Follow along! The episode guide for “Not In Portland” is in Finding Lost — Season 3, pp. 54-60.I loved this episode the first time I saw it, because it was seeing a new character’s flashback, something we hadn’t done in a long time. I think it made Juliet a very sympathetic character for me, even though it didn’t work on everyone. And come on… watching Edmund Burke get hit by that bus NEVER gets old.
Fun things I noticed:
• In making the connection between Burke and Ben, we see that Juliet moved from one controlling tyrant to another.
• Alpert’s eyeliner was perfect from the beginning.
• How much do I love that she makes a throwaway suggestion and Alpert makes it happen? Who WOULDN’T want to work for that company? “Yeah, I had this boss who was a horrible Nazi bitch when I was in high school and worked in a grocery store bakery, and I’d love for her to fall into a fire.” As Bart Simpson would say, “Coooool.” (The above statement about the boss may or may not be true.)
• Did anyone else ever think Karl was a bit of a schmuck? I could never see what Alex saw in him.
• So… Jack always comes off as a bit of a lousy surgeon. We’ve seen him open a woman’s dural sac, then he’s always popping and slicing arteries. Pfft… as if one miracle could overlook the other stuff. ;)
• Rachel uses the same pregnancy test as Kate.
Things that have new meaning:
• That ultrasound of the woman’s womb is still a big unanswered question, and one many Lost fans (including myself) keep coming back to in later seasons. Is it a womb of a woman who’s time-traveled? Why is the island rapidly aging women’s wombs but not the rest of them? I’m assuming the source of the failure to bring a baby to term on the island is in these ultrasound pictures, but it’s not clear yet what they are. (Or… it really is a womb of a woman in her 70s and Alpert is just putting one over on Juliet.)
• One of the messages in Room 23 is “Everything Changes,” which could be a suggestion that everything WILL change. Maybe when Jack drops the bomb? When they go back in time? Or is it a purposely untrue statement?
• We all wondered if Sawyer had any memory of Juliet holding a gun to Kate and how that might have made the beginning of their relationship a little… awkward… but maybe he also remembered her saving his life here. Could one cancel out the other?
