S3Ep2 - The Glass Ballerina (Sun and Jin's second joint flashback)

Hello my dear friends -

The opinion by the majority of Lost fans on the message boards was that 'The Glass Ballerina' was a better episode than the premiere. I didn't feel that way... while I liked that there was a little more action, we actually didn't get as much to think about theory-wise as we did in the premiere. I still enjoyed it, though... especially that last kicker of a scene. And overall, there was still enough for me to write a long-ass post about, so here we go...


THE BUTLER, ER, THE MAID DID IT

Sorry, all you Sun fans... like Britney, Sun is Not That Innocent. In the first few minutes of the episode, we learned that Sun has been a stone cold liar since about age 6. Damn, she was smooth!

Flash forward to present time and we observe that Sun's skills have only grown over the years. She has become a master of lying to Jin - from concealing her affair, to not telling him that he is the one who is sterile, to her mastery of English, to the fact that she was planning on leaving him in Sydney, to her sailing skills - it's safe to say that Sun is guarding many secrets.

But there is one thing Sun wasn't lying about, and that was when she told Another Blond Other Chick that she WOULD shoot her. Sun lived up to her word on that one. I have to admit that I was yelling, "SHOOT HER! SHOOT HER! FOR THE LOVE OF GOD, SHOOT HER!!!!"

Anyway, apparently Sun had never killed a person up to that point, according to the "I know you're not a killer" sentence uttered by Other Chick before she was shot. I guess we are not totally sure if That Other (her name is actually Colleen) is dead, but she definitely suffered some damage to her gut no matter what. And I'm sure "Danny" (previously known as Pickett) won't be too happy when he finds out what Sun did, as it looked he had a little thing going on with Colleen.

While we're on the subject of Colleen, I also got the feeling that she did not get along with Juliet, from this terse exchange:

BEN [to Juliet]: You never made soup for me...
[A woman, Colleen, climbs down a ladder and enters the room where Juliet and Ben are.]
COLLEEN: Am I interrupting something?
JULIET: Would it really matter if you were?

On yet another note, notice the innuendo with Benry's soup line that there previously might have been some sort of relationship between he and Juliet, as we suspected last week... OR, other people thought that line meant that at some point, Juliet held HIM hostage. Ponder that!


BYE BYE, BALDY




While we knew before that there was some flirting... we have now confirmed that Sun was indeed having an actual affair with Baldy. This new information swings the pendulum from 'the island performed another miracle' to 'Baldy's the father' on the Who's Sun's Baby Daddy?-o-meter.



Speaking of dads, Sun's father (Mr. Paik) is even more psychotic and eeevil than previously assumed (watch out Kim Jong Il, you got another crazy Korean right behind ya approaching from the south...), as he ordered Jin to kill Baldy after finding out about Sun's affair. However, he never told Jin the true reasons behind the need to take out Baldy. I'm sure that if Jin had known what was really going on, he would've been able to finish the job. As John Lennon sang, Jin's "just a jealous guy."

However, Jin only thought he was sent to kill Baldy because Baldy "was stealing" from Mr. Paik and Jin therefore needed to "restore the family's honor." Jin beat the crap out of him, but spared him his life and ordered him to get out of dodge. Once Jin had left Baldy a bloody, weeping mess of a man, he left the hotel and was safely back in his own car - only to have Baldy come crashing down on its hood. The three main theories on what really happened are:

1) Sun figured out who it was that Jin was going to see, and SHE had something to do with Baldy's death to ensure he never told anyone else about the affair. I highly, highly doubt this scenario.
2) Sun's father figured that Jin would not be able to seal the deal, so he sent someone to tail Jin, and THAT person threw Baldy off the balcony. Either Baldy was already holding the pearl necklace, or it was put into his hand for "special effect" to prove a point by Sun's father (though that point would've been lost on Jin). As some people pointed out, Baldy was rich enough to have figured out a plan to get both he and Sun out of the country, as he was already talking about earlier in the episode. So people don't think he would've given up that easily. Plus, what are the odds that he would've landed right on Jin's car if not thrown there on purpose?
3) However, the prevailing theory is that Baldy was in such despair after realizing that he could never have his fantasy life with Sun that after lovingly gazing at the pearl necklace that she would never wear, he flung himself off his balcony... which just so happened to be right above Jin's car. Hey, stranger things have definitely happened.

At Baldy's funeral, Sun seemed thoroughly sad, which is why I think #1 is not feasible. Since Sun's father said, "I'm told he jumped off a balcony. He must have had great shame," that leads me to think that #2 is definitely possible.

Remember that way back in the Season 1 finale, we learned that Sun's father DID know that Jin and Sun were trying to escape to the U.S., as Jin was confronted about their plans in the men's bathroom in Sydney. So at least at that later point, Mr. Paik was definitely trailing Jin and spying on both of them or else he wouldn't have known of their real intentions with the trip to America.


STEALTH MODE

When Sun was cornered on the boat, one thing many people wondered about was where exactly The Others suddenly came from. They obviously didn't pass by Sayid and Jin on land. However, they weren't wet, so they didn't come up from the water. The Hillbilly Boat did not make another appearance along side the sailboat, either... so where in the hell did these people come from? Did they have Harry Potter's Invisibility Cloak? Did they descend from the Hatch in the Sky? A common theory is that they may have tunnels underground and emerged somewhere near the Pala Ferry dock.

Regardless, the overwhelming message to Sayid on the boards was: "WORST. PLAN. EVER!"

Two last comments about The Others and the sailboat scene:
1) Colleen told Sun that they "weren't the enemy" but that they WOULD become the enemy if Sun fired the gun. So are The Others only against people who have commited murder? Adultery can slide, it's just the killers they don't like? I'm just trying to figure this out. If that's the case... once again, how does Jack fit in with Sawyer and Kate? Or is that why he's the only one being offered a chance to "go home?"
2) Now The Others have the sailboat. Damn!



IT'S WRITTEN ON THE WIND, IT'S EVERYWHERE I GO...

You've got Sun and Baldy, Sun and Jin, Kate and Sawyer, Colleen and Danny/Pickett, the possibility of a past romance between Juliet and Benry, and perhaps an Alex/Karl (guy in the cage next to Sawyer last episode) love connection going on. Love was definitely all around us in this epiosde.

I do not necessarily think that Kate and Sawyer's kiss and subsequent saucy conversation definitively answered the lingering "Who will Kate choose?" question that is supposed to be addressed in these first six episodes. Remember, she keeps asking about Jack. But, I guess we'll see. And Sawyer really only kissed her just to get a chance at swiping the gun.

However, Alex seemed genuinely concerned about where Karl was. Yes, you remember Alex, Danielle's kid who has been raised by The Others? Apparently it was her dress that Kate was given, and apparently Kate was "not even supposed to be in that cage." Small clues that I'm sure will become more relevant in the episodes to come. But I do think Alex's worrying over Karl means that he is perhaps like her - another person who was raised by The Others and doesn't really have much choice but to go along with their orders most of the time.


WALK THE LINE

When Juliet threw the water canteen to Sawyer and he poured it out, fans noticed that the logo on the canteen was the Straight Line. As in, the same Dharma logo that was on the shark, and also on Ethan's canteen in Claire's freaky flashback episode last season. Check out the comparison on my boy humpy's site. This canteen may in fact be the same one Ethan used... lending credence to the theory mentioned in the last write-up that Ethan and Juliet may have been romantically involved.


RAISED BY THE ISLAND


So we learned a tad more about Benry in this episode. As previously mentioned, he liked ribbing Juliet about how she"never made soup" for him. He told Jack that his name was Benjamin Linus, and that he had lived on the island all of his life. This caused many people to assume that The Others are all of the grown children of the original Dharma crew. Or perhaps they were the original subjects/experimentees of the original Dharma project. Or perhaps Benry was just totally lying and he hadn't lived on the island his whole life. We do know that he's a great liar, up there with Sun!

We also learned that Benry is constantly observing everything via TV monitors, a la Dr. Claw from the old Inspector Gadget cartoon.

And finally, if it wasn't obvious from the fact that Juliet had a dossier on Jack last episode, it was confirmed this time around that The Others do have contact with the outside world, and that if Jack "cooperates" with Benry, Benry will "take him home." I pasted in the original post in a section below, but someone compared Benry to the Wizard of Oz (and we already know that Henry Gale was Dorothy's uncle in that story) - as in, the Wizard himself - promising to take Dorothy back home just like Benry is promising to do so with Jack.

I couldn't help but wonder - while Benry said that they have "contact" with the outside world, has he actually ever left the island, though? Or is all the contact just via the Internet or other means/other people? Should we assume that when he was promising to personally take Jack home, that would be the first time he's left the island? I wasn't really clear on what to think about that.

While I did absolutely love the final scene of Henry rolling the tape of the Boston Red Sox World Series win and I thought it was brilliant, I also have to admit that a little tiny piece of me was dying. Because all of a sudden the show became very REAL. Dammit, I don't want to be reminded about Bush and Christopher Reeve?!?! I want to be in my own little escapism world on the island for an hour each week, is that so much to ask?!?!? Curse you, writers, for yanking me back into reality!!!

But once again, with all that said, I thought the scene was incredible and I actually got chills. And I was also honored to have been able to watch it with Boston native and Extreme Red Sox Fan, Mr. EG, who was going absolutely ballistic during the whole thing.

Let us not forget, however, the deeper meaning to Jack of that television clip. While I will personally admit to crying when first hearing the NBC chimes again after a two-month-long overseas trip, I think that Jack kicked back into man-crying mode for deeper reasons than just missing the good ol' boob tube and/or the U. S. of A...


"AND *THAT'S* WHY..."

A refresher from "Outlaws," a Sawyer flashback in Season 1...

CHRISTIAN SHEPARD: You know why they call Australia down under, don't you? Because it's as close as you can get to hell without being burned.
SAWYER [to bartender]: Why don't you leave the bottles. [to Shephard] What'd you handle, back in the States?
CHRISTIAN SHEPARD: I was a Chief of Surgery.
SAWYER: Was?
CHRISTIAN SHEPARD: Yeah, was.
SAWYER: But we're in hell, huh?
CHRISTIAN SHEPARD: Don't let the air conditioning fool you, son. You are here, too. You are suffering. But, don't beat yourself up about it. It's fate. Some people are just supposed to suffer. That's why the Red Sox will never win the damn series.


Another scene from that same episode, this time on the island:

JACK: What did she give you?
SAWYER: Nothing she wasn't willing to part with.
JACK: That's why the Sox will never win the series.
SAWYER: What's that?
JACK: Huh?
SAWYER: What'd you just say?
JACK: I said that's why the Red Sox will never win the series.
SAWYER: What the hell is that supposed to mean?
JACK: Just something my father used to say -- went through life knowing that people hated him. Instead of taking responsibility for it, he just put it on fate. Said he was made that way.
SAWYER: Your daddy, he a doctor, too?
JACK: He was. He's dead. Why do you want to know about my father?
SAWYER: No reason.


Of course, we all know that by the Season 1 finale, Sawyer had a change of heart and did end up telling Jack, in perhaps Jack's most awesomest man-crying scene ever, that he had met his father in Sydney and that his father was very proud of him.

Remember that for Jack, that conversation above was only ONE MONTH ago. Now he's held captive in God knows where by some creepy dude who is showing him a scene that not only seems impossible from a sports fan standpoint, but that also has significant personal meaning to him. Once again, BRILLIANT. Was this scene planned out two years ago? You be the judge.



POSTS FROM THE BOARDS

- Let's just hope they got the expressed written consent from the commisioner of Major League Baseball.
- I think Jin was shouting “WAAALT!” in Korean, when he was in the water.
- Jin: Marco! Hey.... Marco! Sun: Polo! Polo!
- I'm glad Sun's getting into the action, instead of being useless. Though I was totally blown away by Sun's infidelity. And the fact that she shot that bitch! Hell yeah Sun!!!
- Ben looked like a mad scientist/supervillain from an old cartoon or something when he was standing watching all those monitors.
- A few minutes before Sun killed that girl I was saying "some Other on this show better die soon," after both Sawyer and Jack both hesitated and botched their escape attempts (that kind of thing bugs me to no end).
- I loved that boring-doctor-jack-with-a-savior-complex cracked up at the idea of the Red Sox winning. And seeing that tape again was just a joy!!
- So... are the Others grown-up children of the Dharma scientists?
- Did Benry imply that he himself was going to "escort" Jack home? Did anyone else seem to think that it meant that Jack was going to be the only one going with him? This was reminiscent of the scene in the Wizard of Oz where the Wizard tells Dorothy that he will take her back to Kansas himself in the balloon, but of course her dog chases after a cat and the Wizard goes himself.
- I think it was interesting that Benry was shocked by the sailboat, which would indicate he doesn't know about Desmond, which means the others are not Dharma.
- Jack's Red Sox line? Hi-larious. Even funnier was Henry/Ben's wounded reaction to Jack's disbelief. Then he started spouting the stats of the last game in self-defense. Obviously, he's a closet Sox fan.
- Now I can't wait till someone kicks Juliet in the head.
- Uselessness, thy name is Kate.
- The lack of Jack was a good thing after last episode but I loved the ending. If I were stuck on that hellish island for 60-something days and someone showed me a tape of the outside world, I'd bawl like a baby. I felt winded for him.
- Sayid has lost major badass points. That plan stunk.
- ...Of course, one odd thing about Benry's little presentation is that he seems to be offering answers & the hope of going home to someone who up to now has shown remarkably little interest in either asking questions or *wanting* to go home, so I really don't know how effective he expects to be.
- What I loved about the ending with Jack and Ben was the "not of the island" feel to it. Does that make sense? Simply letting Jack have access to a TV? Also, I loved the in-joke about the Red Sox winning the World Series going back to the "Outlaws" ep from S1. Is it really going to be that easy? If Jack obeys Ben and co, he gets to go home? It's only been 2 months, but will Jack betray his fellow Losties for a chance to get the hell out of there? Or does Ben's deal include the other Losties? Somehow, I doubt it.
- It sucks that they lost the boat. I was hoping to see it as a set for a little while. Well, I guess we'll see the Others cruising and partying on it. Evil, aren't they? Speaking of evil, what do the Others expect the Losties to think? Ethan kidnapping Claire and hanging Charlie from a tree was their first taste of the "good guys". I mean, c'mon!
- One more observation: Benry said to Jack: "your fellow Americans" so he must not consider himself an American.


BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE

KATE: You expect me to work in this dress?
PICKETT: Well, it's up to you? You can take it off if you want.
[Sawyer looks at her and smiles salaciously. Kate gives him a dirty look. Sawyer straightens up.] SAWYER [to Pickett]: How dare you.



SAWYER: Are you having fun yet, Freckles?
KATE: Quit staring at my ass.



KATE: What the hell were you thinking?
SAWYER: I couldn't help myself -- you just looked so damn cute swinging that pickaxe. Chain gang looks good on you, Freckles.



KATE: Why'd she call you James?
SAWYER: Because that's my name. I noticed something else, too. You taste like strawberries.
KATE: You taste like fish biscuits. So what do we do now?
SAWYER: Well, Shortcake, now we wait for these bastards to make a mistake.



UPCOMING EPISODES

10/18 - Further Instructions

10/25 - Every Man for Himself

11/1 - The Cost of Living

11/8 - Episode title still TBD, it will be a mini-finale. Then Lost is on break until February when the rest of the episodes will air back to back.

2/?/07 - Not in Portland



Three last words for you about the next episode. OK, four:

LOCKE IS BACK.
FINALLY.

- e