Knowing Goodwin

Thursday’s episode of “Lost” was called “The Other Woman,” and the double entendre in the title is the most interesting thing about this episode. (Assume spoilers in all these “Lost” posts.)

Not that it was bad, just completely straightforward. The whole question of whether the freighter gang are bad guys was supposed to climax in a tense showdown at the immediately-gas-everybody-on-the-island plant, but it didn’t quite work out that way — there wasn’t any possible way that scene could’ve played out differently and kept the series running, so there was no tension. Their throwing in a catfight was a nice gesture, but ultimately this one only exists for Juliet’s flashbacks and the Locke/Ben subplot.

Important things we did get, assuming I didn’t miss anything:

• Locke is still a total tool, who is ridiculously easily manipulated by Ben
• Widmore is most likely the guy running the freighter, if Ben’s info to be trusted (and this connection seems reasonable enough). But I don’t believe Ben’s explanation for why Widmore is investigating the island; I hope there’s more to it than just that.
• The Tempest station has the cool logo from The Living Seas at Epcot. Have they revealed all the Dharma stations at this point? I lost count.
• The island’s healing factor is what causes pregnancies to go awry. I can’t remember if they’ve said that before, but at least here they’re saying, “This is something important to remember.”
• Ben’s crush on Juliet is his biggest vulnerability, considering he seems to be impervious to repeated punches to the face.

And new or outstanding questions:

• If it’s only pregnancies conceived on the island that are at risk, why was there such a big deal about Claire’s baby? When they kidnapped Claire, was it to have Juliet study and/or work on her?
• The therapist, Harper, said that Ben’s crush on Juliet was understandable, since “you look just like her.” Who’s the “her?” Ben’s mom? Are we going to start seeing Ghost Mom again?
• Are they ever going to give British Freighter Woman any identifiable personality, other than “likes to fight other women?”
• How is Ben issuing orders to the remaining Others? And where are they hiding out?
• DOES ANYBODY KNOWS WHAT IS THE SMOKE MONSTER?????????
• Are they expecting us to be at all surprised when they reveal who Ben’s inside man on the freighter is? There’s only one person it could be: of course, it has to be Boone. But no really, I hope they’re not hoping that showing Michael is going to be a dramatic reveal next episode; every time they mention the inside man, you can practically hear “WAAAAALLLT!” off in the distance.

I kept hoping that they’d do one last little jab at the end of this episode. In particular, I was hoping that one of Juliet’s flashbacks would show Harper’s getting killed, and the version of her in the rain at the beginning would be a Walt-like ghost or the smoke monster or an immortal or whatever it is that’s explaining all the visions from season 1. In a way, having her come out of hiding to find Juliet in the middle of the jungle during a rainstorm was both more straightforward and more implausible than her just seeing a ghost.