The Other Woman (Lost)
[2] The episode was written by co-executive producer Drew Goddard and executive story editor Christina M. Kim, and was directed by Eric Laneuville.
Recent island arrivals Daniel Faraday (played by Jeremy Davies) and Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader) leave the survivors' camp without notice for the Dharma Initiative electrical station called the Tempest.
The episode furthers Juliet's back story and relationships, sheds more light on the season's new characters, and features the first appearance of Harper Stanhope (Andrea Roth).
Following the crash of Flight 815, Ben sends him to infiltrate a group of surviving passengers; Goodwin is killed by Ana Lucia Cortez after she realizes he is not a survivor.
On the night of December 24, 2004 (three months after the crash of Flight 815), two members of a science team from the Kahana freighter anchored offshore—Daniel and Charlotte—sneak off to find the Tempest.
After a standoff, Daniel and Charlotte convince Juliet that they are not going to kill anyone; they are neutralizing the gas in case Ben decides to use it again, as he had twelve years earlier in an Others-led purge of Dharma.
He reveals that Charles Widmore (Alan Dale)—the father of Desmond Hume's (Henry Ian Cusick) girlfriend, Penny (Sonya Walger)—owns the freighter and hopes to exploit the island.
"[6] Mitchell did not think that Juliet was too surprised that Ben has romantic feelings for her, but that the circumstances of receiving this information was horrifying because the character had just found out that Goodwin had died.
[8] Co-executive producer and staff writer Adam Horowitz stated that "It's always interesting to pull back another layer on one of our characters, and to see another chapter in Juliet's story on the island and bring us to where she is now was great", while fellow co-executive producer and staff writer Edward Kitsis thought that "the interesting thing about the episode is the way Ben looks at Juliet ... everything is informed by that look."
During casting in early October, Harper was described as "a tough, no-nonsense and beautiful [therapist who has a tendency to be] overly controlling and obsessive."
[17] Harper's appearance and disappearance in this scene are sudden so fans speculated that this was actually an apparition or manifestation of the island's black smoke monster.
[14] The writers wanted to explain some of the island's history in the fourth season and decided that "The Other Woman" would reveal where the gas that Ben used came from and that Dharma had stations set up for protection against hostile forces.
[21] Juliet was conceived by the writers as the next possible love interest for Jack[22] after the death of the second season character Ana Lucia Cortez (Michelle Rodriguez).
"[37] Oscar Dahl of BuddyTV called Emerson an acting "god" and said that while it was a Juliet-centric episode, [but] Ben made a bigger impression on him.
Despite his claim, Patrick Day of the Los Angeles Times pointed out that "even this so-so episode of Lost stood far above anything else being shown on network TV this season".
He described Claire Littleton's (Emilie de Ravin) appearance as heartbreaking because it reminded him of how little the character had done to advance the season's plot.
[45] The Star-Ledger's Alan Sepinwall considered the episode to be the second weakest of the fourth season after "Eggtown", criticizing the show for not previously explaining the purpose of the Tempest station and redundancy of Juliet's flashbacks.
[49] Digital Spy's Ben Rawson-Jones stated that "the episode came together nicely in the end, with an expected twist and a snog, although for a great part it bordered on tedium.
Martell commended Emerson's acting, Ben's one-liners and his "too funny for words" casual greeting to Hurley and Sawyer at the end of the episode after he is released from captivity.
"[52] Verne Gay of Newsday referred to the episode as "yet another brilliant outing by TV's best drama [that] keeps getting better"; she was not the only critic to give a positive review.
's Kristin Dos Santos thought that the fight scene between Juliet and Charlotte in the Tempest was "awesome" and suggested that Alan Dale receive a "lifetime achievement award for his parade of marvelously malicious patriarchs", such as Widmore.
[34] SyFy Portal's Dan Compora wrote that "this week's episode contributed to what is shaping up to be a pretty solid fourth season.
