STRANGER IN A STRANGE LAND

Or, Tattoo You

[Originally Aired February 21, 2007]

Kate and Sawyer row away from Hydra island but halfway across Kate demands they turn around and rescue Jack. Sawyer says "Umm... fuck that, Jack told us to leave his ass." Karl says Ben will kill them all if they return. I guess he'd know, huh? He also throws out some biblical shit too, so maybe he's just gone all daffy. Nonetheless, they don't turn around. Meanwhile, Tom rousts Jack from his aquarium telling him it's time to move. Jack tells Tom not to bullshit him, if they're gonna kill him they should just say so. Tom asks what the hell kind of people he thinks they are. "The kind of people that would take a pregnant woman, that would hang Charlie from a tree, would drag our people out of the jungle, would kidnap children. That's the kind of people I think you are." Ouch. Tom is annoyed. So he accuses Jack of throwing rocks in his glass house. Whatever. I'm pretty sure the survivors have just been defending themselves. And totally not kidnapping children. Tom takes Jack from the aquarium and Juliet is put in his place. There is a new Other presiding over the transfer. She does not look happy. Flashback to a beach in Thailand and Jack is there and a boy sells him a soda pop. Jack tries to put together a kite but is kind of stupid about it. So Bai Ling approaches and helps him. And ever since The Crow II: Electric Boogaloo she's sort of given my the creeps. Not that it matters, Jack digs her. She introduces herself as Achara. The two go to dinner at her brother's restaurant. His name is Chet. His name is Chet. She asks him if he's in Phuket to find himself. Then she asks why he can't put together a kite. He starts to tell her about his father and she tells him she doesn't give two fucks about his father. Then a man approaches and hands her a giant envelope of cash. She explains she has a gift. What that is, is as yet unclear. It's Thailand, so I think the implication is it is something sexual. On Hydra, Jack is now in Sawyer's cage. Tom brings him a cheese sandwich and Jack complains about it not being grilled. He asks why Juliet is being put into his aquarium. "Because she's in trouble." On their boat, Sawyer and Kate argue. Kate wants to sail around to their beach, Sawyer contends it is will be too dark for that and heads toward shore. They continue to bicker until Karl tells them the should be glad to be alive. He also explains that the Others only work on the Hydra, on "projects," (Sawyer: "Sure, like the steal-the-kid-off-the-raft project. That was a humdinger.") and live here on the main island. Kate asks what they did with the kids. "Gave them a better life." He them stares up into the night sky and gets all wistful about how he and Alex would lie in their backyard and stare into the sky at the constellations. "You have backyards? Ain't that quaint." Juliet visits Jack in his cage, bringing him a grilled cheese sandwich. She shows him a photograph of Ben's stitches and asks if they're infected. They are. She asks Jack to come look him over. He refuses. Later he is visited by the new Other he saw earlier, and she introduces herself as Isabel. She asks him about his tattoo and says she finds the Chinese characters ironic. Jack is escorted to a room somewhere and Juliet and Tom are there and Isabel asks if it's true he told Tom that Juliet asked him to kill Ben. Jack says he was lying, that he made it all up to create chaos and help his friends. Isabel asks why he is lying. Jack asks to be taken back to his cage. In flashback, Achara visits Jack's bungalow at night, and he complains he doesn't know anything about her. She tells him to just go with it. They fuck. On the Hydra Jack wakes in his cage and is startled to see a bunch of Others staring at him. He yells at them and one of them approaches. Holy shit, it's Cindy! She approaches and says hello to Jack. He recognizes her as the stewardess from the flight, and says he thought she'd been abducted. "It's not that simple." He asks why she is here. "To watch." To watch what? Jebus, why are they always so secretive? I guess that's part of their culture. The two Tailie kids are there too, and one of them whispers into Cindy's ear. Cindy tells Jack the girl asked how Ana Lucia is. Jack gets pissed and tells them to get lost. Back on the other island Karl is missing. A quick search turns him up crying in the jungle. Sawyer has a mano a mano with him and tells him A) to stop crying, b) to Netflix the Brady Bunch and c) if he really loves Alex he should go find her. Karl says the Others will kill him if they find him. "It least it'll be worth it," says Sawyer. At the cages, Alex shows up smashes the camera with a rock. Alex asks him why he saved her father. Because Jack said he would. He asks her where Juliet is. Having her verdict read. She's killed someone and will likely be put to death. Eye for an eye. Jack asks if Ben is still in charge. He is. Jack tells Alex to break him out of the cage. In the operating room, someone is about to stick Ben with a needle but then Jack busts in and tells them not to do that. Jack tells them they need a better surgeon. Ben says they used to have a great surgeon. His name was Ethan. Oh, I guess that's supposed to be a major burn on Jack. Whatever. If he was the island's best and only surgeon, and you just found out you had a potentially fatal condition, why did you send your best and only surgeon into the jungle on some black ops kung fu mission full of kidnap and murder? Maybe Ben is not such a brilliant leader after all. Jack tells Ben his infection may have lead to nerve damage and that he may not walk again. Oops. So Jack makes a deal to save Juliet, and in return Jack will supervise his recovery thoroughly. "Juliet doesn't care about you, Jack." Anyway, Ben sends a note to the "courtroom," like he's Mom excusing Juliet from gym class or something. In flashback Jack secretly follows Achara through the red-light district. Oh, I guess Jack thinks her gift is shooting ping-pong balls out her coochie. He follows her inside and finds her workplace. No ping-pong balls. It's a tattoo parlor. This is her gift? Why all the secrets then? "I am not a tattoo artist. I am able to see who people are." He asks who she sees in him. "You are a leader, a great man. But this, this makes you lonely, and frightened, and angry." He demands she tattoo this on him. She tells him she can't. He demands again. There will be consequences, she says. "There always are," he says. On the Hydra, Alex and Jack interrupt Juliet's sentencing. Isabel reads the note, her sentence has been commuted. "Ben has, however, ordered her to be marked." Oh, that can't be good. In flashback, Jack strolls the beach and Chet and some of his pals approach. They look at his new tattoo and then beat the shit out of him. Then they tell him to get out of the country. They can do that? Damn! Achara watches, then turns away. Meanwhile, Jack is back in his cage. So much for his close supervision of Ben's recovery. Juliet brings him a grilled cheese sandwich and he asks to see her mark. She shows him the small of her back, she's been branded with some weird upside down cross thingy. Jack rubs aloe on her wound. She asks why he helped her. Because Ben promised to let her go. Because he promised to let Jack go too. And they're going to make sure he keeps his word. How are they going to do that, she asks? Together, Jack says. On the other island, Kate asks Sawyer what happened to Karl. "I let him go." Then he tells her to stop feeling guilty. She says she doesn't feel guilty for leaving Jack behind. That's not what he's talking about. Stop feeling guilty for boning me just because you thought they were gonna kill me, he says. I don't feel guilty, she replies. Okay then. Isabel visits Jack and remarks on his tattoo again. "He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us." He tells her that's what it says, but not what it means.