This season brought me to the heights of sublimity and the depths of despair, both times, related to the good doctor.Not that Juliet has always been the “good doctor”. In her first season, we had no idea whose side she was on. She kept Jack captive, threatened to kill Kate (to keep Sawyer in line), and worked with Ben. But, at the same time, she orchestrated an opportunity to let Jack know that she wanted to “overthrow” Ben, and that she needed his help doing it. Later, she pretended to be cast out from the Others to gain the trust of the 815ers. Even after we discovered that she had told Jack she was working with Ben, it still seemed hard to trust her. What were her alliances, anyway? At first, her only goal was to get home to her sister.
But somehow, Juliet slowly but surely changed. She told Jack she was tired of following Ben’s dreams, and she developed feelings for Jack. By the end of Season Three, Juliet was walking in lockstep with our heroes, helping Sawyer and Hurley rescue Sayid, Jin and Bernard from the Others.Juliet was a full-fledged member of the team by Season 4, so much so that I was actually surprised to remember that she hadn’t crashed on the Island on 815. The only time I didn’t like her is when she told Jin that Sun had had an affair. But by the end of the season, even Kate seemed to like Juliet.
We saw nothing this season that made me even remotely dislike Juliet. Instead, she continued to develop into one of my favorite characters. Unlike the 815ers, she was always calm in a crisis and seemed to know the right questions to ask. She also demonstrated a unique skill – the ability to speak Latin. She learned it in Others 101.
Other than her romance with Sawyer and that blasted final episode of the season, I found three things about Juliet this season to be remarkable.First, she had the chance to leave the island. Twice. And she never made if off. Not even once. In prior seasons we learned that Juliet was originally supposed to be on the Island for six months. After the six months, she asked to go home so she could attend to her pregnant sister. Ben refused, saying that Juliet’s sister would die of cancer before she gave birth. However, if Juliet stayed, Ben would make sure that Jacob healed Rachel. Three years later, she was still on the Island, working with Ben to manipulate Jack into operating on Ben…
Then, in LaFleur, the Left Behinders were told that they were being summarily shipped back to the States in the submarine. At last, a chance to leave! But Sawyer arranged for a two-week period of grace (you know, to find “his people”). And yet one of the most tender scenes of a tender episode:
SAWYER: I bought us two weeks. Horace said we can wait for the next sub. Any luck, Locke'll be back by then.
JULIET: And then what?
SAWYER: What do you mean, "Then what"?
JULIET: Locke said he was leaving to save us. The flashes have stopped. They're over. No more bloody noses. We're already saved. That sub behind you brought me here. I've been trying to get off of this island for more than three years, and now I've got my chance.
JULIET: I'm going to leave.
SAWYER: You do realize it's 1974, that whatever it is you think you're going back to... it don't exist yet.
JULIET: It's not a reason not to go.
SAWYER: Well, what about me? You really gonna leave me here with the mad scientist and Mr. "I Speak to Dead People"? And Jin, who's a hell of a nice guy but not exactly the greatest conversationalist.
JULIET: You'll be fine.
SAWYER: Maybe... but who's gonna get my back? Come on. Just give me two weeks, that's all I'm asking. Two weeks.
JULIET: All right. Two weeks.
We know what happens then. Three more years pass. Suddenly, everything changes: Jack, Kate, and Hurley are back. It’s not long before the DHARMA Initiative learns that James and Juliet are not who they thought. The DHARMA Initiative agrees to let James and Juliet go. Another tender moment, sadly disrupted by Kate:SAWYER: We'll buy Microsoft.
JULIET: Excuse me?
SAWYER: Then we'll bet the Cowboys in the '78 Super Bowl. We're gonna be rich. Look, I'm sorry. I should've listened to you when you wanted to get on this sub three years ago.
JULIET: I'm glad you talked me out of it.
. . .
JULIET: What are we gonna do when we get to Ann Arbor?
SAWYER: We ain't going to Ann Arbor.
JULIET: What do you mean?
SAWYER: These guys ain't cops. They got no authority over us back in the real world. So once we dock, wherever we dock... we're free.
JULIET: "Real world." I don't even know what that means anymore.
SAWYER: Hey, come here. Whatever happens, I got your back, remember?
JULIET: I love you.
SAWYER: I love you back.
But their escape from the Island was as short-lived as that tender scene. Sawyer point blank refuses to help Kate stop Jack from blowing up the Island. But Juliet has other plans, telling Sawyer: “We decided to leave this Island, James, we did. And now we're going back.”
Secondly, she successfully delivered her first baby in six years. Remember that whole pregnancy problem? Ben arranged for Juliet to come to the Island to help women carry their babies to term without dying. When a woman conceived on the Island, she died approximately 100 days after conception. Claire was the first woman to give birth on the Island, which Juliet attributed to Aaron’s conception 8 months earlier off the Island. At least nine other pregnant women Juliet worked with in three years were not so lucky. For reasons she could not explain, the mother’s immune system would shut down. Juliet feared that the same would happen to Sun, a fate she wanted to avoid at all costs.
For whatever reason, Juliet did not operate as a doctor in the DHARMA Initiative. Instead, she worked in the motor pool. At first, I thought she might have chosen that path to avoid having to deal with pregnant women. But then it occurred to me, how could Juliet prove that she was a doctor? I don’t know when Juliet attended medical school, but I strongly suspect it was not before 1974. I’m guessing it was just easier to join the motor pool.
Which is where James found her when Amy went into labor two weeks early. Amy was never supposed to give birth on the Island. She was supposed to be on the submarine that “delivered” Jack, Kate, and Hurley. It occurs to me that Amy long passed the threshold that women 30 years later never survived. Still, the birth was supposed to take place off the island. Presumably, Miles was also born off-Island. (Baby Miles was 4 months old, according to Lostpedia, at the time of The Incident). But pregnancies never go as planned, and so it was that Amy entered labor. It was not the Island’s sinister influence on pregnant women that made the birth so difficult, however – Ethan was breech. The DHARMA doctor was clearly unable to cope with this development. And Sawyer, ever the problem-solver, knew who could cope.
Juliet initially demurred, reminding Sawyer that they “had an agreement”, and “Don't you understand that every time I try to help a woman on this island give birth, it hasn't worked?” But James would not be persuaded. When Juliet walked into the medical office, she was all business, asking questions of the doctor and then giving orders. The doctor was understandably puzzled, but Amy recognized someone who could help her.
And finally, after six long years, Juliet did what she had come to the Island to do, help a woman give birth.
Thirdly, Juliet was never touched by Jacob. Instead, in The Incident, all we saw was what felt like a clumsy add-on of Juliet’s parents telling their children of their impending divorce. The little girl, Juliet, cried, saying that she didn’t want to understand how two people who were supposed to be together wouldn’t be. We are given the impression that this incident was the real motive for why Juliet decided to support Jack’s plan to blow up the Island. If the plan worked as promised, everything starts over, and Juliet will then never lose Sawyer.
But aside from the faulty psychological reasoning by the producers, the lack of Jacob touching Juliet has, unfortunately, far reaching consequences for the character. I believe that Jacob and Esau have been in conflict for decades, if not centuries, and Jacob must have known that his enemy had plans for Jacob’s death. Knowing what those plans entailed, and who, Jacob visited a select group, and touched them all. We don’t know the significance of the touch, of course, but I strongly believe that he needs all those touched in his battle with Esau. For whatever reason, Jacob doesn’t need Juliet. She therefore seems more disposable to the Island than the others, and that worries me.
We all know the end of the season, however, with Juliet, severely if not mortally wounded, determinedly hitting Jughead to make it explode. The screen faded to white (and I’ve seen many swear the heard the sounds of an explosion at that time). We have no idea what happened, to Juliet or to anyone else.
The Actress
Perhaps Elizabeth Mitchell knew in advance and sought the role, or perhaps she earned the role and that caused the producers to let her go, but either way, Mitchell will be starring in a TV remake of V this fall. The series premieres November 3 on ABC. Mitchell plays Erica Evans, an FBI agent in the Counter Terrorist Division, who is the single mother of a troubled teenaged son (aren’t all teenagers on TV troubled?). Eventually Evans becomes involved in a conspiracy, presumably against the aliens, but I don’t know that for sure. I’m going to guess that this will make the actress less available for Lost. And that makes me very sad.
