Lost thrived during the network TV era. Having the luxury of seasons with two-digit episode counts, the show could afford to throw some duds out there and still have decent ratings. The greatest (and worst) example of this is Season 3’s Jack-centric episode “Stranger in a Strange Land.” Having Matthew Fox’s Jack, the ultimate people-pleaser, trying to save the enemy in the present and forcefully connecting with a stranger in the past makes for an hour full of awkwardness.
At first, it seems to be an episode that can shed some light on Jack beyond his daddy issues, but it ends up being more of an hour dedicated to a straight white male’s midlife crisis. It can easily be considered Lost’s worst chapter and, at the time, an episode that could’ve dissuaded people from continuing to watch the show.
The Beginning of ‘Lost’s Third Season was a Rocky Road
The third season of Lost had the challenge of surpassing, or at least matching, the impact of its first two seasons. Season 1 was stellar, and, while Season 2 had its imperfections, the expanding mysteries felt organic and well-woven into the overall storyline. Season 3, in turn, started strong with the introduction of the Others’ village, but it soon fell off the rails. The attempt to include more survivors of Flight 815 into the narrative with Nikki (Kiele Sanchez) and Paulo (Rodrigo Santoro) was unanimously panned.
The unraveling of Henry Gale/Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) and the introduction of Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) felt jarring, leaving a bitter taste that left the audience hating them. Throw in the awkward love triangle between Jack, Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Sawyer (Josh Holloway), and Lost seemed to have, ironically, lost its way. Thus, it was decided by the powers that be that Season 3 of Lost would be split into two parts. This course correction involved taking a pause after Episode 6, allowing showrunners Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, along with the writing team, to regroup and rethink the show’s strategy moving forward.
The Second Half of ‘Lost’ Season 3 Started Strong, Only to Hit a Slump
The three-month hiatus that Lost went through in its third season paid off – well, mostly. Two episodes in, light was shed on Juliet’s backstory and Desmond’s (Henry Ian Cusick) predestination powers. Finally, the show seemed to have returned to form. But next up was the infamous Jack-centric chapter. With a preview that promised that three mysteries would be solved, anticipation was built, and we’d be there to see how the plot moved forward.
We were supposed to get to know more about the disappeared people, why stewardess Cindy (Kimberley Joseph) had gladly joined the Others, and the backstory of Jack’s tattoos. But, when Episode 9 was released, only vague answers were given. Plus, Jack’s flashback was a total misfire that underdelivered and proved detrimental to Fox’s character.
The Backstory of Jack’s Tattoos Was More of a Midlife Crisis Than a Mystery
“Stranger in a Strange Land” sees Jack at his cringiest moment. He meets Achara (Bai Ling), a mysterious Thai woman, at a beach by helping her fly a kite. The moment is clichéd, and the episode still manages to go downhill from there. One hopes it all ends after they sleep together, because of their lack of chemistry. But Jack becomes weirdly attached to Achara and stalks her to learn what she does for a living.
Jack goes way off-character when he discovers she works as a tattoo artist and forces her to do one on him. It’s an uncomfortable scene to watch, and it doesn’t pay off narratively. Why would Jack be so insistent about it? Achara warned him that she shouldn’t tattoo him, for there would be consequences. Said consequence comes the very next day, when Jack is beaten up by Achara’s brother and other men. We understand getting hit on by a mob is indeed cruel and painful, but why was Achara so cryptic about it? Maybe Jack would’ve chosen his local tattoo parlor instead, had he known he’d be left for dead after a gang attack.
While the producers wanted to find a way to incorporate the tattoos Fox already had on him into the story, perhaps it was best to leave them unexplained. It remains unknown if Jack ever translated what Achara put on his skin, but, on the island, Other Isabel (Diana Scarwid) translated it for the audience, reading it as “he walks amongst us, but he’s not one of us.” Jack responds by saying that might be what it says, but it’s not what it means. In retrospect, this could be reinterpreted as a subtle foreshadowing that Jack would never make it off the island. But, at the time, the whole ordeal felt like a half-baked idea that didn’t have a meaningful impact on the show.
ABC Approved the Producers Setting an End Date for ‘Lost’ Following This Jack-Centric Episode
Whereas Season 3 of Lost eventually found its way, “Stranger in a Strange Land” remains proof that overstretching the narrative of a successful show will backfire. After this episode aired, ABC approved the production team’s request to set an end date for the show. And though the final three-season plan wasn’t without its flaws, it did allow Lindelof and Cuse to tell meaningful stories through flash-forwards in Season 4, time travel in Season 5, and flash-sideways in Season 6. Season 3 proved that the constraints of only having flashbacks would undermine the show’s storytelling possibilities.
If there’s a word to describe the Lost experience as a whole, it would be imperfect. But it’s in the show and the characters’ flaws that we found a way to connect. We wouldn’t have cared about the episode’s quality if we hadn’t already made the series our safe place. At the time, “Stranger in a Strange Land” tested my week-to-week patience with Lost. However, I’m glad I stuck to watching the show until the end. It’s understandable though, how the frustration of that episode was enough to lose a part of the audience way back then.
