Season 3, Episode 1: A Tale of Two Cities

The story of the plane-crash survivors has been the focus of the first two seasons, but now the series switches gears and we begin to learn more about The Others.

MAJOR PLOT POINTS

Juliet's book club is interrupted by Desmond's hatch-quake and the subsequent plane crash. Upon seeing the plane break apart over the island, Ben Linus dispatches Goodwin to the shore where the tail section has come down and sends Ethan to the beach where the remaining survivors wind up.

Back in real time, Jack wakes up in a room with a plexiglass wall as a captive of The Others. We learn later in the episode that he's in the Hydra, which is the DHARMA Initiative's underwater station. His first visitor is Juliet, who reveals herself to be a doctor. Jack attacks her when she tries to bring him food and water, but his escape doesn't get him very far. Opening a door, Jack nearly drowns himself and Juliet.

Kate, meanwhile, wakes up in a shower facility where Tom Friendly, who first hints at being gay, orders her to clean up and then put on a sexy little sun dress. She is taken to a beach-side breakfast with Ben Linus, where she is warned the next few weeks won't be pleasant.

Finally, Sawyer wakes up in a cage across from another enclosure that has a boy, Karl, in it. The cages had been used to house the polar bears. Hungry, Sawyer pushes a giant red button with a fork and knife on it until he's electrocuted. Eventually, he'll figure out that he needs to step on a pedal, pull down a lever and then push the button to get a fish-shaped biscuit and water. In the interim, Karl picks his cage's lock and also frees Sawyer, but both are recaptured. Karl is taken away, while Juliet returns Sawyer to his cage. Kate is later tossed in Karl's old cage.

In flashbacks, we see the continuing disintegration of Jack's personal life. His wife, Sarah, has left him and he's now obsessed with who she is seeing now. Jack has taken to spying on her. She is going through with the divorce, but won't tell Jack the name of her new beau. Furious, his obsession worsens and Jack decides to go through every number she's called from a phone bill.

Jack calls one number, which rings his father's cell phone as Christian stands in his son's office trying to convince him to stop the madness. Now, Jack is convinced his father was sleeping with his wife, follows him to an Alcoholics Anonymous meeting and assaults him. Sarah bails him out after getting a call from Christian, who had relapsed after a few months of sobriety.

Back at the Hydra, as Juliet reads details about Jack's life to him from a file The Others have on him, he finally appears to have come to grips with Sarah's decision to leave him. He only asks Juliet whether she is now happy with her life.

QUOTABLE

"I don't think you're stupid, Jack. I think you're stubborn." — Juliet to Jack, who is acting like a madman in his cell at the Hydra