In an episode that alternated between revealing and exasperating, this week's "Lost" [0] gaveth some answers and promptly tooketh some away. We were led to believe that Juliet was simply a sweet girl who somehow got herself into a steaming hot mess and is now just all mixed up. But of course, in the "Lost" way, that isn't exactly the case.

For a detailed recap of the episode, check out WhiplashGirlchild's post [1] in the LOST Fans [2] group. For more of my musings — spoiler warning —

• For someone whose arm was dislocated rather recently, Juliet seems to be doing fine now. That kind of inconsistency in this show annoys me, though it will probably later be chalked up to the island's "healing powers" or something.
• Thank goodness they finally addressed why Jack is suddenly all big brotherly protective over Juliet. When he said she was under his protection, I was like, "What?!" My best guess was that he'd gone all Stockholm syndrome on us. But no, it's because he senses that she wants to get off the island, too. Not that that makes her worthy of protection, but whatever.
• Perhaps it's a regional thing, but I got a kick out of the fact that a KY Jelly commercial aired immediately before the scene when baby Aaron is screaming and Claire is sleeping through it. Ah, the joys of sex.
• Because a name cannot go unanalyzed, I struggled with Herarat Aviation for a while, but only came up with Herarat being an anagram for "hate arr," like maybe they're all really pirates? In seriousness, though, Lostpedia [3] has some thoughts on the matter, including "Herarat is a heteronym of 'her a rat,' signifying that Juliet was indeed working with the Others and not left behind as she claimed." Or: "Herarat is an anagram for Earhart, Amelia Earhart was a famous pilot who disappeared under mysterious circumstances over the Pacific." Personally, I think her a rat.



• We get another curious mention of Jacob, who the writers of "Lost" have said is the "him" that Others reference sometimes. He seems to be like the Others' leader, or even their God figure. There have been several allusions to Jacob in the series, and in this week's episode, Ben says to Juliet, "Jacob said he would take care of it himself. Unless, of course, you don’t believe in him." That last part was spat out as though challenging Juliet to doubt Jacob.
• Juliet and Goodwin were doing it. A thought: Maybe Juliet's evil actions toward the Losties are because Ana Lucia killed Goodwin.
• Questions: If women can't give birth on the island, how is it that Rousseau had Alex? And how did Ben come to be born on the island?




• Just by asking Mikahail to obtain as much information about the people on the plane as possible, the Others got big, fat files on each of them — how? Juliet even knew that Sawyer killed Frank Duckett the day before he got on Oceanic 815.

Lostpedia [4] has two more pieces of interesting information:

• The episode is titled "One of Us": "The title of the episode, spoken by Jack to Juliet, echoes the famous line chanted by the circus freaks to Cleopatra upon the occasion of her marriage to the midget Hans in Tod Browning's classic 1932 film Freaks. In that film, the circus freaks chant the line to Cleopatra as a sign of acceptance, while unknown to them she actually only married Hans for his money and secretly finds the freaks repulsive. Ultimately, after her deception is discovered, she is attacked by the circus freaks and left deformed, at which point she truly is one of them."
• Apparently, when Juliet ties the knot at the end of the episode, it makes the number 8. Photo courtesy of Lostpedia:
  

  Photos copyright 2007 ABC [5]