On a list of "Lost" episodes, the "Los Angeles Times" ranked "A Tale of Two Cities" number 66 out of 113 episodes, explaining it was "Not bad. The introduction of Juliet is a killer, and Jack raging against the Others is fun. But many of the big revelations -- Ben's name, for example -- aren't very well handled." On a similar list, IGN ranked the episode at number 38; they called the opening "one of the show's characteristic fake-outs", and Jack's flashbacks "not nearly as interesting as his first encounters with Juliet".