Lost Rewatch On VHS: Not In Portland

 

I am not the kind of person to give credit to the Emmys, but when it came to Lost with the sole exception of almost entirely shutting out Season 2, they mostly were fair and generous with the nominations and awards they got. I’ll even extend it to their decision to not nominate Season 3 for Best Drama; while I do think it was superior to Heroes and Boston Legal, the show had taken a hit in the ratings and reviews and I get the logic. I admit I would have liked more acting nominations than the series ending up finally getting but when you consider the caliber of the casts of all of the dramas at the time – and in the second half of the show’s run it would the level would increase exponentially – then I have to give credit for the voters when it comes to recognizing as many actors as they did over six seasons.

However, the most glaring omission in the minds of many fans (and in fact, contemporary critics) was to ignore Elizabeth Mitchell for Best Supporting Actress in a Drama the three seasons she was a regular. This would be particularly glaring in 2007 when four of the six nominees for Best Supporting Actress were from other ABC dramas (three from Grey’s Anatomy and Rachel Griffiths from Brothers and Sisters; Katherine Heigl would end up winning that year.) My opinion of Grey’s Anatomy fluctuated wildly over time and while I thought Heigl was a deserving winner (she was the only actress on the series who I genuinely thought deserved a nomination at the time) I was then – and am now frustrated at Mitchell’s being shut out. This is particularly glaring when you look at Not In Portland and Mitchell steps into the spotlight for the first time.

Juliet has been a fascinating character to watch over the first six episodes, and indeed even people who were having trouble watching the series during Season 3 were fascinated by her character. (Indeed TV Guide would name Lost Number 8 in its 2006 top ten list as much because of Mitchell’s performance as anything else.) Now Juliet becomes the first Other to get her first flashback – and what we learn is a revelation.

As always the opening is designed to fake us out. We see Juliet on a beach, staring out at the water weeping. Then she walks down a shabby looking hall with a flickering light, Ethan walks out of a door (creepy as ever) and says hello. She walks into an apartment, towards a sleeping woman, takes the stylus of a phonograph and blows out some candles. She looks at the woman, and then the woman wakes up. Then the two of them start talking and its like we don’t recognize what we’re seeing. Juliet is kind and caring, and clearly doesn’t want to do what she’s doing – especially when we learn the woman is her sister, Rachel. (You could be forgiven for not knowing she’s Robin Weigert; there’s no aspect of Rachel that seems in the same universe as Calamity Jane.) Then Rachel says she likes living on the beach and Juliet tells us that this is Miami. Our preconceptions of Juliet have done a one-eighty.

Then we’re back literally where we left off at the cliffhanger and Juliet is stock still. By this point Kate and Sawyer have taken advantage of the turn of events and the two of them turn the tables on Danny. Juliet, however, is the picture of calm. She informs Jack that his noble plan is for nought and that they are on a different island. When Jack starts making demands, Juliet takes on the ice cold attitude we’ve seen her show before but never with Jack in the room. She calmly orders a random other to help Danny and tells her to bring ‘Ford and Austen back. If they resist, kill them.” Mitchell should have gotten an Emmy nomination for the opening alone.

Jack has been put on the defensive but he does have certain cards to play he turns on Juliet and tells Tom that she told him to kill Ben and make it look like an accident. Juliet is ordered out, and Jack is very cool about he intends to follow through…and then it turns out Ben is awake. Awkward. (As is the scene where Jack tries to ask professionally towards the man he’s just said he would kill: ‘Are you in pain?”) The scene that follows is both incredibly cold and quietly hysterical; Ben realizes he’s been outmaneuver but is still trying to control the situation. Similarly awkward is the scene where Tom and Jack watch from the observation room, though when Tom says to Jack: “They’ve got history”, we can just tell there’s a backstory here. (This will pay off a lot in Season 3.) We watch the dumbshow and Juliet is also clearly upset at one point, but when it does she composes herself, walks out and tells Jack to finish the surgery because she’s going to help his friends escape.

We spend much of the episode trying to understand Juliet’s motivation and we get a very clear picture of it in her flashback. Juliet was a fertility specialist who at one point was married to the equally brilliant Edmund Burke. By this point Zeljko Ivanek, one of the great character actors of all time had moved almost entirely away from his everyman and was now fully embracing villainy. He had already proven his chops in as the repulsive Governor Devlin in OZ, the series that had started the revolution, and had played one of the key villains in the groundbreaking first season of 24. (I was immensely gratified that the following year he would deservedly take home an Emmy for his incredible supporting performance as a conflicted Texas attorney in Damages another of the great series in Peak TV.) Ivanek at this point needed to say and do very little to ooze sleaze and he does it to perfection in his three scenes with his ex-wife, in which he flaunts an affair with a new research assistant right in front of her, attempts to blackmail her to get in the research in the next scene and just before his exit from the world of Lost has a line that basically tells us everything we need to know about Edmund Burke: “Because you’re insufferable and you’re mean. Well, you asked for the truth, Mom.”  It would later be considered by fans of the show that the bus accident is sloppily done, even if it isn’t being staged by the Others; I honestly think that works in the show’s favor. The Others have decided that they’re not even going to bother to make this particular ‘fate’ look subtle or even well done; Edmund Burke doesn’t deserve some giant manipulation.

Juliet looks very much the same but we don’t recognize her in her flashbacks. In every scene she’s in, she seems to be either in tears or on the verge or completely unsure of herself. It’s pretty clear that her ex-husband has her under her thumb and the only person in her life who offers sympathy is Rachel. Most regulars on Lost don’t have any siblings and the two we’ve seen so far (Eko and Charlie) have had problematic relationships with them in their lives, so its nice to see two sisters who are willing to do anything for the other. Juliet has experimented with research not for scientific advancement but to help her cancer ridden sister have a baby. And when Rachel realizes her dreams, the second thought she has after getting healthy is to thank her sister and to basically order her to take the job with Mittelos.

And it says a lot for Juliet that, after everything her husband put her through, that she still has the capability to weep when she stands over his body at the morgue. In that sense the fact that Mittelos has gone out of their way to recruit her for the island is very strange. Almost everyone in the Others we have met so far has essentially been ice cold to everyone in their circle and rarely capable of acting with empathy towards the rest of their group. True Danny did go into grief when Colleen was killed but he is fundamentally full of rage. We never see much camaraderie among the Others, perhaps because they have sacrificed it to a higher purpose. Juliet has been an exception because, as much as she does not want to be on the island – she was told she’d be here for six months; she’s been here for three years – she’s clearly as tried to blend in and build a life. This affection hasn’t been reciprocated so far in Season 3, and it may very well be because even now, the rest of them view as an outsider.

If it were just for what we learn of Juliet in this episode, Not in Portland would be a great episode. But there are many other layers, most of which will pay off in the series going forward. The most significant one is subtle and the fanbase could have been forgiven for not noticing it at the time; I know I didn’t. In the flashback we meet: “Mr. Alpert”, the representative of ‘Mittelos’ who has been sent to recruit Juliet. He presents himself as a corporate headhunter and it seems he’s been sent here because the island needs Juliet to help with a problem involving her specialty. We are not yet aware what that problem is but based on the research, they clearly need Juliet’s help with fertility. The viewer is honestly more interested in that and later on the return of Ethan that you’d be inclined to dismiss Alpert, who we have yet to see on the island at all. He’s just another Other, so it seems.

We’re more interested in Alex, who has resurfaced in a big way and seems hellbent on getting Kate and Sawyer off the island. This is the first time that Alex has had more than one scene since we officially met her in ‘Maternity Leave’ and she makes a hell of an impression. She has hidden places all over the island, is able to meet Sawyer sarcasm for sarcasm, and offers to help Kate and Sawyer escape if they can find Karl, who she is frantically trying to find. She is so determined to save her boyfriend that she finally reveals her ‘secret’ – she’s Ben’s daughter.

Now given who we suspect Alex’s mother is, the conclusion is pretty obvious: when the Others came to Rousseau Ben was one of the party and he’s been raising Alex as his own ever since. Why he subsequently put Karl in a polar bear cage we can’t comprehend – and when we see where he’s been holding him, we really question what kind of father he’s been. Some parents are overprotective of their children dating but locking your daughter’s boyfriend in a room to be deluged by an endless scope of images and loud music and noise, with an IV stuck in his arm, seems a little extreme even by the standards of Others. We spent so much time trying to interpret the images Karl is seeing that I don’t think we pay enough attention to the actor’s reactions. The music is so loud that we can’t hear anything - Kate shouts for a while; Sawyer just stares and Alex stands over Karl pleading. Kate keeps trying to pull Karl loose while Alex starts to cry, frantically looking at him. (Full points to Tania Raymonde in this scene.) Finally they manage to haul Karl to his feet and get him out of there.

(Aldo, the hapless guard who falls for the ‘Wookie Prisoner Transfer’ is played by Rob McElhenney. By that point It’s Only Sunny in Pennsylvania had been on the air for two seasons  and McElhenney, a fan of the show, was cast in what he no doubt thought would be a one episode cameo as comic relief. Lost, as we will see, didn’t let this loose end dangle.)

Some have questioned why Juliet ends up killing Danny at the end of the episode rather than radio Tom have been confirm what Juliet’s telling him. I’ve now rewatched the show often to know that even if he had heard this from Ben itself, it would not have made a difference. Keep in mind the last episode ended with him fully intending to kill Sawyer, and that was before he was beat up, shocked by him and stuck in the same cage. Danny was going to kill Sawyer and Kate even if Ben had been standing in front of him at the time, and Juliet knew it as well as the audience did.

The last scene before that happens is profoundly moving as it signifies so many departures. Alex clearly wants to run away with Karl and from her father, but she cares so much for him that she is willing to trade her freedom for his. It’s a very touching scene. Kate and Sawyer are about to leave, when Juliet, who has not forgotten the conditions takes out the walkie-talkie and puts in front of Kate. Jack is in the middle of a crisis involving Ben, but even now he won’t relent. Kate tells the story we heard in the pilot about Jack’s first solo surgery  - and given that she basically tells it back to him word for word, it speaks volumes to her devotion to Jack. Is it purely by chance that by the time she’s finished telling the story, Jack has ‘fixed’ Ben?

At the end Jack officially tells Kate that he is trading his freedom for hers, ordering her never to come back. The final moments are profoundly moving Kate is in tears, pleading and Jack silently orders Tom to turn the walkie-talkie off. Sawyer, who has been completely silent during this exchange, just tells her they have to leave. (Holloway is superb in this scene without saying a word. You can tell by the look on his face the torment he’s going through, both at the sacrifice Jack is making – and the fact he’s now certain that Kate is in love with Jack.) The two paddle off with an exhausted Karl in toe. We know even before the next time we see them that Kate has no intention of taking this seriously.

At the end of the episode we have learned so much about the characters, but particularly Juliet. We now realize that, just like everyone else we’ve met, she wants to leave the island as badly as they do. But unlike the survivors of Oceanic 815 she is different because she was brought her under false pretenses, has been here far longer, and most importantly knows far better than them the kind of man Ben Linus is. She has been given the same deal Jack was for helping save Ben’s life, and she is even more desperate to believe it is true. But she’s also been with the Others for three years. Which side will she come down on?

 

VHS NOTE: While this episode was airing, we saw promotions for the first of a three-part event series on Grey’s Anatomy that would involve a ferry crash that would result in Meredith going through a near-death experience. This episode would be one of the major Emmy nominees for Grey’s Anatomy that year – and it is, in my opinion, one of the last truly great storylines they said before the show began to go off the rails.