There are not too many people who will argue that the first season of Lost contained some fairly exceptional stories. Even the second season was pretty good. The third season, however, really started to fall off. Until now. It is quite possible that because the last twenty or so episodes just haven't been very good it made this episode stand out. It is also possible that this episode was just that good.

Whatever the case, this is some of the best that has come forth in quite a while from the Lost crew, and it is good to see them getting back on track.

As the beach-dwelling survivors continue to plan their ambush of The Others, another plan is in the works to try and get them off the island. It seems that Sayid, who I think I will start calling The Onion as he has so many layers to him, has managed to retrieve a set of blueprints for another Dharma station, this one called The Looking Glass.

It seems that The Looking Glass is an underwater station that is underwater somewhere off the beach, but perhaps more importantly, it broadcasts a signal that keeps the island from being found. That means if they can turn off the signal, the island might be able to be found, and they can be rescued. Now to figure out how to find the station, swim down to it, turn off the signal, get back, initiate the ambush...

The Brig was pretty straightforward. A little wacky, with Locke calling on Sawyer to whack his old man (without getting into the subject of how he actually got to the island). But fairly straightforward, other than that one little detail. Now we're going off-course. Way off-course. It's a good trip, because we get to find out where little Ben came from. Sort of.

Alongside a road - some road, apparently off in the wilds, where peace-loving people hang out - a woman is giving birth. Her name is Emily. In the process, she dies. But Ben is born. His father, distraught over this turn of events, takes a break from reality, and on the advice of a friend, heads to an island where he can get away from it all. Really away from it all. He takes his son, Ben, because he doesn't know what else to do, other than blame Ben - repeatedly - for the death of Emily. Not a good father-figure, which helps explain just why little Ben is so messed up once he gets older. It also makes you wonder why Ben says that he was born on the island, when obviously he wasn't - he was of an age where he should have remember coming. Anyway. That's for another time.

After watching D.O.C. last week, it probably raises more questions than it answers. All along, the producers have said that the survivors aren't dead. If they aren't dead, then why in the world does our new visitor who parachuted to the island - and the world at large - think that everone is dead from the crash of the plane? You could argue that the limbo theory is a cop-out, but at least it would give a bit of closure to the storyline. At this point, just getting some answers would be nice.

Regardless, now that we have a visitor to the island, the hunting party has decided that they need some help. The natural choice for help would be, of course, Jack. But since he's making nice with Juliet, for whatever reason, Jack is now out of the running as a possible solution. Next up as problem-solver is Sayid. That's a good choice, because Sayid can do a lot of things, and he also doesn't take much crap. So he throws around his charm, and promptly gets the newcomer to not like him much. That doesn't help, but he does get the satellite phone to work. Somewhat.

Lost is on the verge of jumping around almost as much as Heroes, but they haven't quite made the jump yet. Usually they focus fairly well, but every once in a while they throw in a curve to set up several story lines, or complete a few (or both). This is one of those episodes that does several things. I'm not quite sure if it works.

First, there is the Girl who isn't Penny, that we first saw in Catch-22. It turns out she's hurt pretty badly (or seems to be), so it's important that they try and help her. On the way to get help, who should turn up but Mikhail. I thought he was dead. Apparently not.

This episode focuses on Desmond, which is interesting because it helps fill in a few blanks, but it's also a bit slow-moving, because there isn't really a lot of action. It's mostly there to help fill in the blanks.

Desmond starts having visions of Charlie and his next brush with death, and when he does it gets him into a bit of a situation. You might call it a Catch-22. He can help Charlie, as he has been doing, or he can let Charlie die, which might lead to an even greater reward. Desmond isn't sure what to do. He might have to let Charlie die.

As Jack, Kate and Sayid return to the beach camp, and they bring someone with them: Juliet. While Jack is happy about this (or at least, he's not really upset), we already established that Kate wasn't happy about it in Left Behind and frankly, Sayid isn't ever really happy about anything - but due to his suspicious nature, he's even less happy about this particular development.

Because of all the unhappiness - or perhaps in spite of it - we get to learn a bit about Juliet. What does this mean? Up until now, the flashbacks have all generally involved those on the flight (or those associated with them). But here, we see someone not associated with it in any way. At least, we don't think she was. So perhaps we are learning something new and exciting. Or maybe not. At least it's different.

Kate, fresh off being caught (in The Man from Tallahassee), sees that her best girlfriend, Juliet, is coming to check on her. So she does what any sane woman does. She grabs a pool cue and gets ready to kick some serious butt. Unfortunately, all she does is make Juliet mad. Really mad. Juliet completely whoops Kate, and drops the sandwich on the floor too. That sucks. And worst of all, it sends Kate into a flashback.

It's a good one though. Way back when, while Kate was on the lam (at least, before she got to where she is now, since she is still technically on the lam), she wanted to see her mom. Sure, her mom turned her in and all, but her mom is her mom. So she was trying to figure out how to do it. And that's when she met this nice lady named Cassidy. You might remember briefly seeing Cassidy from Every Man for Himself, where she had a brief thing with none other than Sawyer.

In Enter 77, we found that Hurley and Sawyer like to play ping-pong. They must really like it. A lot. Because they are still playing when Nikki (that blonde girl you didn't see until a few episodes ago, but she must have been around for a while) comes running out of the jungle, mutters a few words, and drops to the ground, apparently dead.

The guys follow the trail into the jungle and find Paolo (the guy she always hung out with) lying there, apparently dead as well. The good news is that these two, who really added almost nothing to the storyline, aren't going to be around any longer. The bad news is that no one knew them well enough to have any idea why they are suddenly dead. I guess we'll have to look at their back-story.

For a slight change of pace, we start this episode off the island, where we see Locke in some sort of office, getting asked a series of rather mundane questions. Questions that he doesn't really seem to want to answer. He just wants his disability check. The guy is in a wheelchair - what do his biological parents have to do with that? Then he gets up and walks away, so I guess we're talking about a different disability. Nevermind.

Then we're back on the island, and there he is, hanging out with Kate and Sayid, as they watch Jack play catch with Tom (that's Mr. Friendly to you). Just as Kate's about to grab Jack, Juliet comes out and gets Jack instead, and they take off somewhere else. Guess it's good that Kate didn't jump out, or there would have been some serious fur flying.

Though I am frankly beginning to believe that this show might be for the birds, I will continue to write dutifully. For now, anyway.

So the episode opens with a back-story from Claire, of all people. I have to say that I don't recall ever seeing anything about Claire's history before. Maybe there was some, but I just can't remember seeing it. So either there wasn't any, I haven't seen it, or it just wasn't very memorable.

But there she was, in all her black-haired glory. Huh?