After a somewhat lackluster premiere episode last week, Lost comes back with a pretty decent Sun and Jin centered episode. As we saw last week, Jack, Sawyer, and Kate have been captured by the Others. We also got to see a little bit into the life of an “Other” with their lifestyle, facilities, and that the fake Henry Gale’s name is actually “Ben”. So far I don’t really see a reason what the Others want to do with them, but hopefully they have some reason to keep them captive other than forcing them to waste time doing nothing.
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We open the episode this week with a flashback to a childhood Sun who breaks a glass ballerina and blames the Maid. Her father, Mr. Paik, senses that she’s a liar, but she is steadfast that she didn’t break it. To quote George Costanza, “You don’t let somebody lie when they know you’re lying. You call them a liar!” Could this be a look into the “evil Sun” that we haven’t yet seen in the first two seasons?
As we jump back to the current time, Sun, Jin, and Sayid continue to sail Desmond’s boat around the island and finally clear the mountains to reach the dock where Jack and co. were captured by the Others. Sayid’s fake plan that Jin catches on to (he’s not really dumb) is to create a signal fire for Jack to see, but the real plan is to lure the Others out, and capture two of them for interrogation. I guess Jin would pick up at least some English considering that he’s been on the island for about 70 days with people that almost all exclusively speak English.
Flashing back to the past, Sun has an affair with her English tutor Jae Lee when Mr. Paik interrupts them and subsequently sends Jin after Jae to kill him. After Jin chooses to beat him up and yell at him to go to America instead of killing him, Jae decides to commit suicide anyway when he jumps off the building landing on Jin’s car killing himself. “Yes, splat. Exactly. Splat. That’s where I come in. On splat.”
Converse to Sayid’s plan, Ben’s reconnaissance team has already spotted the boat and plans to take it from them. Meanwhile at the Others’ camp, Sawyer and Kate are put to work at a rock quarry to do some seemingly pointless work. What is Sawyer doing anyway just pushing that wheelbarrow around without any other equipment? Did the Others think he would be too violent with a pickaxe to trust him with competent tools?
The first real twist of the episode comes when Alex Rousseau makes contact with Kate behind some bushes. We already saw her in a few episodes in season 2, but it’s the first time we’re seeing her this season is a possibly expanded role that might be the key to the group’s escape. She also asks about Karl, the caged guy in last week’s episode, and comments that Kate’s dress is actually her own.
As the episode winds down, Sawyer unsuccessfully tries to break free and the Others manage to steal Desmond’s boat leaving Sayid, Sun, and Jin on the beach by themselves. Lastly Ben reveals his last name as Ben Linus and that he’s been living on the island his entire life, but he can still get information from the “outside” world including what news events have happened since the crash. Henry even pokes fun at the Yankees by showing the Red Sox winning the World Series. (fail)
Next week we finally get back to the main beach where our other main characters will make their first appearance of the season. When we finally see what happened at the site of the hatch we will figure out who survives and who lives. Let’s hope that Mr. Eko is still there and that the show will recapture the mystery of the first two seasons by revealing some of the many secrets that have built up so far. The show is getting better, but still not up the the caliber of quality as in season 1.
They should have had Jin go to the hotel owner and try to get some money to fix his car just like George at the hospital in “The Bris” episode.