Lost-vivor: “One of Us”

Posted on April 12, 2007 @ 8:59 am

Lost-vivor

Welcome to Week Sixteen of Lost-vivor — all the mystery and adventure of Lost with an added dash of Survivor-style competition. Here’s the deal: after each week’s Lost, I’ll award and deduct points from the characters based on their actions during the episode. I’ll tally up the Lost-vivor scores as the season progresses, and, at the end, we’ll declare a Lost Season Three champion! You can catch up on the action so far at the Lost-vivor archives.

Please note that the section ahead contains spoilers for last night’s episode of Lost. Proceed at your own risk.

Although it seems people on the Lost message forums loved last night’s episode, I thought “One of Us” was a total snoozer. I was already running under the assumptions that: 1) the Others wanted Juliet for some kind of fertility project and 2) she was still in league with Ben. As a result, the episode’s two major “revelations” weren’t terribly shocking, and all that was left was Claire’s medical “crisis” and a relatively uneventful flashback. Speaking of which, is anyone else starting to feel like the flashback format is holding Lost back at this point? Juliet’s flashback seemed slightly more relevant than Kate’s flashback a week ago, but maybe it’s time to consider saving the flashbacks until you actually have a story to tell (such as the Paulo and Nikki flashback a few episodes ago).

Now, this may seem a bit disingenuous coming from someone with a history of deducting Lost-vivor points from Jack at every turn, but is it really necessary for the writers to portray him as a total nincompoop with regards to trusting Juliet? I suppose there’s still room for a turnaround on Juliet’s part, but my gut instinct is that she’s going to stick with the Others on the off-chance that Ben will let her leave the island someday. Meanwhile, how is it that all the Others — whether we’re talking about Ben, Juliet, Goodwin, Mikhail, or Ethan — are masters of deception and manipulation? Do the Others offer some kind of Mysterious Island Orientation Course that brings them up to speed, or what?

All in all, I thought “One of Us” was yet another letdown. That being said, I’m cautiously optimistic about Ben’s promise to Juliet that he’ll see her in a week. Will that correspond with the season finale that reportedly features Ben’s first flashback?

I think that’s enough gnashing of teeth for one recap. Let’s take a look at the scores…

Juliet:
 
  • Apparently, she’s under Jack’s protection. What does that entail, exactly?: +1
  • Chugged the spiked orange juice at the airport. What kind of moron agrees to a job with a company that: 1) won’t tell you where you’ll be working, and 2) insists on drugging you before transporting you there? Lucky for Juliet that Mittelos Bioscience didn’t actually turn out to be Mittelos White Slavers: -5
  • Received a chilly reception at the beach. Can you imagine?: -2
  • Hurley sat down to talk with her on the beach. See? They don’t all hate you: +2
  • Oh, wait — he was just there to remind you that the Losties killed Ethan for deceiving them: -3
  • Smashed one of Ben’s juice glasses when he refused to let her go home. It’s not like there’s a Crate & Barrel across the island where he can replace that, Juliet. At least not that we know of…yet: -1
  • She slept with Goodwin? Ew. He’s kinda gross: -4
  • Found Ethan’s stash. Odd how none of the Losties ever noticed all these trees with glyphs and keypads before: +2
  • Totally manipulated Sawyer and Sayid after they followed her across the island. I guess she learned a thing or two from Ben in her three years on the island: +2
  • Saved Claire from her medical “crisis”: +5
  • Recipient of Mysterious Island care package courtesy of Jack: +1
  • She’s still working with Ben?! I’m shocked! Shocked, I say: -7

    •  
    Net gain/loss: -9
    Current score: 97

    		 Juliet
    Charlie:
     
  • Demonstrated his patented hobbit babysitting skills, quieted Aaron: +1
  • Aw…fell asleep holding hands with Claire. How cute!: +1

    •  
    Net gain/loss: +2
    Current score: 101
    Sawyer:
     
  • Bestowed nickname on Charlie, Hurley, and Aaron (”Three Men and a Baby”). Despite his claim to the contrary, I believe that counts as a violation of the Sun-Sawyer Nickname Accords of 2004: -2
  • Shared his aspirin with Claire. I think I’m starting to like the new-and-improved Sawyer: +1
  • Called Jack out for fighting with his fellow Losties to defend Juliet: +3
  • Tracked Juliet through the jungle: +2
  • Of course, if you’re going to hike halfway across the island because you don’t trust Juliet, maybe you shouldn’t give up and turn around just because she gave you a little guilt trip: -3

    •  
    Net gain/loss: +1
    Current score: 151

    		 Sawyer
    Hurley:
     
  • “We buried him over there.” Look at Hugo, playing the heavy (no pun intended): +3

    •  
    Net gain/loss: +3
    Current score: 139
    Claire:
     
  • Demonstrated parenting skills, sleeping through Aaron’s crying fit. Charlie’s not always going to be there to pick up your slack, Claire (just ask Desmond): -1
  • Here the adults were trying to have an important conversation, and in wanders Claire with blood pouring out of her mouth. Typical: -5
  • “Cured” by Juliet: +5
  • Still has some weird DHARMA implant inside her: -2

    •  
    Net gain/loss: -3
    Current score: 103

    		 Claire
    Kate:
     
  • Honey, insisting on going with Jack on the firewood run makes you look desperate. He’s just not that into you: -2
  • On the other hand, Sawyer seemed pretty happy to see you: +1

    •  
    Net gain/loss: -1
    Current score: 130

    		 Kate
    Sayid:
     
  • Still doesn’t trust Juliet, made not-so-veiled threat against her life: +3
  • Tracked Juliet across the island to Ethan’s medical stash: +2
  • Tucked his tail and turned around when Juliet brought up his past. I expect this from Sawyer, but I’m very disappointed in you, Sayid. We need to help you get your torturer groove back — maybe start out small, torturing some of the unnamed extras down at the beach and eventually working your way up to Juliet: -3

    •  
    Net gain/loss: +2
    Current score: 129

    		 Sayid
    Jack:
     
  • Jumped in to defend Juliet on several occasions. I can understand if Jack trusts Juliet, but why is he so intent on not finding out what she knows about the Others and the island?: -5
  • Received the hero’s welcome upon returning to camp: +2
  • See? Juliet is evil. What did I tell you?: -3

    •  
    Net gain/loss: -6
    Current score: 79

     
    No major shakeups in the scoring this week. Desmond maintains his lead over Sawyer, while Hurley solidifies his hold on third place. Sayid is slowly climbing his way up through the ranks; he’s just one good move — maybe interrogating Juliet? — away from entering the championship picture. Meanwhile, after leveling off for a few weeks, it seems Jack is hemorrhaging points again. Of course, he’d have to do something really stupid to catch up with Locke at this point.

    After sixteen weeks of Lost-vivor, these are your latest standings:

    1. Desmond (157)
    2. Sawyer (151) (+1)
    3. Hurley (139) (+3)
    4. Kate (130) (-1)
    5. Sayid (129) (+2)
    6. Jin (124)
    7. Sun (113)
    8. Vincent (109)
    9. Claire (103) (-3)
    10. Charlie (101) (+2)
    11. Juliet (97) (-9)
    12. Jack (79) (-6)
    13. Locke (67)

     
    Thanks for joining me for another installment of Lost-vivor! Next week looks like another Desmond-centric episode, so hopefully that will pick up the pace a bit. Will the future-gazing Scotsman capitalize on the spotlight and extend his lead, or will he continue the recent trend of flashback characters losing points? Tune in next week to find out!

    Posted by Jess | Filed Under Lost-vivor |

    18 comments so far...

    1. Fuzzball April 12, 2007 10:23 am

      Jack is officially The Dumbest Man Alive. I don’t care if he’s a neurosurgeon or not. Sayid needs to get crackin!

    2. David April 12, 2007 10:54 am

      Claire is useless. Her only purpose seems to be to hang around and be rescued (from the Others, from the ocean, from implant-induced fake sickness). Can we take her back to customer service and exchange her for Eko, please?

    3. Rob April 12, 2007 11:10 am

      Juliet sweet talks Jess into miscounting here Lost-vivor score: +4

    4. mon April 12, 2007 11:46 am

      I thought the episode was good! We got to see how Juliette came to trust Ben. And did we learn that all the others at one time had cancer? Not sure what that meant when he said “none of us have cancer”. Hmmmmm.
      And, you know they’ll show what Locke is up to. Maybe he isn’t so dumb after all maybe he is infiltrating them the way they did to the losties.

    5. Jeff Schiller April 12, 2007 11:51 am

      How you are scoring Juliet? For instance, saving Claire from her medical “crisis” was:

      - good for the Losties on the surface
      - but really, nullified by learning that there was no medical crisis (the Others are controlling her health)
      - but it was good for the Others and Juliet because it let her gain the Losties trust

      So the +5 seems to be because the action of “saving” Claire was beneficial for her character So why did she lose -7 for still working with the Others? If she loses points for “being a bad guy” shouldn’t she have lost points for hurting Claire?

      Ok, maybe I need to not think about this so much.

    6. Jess April 12, 2007 12:24 pm

      Rob: Fixed it! Thanks. :)

      Jeff: Here’s my logic. I’m scoring Juliet based on the assumption that she’s a good guy. Thus, when it appears that she has saved Claire, she gets 5 points for helping out the Losties. Then, when it’s revealed she manipulated the entire situtation to begin with, she loses those initial 5 points for not actually saving Claire and another 2 points for being evil (the -7 later in the entry). So, she still lost points for being a bad guy and being to blame for Claire’s health, but I waited until we “officially” found out she was a bad guy before I started deducting them.

      This is exactly why I was hesitant to incorporate Juliet in the first place. ;)

    7. O April 12, 2007 1:33 pm

      Cracks me up when people want to dispute the points you award - your game, your rules. And frankly, regardless of why you award or subtract points from a character, you are amusing the hell out of me!

    8. Dave April 12, 2007 5:09 pm

      Juliet showing off some nice curves should have been worth +5

    9. Adam April 12, 2007 5:22 pm

      I agree. TV Guide.com was saying this was going to be the best episode thus far this season. Like you though, we all thought that Juliet was bad so it wasn’t much of a payoff at the end for us. I did like her flashbacks though. While they didn’t tell us a lot, I really like flashbacks of events that happen on the island and give us more backstory to the Others. It was interesting to learn that the outside world really did notice the plane missing and it was a big news event. I wonder how much they’re still looking for the plane.

      Looks like next week is a Desmond week! Here’s to seeing his lead grow with some more insight into the whole flashes/time travel story line!

    10. Jeannie April 12, 2007 10:08 pm

      I really enjoy reading this site. I look forward to it every Thursday after an episode! Keep up the good work!

    11. Thom April 13, 2007 9:48 am

      @O - Because if you make a list or rate something in any way, shape or form, some of us will take it very seriously and must debate it! No matter how inane that may seem. :)

      However, I have to say I have no qualms with any scoring this week - Jess, you receive my approval! I actually enjoyed last night’s episode, even though it mainly confirmed what, I’m sure, most of us already suspected. It still felt like we were moving forward with the plot - and that’s something I’m grateful for. But I’m still disappointed with Sawyer and Sayid - Hurley was more intimidating than both of them combined.

    12. jmanna April 13, 2007 10:29 am

      The no-nicknames bet was for a duration of one week. I’m guessing the week is up and all bets are off. (Pun not intended but now supported.)

    13. Jess April 13, 2007 2:49 pm

      O: Thanks for the vote of confidence! I’m glad you’re enjoying Lost-vivor. I don’t mind the scoring debates too much; I’m just glad people are actually out there paying attention to my ramblings. ;)

      Jeannie: Thanks so much! :)

      Thom: Glad to hear the scoring was up to snuff this week! If only I hadn’t totaled Juliet’s score incorrectly the first time around, I’d be batting 1.000 for the week.

      jmanna: From Sawyer’s dialogue immediately following the “Three Men and a Baby” quip (I can’t remember the exact line), I assumed Sun’s moratorium was still in effect. I might be wrong, though.

    14. Jess April 13, 2007 3:13 pm

      By the way, I just stumbled across this Lost news item. Apparently, Episode 19 won’t feature a flashback. As I said in my original post, I think loosening up the flashback format might help Lost pick up the pace a bit. Use ‘em when you have a good story to tell, save ‘em when it’s just Kate going to visit her mom. Again.

    15. Andy April 13, 2007 3:21 pm

      Man, you’re quick. I was just going to post a comment about the upcoming Flashbackless episode.

    16. Chris April 16, 2007 2:58 pm

      Boo! I thought it was at least in the top 5 for this season. Some of you people are hard to please. However, I still loves me some Lostvivor.

    17. Jeff Schiller April 19, 2007 4:31 pm

      Update: Ep 19 will have Locke flashbacks after all. But they will be very recent flashbacks that tell Locke’s story since meeting his Dad on the island.

    18. daniel boateng November 30, 2007 12:19 pm

      thank you. good bye.


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