A Tale of Two Cities (Lost)

"A Tale of Two Cities (Lost)"

A Tale of Two Cities is the season premiere of the third season of Lost. It aired on October 4, 2006 on US television, making it the 48th episode of the series. The episode was written by J.J. Abrams and Damon Lindelof, based on a story by Lindelof and directed by Jack Bender. The character of Jack Shephard is featured in the episode's flashbacks.

Plot

Jack, Kate and Sawyer begin to discover what they are up against as prisoners of "The Others." Template:Spoiler

Island storylines

The Others

The episode opens on a close up of someone’s eye opening. The eye in question belongs to a caucasian blond woman -- Later intoduced to Jack as Juliet -- who has just awoken. She gets up, pops in a CD featuring Petula Clark's "Downtown" and looks at herself in the mirror. She seems to be holding back some emotions/frustration and forces herself into a better mood. She starts straightening up the room, but is interrupted by a beeping alarm. She notices the muffins she was baking have started to burn. She grabs the tray, burns her hand, and drops the muffins while trying to quickly remove them from the oven. The doorbell rings and she opens the door, we see the house is apparently part of a typical American suburban community. Juliet greets the first of her guests at the door, and they exchange comments about “he still hasn’t fixed your plumbing yet.” We see a pair of male legs, shortly revealed to be Ethan Rom's, sticking out of an access panel along the side of the house and he shouts “it’s a work in progress.”

We switch to Juliet hosting a book club in the living room where she and her neighbors discuss a novel by Stephen King; the novel's title was not revealed. Adam, one of the guests, wonders why "Ben" isn't here today, and comments on how he would dislike the book. Juliet is clearly upset that her book choice wouldn't be considered good enough for Ben.

An apparent earthquake interrupts the book club and the congregation makes their way to the door frames for safety. After the rumbling subsides, the book club members and others in the neighborhood leave their houses. One such neighbour, we immediately recognize, is "Henry Gale", the apparent leader of The Others. A smoking airplane flies overhead, the tail section and right wing snapping off in mid air. Presumably, this is Oceanic Flight 815, and the 'earthquake' was the result of Desmond failing to push the button.

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The Others Village

"Henry Gale" immediately takes charge. He tells Goodwin he can run and make it to the tail within an hour. Ethan Rom, who was the person fixing the plumbing, is sent to the fuselage side. He instructs each of them to join the survivors, stay quiet, listen, learn, and that he wants “lists in three days.” Henry Gale looks at the woman standing there holding the Stephen King novel to her chest, and says "I guess I'm out of the book club," letting us know that he is the "Ben" they were referring to. The camera zooms out revealing this small village is in fact on the island, located in the middle of a large crater. In the background, two plumes of smoke can be seen rising from opposite sides of the island, indicating the impact points of the fusilage and tail section of the plane that had broken up in flight above the others' village moments earlier.

Jack

Jack wakes up laying on a metal table in a dark room. Sitting up he discovers and removes a bandaid from his arm. All the doors exiting the room are locked. Jack discovers a non-working intercom on one wall, and a video camera near the ceiling. The room is divided in half by glass, which he is unable to break. Jack starts yelling for Kate.

Jack is joined by Juliet on the other side of the glass. She introduces herself and attempts to calm Jack down.

We return to Jack a bit later, and Juliet is no longer present. The intercom on the wall starts to produce static and what sounds like a voice. Jack attempts to respond to the voice, but it doesn't seem to work. The voice on the intercom seems to say "let it go Jack".

Juliet arrives, with a grilled cheese sandwitch and bottled water on a tray, and turns on the lights. She asks Jack to move to the far side of the room with his back against the wall so she can open the door and leave the tray. Jack mentions the intercom and Juliet says it hasn't worked in years. Jack asks about a big red button on the wall behind Juliet. She responds saying it is for emergencies. Jack refuses to sit against the wall.

Juliet starts to ask Jack questions about who himself. Jack lies and says that he was a repo man, but reveals that the flight originated in Sydney, and he was there to bring back his dead father. Juliet asks Jack to trust her, but when Jack asks what is going on, she turns and walks away.

Juliet returns and tells Jack that the drugs they gave him will have dehydrated him and that he must eat and drink. Jack says "So your a doctor, huh?", Juliet responds "No. I'm a repo woman". Jack walks over to the far side of the room and sits with his back against the wall.

When Juliet enters the room, Jack attacks her and takes her stun gun. He forces her out into the hallway, and over to a hatch. When Jack asks Juliet to open the hatch she says she can't or they will die. All of a sudden Ben walks down the hall. He tells Jack that opening the hatch will kill all three of them. Jack reaches over and opens it anyway.

A torrent of water floods through the open door. Ben dives through another hatch and locks it behind him. Jack and Juliet are able to force the door shut. She tells jack to go push the button. Jack does so but Juliet immediatly punches Jack and knocks him out.

Jack wakes back up in the room, and he notices that the room is an aquarium designed to house sharks and dolphins. Juliet admits this room is contained in an underwater DHARMA facility named The Hydra. When asked more about the DHARMA Initiative, Juliet comments that that was a long time ago. She tells jack that "it doesn't matter who we were, it only matters who we are".

Juliet sits at a table with a clipboard of papers. She says these are extensive files on Jack; such as details about his medical practice and schooling. She also claims to have a copy of Jack's father’s autopsy, as well as information on Jack’s ex-wife, family, friends, etc. It is unknown how she may have obtained these documents. Jack askes her if Sarah is happy, and Juliet says she is very happy.

The episode closes with Juliet leaving the aquarium room to see "Henry Gale" in the hallway outside, Gale tells her she has done a good job, and she thanks him and calls him "Ben."

Kate

Kate wakes up in a shower room. Water is spraying from a nearby shower head. Kate gets up groggily and her eyes focus on Tom standing against the wall. He gives Kate a towel, shampoo, and soap and leaves the room. Kate notices and removes a bandage on her arm covering a recent needle puncture wound.

After Kate showers, she finds that her clothes are gone. In their place is a summer dress and written instructions to "wear this".

Once Kate is dressed, Tom enters and tells her that "He is waiting". Tom escourts her outside with three more armed others in tow. She is led down to a beach where a table and chairs are setup under a thatch canopy. "Henry Gale" pulls out a chair and seats kate at this bizarre breakfast table on the shore. She's instructed to place herself in a pair of handcuffs, which Henry has her close tightly on her wrists.

Kate asks about Sawyer and Jack. Henry is curious on why Kate mentions Sawyer first. Kate then asks why she's being treated this way, and Henry tells her that he wanted to give her something pleasant to remember as the next two weeks will be "quite unpleasant".

Sawyer

Sawyer wakes up on the floor of a large metal bear cage. It is located in the jungle, near a building which has a DHARMA logo and several loud speakers on its walls. Another cage with a young man, Karl, is directly across from Sawyer's cage, though he keeps his back turned to Sawyer and does not respond to attempts at conversation.

Upon exploring his own cage, Sawyer discovers a large red button with a knife and fork printed on it. Pushing this button results in a voice recording of the word "Warning". Karl tells Sawyer to heed the waring, but Sawyer defiantly pushes the button three times, resulting in an electric shock powerful enough to throw him across the cage.

Sawyer finds two additional mechanisms, a foot pedal and lever all on oppisite ends of the cage. These appear to be designed as some sort of puzzle (the cage is essentially a Skinner Box, an apparatus for testing behavioral responses).

While Sawyer works on figuring out the proper technique, Karl picks the lock on his own cage, frees Sawyer, and advises him to run. Sawyer attempts to escape, but is caught by Juliet, who immediatly shoots him with a dart. Sawyer is re-caged, and a bloodied Karl is later brought back and forced to apologize to Sawyer.

When Sawyer eventually figures out the proper technique, the machines in the cage issue a fish-shaped biscuit, a pile of pellets, and a pipe turns on and begins filling a trough with water. Tom later congratulates him, saying it "only took the bears two hours to figure it out", to which Sawyer responds "How many of 'em were there?"

Near the end of the episode, Kate is placed in a cage across from Sawyer. Sawyer tosses Kate the DHARMA fish biscuit, which she begins to eat. The last view we see of Kate shows the deep marks on her wrists from the hand cuffs as she munches the fish biscuit. These marks have appeared since the breakfast with Henry Gale. She looks visibly distressed.

Jack's Flashback

We flashback to Jack in a car parked outside a playground. He watches a young woman -- his wife Sarah Shephard -- and man talking and laughing. Jack becomes visibly angry.

Later, Jack arrives in the lobby of an office building. Sarah is sitting on a couch and asks about Jack's lawyer; they are clearly dealing with getting a divorce. Jack says she can have everything, but says "I just want to know the name of the man who is with my wife". Sarah stands up without saying anything, and walks out.

Back in the hospital Jack is calling phone numbers from Sarah's cell phone in an attempt to identify their owners. Jack's father, Christian, walks in and wonders what he is doing. As they talk, Jack dials the next number on his list and Christian's phone rings. Believing that his father is seeing Sarah, Jack becomes angry and calls him a drunk.

Later Jack tails his father to, what turns out to be, an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting. Jack explodes in anger and attacks Christian.

We come back to Jack being released on bail, thanks to Sarah, who was asked to post Jack's bail by a drunk Christian. Sarah tells Jack that she was on Christian's phone because they were both concerned about Jack's mental state after the marriage ended. Jack sees an unidentified man waiting for Sarah, and she tells Jack that he finally has something new to fix: his relationship with his father.

Trivia

• This is the first episode that J.J. Abrams has been directly involved in since the show's first season.
• Although the song played by Juliet at the beginning of the episode was the original "Downtown" by Petula Clark (charted 1964-65), the jewel case and liner notes of the CD were actually that of "Speaking In Tongues" by the Talking Heads, released in June, 1983, clearly visible by pausing the episode at the appropriate spot. The CD disc itself has no artwork on it, but on a paused frame, the ID# clearly reads "JN 94743 A", which corresponds to the the CD "Okemah And The Melody Of Riot" by Son Volt, issued in July, 2005. Interestingly, this CD is a dual-sided disc, which accounts for the lack of artwork on the side shown.