I will start with what happened in present: Jack, Kate, Sayid and Juliet make it to the camp. -We see a very touching moment with Sawyer and Kate (hinting at much deeper feelings than will ever be admitted any time soon) -We see everyone get upset about Juliet being there. -We see a scene in which Hurley makes it clear to Juliet just how they feel about the Others, and what they are capeable of when dealing with them..."Charlie got mad at him, we buried him over there." We see Claire get sick, and Juliet tells Jack a story about why Claire is sick (will get into that later). We see Juliet going to get the meds hidden under the tree, and being confronted by Sayid and Sawyer. Juliet does not even begin to hide her indignation at being interrogated by two people that she feels are "bad", yet when she walks away from them, she seems to have a look of fear and relief on her face as if she was not sure that she was going to be able to talk her way out of that one. While talking to Sayid and Sawyer, she lets them know that she knows about their pasts. I can see her knowing/guessing about Sayid, it would not take much for them to figure out that he was in the Iraqi military...but how would they know about the man that Sawyer killed? We see Juliet giving Claire the shots, and once again, they are in the stomach. Jack tells Juliet that if Claire does not get well, she will have no protection against the rest of the camp, then we see her being allowed to set up camp and Jack tells her that the group is "good people" Now out of this, I did have a few thoughts/questions: From last week, and Jack's insistance that everyone trust Juliet, I thought that maybe Jack was in on something. But I started to think that maybe he was not in on everything when he had the private talk with Juliet about her safety and Claire's illness....if he were in on something with Juliet, I think he would have had a much different conversation. How in the heck does Juliet know about the shrimp guy that Jack killed? And was it the night before? I thought Sawyer sat in jail a couple of days before being kicked out of the country......let's see, he had the drink with Doc Sr., went out to kill shrimp guy, went back to bar and got into a fight, went to jail at the same time that Boone was there trying to get some help with Shannon...I still think it was longer than the night before the flight. What did Juliet mean by "the last thing either of you need right now is more blood on your hands"? Was she refering to the deaths of the others? O r did she mean the murders before they came to the island? And why "right now", is there some form of judgement coming their way? If so, does that bode bad for Charlie now that they know for sure who killed Ethan? Now we move on to Juliet's Story: When Claire becomes sick, Juliet tells a story to Jack and Kate in an attempt to explain how she knows what is wrong with Claire, and what she had to do with it. Claire is having a reaction due to the lack of sirum that she was given before she had the baby. Juliet created the sirum in order to help the pregnant women on the island. All of the pregnant women on the island were dying...all except Claire. Right after they landed, Ethan started taking blood samples from Claire and administering the sirum (the attacks and bad dreams I suppose) Even though Claire did not conceive on the island, they found that she was showing some of the same symptoms, so they wanted to help her and save her life. She was not ever supposed to be kidnapped, that was Ethan's way of improvising once he was found out. She also said that Ethan kept a stash of drugs near the caves. questions: Ben did state that He was one of only a few that could say that he was born on the island, so it's easy enough to belive that there is something wrong there. But I do not know how Kate and Jack were not able to immediately able to remember that Alex was born on the island, and that Danielle was pregnant for some time before giving birth....so either that was something that Juliet did not know, or she thought that it was something that our group did not know. This also begs to be pondered, because if Juliet did not know tyhe truth about Alex and Danielle, then it may have been another one of those tricks that Ben uses.....like proof that at least one child was born, so there is hope that more can be. I have to think that if Ben were really worried about figuring out this problem and needing a control case, he would have told Juliet about Danielle and not waited for a plane to fall out of the sky with the off chance of having a pregnant woman on board....oh! another Malkin thought. On to the flashbacks: We see that Juliet was lovers with Goodwin, and the moment when it dawns on her that she has been on the island for 3 years. We see Juliet examining the x-ray (that Carl developed) and see her confronting Ben about the x-ray. It seems that about 2.5 years ago Juliet decided that there was nothing more that she could do for Ben and the others as long as she was not able to take anyone off the island. She said that she wanted to go home, and Ben talked her into staying on the island by telling her that her sister's cancer had returned but that Jacob would cure her if Juliet agreed to stay until her work was done. This caused quite a lot of rage in Juliet to find cancer on Ben's spine, because he claimed that there was no cancer on the island. Again Juliet wants to go home, and again Ben says no. This is where we pick up on Juliet prepping for her book club meeting, the plane falling, Ben sending out Ethan and Goodwin, and then we see Ben wanting to talk to Juliet. Ben takes Juliet to Mikhal's (Patch) hut to see live video feed of Juliet's sister and Nephew and to prove that he was not a liar, Rachel was ok, and Juliet could go home to see her when her work was done. Before we see Rachel and Julien, we get to see lots of images of news reports on the missing plane...that did not take long,were they only out of comms for about an hour before they went down? Juliet tells Ben that her work is impossible, all of the mothers keep dying, ben tells her that they will just have to find new mothers....maybe there will be some on the plane. We now know why Juliet will do anything to get off the island....Rachel and the baby both lived. It would appear that Patch's gun toting outburst was a genuine response for him....Ben showed great caution while approaching, and made a snide remark about him not shooting them. Ben did look truely shocked and scared over finding out that he had cancer....did he upset Jacob in some way? Ben was reading the book, his comment was because Juliet did not invite him to book club that time. Juliet says that whatever is killing the women happens at conception, not during the pregnancy....this again says that there was little that Clair would have been able to do for them until after she had the baby, since it was not concieved on the island. Unless they were trying to see if they could mimic the same illness in another woman that had conceived off island. In this case, Alex could have been in order to see if a child conceived off island, yet born on island would have the same problem when she came of child bearing age. His comment about mothers on the plane could have been to see if a woman and man not from the island could conceive and produce a child while on the island...more on that thought in a bit. Now on to the real surprise....the plan!: We see Ben and Juliet talking together and going over a plan. Juliet is to drag Kate out into the jungle and handcuff herself to her, and tell her that she was gassed too and left behind. If caught in the lie, she was to admitt to it, and say that she thought it was the only way that she thought she could gain her trust. Afterward, she will be taken back to the camp. Juliet tells Ben that she knows that he wants her to go, but that she feels with all that they have done to the group, it will be a problem. Ben goes on to tell Juliet that the implant in Claire has been activated, and she will show symptoms within 48 hours, so by the time Juliet gets to the camp, she will be able to save Claire and gain their trust. He tells her that the meds she needs will be left at Ethan's old drop point and that she should tell Jack, because he trusts her. At the end of the dicussion, Juliet gets a strange look on her face and Ben looks concerned...it ends with him telling her "see you in a week"......that should line up just right for the season finale! final thoughts: Why send Ethan and Goodwin to the camps?By all known accounts, they were the other's only real surgeons, why risk their lives? Why send Juliet on this trip? Because Jack trusts her? Because she could be bribbed again for passage off the island? Why send anyone? Could she be there to check on more possible mothers? Maybe to see if Kate and Sawyer's roll n the bear cage was fruitful? Just to take a new assessent of who is who and where they are? Will Juliet decide that these people may not be so bad afterall? Will she decide that she's had enough of Ben's games? Will she betray Ben once out from under his influence? What kind of implant is small enough to go undetected, yet large enough to make a person that sick, and will it have a long term effect? Did Ben release "the monster" in order to make sure that Juliet was caught in the lie and got back to the compound to get Jack and Sayid? The marked tree that Ben called Ethan's old drop point.....it was near the medical bunker....could that have been a Dharma drop point? Is there another marked tree near Swan station for food drops? Now that Locke has entered 77, will the drops cease? Now that comms are out, has ben's group lost the upper hand? Why did Juliet seem to look so relieved when she walked away from Sayid and Sawyer.......was she bluffing and only knew bits and pieces and wasn't sure if it was true or not? I have to say...I am so ready for the rest of the season!http://community.livejournal.com/pondering_lost/110732.html#cutid1