (+30); Hears the Whispers (+30); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5); Kisses Juliet (+20)
BEN (+25): Attendance (+5); Appears in Juliets Flashbacks (+15); Last Line in the Episode (+5)
SAWYER (+15): Attendance (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
LOCKE (+5): Attendance (+5)
KATE (0): Attendance (+5); Gets Hurt- Knocked Out by Charlotte (-10); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5)

Group 2-
JULIET (+175): Attendance (+5); First on Screen (+15); On-Island Flashback (+10); Episode Centricity (+25); Hears the Whispers (+30); Encounters Smokey- Manifestation of Harper (+30); Hears the Whispers (+30); Encounters a New Person- Goodwin (+20); Visits a DHARMA Location- The Tempest (+5); Gets Hurt- Attacked by Charlotte (-10); Injures Someone- Fights with Charlotte (-5); Kisses Jack (+20)
HURLEY (+15): Attendance (+5); Last on Screen (+10)
DESMOND (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MICHAEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
SAYID (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 3-
CLAIRE (+5): Attendance (+5)
JIN (+5): Attendance (+5)
SUN (+5): Attendance (+5)
JACOB (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROUSSEAU (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 4-
ALEX (+20): Attendance (+5); Appears in Juliets Flashbacks- Her picture is on the wall of Ben's house (+15)
BERNARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KARL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
ROSE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
WALT (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 5-
AARON (+5): Attendance (+5)
CINDY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MARVIN CANDLE (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
PENNY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RICHARD (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 6-
WIDMORE (0): Attendance (+5); Injures Someone- Beats up one of Ben's men (-5)
ETHAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
LIBBY (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MS. HAWKING (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
RACHEL (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

Group 7-
CHRISTIAN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KELVIN (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
KEVIN CALISS (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
MR. PAIK (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)
NADIA (-5): Absent from Episode (-5)

There were only three Fantasy Geniuses of the Week this week and they all scored phenomenally well! Here are your Geniuses and their winning teams:

Pgtbeauregard- Jack, Juliet, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Mr. Paik

Desmond- Jack, Juliet, Claire, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Mr. Paik

Munson51- Jack, Juliet, Sun, Alex, Aaron, Charles Widmore, Christian Shephard


I find it odd that a contestant named Desmond doesn't include Desmond on their team! :-P But it sure is working out well for them. Both Pgtbeauregard and Desmond are tied for First Place overall this week! The 290 points they scored as Geniuses of the Week rocketed them up in the standings. Will they be able to hold their lead for the remaining half of the season? We'll find out!

Scoring chart


Character Groups


Table Toppers


Celebrities


View Full Table online
Download the spreadsheet

The title of Week 7's episode (which airs in less than 24 hours for us Americans and Canadians!) basically gives away who the episode is likely to focus on if you think about it. Thus, I won't say anything here, in case there are any die hard "No spoilers!" folk around who don't even read the episode titles.

After Week 7 we have one more episode left before a short little hiatus. What kind of revelations will we get in these two episodes before being left hung out to dry for a few weeks? There's only one way to find out! :-P

During the mini-hiatus we'll be discussing the Season 5 LFL and any changes you think we should make. It will be a time for you to voice your opinion and to give us feedback on the LFL to this point. Also, use the time to suggest anything you want, but keep in mind that we won't enact every suggestion from contestants and fans. Also, please be civil about it. Everyone has been very easy going about this contest up to this point, with only a few minor exceptions.

That's it for this week! Come back on Monday for the second Fantasy Update in a week's time to see how Week 7 treated you!

Triangles and Tribulations by Luhks

JULIET: It’s very stressful being an Other.

Season One introduced the audience to the very first member of the Others, Ethan Rom (whose name doubled as an anagram for Other Man). As each season has progressed, the Others have become less mysterious, but they have become more human and more complicated at the same time. The sixth episode of Season Four, The Other Woman, centers around the story’s most prominent female member of the Others, Juliet Burke. Of course, the title also refers to the more common use of the term, as Juliet becomes ‘the other woman,’ in a stuggling marriage. The episode began by presenting a straightforward love triangle between Juliet, Goodwin, and his wife Harper. In the initial scenes, this story did not appear to offer any new perspective on the familiar love triangle stories. Steadily, though, The Other Woman morphed from an episode about those two female romantic rivals, into the strange story of Ben's struggle to wrestle Juliet’s attention away from Goodwin. With each successive flashback, the episode shifted its focus away from the Other woman, Juliet, and onto the central Other man, Ben.

Previous Lost episodes have explored just about every possible permutation of romantic entanglements. Here is a brief rundown of all of the different triangles and quadrangles at play on the show:

• Boone, Shannon, and Sayid
• Jin, Sun, and Jae Lee/Michael
• Michael, Susan, and Ryan
• Jack, Kate, and Sawyer
• Kate, Jack, and Ana-Lucia/Juliet
• Sarah, Jack, and Gabriella
• Mystery Man, Sarah, and Jack
• Charlie, Claire, and Locke
• Hurley, Libby, and Frogurt
• Nadia, Sayid, and Shannon/Elsa
• Paulo, Nikki, and Zuckerman’s Diamonds
• Harper, Goodwin, and Juliet/Ana-Lucia
• Ben, Juliet, and Goodwin
• Ben, Juliet, and Jack

In future episodes, we should expect to see further exploration of these relationships, as well as a few new ones. A quick glance at this list reveals that, whenever a rivalry emerges, there is always one definitive way to end the conflict once and for all: kill one of the participants. Ben used this own fool-proof solution to eliminate his competition, and the show’s writers seem to prefer this method in other istances as well. Boone, Shannon, Susan, Jae Lee, Ana-Lucia, Libby, Paulo, Nikki, Charlie, Elsa, and Goodwin all suffered premature deaths. This pattern might not bode very well for the chances of survival for the remaining characters on that list. The hearts of many of those characters (and their fans) might suffer the same fate as poor Goodwin’s heart.


Although critical reception for The Other Woman has been lukewarm, the episode added a great deal of depth to events of previous episodes. Ben’s famous words from Two for the Road (“You’re the killer!”) take on a whole new meaning after the revelation of Ben’s guiding influence in the death of Goodwin. Perhaps this murder might have played a major role in Ben's capture in Season Two, either as a self-imposed penance, or as a set-up by Juliet. Juliet already had plenty of reasons to hate Ben in Season Three, and now her plots to kill him and her efforts to escape hold even greater dramatic weight. When Locke destroyed the submarine in The Man From Tallahassee, he also did Ben a much bigger favor than it seemed at the time, by once again keeping Juliet in Ben's possession. Finally, Juliet’s defection at the end of Season Three now parallels his betrayal by Alex, as these two objects of his obsession both sabotaged his interests in favor of their own loyalties. The girl he raised as his daughter and the woman he desired as his lover both deceived him, and in doing so caused the rest of his followers to abandon him. It should be no mystery as to why Ben wanted so desperately needs to recruit Locke to his cause: he needs a new possession.


While traditional love triangles serve as a major theme throughout this episode, The Other Woman also explores perhaps the oldest love triangle of all: the Oedipus complex. The founder of modern psychiatry, Sigmund Freud, introduced the theory of the Oedipus complex, which consists of two parts: hateful desire to kill and usurp the parent of the same sex, and sexual attraction to the parent of the opposite sex. (Oedipus was the name of a tragic figure from Greek mythology who inadvertently murdered his father and married his mother.) The Man Behind the Curtain already established Ben’s murderous hatred of his father, and now the latest epsiode hints at Ben’s twisted affection for his mother, through the proxy of Juliet. Juliet's therapist comments on the probable source of Ben's infatuation with Juliet. Harper mentions: “Of course he likes you. You look just like her.” Many viewers have guessed that this other woman might be the mysterious Annie from Ben’s childhood. Any amateur psychotherapist, though, will tell you that Ben’s issues probably stem from events even further back in his life. While there is little to no information available about Annie, she too may have served as the previous stand-in for Ben's mother. Juliet not only looks remarkably similar to Emily Linus, but Ben even appears to be breaking her in as a maternal figure, as he commends her work with Zack and Emma. With Juliet, Ben sought to share the type of relationship that he could never experience with his absent mother.


Freud warned that any individual who fails to resolve these parental issues might suffer from any number of nueroses. The most dangerous result of the complex is the failure to develop a superego, the part of the psyche that makes judgments about right and wrong. Ben is not the first Lost character to demonstrate such a conflict (see also: Confidence Man and The Brig), but he is the only character to embrace both poles of the Oedipus conflict so thoroughly. Not surprisingly, Ben also ranks as the character with the most underdeveloped superego. Ben makes decisions purely to serve his self-interest, without adhering to any notions of moral duty.


For the most part, Ben has been clever enough to conceal the extent to which pure selfishness motivates his actions. In the episode’s final flashback scene, though, Ben delivers an impassioned speech that reveals the depths of his obsession with Juliet and with himself: “Why? You’re asking me why? After everything I’ve done to get you here, after everything I’ve done to keep you here, how could you possibly not understand … that you’re MINE!” In many ways, Ben’s obsessive relationship with Juliet parallels his broader relationship with the Island. He could have addressed that speech to the island just as easily as to Juliet. Ultimately, he does not care about Juliet and The Island, but his Juliet and his Island. Beginning with his parental relations, Ben never learned to love anything other than himself, and this degree of obsession is the closest approximation he can understand. Although Ben professes to care for the interests of others and the island, he only cares about them in relation to his own desires.


Beyond these romantic rivalries and Oedipal conflicts, The Other Woman also introduces another, even larger, ‘love triangle’ of sorts to consider between Ben, the Island, and Charles Widmore. In this episode, Ben discloses to Locke that the man who commissioned the Freighter crew, the man who has been searching for Ben and the Island, is none other than the famous Charles Widmore. Ben claims: “Charles Widmore wants to exploit this island and he’ll do anything in his power to possess it.” (Does this description sound like anyone else we know?) In the future, expect to find many other interesting similarities between Ben and Widmore, the two men most obsessed with controlling the island for themselves. Locke’s influence also might morph this triangle into a quadrangle, and he might be the one person who truly loves the island itself rather than one who desires it as means to an end.

As always with Ben, it is very difficult to judge which things he said were true and which were self-serving lies. However, fans should feel almost positive that Widmore’s motivation in his search is more than an economic one. Locke accepted that weak explanation very quickly, because Ben phrased it in such a (Cooper-esque) way to appeal to Locke’s vanity: “How many people do you think would come out here to see you?”. Charles Widmore already owns more than enough money to last his lifetime, so it seems improbable that he would go to such lengths for such a risky investment. I would expect that Widmore is searching for something intangible, the elusive quality of greatness and immortality. Like the General MacCutcheon of whom he once spoke, Widmore needs to find his own crowning achievement. Sharing the island’s abilities with the world would cement him in a legacy as one of the greatest men ever to live. Ben falsely presents this conflict as a struggle between 'the good guy and the bad guys.' In all likelihood, Benjamin Linus and Charles Widmore both seek to use the island to achieve some altruistic ends, but both men ultimately hold selfish reasons for doing so, and both employ evil means to achieve those ends.


In an important stage of this battle between Ben and Widmore, the primary on-island plot of The Other Woman focused on yet another Dharma station, the Tempest. Goodwin refers to the Tempest as a power station, but the the station itself served as a Ben's source of military and political power rather than electrical power. The Tempest, which uses a massive tidal wave as its logo, houses chemicals that can kill every person on the island with the flip of a switch. (One point of confusion in this plotline seems to be: why did Charlotte and Daniel try to complete their mission in secret? Most likely, they did not trust Juliet, one of Ben’s operatives in their midst. As it turns out, they had good reason to fear her.) As Charlotte reminds us, Benjamin Linus used this weapon years ago to usurp control of the Island from the Dharma Initivative, and he probably would have used it again if his situation became desperate. Ben’s famous claim that “Every single living person on this island will be killed,” now appears to be a threat rather than a prophecy.


The introduction to this new station also serves as a literary allusion to William Shakespeare’s final play, The Tempest. Shakespeare’s The Tempest ranks as perhaps the most seminal version of the deserted island stories common throughout literature. Much like Lost itself, the story of The Tempest involves a group of characters who crash on a deserted island, and then come into conflict with supernatural forces and a group of other inhabitants. Prospero, the powerful man in control of this island, serves as the central character of this drama. Ben almost certainly provides an analogue to Prospero. Prospero uses his magic, as well as his skills of manipulation, to keep his daughter Miranda, his servant Caliban, and an invisible spirit Ariel all under his control. Eventually, after a complicated power struggle among different parties, Prospero chooses to release all of his subjects from bondage, and all of the characters sail away from the island to return happily to civilization.


Aside from Propsero, the individual characters in The Tempest do not correspond very directly to the characters on Lost. Prospero’s three reluctant subordinates (Miranda, Caliban, and Ariel) remain on the island unwillingly under Prospero’s control, a trait shared by Juliet, in addition to Alex (and perhaps even Jacob). This allusion to The Tempest most likely serves as a reference to shared thematic elements in the two works rather than common character arcs. Political power struggles, utopia and dystopia, science and magic, freedom and imprisonment all play key roles in Shakespeare’s play as well as in Lost. For instance, in Act Two of the play, the character Gonzalo describes a vision of the island that should sound familiar to Lost viewers: "And were the king on't, what would I do? [...] All things in common nature should produce / Without sweat or endeavour: treason, felony, / Sword, pike, knife, gun, or need of any engine, / Would I not have; but nature should bring forth, / Of its own kind, all foison, all abundance, / To feed my innocent people." Gonzalo's companions quickly point out to him the contradiction of his dream: one in which everyone else is free and equal, and yet he himself is king.

In The Other Woman, John Locke continues to struggle with the same contradictions exposed by the words of Gonzalo. The new interactions between Ben and Locke serve to deepen many of the political undertones of Season Four. By his natural inclinations, Locke would like to lead a free, utopian society, but Ben manages to persuade Locke that he can only achieve his ends through autocratic means. In a continuation of his manipulations, Ben plants new seeds of paranoia into Locke’s head: “Has the revolution begun? Well, you’re the leader now. I know it’s a tough position, especially with all of those people constantly second-guessing your decisions. And it always starts out so innocently, doesn’t it? A question here, a comment there. Then if you’re not careful, you’ll find you have a full-blown insurrection on your hands”. Ben would prefer to have Locke believe that anyone in a leadership position will inevitably face these types of insurrections. In reality, though, only the leaders of certain types of regimes will encounter these types of difficulties.


The works of Locke's namesake, the British political philosopher John Locke, offer a great deal of insight into the actual forces that lead to a revolution. Among many of his other contributions to political philosophy, Locke developed his own theory of the social contract, which argued that political power derives from the consent of the people.

"Freedom of men under government is to have a standing rule to live by, common to every one of that society, and made by the legislative power vested in it; a liberty to follow my own will in all things, when the rule prescribes not, and not to be subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man."

As a corollary, John Locke developed the idea of the right of revolution. Under certain conditions defined by natural law, the people have not only the right but the responsibility to overthrow a corrupt government:

"Whenever the legislators endeavour to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any farther obedience, and are left to the common refuge, which God hath provided for all men, against force and violence." John Locke's Second Treatise of Government (1690)


Whatever lingering doubts remain about Ben’s true intentions, his treatment of Juliet and Goodwin in this episode should provide yet another confirmation that Ben uses his power to serve his own benefit rather than the interests of his people. John Locke would agree that, by taking Goodwin's life and Juliet's freedom, Ben placed himself in a state of war against his people. Ben’s regime meets all of the requirements necessary to apply Locke’s right of revolution. In fact, his entire regime seems to be based on the concept of making everyone ‘subject to the inconstant, unknown, arbitrary will of another man.’ During Juliet’s flashbacks, Ben gives a strange indication of his leadership style, with the quote: “Who are we to question who’s on a list and who’s not?” Regardless of whether Ben is following Jacob's orders or his own orders, his actions violate the natural order. Ben now seems to be leading Locke on a path toward this same dismissive style of authority. Our John Locke was once the man who protested, “Who are we to tell anyone what they can or can’t do?”. At this point in the story, we can only hope that the character John Locke will eventually return to these principles of the philosopher John Locke.


Much like Locke, Juliet ranks as one of the strongest-willed characters on the show, even though she continues to show a fatal weakness for the power of Ben Linus. Juliet has tried to remove Ben from her life many times in the past, both by escape attempts and by an attempt on his life. Each time, she has failed. She now adopts a defeatist attitude, by stating with feeble certainty that “Ben is going to win” this war. Sayid’s flash-forward in The Economist guarantees that Benjamin Linus will remain an integral player in the story for the foreseeable future. Perhaps Ben eventually will cede his power willingly, much like Prospero of Shakespeare’s The Tempest. Personally, I don't expect that Ben will ever love anything enough to set it free. I would expect that Ben’s fate on Lost will more closely parallel the fate of any other despot who violates the tenets of John Locke’s vision of the social contract. Locke, Jack, Sawyer, Sayid, and now Widmore all seem like strong candidates to cleanse the island of Ben’s influence. Will any of these characters possess the strength, the determination, and the acumen to finish the job?

In Juliet’s first ever scene on Lost, she expressed her identification with Stephen King’s Carrie, a story of an abused girl’s struggle to break free and exact revenge on her tormentors. Early in the episode, Harper explained to Juliet exactly how she could end all of her problems: “by pointing the gun and pulling the trigger”. Of course, she needs to stop taking orders from Ben and take matters into her own hands. After watching The Other Woman, I can think of no more fitting end to his reign than for Juliet Burke to commit an ‘act of free will,’ and overthrow the island’s cruel tyrant once and for all.



Article by Luhks

Viewer Ratings Graphs

Thanks to Unai from http://sl-lost.com/ for the graphs.

S4Ep6 - "The Other Woman" Fails to Woo by Erika

Here is this week's recap from Erika Olson (aka "e") from LongLiveLocke.com .

As we all figured, any episode following the awesomeness that was "The Constant" was bound to disappoint. While "The Other Woman" wasn't absolutely awful, it certainly was the weakest episode of the season so far, in my opinion. But it still had its moments (Juliet got a completely gratuitous bikini shot! Kate suffered a beat-down from Charlotte! Daniel was a glorious computer nerd! Benry cooked a ham!)... and since the next episode is rumored to be incredible, I'll cut the show some slack.

Let's jump into the new information we learned in this latest Juliet-centric episode (flashbacks first, Island events second), and then revisit "The Constant" again, now that our minds have recuperated a bit.

WOOO HOO, WITCHY WOMAN

I admit it, I was totally faked out by the opening scene. When Juliet was complaining to her therapist, the über-bitchy Dr. Harper Stanhope, about being a celebrity, I mumbled, "Awww, CRAP! SHE'S one of the Oceanic Six?!?! I call foul! This sucks." At the same time, I was wondering, Why is her hair all poofy? What's up with that makeup? Those questions remain a mystery, because even though the scene did end up being a flashback, it wasn't taking place during the 80s.

I was really excited a few minutes into the hour, because not only did we learn that Juliet was not talking about being one of the Oceanic Six, but we also got to see good ol' Zeke again. And we got to see him during a much simpler time in his life--pre-hillbilly beard, pre-Lostaways. I now prefer to remember him from this episode, rather than lying dead on the beach after Sawyer decided to avenge Kidnapped Waaaaaallt. He was even rocking a vicious mustache!

But back to Harper... while I was preoccupied with trying to figure out where she got the very cool vase that was on her desk, others spied that the certificate on the far right of her wall had a Hanso Foundation logo in the lower left-hand corner (and the middle certificate looks like it says "Experimental Social Psychology Society").






This has led many to wonder if she was from the original Dharma group and crossed over to Ben's side during the purge. Why else would she have something from the Hanso Foundation? We have yet to confirm who of the Others (besides Patchy) was originally from Dharma and who (besides Ageless Richard) is a native of the Island (or in whatever group Ageless Richard belongs to, if it turns out he's not actually a native of the Island). I would think it's fair to guess that Harper was originally a Dharmite, and that Goodwin, Ethan, and probably even Zeke were, too.

One thing's for damn sure--even if Harper isn't in Ageless Richard's group, she sure is jealous of them. Her face was so tight it hurt me to look at her--she's definitely been trying to stop the hands of Father Time. Didn't you see all the Botox syringes hidden around her office? I swear I saw them.


YOU CAN'T HIDE YOUR LYIN' EYES

We then find out that Juliet is "the other woman" in more ways than one... She's an Other and a woman (how clever)... she had an affair with Goodwin, and now she's officially the other woman in the Kate-Jack-Juliet love triangle (or if you include Sawyer, then it's a love quadrangle). We actually already knew that she and Goodwin were having a fling from Juliet's flashbacks in "One of Us," but we didn't know that Goodwin was married to the scary trout pout lady.

Now we got to see Juliet and Goodwin's first encounter--when Goodwin was suspiciously looking in a supply room for bandages to cover a chemical burn. He lied to Juliet and told her he had hurt himself in the power station. Who cares about their boring trysts--what was Goodwin really up to? Obviously he was trying to keep it on the down-low, because he was definitely sneaking around in the supply room and seemed to be in a hurry to get out of there before Juliet found him. It could be a really simple explanation: since he later admitted to Juliet that he was working with chemicals that could kill everyone on the Island, perhaps when he first met her he didn't trust her enough to tell her what his real job was. Or... he could've been up to something fishy that even Ben didn't know about and that he never confessed to Juliet.


I'M NOT A PLAYA I JUST CRUSH A LOT

What else did we learn from the flashbacks? That Ben is mega-creepy. Oh, wait, we already knew that, too. Perhaps we didn't realize the full extent of his creepiness before this episode, though. I had always suspected that he was lusting after Juliet, but not to the degree that was revealed in "The Other Woman." Gazing longingly at her next to the microscope while she was trying to convey important information about the pregnancy problem? Using the straight-up junior high school move of letting his hand linger next to hers? Pulling the ol' Faux Dinner Party trick? Sending her loverboy off to get killed by She Who Must Not Be Named? And then proclaiming, "You're mine" before clumsily running up the hill and leaving Juliet shocked and alone with Speared Goodwin? The Evil-O-Meter has gone to eleven.

I wouldn't go as far as to say that Ben actually loves Juliet, though. I think his attraction to her simply represents a challenge that he wants to win. He didn't seem too concerned when Jack threatened to kill Juliet in the Hydra back in "A Tale of Two Cities," so I don't necessarily think he'd be sad if she died. It's more like he would be unbearably mad if she chose to be with another man. My take is that his "feelings" for Juliet are ego-driven, not based on love. I think the only person Ben ever loved was Annie, and as Harper pointed out, Juliet "looks just like her." (I assumed that Harper was talking about Annie... we never saw an adult version of Annie, however.)

My theory on Annie remains that she did not die in The Purge, but rather in childbirth (with Ben's child), and that's why he's so hell-bent on figuring out the pregnancy problem on the Island. Perhaps she was even the first woman in the original Dharma group who died while pregnant. Since we never saw Annie's body in The Purge scene, I presume that we'll get another Ben flashback one of these days that closes out what happened to her. On the DVD commentary for "The Man Behind the Curtain," the producers declared Annie to be of "seismic" importance to the show... hmmm. For now, all we know is that Ben seems to have transferred his feelings for Annie over to Juliet in some twisted way.



SHE MOVES IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

On to Island events... once Daniel and Charlotte are deemed "missing," a small group takes off into the jungle to find them. As soon as Juliet was completely alone and we heard whispers rise up on the wind, I knew something freaky was going to go down. Sure enough, out of nowhere appears Harper, who claims that Ben sent her to relay a message: "Kill Twitchy Nerd Boy and Snotty Brit." Then she and her highly-arched eyebrows vanished.

But not before Jack saw her. So what does that mean? I would bet big money that it wasn't actually Harper who paid Juliet a visit. Ben's a clever dude, but he really doesn't have the means to pull off a stunt like that. The Others are supposedly over at The Temple, while Ben's past few days have consisted of being dragged on a leash through the jungle and then getting tied up in Locke's new basement.

An obvious guess is that Harper was Smokey. Recall that Smokey mind-scanned Juliet when she and Kate hid in the tree while handcuffed together in "Left Behind" (or at least that's what most people assumed the blinding flashes of light were accomplishing). We know that Eko was mind-scanned... and then Smokey later appeared to Eko as Eko's brother, Yemi. Perhaps Smokey manifested himself (itself?) to Juliet as Harper. That wouldn't necessarily preclude Jack from being able to see her. Remember that a lot of viewers think that Dead Charlie, who appeared to Hurley in the future and who was also seen by other mental institution patients, was also Smokey in disguise.

Or maybe Harper was Jacob--who wanted to get in touch with his feminine side? If he's some sort of spirit-being, maybe he can take other forms?

Whatever Harper was, "she" was motivated by a desire to protect the Island at the expense of everyone in the vicinity. Ben wouldn't want to die from a nerve gas explosion, so I doubt he's behind all this. If the Island is actually a sentient being, perhaps Smokey is working on its behalf... or the Island is finding some other way to conjure up visions to lure people into carrying out its will.

On a related note, I found it strange that Harper claimed that Ben is “exactly where he wants to be.” That is word for word what Miles said (about his own situation) to Kate—even though both he and Ben are being held prisoner. Suspicious.

There's at least one thing that can be confirmed from this scene, and that is that Juliet truly doesn’t know what the whispers are. In the “Left Behind” scene where the monster flashed light in her face, she looked truly stunned, but at that point none of us were sure if she could be trusted when she said she had never seen the monster before and didn’t know what it was. Now I think it’s safe to say that not only does Juliet not know what Smokey is, she also doesn’t know much about the peculiar things (like the whispers) that transpire on the Island. If she spent almost all of her time to date in the barracks, she probably didn’t get to witness much of the freakiness to which our Lostaways have grown accustomed.

Finally, I couldn't make anything of the whispers that were heard during this scene. You can try for yourself here. I think the question we should be asking isn't "What are the whispers saying?" but rather, "Where are these whispers coming from!?!?" That better be one of the mysteries they end up explaining!


THERE AND BACK AGAIN

Yes, it was kind of awesome when Charlotte whacked Kate on the back of the head. I don't believe in violence, but sometimes Kate gets too cocky and nosy for her own good. She's alone in the jungle, she has no idea what's up with the two helicopter peeps except that she knows they're lying because she sees that their phone is still on after they've just claimed it to be broken, and yet she still starts bossing them around, asking to look in their duffel bag? You're outnumbered, babe! You should've been extra-nice and looking for a way to bust out of there as soon as possible. Instead, you got a huge headache and a new scar.

But there was an even better part of this scene: the eerie similarity between Daniel's Island map and the Middle Earth map that graces the front of each Lord of the Rings book. There is still hope that elves are going to appear on the Island, I knew it! Tell me the way the mountains are drawn on both maps doesn't look similar? Gandalf is coming! And then he's going to bellow out to Smokey, "YOU... SHALL NOT.... PASS!" And then I'm going to pass out with a smile on my face.




See what I mean? Anyway, the real question here is--where did Daniel's map come from? One station, presumably The Tempest, is marked with a Dharma logo, but that's about it. The creator of the map has obviously been to the Island before.


IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

The whole "Tempest Station Crisis" scene was pretty anti-climactic, wasn't it? I mean, we kind of knew that everyone on the Island wasn't going to get wiped out. Not only have we seen flash-forwards of a lot of the people currently there, we also know the show's still on for 2.5 more seasons. So obviously Daniel was going to save the day at the last moment. What I honestly didn't expect was that he and Charlotte were trying to neutralize the toxic gas (rather than release it), or that everyone would walk away from the station as friends (for lack of a better term).


BUT WE BOTH CANNOT HAVE HER, SO IT'S-A ONE OR THE OTHER

Shield thine eyes--again! Witnessing a Jack/Juliet kiss was bad enough the first time it happened in "Through the Looking Glass"... hellooooo, NO chemistry. It was just wrong on so many levels. I wish my consciousness could go back in time and fast-forward through that part. Ugh.

But The Powers That Be are obviously trying to exacerbate the already high tension between Jack and Ben by adding in this "competing over the same woman" twist. Some people claim that we now know Ben's one and only weakness: Juliet. However, as I mentioned earlier, I don't agree. Ben's weakness is his ego and overconfidence in always being able to outsmart the Lostaways. He would not be stupid enough to think that Juliet would ever choose him over Jack at this point. Maybe he thought there was a glimmer of hope when he was cooking up the ham, but he doesn't anymore. Ben won't care if Juliet dies, he'll only care if she ends up with Jack. Therefore, I still don't think that The Mad Doctor has much power over Ben--he already had the chance to kill him and he didn't take it. Now what's he going to do--yell, "Nyah, nyah, I stole your girlfriend!"? I don't think so.


ERASE AND REWIND... 'CAUSE I'VE BEEN CHANGING MY MIND

Locke is pretty much in the same boat as Jack is when it comes to dealing with Ben (Ben even showed both of them videos to "prove" certain points)... the only difference is that Locke is at least trying to get more information out of The Sneaky One. While a lot of people were undoubtedly smacking their palms against their foreheads when Ben was set free, I think that Locke had good intentions. He knew he was getting nowhere with keeping Ben prisoner, he knew that the freighter crew might soon come (with more people) to capture Ben for themselves, and he was running out of time to think up a strategy for defense. Claire (of all people) suggesting that she may get further questioning Miles didn't exactly help matters.

So what else could Locke do but strike a deal with Ben? For starters, he could've negotiated a bit more. Locke was in the power position, but he didn't even say anything like, "OK, you show me what you're talking about and then I'll let you do what you need to do but only in my presence." It didn't have to be all (Ben goes free) or nothing (Ben stays tied up and locked in the basement).


And how, exactly, does letting Locke watch a videotape of Widmore and then giving him Widmore's file help Locke in any way whatsoever? It's not Widmore who's coming to the Island, so he's not Locke's immediate problem. Locke's immediate problem is defending the barracks against impending attack from the freighter's crew members. If Ben really wanted to help, he would've offered to hide everyone in his secret closet.

Finally, I highly doubt Ben really played "the only bargaining chip he had left," as he claimed. There are probably 25 other safes that he has, each customized for a different Lostaway, should he ever need to "convince" one of them of something. Since we never saw the entire conversation that Locke, Ben and Sayid had when Sayid bargained with Locke to let Charlotte go free, the only thing I can figure is that perhaps Sayid said something at that point that, combined now with the new information about Widmore, made Locke comfortable enough to let Ben go.

Regardless, now that Ben's on his own, I'm sure that the bad thing Future Hurley referenced is going to happen soon! All it took was for Ben to threaten Locke with the possibility of becoming not much more than a circus freak should Widmore find the Island, and Ben was set on his merry way. Well, Ben did also tell Locke who the mole was... but we didn't get to see that part.

Not to worry, I haven't gone back to doubting Locke... but I do wish he hadn't let Ben off scot-free. The look on Sawyer's face at the end pretty much summed up my reaction.




IT'S A FAMILY AFFAIR

We now know that Penny probably figured out that her father controls the freighter that's searching for the Island. That would explain how she was able to find its number so quickly after hearing Charlie's final words. She may have known that her father had been searching for the Island for a long time, actually... which would explain how she would have been able to gather intel (perhaps stealing the information her father's team had collected) to use for her own separate search (which involved the guys in the tent). It looks like it's a father vs. daughter race to find the Island... but they're each in the race for different reasons. Penny finding Desmond might not necessarily prohibit Mr. Widmore from finding the Island, though. Finally, Mr. Widmore owning the freighter also explains why/how Minkowski (and most likely many others on the ship, including the captain) knew that the recent incoming calls were from Penny, and why they were instructed not to answer.

And because of the auction we saw in the previous episode, we know how Widmore may have come to find the general location of the Island: it probably was in the Black Rock ledger that he bought. Even though, from what I understand, the ledger was taken from the ship by pirates before the Black Rock made it to the Island. But it's fair to assume that the ship's first mate wrote down where they were intending to go. However, none of this explains how Widmore would even know about the Black Rock in the first place... unless he already had some other information about the Island before buying the ledger.

Other new questions raised from Ben's video of Widmore include:
1) If Ben has a mole on the ship, then who is his spy off of the ship? Meaning, who took the video that Ben showed Locke? Since a car was in the clip, it was definitely taken on the mainland. We know that Ben has sent both Richard and Ethan back to the "real world" in the past, so the identity of the videographer may be inconsequential--just another one of Ben's many cronies. Probably the same unseen guy who brought Papa Locke to the Island (I hope that one ends up being explained, too).

2) Is the guy who was gagged and getting a beat-down of any importance? Did anyone else think it was Ben Affleck? "Damn you for making Gigli! Take THAT!"



3) Is Widmore "the economist"? It doesn't seem like it... I can't imagine Widmore doling out bracelets to the likes of Elsa and Naomi (plus, his initials don't match). I think he's probably involved at some level with the person who Elsa and Naomi and even Abaddon ultimately work(ed) for, but I don't think Widmore IS that person.

4) Mustn't Ben have a boss, too? Otherwise, how is he getting all of his money?



BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE

[Locke serves Ben rabbit]
BEN: This didn’t have a number on it, did it?


LOCKE: And I assume you have a plan?
BEN: I always have a plan.


[After the warning buzzer is silenced…]
DANIEL: That… that was a close one.


BEN: (to Juliet): How can you possibly not understand... that you’re mine?



I WAS ELECTROMAGNETICALLY SUCKED BACK INTO A PARTY GOING ON THAT NIGHT

Since there wasn't a heck of a lot to chew on from "The Other Woman," let's briefly revisit "The Constant," because you know you want to.

I watched the enhanced version of “The Constant” and thought I would share the following information from the pop-up captions, as they usually mention things that are deemed important by The Powers That Be:
- "Faraday learned that time on the Island works differently…"
Notice that they didn’t say “moves more slowly” or “passes faster”—they said, “works differently.” In Daniel’s experiment, the time on the Island appeared to lag the time on the freighter’s clock by 31 minutes. But when the helicopter left, time seemed to pass more quickly to the Lostaways than it did to Sayid/Frank/Desmond. Which means that the speed of time is either changing, or is affected when someone comes to or leaves the Island. One theory is that there is some sort of “donut” surrounding the Island where time is skewed, but overall it’s the same date both on the Island and off. Most people believe that during “The Constant,” it was Day 94 (Christmas Eve) in both places and that the timeline on Lostpedia is off a bit. I just wrote a huge paragraph with all of the things that still don’t make sense (especially when you consider that the pop-ups in the enhanced version of “The Economist” stated that it was Day 92 on the Island, and during “Eggtown” it was Day 93...), but then I erased it because none of us are going to figure it out--it’s just too confusing. I can only assume (and hope and pray) that the dates on the Island, on the freighter, and on the mainland will be confirmed in a very obvious manner for us very soon.

- In reference to the name of Desmond’s military training camp, the following information appeared: “There is a real Camp Millar in Svalbard, an archipelago far north in the Arctic Circle. In Philip Pullman’s 'His Dark Materials' trilogy, Svalbard is a gateway to parallel universes.”
I thought, “Uh oh…” when I saw that sentence. I hope we weren’t meant to read too much into it, especially after the producers have gone on record saying that there will not be multiple parallel universes on the show. What if they’re lying to throw us off? D’AH! (Side note: If you have seen The Golden Compass (the first movie based on the HDM series) Svalbard is the polar bear kingdom. In real life, it’s high on my list of future trip destinations. But where else have we seen polar bears? Oh, yeah. The Island.)


I didn’t find much else of value in the pop-ups. However, upon second viewing, a few additional thoughts struck me (that weren’t related to the captions)…

- The scene where the helicopter was shown approaching the freighter gave me chills. It did the first time around, too, but I forgot to mention it. I thought, “Holy crap, this is happening!” I guess part of me never thought they would actually go to the freighter (I thought Frank would take them somewhere else).

- Speaking of Frank, I realized who he reminds me of. Wicket the Ewok! Could all of Frank’s crazy facial hair be another one of the producers’ shout-outs to Star Wars?

- Frank introduced Desmond and Sayid as “survivors of 815”... but Desmond isn’t. Since Frank knew that Juliet wasn’t on the flight manifest, didn’t he realize that Desmond's name wasn't on the list, either? Now that it’s been confirmed that the man behind the freighter team is Widmore, combined with the fact that we know Minkowski was aware that Desmond was Penny’s boyfriend, maybe Frank does know who Desmond is, but was trying to keep his identity under wraps to keep him safe. Or maybe I’m reading way too much into that one little comment.

- Another probable screw-up: How could Minkowski be time-jumping and still remember everything that had transpired on the freighter, while Desmond forgot everything about his current situation after his mind started time-traveling? It was probably too hard to write any other way—they needed Minkowski to share the information about the saboteur and whatnot before he died, so the writers needed to have him to retain his memory in his 2004 existence.

- Since it has been confirmed that Widmore is in control of the freighter, it seems even more suspicious that he left the water running when Desmond was with him in the bathroom after the auction back in 1996. But then again, he actually had grabbed a towel to turn on the faucet (like he didn’t want to touch it with his own hands), so maybe leaving it for Desmond to turn off was another one of his subtle “I’m too good for this, but you’re not” moves.


FOR A MINUTE THERE, I LOST MYSELF, I LOST MYSELF

After finishing my post last week, I remembered a theory that was circulating in June 2006 about the whole show being about Desmond. Kind of like how in the first (or technically, fourth) Star Wars movie, everyone assumed the plot revolved around Luke Skywalker's life, but by the end of all six films it was clear that the entire saga was about Anakin, Luke's father. While I think it's a long, long, loooong shot that the Lost storyline is anchored around Desmond (could you imagine this initial pitch to ABC: "It's about this guy on an Island who's trying to get back to the love of his life... but you don't actually meet the guy until the second season... dig?"), I found this paragraph I wrote in my "Live Together, Die Alone" write-up to be worth thinking about again:

"So I REALLY love a theory that's circulating right now that the entire series is actually about Desmond, and is meant to parallel Homer's "The Odyssey." Reach back... waaaay back into your memory, most likely to college (for me it was "Great Books" class, 1992, which has already come in handy before in with this show!) and remember the tale of Odysseus, who was trying to return from his victory in Troy to his beloved... you guessed it... Penelope. And by the way, while he was gone, others were competing for her hand in marriage (in Lost, Penny was supposedly engaged when Desmond left). Odysseus had to overcome some crazy obstacles to return to Penelope, and a lot of his journey took place on ... wait for it... a boat or on various islands. Anyway, he had to face sirens, nymphs, Lotus Eaters, Poseidon and a cyclops, among other cool things. It took him ten years to get back, and "The Odyssey" itself is almost told entirely in "flashback" mode--taking the reader up to where Odysseus is in the present day. I dare say, it does sound fairly convincing. Obviously it doesn't explain a lot of other things, but I am pretty sure that there's never going to be one, overriding explanation for EVERYTHING, but rather several different "theories" that exist together. Anyway, I thought it was interesting, and needless to say, I will be very happy if a cyclops shows up."


VACATION, ALL I EVER WANTED ... VACATION, HAVE TO GET AWAY

So... I'm taking off on vacation with my friend Miss M shortly after I upload this post. That's why I got this write-up done so early this time around. (That, and the fact that the episode really didn't give us too much to talk about.)

I'm not going to be back from my trip until the day before the eighth (and final, for a while) episode. Meaning that I probably won't get my post for "Ji Yeon" (airing on March 13th) uploaded until Wednesday night, March 19th.

More when I return,
- e

YAOW (Yet Another Other Woman) by J.Wood

Courtesy of Powells.com

Here is J.Wood's recap of The Other Woman

“How can you possibly not understand that you're mine?”
—Ben to Juliet

“This island's mine.”
—Caliban to Prospero

Admit it: You really wanted to find out who Ben's man on the ship was. But you also have to admit, that opening was tricky. Juliet was done up, looking like she just stepped out of her Miami home, not the jungle. “I don't like being treated like a celebrity,” she says, giving the nod that she may be one of Oceanic 6—until Tom walks in with the hairy lip and blows out any assumptions or preconceptions.

Overall, “The Other Woman” is a bit of a pressure drop from “The Constant,” which gives the audience a bit of a chance to reset and just deal with the smaller reveals, rather than spacetime-twisting anomalies in physics. It's a safe bet that this is one of those episodes that will disappoint many after “The Constant,” but won't feel so out of place if watched back-to-back with the other episodes on the DVDs (a common sentiment about each season, it seems). There are plenty of places where “The Other Woman” will take its lumps on the writing, pacing, and motivation, so no need to pile on. Let's see what else is there.

Pressure-dropping right in:

The first name of note comes with the angry psychotherapist, Harper Stanhope. Like Anthony Cooper, Harper Stanhope has a name resonate with the 17th and 18th centuries; the 18th century Anthony Cooper was the Earl of Shaftesbury, and the Stanhope name holds a few similar peerages.

For one, Charles Stanhope, 3rd Earl Stanhope (1753-1816), was both a politician and a scientist who experimented with electricity. But he is known for, among other things, writing a response to Edmund Burke's scathing 1790 essay Reflections on the Revolution in France. Burke—whose namesake was Juliet's husband—supported the American Revolution, but thought the French Revolution devolved into mob rule. Charles Stanhope, however, was a supporter of the French Revolution, and responded with A Letter to Burke, Containing a Short Answer to His Late Speech on the French Revolution. A few years later, Stanhope stood in opposition to the British Parliament's suspension of Habeas Corpus, which was also occasioned by the French Revolution; Parliament used the revolution and demonstrations by radicals to effect a sort of proto-Patriot Act, where publications deemed to be seditious were censured, and people could be detained without trial (rather like Ben has been on more than one occasion).

A generation before Charles Stanhope, two of his predecessors held some different ideological positions. James Stanhope, 1st Earl Stanhope, and his relative Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield, were both instrumental in crushing the Jacobite uprising. Jacobitism, besides recalling the name of our Jacob in the island shack, was a 17th and 18th century movement to restore the Catholic Stuart kings to the thrones in England, Scotland, and Ireland (but as these things go, it was a lot more political than religious). The uprising was of particular importance in Scotland, where the Highlanders, with their Gaelic clans and culture, were primarily Jacobites. The key battle was the 1746 Battle of Culloden, not far from Loch Ness. At this battle, the well-equipped and organized British forces managed to put down the Highland Jacobites, spent the next week hunting down and killing other Scottish Jacobite leaders, and that was pretty much it for Gaelic Jacobite clan culture as a political force in Scotland. This is also the same clan culture that Arthur Widmore, scion of the American Widmores, yammers on about incessantly in Bad Twin. So in that name Stanhope, we have connections back to Edmund Burke, the Scottish background of the Widmore clan, and echo of Jacob in Jacobitism.

Lastly, there is an orchid species called Stanhopea named after the 4th Earl of Stanhope, Philip Henry Stanhope (not to be confused with Philip Stanhope, 4th Earl of Chesterfield).

Harper's first name is uncommon enough to warrant a second look. It didn't take long before Lostpedia had two suggestions up: Karen Harper is the author of a book called Empty Cradle, about a fertility doctor named Dr. Stanhope who steals her patient's eggs for testing. There's also the echo of one of the more famous Harper authors, Harper Lee. Although there doesn't seem to be any direct connections with Lee's one novel, To Kill a Mockingbird, there is something else to consider: Lee was good friends with Truman Capote, who based a character in his book Other Voices, Other Rooms on Harper Lee. That book concerns a young boy who has to live with his absentee father after his mother dies, which echoes Ben's story.

The bigger reveal of “The Other Woman” is the new station called The Tempest, a power station whose evocative name recalls both the Shakespearean drama and a bit more. When we first saw Smokey bounce off the sonic barrier in the third season, many people recalled a particular scene from the 1956 film Forbidden Planet, when the monster from the id attacks the space rangers and is blockaded by a force field. Forbidden Planet was based on Shakespeare's play The Tempest, and features a box-like machine that manifests thought into reality, much like Ben describes the magic box on the island to Locke in “The Man from Tallahassee.” The Forbidden Planet box, however, is a massive machine 20 square miles large, and was designed by the original inhabitants of the planet. Those inhabitants, the Krell, displayed hyper-advanced intelligence, far beyond human capacity, and tried to use the machine to create a kind of utopia. What they didn't count on, however, was their ids leaking through their conscious minds into the machine and manifesting something terrible. That something terrible eventually wiped them out; they couldn't control it.

The space rangers, led by Leslie Nielsen, find only a few inhabitants on the island, a philologist named Morbius, his daughter daughter Altaira, and his proto-droid Robby the Robot (who seemed to grace the covers of a number of K-Tel Records in the 1970's). As it turns out, the monster that attacks the space rangers is a manifestation of Morbius' nightmares; Morbius had been using the machine, is barely able to manage it, and didn't count on his id escaping through his dreams and running rampant like a presidential candidate in Ohio. (Morbius is also just another way of saying Morpheus, who was the Greek god of dreams.) Eventually Morbius realizes the only way to stop the id monster is if Morbius himself dies, and his last will is to have the machine destroyed.

Shakespeare's original play of The Tempest was the sci-fi of his day, including sorcerers, witches, a sprite, and an odd, hybrid-human who struggles for supremacy over the island against an enslaver. The basics: Prospero, the Duke of Milan and a sorcerer, is deposed by his brother Antonio and his brother's friend Alonso (the King of Naples). They send Prospero and his young daughter Miranda off in a crippled boat to die at sea. But Prospero had a friend who secretly made the boat seaworthy and supplied it before they were jettisoned, so Prospero and Miranda survive and make it to an enchanted island.

At the island, the parallels to Lost settle in. Start with Sycorax, a blue-eyed witch who was exiled to the enchanted island when she was pregnant; only she died after giving birth, not in the second trimester. Her progeny was the hybrid-human Caliban, a kind of half-creature, half-man who is the only non-supernatural thing on the island. Sycorax also imprisoned a sprite named Ariel in a tree, but died before she freed the sprite.

Along came Prospero, who freed Ariel only to use him as near-slave, exploiting Ariel's powers while continually promising to release him sometime in the future. (Note: Ariel is often depicted as female, but was originally male.) Prospero and Miranda also found the orphaned Caliban and took him in. They taught Caliban their language and religion, while Caliban in turn taught them how to survive on the island. (Contemporary literary critics have looked at this dynamic as an early literary model of European colonialism, with Caliban as the native inhabitant who rebels against the European master.)

After some years, Caliban began to lust after Miranda and tried to rape her. Prospero in turn enslaved Caliban, which only drew Caliban's scorn: “Thou didst prevent me; I had peopl'd else / This isle with Calibans.” This generates one of the internal struggles of the play—who has a claim to the island, Prospero or Caliban.

At the play's outset, twelve years of exile had already expired. Prospero was using his sorcery and discovered that his treacherous brother Antonio and Antonio's entourage were sailing nearby, so he ordered Ariel to whip up a tempest in order to have their ship crash on the island and to scatter the survivors. From there the plot unfolds; Prospero tries to use the shipwrecked survivors to regain his place in Milan, just as Caliban tries to use the newcomers to overthrow Prospero and regain the island. (It's also not coincidence that The Tempest station, with its connotation of a massive storm, was introduced at the time the 2004 tsunami swept through the Indian Ocean. We saw a storm, but we didn't see the effects of the tsunami; after all, we're not even sure if the island is indeed located in the Indian Ocean.)

The Prospero/Morbius, Miranda/Altaira, Ariel/Robby the Robot, Caliban/id monster connections are pretty basic, but both The Tempest and Lost use a good deal of mirroring in structuring their characters. Prospero, Caliban, and Antonio mirror each other in their grasping for power. Prospero is ostensibly the representative of good magic and Sycorax of bad, but as Prospero wields his power in an increasingly unjust way, those black and white distinctions become a lot more gray. Both Caliban and Ariel mirror each other as different versions of slaves; one is forced to do physical labor, the other intellectual labor, and as is often the case, the physical labor is looked upon with scorn, while the intellectual labor is offered never-ending but rarely emerging promises.

The Lost mirroring is interesting because its just not that simple. Who's Prospero in “The Other Woman?” It might at first seem to be Ben, but not so fast. Start with Juliet, who seems to cover two roles; she is the indentured servant made to continuously employ her intellectual labor with the false promise of someday being released, which puts her in line with Ariel. But she's also the target of creepy, unwanted advances by someone who many agree is a kind of monster, Ben. This puts Juliet in the position of both Ariel and Miranda, and Ben in the position of Caliban—and it's arguable that Smokey is another Caliban-like manifestation, like Forbidden Planet's id monster.

Caliban had a mother who died when he was young, the blue-eyed witch Sycorax; likewise, Ben's blue-eyed mother Emily died when he was young, and both Caliban and Ben carry serious torches for their mothers. Harper even tells Juliet “You look just like her”; indeed, the painting on Ben's wall seems to be Emily, and woman in the painting could be Juliet's sister. However, Carlton Cuse has noted that Annie, Ben's childhood friend, will be of seismic importance, so that could also be the “her.”

Ben's painting

But just as Sycorax trapped Ariel in a tree, Juliet was stuck in place by her former husband Edmund Burke until Ben, Prospero-like, frees her from that trap of a marriage. Even Goodwin has a Shakespearean role as the outlier Ferdinand who hooks up with Miranda/Juliet. But beyond everything, the most sorcerer-like figure on the island seems to be Jacob, which suggests Ben/Caliban may be having a behind-the-scenes struggle with the phantom/Prospero. Given what Ben told Locke, it wouldn't be surprising to see Charles Widmore playing an Antonio-like usurper role in the future.

But Ben, as usual, is the real enigma of the episode. Here's something to think about—does Ben have Desmond-like abilities to peek into the future? Consider: Ben was in Locke's Guantanamo, yet Harper was out in the whispery jungle carrying out his orders. Ben set Goodwin up when he sent him after the tail section of Flight 815, expecting him not to make it back and thus clearing his path to Juliet. Ben also tells Locke that he knows Locke's people will be rising up against him, especially when they find out Locke has no plan. When Ben tells Locke “If my people still wanted me, John, they would have stormed this camp long ago,” he already knows better since he already has Harper out working for him. In all of these cases, Ben seems to be operating with some sort of foreknowledge. But like Desmond, this isn't complete foreknowledge; he didn't foresee Goodwin getting in his way to Juliet before it was already underway.

Ben also dropped some theory-bait over his dinner-entrapment with Juliet when Juliet says Zack and Emma, the two surviving Tailie children, are asking about their mother in Los Angeles. Ben just says “They'll stop asking in time. They're on the list, Juliet. Who are we to question who's on the list and who's not?” Hold it—didn't Ben tell Goodwin and Ethan to make the lists to begin with and bring the lists to him? Did he vet those lists with Jacob, or is something else going on? Just who is making the decisions here?

Before ending this one, just a few words about Kate and her freckles, Charlie and his swimming, course-correction, etc. This comes from some discussion in the comments and elsewhere, and given the amount of questions about it, it seems like it deserves some space.

A lot of people have said, like me, that Kate's freckles seem to be gone—or at least a hell of a lot less prominent—at the end of last season and the beginning of this season. They're obviously back now. Some people said that you just needed HDTV, which I have a hard time buying because regular TV was fine for the first to seasons. So lets break it down:

* In the podcast for "The Constant," Lindelof says "Even if you did something in the past that you didn't do before, somehow the sort of 'fabric of time' swoops in around you and fixes everything so things don't go off the rails." Lindelof's a decent writer and chooses his words carefully: Even if you did something in the past that you didn't do before seems pretty significant.
* Charlie says he doesn't swim in the first season. Des sees Charlie drowning in a flash in season three, and sees him getting caught in a tow and tossed against the rocks when he's supposed to go out looking for birds. This is all pretty suggestive (but not proof) that Charlie doesn't or can't swim.
* Yet in "Greatest Hits," we see Charlie getting swimming lessons in a flashback.
* Swimming could very well be something Charlie did in the past that he didn't do before. How could that happen?
* When we're talking about spacetime, there's no distinction between past, present and future; they're all of a piece. So when Des saves Charlie, he's not just changing the future, but that past and present as well. After a few saves, it could be that Des has changed something significant in Charlie's timeline; the non-swimming Charlie is now a fish. But like Mrs. Hawking said, the universe sets everything back into order again by making sure Charlie is knocked off in the Looking Glass station.

MORE

* Sawyer stops calling Kate "freckles" in the third season episode "Catch-22" (the episode where Charlie is supposed to get skewered in the throat). He walks in on her when she's changing her shirt, almost calls her a nickname, but is caught short. After that point, it's like he never remembers calling her “freckles” and he never says it again, until—
* Sawyer starts calling Kate "freckles" again in the fourth season episode "The Economist."
* Between "Catch-22" and "The Economist," Kate's freckles are a lot harder to see, and I've posted screencaps here in the past. They're at least clearly washed out in the flashforward in "Through the Looking Glass." This may another side-effect of Des saving Charlie and changing something that wasn't that way before, like Charlie not swimming and then swimming.
o HDTV is notorious for showing more than intended. It's actually a problem for the porn industry; there was a slew of articles during the HD-DVD/Blu-Ray wars about which format the porn industry would back, because that determined the winner of the Betamax/VHS wars (ex. NY Times, The Register, CNET did a series about it, and Leo LaPorte talked about it on TWiT). The problem was high-def video was showing too much under all the make-up; despite all the foundation, the pimples and flaws were still visible. Given that, it doesn't seem unlikely that if Evangeline Lily was given a good coating of makeup to cover the freckles, those freckles would be hard to see on regular tv, but still visible in high-def.
* "The Economist" is the 8th episode after "Catch-22" (the number 8 again)
* Charlie dies on day 93
* The course-correction is Charlie's death.
* "The Economist" is set on day 94.

SO

* Sawyer starts calling Kate "freckles," and Kate's freckles are more clearly visible again, immediately after the course-correction where Charlie dies.

(And after that stuff has been set right, Kate's freckles are back, Sawyer remembers to call her freckles, etc.)

The writers are of care very cagey about how they present this sort of thing, but they love to set up games for the audience.

Maybe Christian Shephard is dead again in the future, unlike the suggestion in Jack's flashforward from "Through the Looking Glass." We'll see.