There is a certain understanding that as a writer, you don't want to show your hand until the game is over, but answers like Cindy's "We're here to watch" are frustrating. There is a point when something stops being a mystery and starts becoming an annoyance. The Others have crossed that line as we continually are given more obscure answers to what are already tired questions.
New cast member Isabel doesn't help matters much either. She is an enigmatic new character who Tom describes as the "sheriff" of their little group. Her scant few scenes are admittedly intriguing but does Lost need yet another new character? Whatever happened to Miss Klugh or Jacob and his list? Throwing another character into the mix seems to be bad form at this point as there are far too many questions about the characters we already have.
Flashback theater deals with Jack's trip to Phucket where he encounters a woman named Achara (Bai Ling) who has a mysterious "gift." This "gift" turns out to be Achara's ability to read a person's "true self," which she then tattoos on their body. This is something that isn't supposed to be done for or revealed to outsiders but in a disturbing scene Jack forces her to do both. The scene is a mix of passion from their preceding sexual relationship but it also has a mix of something that we've been seeing increasingly more of from Jack - anger. "A Tale of Two Cities" also gave us a glimpse of Jack's dark side when he accused his own father of having an affair with his wife. His stubbornness and unwillingness to cooperate do come into play as it allows him to bargain with Ben for Juliet's life.
Meanwhile, Kate, Sawyer and Karl make their way back to the original island. Kate spends most of the time trying to convince Sawyer that they should go back and save Jack, with Sawyer naturally disagreeing. Sawyer is given one "cute" scene with Karl where he gives him some advice. It's starting feel like Sawyer is being somewhat mishandled. Last season, when Sawyer started becoming a "softie," they aired the episode "The Long Con" and reverted the character to the one we love to hate. What happened to that Sawyer… again? It seems that all that work to make him the "heel" of the group was for naught as they have now reverted to the watered-down version. Don't get me wrong, the one-liners are fun but Sawyer shouldn't be this nice of a guy.
Finally, ABC touted this episode as the one that would contain three big revelations. Unfortunately, this seems like more of a lack of communication between ABC and Lost showrunners as there were no big revelations in this episode. Then again, some might consider Jack's tattoos and the current status of Cindy the stewardess amongst some of the show's larger mysteries. However, it was good to see that the kidnapped children were doing well but they still danced around the question of why the Others need the children. The X-Files suffered the same problems with FOX launching several "The Truth is Revealed" campaigns before various sweeps episode and the episodes would ultimately end up revealing nothing but a few scant details.
"Stranger in a Strange Land" was nothing more than a transition episode that moved Jack, Kate and Sawyer in position for a future rescue attempt. A necessary evil in episodic television like Lost but that doesn't excuse the poor execution and uninteresting story.