Televizzle.org

It's difficult to know where to start on these episodes that have a lot of back-story intermingled with the real-time story that's taking place on the island. In fact, in this episode, there was almost more of the time devoted to the back-story than there was to what was actually taking place on the island. Which is now something like two years behind real-time, assuming the plane crashed when the series originally aired. So does that make the current story back-story, too?

That's just too much to worry about. Let's stick with the regular telling. In the dank underbelly of The Others hideout, Jack is confronted by someone named The Sheriff (who also calls herself Isabel). It seems that she doesn't like being on this little island and would rather be elsewhere, but thanks to the fact that Juliet has killed one of her former comrades, she's been called to Hell, so she needs to talk to Jack so she can get back home. And by the way, she can read Jack's tattoo.

But then we get to see what's happening with Sawyer and Kate. They are on their way back to camp, with Carl in tow. Only Carl is having some issues. In Sawyer's words, he needs to Cowboy Up, whatever that means. After a few minutes of man talk in the woods, Sawyer lets Carl go on his own. I guess that's enough of that.

Meanwhile, Jack is called in to help figure out what they are going to do with Juliet for killing someone. I guess they figure that he can help because they think he looks honest and won't lie to them? I don't now.

Regardless, Isabel talks to Jack about Chinese being a complicated language, and asks Jack if he knows what his tattoo means. He says he does, and she insists that perhaps he doesn't. I'm okay with that. But then we start to learn more about Jack and how he actually got his tattoo.

It seems that he was in Thailand, and what seems to be a Thai woman gave him this tattoo against her will. Apparently she is some sort of secret tattoo artist. I don't know if it's a problem with tattooing in general, or the types of tattoos she gives, but that isn't terribly relevant. What I don't get is why a Thai woman is giving tattoos in Chinese. Did no one else get this? Maybe I'm just imagining things.

Anyway, once Jack commits tattoo rape, he wakes up the next morning, and it's like he's been marked for death. The kid who used to sell him soda on the beach will no longer talk to him. Then a bunch of guys who look like they belong in a boy band come up and beat the snot out of him, and tell him not to come back into the country again. I guess he picked the wrong tattoo to get. I frankly didn't see anything different about him. Maybe word gets around fast in this place. I don't know.

Flash back to the current world, and Isabel asks Jack again about his tattoo, and she tells him that it means "He walks amongst us, but he is not one of us." To which Jack replies "That's what they say, but that's not what they say". Perhaps it means that Jack is the second coming, but we'll have to wait for the next revolution of back-story to find out what in the world Jack is talking about, because for now it's just a bunch of bizarre suggestion that doesn't seem to mean much.

Whatever the case, Jack offers up his services to help Ben recover - it seems that he's contracted a bad case of infection around his incision - and that in turn means that they will let Juliet go. But before they do, they brand her, and that means that Jack gets to give her some nice, juicy Aloe to sooth her pain. And now they both have tattoos.

The last image we see is the loading of Ben into a boat, and it looks like they are all heading back to the main encampment on the big island. We'll have to see how that turns out.