Lost/Not in Portland

Not in Portland
Season 3, Episode 7
Airdate	February 7, 2007
Production Number	307
Written by	Carlton Cuse Jeff Pinkner
Directed by	Stephen Williams
← 3x06 I Do	3x08 → Flashes Before Your Eyes
Lost — Season Three

Not in Portland is the seventh episode of the third season of Lost, and the fifty-sixth episode overall.

Jack is in command as the fate of Ben's life literally rests in his hands. Meanwhile, Kate and Sawyer find an ally in one of "The Others," and Juliet makes a shocking decision that could endanger her standing with her people.

Starring: Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje (Mr. Eko), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Michael Emerson (Ben), Matthew Fox (Jack), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Daniel Dae Kim (Jin), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), Terry O'Quinn (Locke), Kiele Sanchez (Nikki), Rodrigo Santoro (Paulo)

Guest Starring: Željko Ivanek (Edmund Burke), M.C. Gainey (Tom), Michael Bowen (Pickett), Blake Bashoff (Karl), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), William Mapother (Ethan), Tania Raymonde (Alex), Robin Weigert (Rachel)

Co-Starring: Rob McElhenney (Aldo), Kimberly Estrada (Sherry), Ariston Green (Jason), Steve Labrash (Morgue Employee), Teddy Wells (Ivan)

Plot Overview

The Island

• Inside the Hydra's operating room, Tom tries to order Juliet to stitch Ben back up, but Jack informs him that she's not a surgeon and can't do it. Juliet tells one of the Others in the operating room, Ivan, to find Danny and then bring back Austen and Ford dead or alive. She reveals to Jack that his plan isn't going to work as they're on a smaller island two miles off-shore of the main island. In retaliation, Jack reveals to Tom that Juliet asked him to kill Ben, to make it look like an accident, and that she would protect him. Juliet tries to deny the allegations, but Tom orders her to leave. Tom questions Jack about if what he said was true, but Ben wakes up and asks them to bring back Juliet. Returning to the operating room, Juliet speaks alone with Ben while Jack and Tom watch them from behind a glass screen. Commenting on Juliet's obvious distress, Tom comments that "they (Ben and Juliet) have a history". After exiting the room, Juliet tells Tom and Jack that she's to help Jack's friends escape. Jack continues the surgery with only Tom for help, but accidentally nicks one of Ben's arteries. As he works to fix the artery, Kate comes over the radio and tells him they're safe, relaying to him the story he told her to remember. Jack makes her promise never to return to the island for him and has Tom shut the radio off. After successfully finishing the surgery, Juliet returns and finds Jack watching over Ben. He asks her what Ben said to make her want to save his life. Juliet reveals to Jack that she's been on the island for 3 years, 2 months and 28 days. Ben told her if she let him live and helped Jack that he would finally let her go home.
• Out in the Hydra's cages, Sawyer and Kate subdue their captors, including Pickett, and lock them inside the polar bear cages before running. Ivan eventually finds Pickett, frees him, and the Others take off in search of Kate and Sawyer. They corner the two in the jungle, but Alex appears and helps them hide inside a camouflaged trap door. Alex strikes a bargain with Kate and Sawyer: they can use her boat to get to the other island if they help rescue her boyfriend, Karl. She leads them to where she believes Karl is being held, a run-down building guarded by a young Other named Aldo. Under the guise of being Alex's captive, Sawyer ambushes Aldo and Kate gets the information on Karl's whereabouts by threatening to shoot Aldo's knees. The group find Karl in a room with loud music playing and Karl strapped down to a chair with an IV drip in his arm, and being forced to watch a surreal montage of video and text. The group escapes from the facility before Pickett and the Others arrive. Juliet catches up with Pickett and informs him that Ben is letting them go, but Pickett refuses to believe Juliet and goes after them on his own. At the beach, Kate, Sawyer and Alex prepare the boat to leave but Pickett appears and is about to shoot Sawyer when Juliet shoots Pickett twice in the chest. Juliet lets Kate and Sawyer leave, but tells Alex that she's staying — the only way her father, Ben, is going to let Karl live is if she's there when he wakes up.

The Flashback

• Flashback: Juliet

In Miami, Juliet sits on a beach contemplating something. She gets up and walks inside an apartment building, passing Ethan Rom in a hallway. Inside an apartment, Juliet wakes her sister up and readies an injection for her, telling her that they don't have to keep doing this. Juliet's sister disagrees and receives the injection.

At night, Juliet uses her key card to access the Bio-Research Building at Miami Central University. As she makes her way down a hallway she receives a phone call confirming an appointment with Dr. Richard Alpert of Mittelos Bioscience for the next day. She enters a laboratory and opens a medical refrigerator containing test sample vials. As she removes vials and places them in her purse, the lights are turned on and two people enter the room. Trying to remain hidden, Juliet's phone goes off and the man - Edmund - discovers her. Edmund introduces Juliet, his ex-wife, to his companion, Sherry, and suggests to Juliet that she leave.

The next day, Sherry comes up to Juliet in the lab and tells her that Edmund wants to see her. Edmund reveals to Juliet that he wants in. He knows Juliet has been stealing from the lab but doesn't know who her guinea pig is. Her research could either be genius or could raise some serious ethical, and possibly criminal, concerns. However he "graciously" extends an offer to collaborate and use his reputation to quell those concerns so they can win prizes and drink champagne.

Later in the day, Juliet attends a recruitment pitch by Dr. Alpert for Mittelos Bioscience which is based in Oregon and just outside of Portland. Going through the slides, Alpert explains how the employees are all happy because Mittelos is privately funded and that means freedom. He brings up a slide of a woman's womb and asks Juliet what she sees. Based on the images, Juliet deduces that the womb belongs to a 70-year-old woman, but Alpert tells her that the woman is actually 26. Juliet asks him what happened to her, but Alpert tells her that she could have complete freedom and money to find out. He believes that Juliet is special and wants her to lead a team of highly trained people. Juliet declines the offer, telling Alpert that her ex-husband wouldn't let her and wouldn't want her to have such an opportunity, and the only way he'd respond to them was if he got hit by a bus.

After the interview, Juliet returns to her apartment and her sister, Rachel. She tells Rachel that the offer wasn't for her and that Portland was too far away for research that doesn't even work. But Rachel reveals to Juliet that her treatment worked, she's pregnant and tells her that she can tell her ex-husband off. Juliet finds Edmund outside of the medical research laboratory and informs him that Rachel is pregnant. He asks for her data so he can verify the work, but Juliet tells him she's not interested in publishing it. Before Edmund can continue arguing with her he's hit by a bus.

At the city morgue, Juliet identifies the body of her ex-husband. The morgue employee leaves Juliet alone to go over the required paperwork. As she breaks down and cries, Ethan Rom appears and hands her some tissues. Alpert is with him and expresses his condolences to Juliet over the loss of her ex-husband before he heads back to Portland. He introduces Ethan as one of his colleagues. Juliet remembers that, during her interview with Alpert, she wished her ex-husband would be hit by a bus. Alpert dismisses her comment, telling Juliet that she shouldn't blame herself for what happened, and claims to not remember such a comment at the interview. Alpert says he realizes the timing is horrible, but they're very serious about getting her to come work with them. They only want six months of her time and believe she'll be back in time for when her sister gives birth. Juliet asks him how he knows Rachel is pregnant, but Alpert merely tells her they're very thorough. Juliet asks if her sister could come with her, but Alpert tells her they're at a remote location and she wouldn't have access to the treatment she needs - they're not quite in Portland.

Notes

Mysteries

• What is Room 23 for exactly?
• Why was Karl being (apparently) brainwashed?
• Why did Ben keep Juliet on the island for longer than she signed on for? What is the "history" she and Ben have?
• Who was the patient Juliet was recruited for?
• How did Juliet change from the meek person in the flashback to the tough person that she is now?
• Is Ben Alex's "father" merely because he "adopted" her, or is there some other connection between Ben and Rousseau?

Answers

• Ben has kept Juliet on the island against her will. (3x01 - A Tale of Two Cities)
• Ben is Alex's "father." (3x06 - I Do)

The Cursed Numbers

• Juliet injected 4ml of the fertility drug into Rachel.
• Juliet worked in Research Lab A-4 at the Miami Central University Medical Research Lab.
• Karl was being held in Room 23.
• During Ben's surgery, the heart rate monitor at one point reads 108. 108 is the sum of the numbers.

Scrutiny

• Room 23 may be the room Miss Klugh threatened to put Walt back into if he didn't behave in "Three Minutes."
• If the bus accident was not engineered by Mittelos, it could mean that Juliet has similar abilities like Walt or Desmond without being aware of them. This would be a further explanation for why she was recruited.
• Tom seems to be more amused than concerned when Jack tells him that Juliet asked him to kill Ben. He also seems to be getting friendlier with Jack.
• Tom says they couldn't take Ben to one of their facilities because something happened when "the sky turned purple". However, Jack had already been kidnapped at the time, so the Others must have planned to take him off the island.
• Ben and Juliet obviously have no intention of taking Kate and Sawyer back to the Hydra (or killing them) after Kate has told Jack the story over the radio, which Juliet could have accomplished very easily. They really do seem to keep their promises.

Arc Advancement

Happenings

• Kate and Sawyer escape from the Others with Karl.
• Jack successfully completes Ben's surgery.

Characters

• Juliet kills Pickett.

Referbacks

• 1x01 - Pilot, Part 1: Jack has Kate radio back to him the story he told her on the beach the day of the crash. This is the story of his first solo procedure as a surgeon, where he learned to let the fear in for only five seconds.

Trivia

The Show

• Missing in Action: Eko, Sayid, Desmond, Claire, Hurley, Jin, Sun, Charlie, Locke, Nikki, and Paulo do not appear in this episode. (Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Ben, and Juliet are the only regulars who appear in this episode.)
• Carrie: A paperback copy of Carrie by Stephen King is present on Rachel's bedside table. In "A Tale of Two Cities", Juliet claimed Carrie was her favorite book and was the book she picked for the Others' book group.
• Room 23: Some of the text shown inside Room 23 include: "Plant a good seed and you will joyfully gather fruit", "Everything changes", "We are the causes of our own suffering", "God loves you as He loved Jacob", "Think about your life." In addition, two scenes from the Swan's orientation film are present: the scene of Avar Hanso seen from a distance and Gerald DeGroot working in a laboratory. The audio contains reversed speech stating "Only fools are enslaved by time and space."
• Widmore: When Rachel shows Juliet the pregnancy test and blood test results, a Widmore Labs Home Pregnancy Test box can be seen in the background. Sun took a Widmore Labs pregnancy test in "The Whole Truth."
• Apollo: The bus that hits Edmund has an advertisement on the side for Apollo Candy. Kate discovered some Apollo candy bars inside the Swan in "Adrift." The Apollo Candy Company is a subsidiary of The Hanso Foundation.

Behind the Scenes

• Location, Location, Location: Miami Central University's Medical Research Laboratory is the John A. Burns School of Medicine at the University of Hawaii at Manoa in Honolulu, Hawaii.
• Mittelos: "Mittelos" in Mittelos Bioscience is an anagram for "lost time." In response to a question posed by an Entertainment Weekly reader regarding the significance of the two skeletons found in the caves in season one's "House of the Rising Sun", executive producer Carlton Cuse stated that "there are a couple Easter eggs embedded in [this episode], one of which is an anagram that actually sheds some light on the skeletons and hints at a larger mythological mystery that will start to unfold later in the season." "Mittelos" is also a German word meaning "without center." In the February 12, 2007 Official Lost podcast, executive producer Damon Lindelof confirmed "lost time" is the aforementioned anagram.

Allusions and References

• Edmund Burke: Juliet's ex-husband is Edmund Burke. Edmund Burke was an 18^th century Anglo-Irish statesman, philosopher and political theorist. In the English-speaking world, Burke is often regarded as one of the fathers of modern conservatism.
• Alex, Queen of the Jungle: After Alex helps Kate and Sawyer to hide from their pursuers, Sawyer refers to Alex as "Sheena." Sheena is a comic book character, clad in a skimpy leopard skin outfit, who debuted back in 1937. The character eventually starred in "Sheena, Queen of the Jungle" (1955) and was the first comic book to star a female character as the title character. The character also appeared in a 1984 Columbia Pictures film Sheena and in Sheena, a 2000 TV series. Sawyer used this same nickname for Kate in "The Long Con."
• Three Minutes: Ben asks Jack for three minutes alone with Juliet. Three minutes was the amount of time Miss Klugh gave to Michael to speak with Walt in "Three Minutes."
• A Brief History of Time: Aldo, an Other, is seen reading A Brief History of Time. The book was written by Professor Stephen Hawking and first published in 1988. The book attempts to explain a range of subjects in cosmology, including the Big Bang, black holes and superstring theory, to the nonspecialist reader.
• Aldo: One of the Others is named Aldo. This may be a possible reference to Aldous Huxley, an English writer and author of the 1932 novel Brave New World. Huxley was a humanist but was also interested in spiritual subjects such as parapsychology and philosophical mysticism.
• Wookiee Prisoner Gag: Alex brings a supposedly restrained Sawyer and Kate to Aldo and tells him she caught them escaping. Aldo tries to radio Pickett for verification, but Sawyer ambushes Aldo and tells him not to be mad after falling for the "old Wookiee prisoner gag." In Star Wars (1977), Luke Skywalker and Han Solo dress up as Stormtroopers and lead a supposedly handcuffed Chewbacca to the detention facility that Princess Leia is being held in. The detention facility guard attempts to get verification, but is ambushed by the trio.
• Room 23: Room 23 is set up in similar fashion to that of the Ludovico technique. The Ludovico technique is a fictitious drug-assisted aversion therapy from the novel and film A Clockwork Orange. The premise is that the patient is forced to watch violent imagery while being drugged in order for the patient to assimilate the sensations and then become incapacitated when attempting to perform or even just witnessing said acts of violence.
• Rachel: Juliet's sister is named Rachel. In the Bible, Rachel was the second and favorite wife of Jacob and mother of Benjamin. Like Juliet's sister, Rachel was unable to conceive for many years. She finally bore two sons, but died during childbirth of her second son.
• Cheech: While helping a very incapacitated Karl onto Alex's boat, Sawyer refers to him as "Cheech." Cheech Marin is a Mexican American comedian and actor. Cheech is well-known as part of Cheech and Chong, a comedy duo revolving around drug-addled characters. He was also one of the stars of episode writer and executive-producer Carlton Cuse's previous show Nash Bridges. Cheech Marin later guest stars in the show as Hurley's father David Reyes.

Quotes

• Juliet: You haven't thought this through, Jack. Your plan's not going to work.

Jack: Yeah? Why's that?

Juliet: Your friends aren't going to make it back to your side of the island because we're not on that island. We're on a smaller island, two miles off shore.

(Jack turns to Tom)

Tom: 'fraid so.

Juliet: So why don't we see if we can come up with some kind of peaceful resolution?

Jack: A peaceful resolution?

Juliet: That's right.

Jack: Is that what you call asking me to kill Ben while on the operating table? Make it look like an accident?

Juliet: That's ridiculous.

Jack: (to Tom) She wants Ben to die.

Juliet: Tom, he's lying! I don't know what you're trying to do, Jack, but-

Jack: She said that if I did it, she would protect me!

Tom: ENOUGH!

• Tom: Juliet. Ben's awake.

Juliet: How?

Tom: Shephard says he's a spinal surgeon, not an anesthesiologist.