On ‘Lost,’ the Others know it all

The Others. They're just like us.

That was the first revelation of the season premier of "Lost." The unseen enemies of Jack, Sawyer, Kate and company actually have daily lives, complete with book clubs and plumbing problems, just like normal people. The only difference is that on days when random planes fall out of the sky, the reaction isn't "oh no, how horrible," but "oh great, there may be survivors we can use in our psychological experiments."

As even the most casual viewer knows, those survivors were located and studied over "Lost's" first two seasons. Season 2 ended with Jack (Matthew Fox), Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Sawyer (Josh Holloway) held captive by the mysterious Henry Gale (Michael Emerson). This year picks up where the last left off, with the three captives at the mercy of whatever the Others have in store.

And though Henry Gale — whose real name is apparently Ben — offered Kate a nice breakfast, it doesn't appear that any of the three can expect their time to be a vacation. This portion of The Island seems more like a tropical Guantanamo Bay, if the terrorist holding pen was instead run by psych students looking to run amusing experiments on their bewildered human subjects.

Too much information?
One fact was made apparent: The Others sure have a lot of information about their reluctant neighbors.

Part of that may be due to old-fashioned clandestine intelligence. In the opening flashback, Henry Gale tells Ethan and Goodwin to race down to the crash site and mix in with the survivors. Each met an untimely demise before they could send much information back to the base camp, but the Others have demonstrated that they know exactly who they're dealing with.

That was evident in the treatment of Sawyer. The wildest of the three prisoners, he was the one who was placed immediately in a cage designed to hold bears. Though a brief escape attempt got him a good Tasering and a trip back to the cell, he did earn a measure of satisfaction by figuring out the secret of the Skinner box and earning his "treats" — water, pellets, and a fish biscuit.

Kate was a little luckier. She got a shower and new dress before that lovely breakfast by the ocean with Henry/Ben, marred only by his insistence that she wear handcuffs. But the food, dress and scenery came with a warning.

"I did all these things," Henry/Ben said, "so that you will have something to hold on to. Because these next two weeks are going to be very unpleasant." For now, that unpleasantness consists of time in the bear cage right across from Sawyer's, so the two can make loving eyes at each other when they're not snacking on fish biscuits.

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