The wheels are now in motion for the home stretch of season three. This was a great episode that served as a setup, a beginning, and a sign of the end. It was smartly written, and it outdid itself with a great twist at the end. It even gave us some answers! In short, a pitch-perfect episode of Lost.

The title, "One of Us," was a clever riff on season two's "One of Them," the episode in which Ben - then Henry Gale - first appeared. In that one, Ben was brought back to the Hatch and locked up in fear that he was an Other. In this episode, Juliet is brought back to the beach, the knowledge that she's an Other out in the open, but "proves" herself as an honorary member of the Flight 815 survivors. I love it when the show gets all circular like that.

But it was all just a little formulaic, right? The left-behind former enemy is met with apprehension, fear, and hatred, and is treated like an outcast at first. Then a crisis happens that allows her to utilize both her knowledge of the enemy and her general nature as a good person. Her handling of the crisis, in turn, allows her new family to accept her. Strongly executed, but still, as soon as Claire got sick, you could tell where it was going, right?

No.

In a great twist, Juliet is actually still very much working for Ben - he left her behind with her consent, and he triggered Claire's sickness that allowed Juliet to save the day. "There'll be a big fat crisis for you to solve," he told her when she expressed doubts that the survivors would take her in. Ben - and the writers - cleverly used the formula to sucker them all into accepting Juliet. At the end of the episode, we're left with a send-off that also serves as a grave clue of things to come. "See you in a week," Ben told her.

Hmm, a week. Since we're sixteen episodes into a 22-episode season, we can assume that whatever the Others are planning will coincide nicely with the end of season three. And until then, we have a mole in our midst.

Many of us suspected that Juliet was a total mole all the way, but that didn't stop the reversal at the end from being extremely affective. Still, I think we're meant to pretty much believe her story about how and why Claire was kidnapped. No woman has been able to conceive on the island, but the Others needed more babies and test subjects, so Ethan was sent to give Claire injections to keep her and her baby alive. When he knew Hurley would find out he wasn't on the plane, he panicked and kidnapped her (and Charlie). We still don't know how Ben remotely activated whatever they put in Claire - did he say it was a tumor? - but since we saw in Juliet's flashbacks a pregnant woman dying on the island, we can assume that most of her story was true.

It's also an extremely nice bit of evidence added to my theory that Kate and Sawyer were only kidnapped to mate and procreate. A lot of people - recently myself included - have gotten a little tired about still not knowing the full nature of the Others, but the show has done a good job of giving us some under-the-radar information, little by little.

In a great episode like this, a flaw can stand out even more obviously. I hated, hated, hated the scene with Juliet, Sayid, and Sawyer. Let's think about this. Sayid and Sawyer tentatively team up to get answers out of Juliet, renegade-style. The problems: (A) Why on earth would they choose the absolute worst time to do so? Neither of them in their right minds are going to risk Claire's death. (B) They already know that the Others know all about them - Bakunin revealed that to Sayid. And yet we're supposed to be all impressed by Juliet's very primitive "you guys aren't perfect either" rebuke just because she mentions some incidents in their past? Everyone knows Sayid's a torturer, and I doubt many people would be surprised to know Sawyer's past isn't quite squeaky-clean. But no, oh no, she knows about us, let's suddenly stop this and give her Claire's medicine back. Nothing in that scene made any sense whatsoever. What should have been a defining and cool moment on the show - Sawyer and Sayid forming an alliance - gets shoved to the background and makes them come across as jerks.

But I digress. The big question, aside from what exactly the Others are planning and where they went, is why Juliet is still aligned with Ben. Her main goal, which was re-affirmed in her flashbacks, is getting off the island at all costs. That gives her roughly the same motives as Jack and co. - which I believe is the main reason why Jack trusts her. (Aside from wanting to have sex with her, of course.) My guess is that Juliet still believes in the work the Others are doing with childbirth and all that. Or, she thinks its futile to get off the island now that the submarine's gone, so she might as well stick with the people she's been with for the past three years. Or, Ben has another way of getting off the island. Or, she knows there's going to be a showdown, and is placing her chips in the Others' camp. (Or none of the above - what do you think?) Still, it will be interesting to see how it plays out once she's forced to reveal her hand. I'm betting she still has a few double-crosses left in her.