S3Ep18 - D.O.C. (Sun's third solo flashback)

Hello my dear friends -

Pass the cigars around the island - Jin is the baby daddy!

I really enjoyed D.O.C. While there was not as much "hidden" stuff in the episode as there has been in the past few installments, the multiple story lines definitely kept moving along and it is clear that they have been building up to an action-packed Final Four. As I have been traveling since this episode aired, I am relieved (and so are my fingers) to have less to report on this time around, as everything that happened was relatively (key word) straightforward.

And a big "thank you" to my brother for pulling information together for me while I was gone!




ANOTHER CATCH-22

I can't exactly put my finger on why, but I was immensely digging Sun's flashbacks. At the end of the episode, I was struck by how complex of a character she is (and I HATE when that term is slapped on a person just because they deal with some "issue," so trust that I paused before writing that to make sure I meant it). We knew that she had been rebelling against her father from a young age, that she was having an affair with Baldy, that she had learned English (unbeknownst to Jin), that she was planning to leave him at the airport but had a last-minute change of heart, and that until she arrived on the island, she hadn't killed anyone. Then she killed Colleen on the island, and we found out in this episode that she was actually the one responsible for Jin's "promotion" to Senior Beater-Upper at her father's "company," which she undoubtedly grew to regret down the road. But, one could argue that she turned Jin over to do her father's bidding only to spare him from what apparently was an even worse fate - to suffer "great shame" if it was made public that his mother had been a Lady of the Night. I love love LOVED the scene when she visited Jin's father, by the way - it actually brought a tear to my eye. And I think the writers did an excellent job (over the course of all of Sun and Jin's flashbacks to date) of showing how "Mr. and Mrs. Kwon's" relationship has come full circle - from a head-over-heels couple who fell in love despite their societal class differences, to a deceitful and somewhat violent marriage on the verge of collapse, back to being lovey-dovey over the news of Sun's pregnancy. If you were to re-watch Season One, trust me, you would be impressed with how they have slowly but surely brought out the strong side of Sun's character that we only saw glimpses of in the beginning of the series. Two other scenes I enjoyed were when she was all up in Juliet's face at the beginning demanding answers, and when she threatened Jin's birth mother at the end. Sun is by far my favorite female character on the show (I know that's not really saying much, though).



I LOVE IT WHEN YOU CALL ME BIG POP-PA


In the "some people are way more nutso than I am" category,
check out this page that shows possible links (through great feats of translation) between Sun's father's company and The Hanso Foundation, and this page that focuses on the Paik Automotive logo to prove the same thing. Apparently these were the same suspicions raised in last summer's "The Lost Experience" interactive game for Crazy Fans. And lest you forgot, The Hanso Foundation is the financial backer of The DHARMA Initiative.




BABIES R US, IT WAS NOT

Back on the island, for some inexplicable reason, Sun not only decided to go with Juliet to the Medical Hatch, but also spilled her entire life story. While I can see why Sun may have figured that it was worth the risk to go with Juliet to learn about the health of her baby, why she would ever think it was a good idea to share with Juliet that she had cheated on Jin was beyond me. Now Juliet can use that against her. Dumb, dumb move.

In the medical hatch, we also saw what became of all of the decorations that had been in the room Claire stayed in during her abduction... they were all put into the secret room that was apparently where they brought the mothers to die. ?!?! Creepy.

Of course, the four most important things we gleaned from Juliet and Sun's scenes are that: 1) the baby was conceived on the island and is therefore Jin's, 2) no woman who got pregnant on the island made it past their second trimester, giving Sun basically two months left to live, 3) men are VERY fertile on the island, even if they were sterile off of the island, and 4) Juliet has been leaving reports on her time with the Lostaways for Ben on a tape recorder in the Medical Hatch.

Let's take these one by one:

1) The baby is Jin's

There were a lot of conspiracy theorists out there who thought that Juliet only SAID that so that she could report to Ben that Sun conceived on the island. Then, if Sun ended up not dying (because she had actually conceived pre-island), Juliet could finally claim victory with the treatment she had devised, and Ben would let her leave. However, the producers have already shot this one down, as you will see in the podcast debrief section. The baby IS Jin's.

Other people disputed the timing that Juliet stated (90 - 53 days = making the Date of Conception approximately day 37 on the island) - saying that technically Jin and Sun were still in a fight at that point in time because Jin had found out that Sun spoke English (Day 33). They didn't reconcile (remember, she tried to poison him so he wouldn't leave?) until the moment Jin left on the raft (Day 44), and that was literally right before he got onto the raft, so there was no lovin' until he got back (Day 48). You would THINK that the writers would be more careful than that, so I am not going to worry too much about this one and chalk it up to Juliet's estimate being slightly off.

On a related note, I must admit that I was really surprised that the baby was Jin's. I thought for sure that the reason why they had the flashback scene where Jin's father talked about raising Jin even though he couldn't be sure that he was actually his biological father was going to be a parallel to Jin unknowingly raising someone else's biological son. I also thought that it would be the easier way, quite frankly, to wrap up this whole story line - Sun would live, but she would live forever with the reminder and guilt of her infidelity. Now the plot, as they say, has thickened.


2) Sun's fate

So now, Sun apparently has two months to live. Since we are near the ninety-day mark three seasons in, two more months could roughly translate to be two more seasons. And guess what? It has widely been rumored that the show will end after Season Five. Sounds like part of a Grand Finale plan to me...

The question has also been posed on the boards about why Sun doesn't ask Juliet if she can abort the baby if they both know that neither she nor the baby will live otherwise? I have no idea if they will couch this subject on the show - but I highly, highly doubt it. You would think that if Sun was thinking that way, she would've already brought it up to Juliet.

To me, the bigger question is - is anyone going to tell Jin what's going on? Technically, only a small handful of people on the beach know about the situation with pregnant women on the island - Kate, Jack and now Sun (I double-checked the transcripts, Charlie and Claire were never told the whole story). Will anyone let Jin know that Sun's time is now limited?


3) Ultra-fertileness (I made that term up, can you tell?)

The producers repeated in the podcast that the fact that men have five times the normal sperm count while on the Island may be one of the most important things we've learned to date. I think it goes along with Patchy's statement about how everyone heals more quickly on the island, with Locke's ability to walk, and with Rose's cancer disappearing. Admittedly, Rose only FELT like her cancer was gone, we never got any hard proof, but if you remember in her flashback, she and Bernard had visited that bush doctor guy who told her of certain spots on the earth that had healing properties. I had always chalked the island up to being one of those (or perhaps only certain parts of the main island). I think the whole mega-sperm-count thing goes along with that. And quite frankly, I also think that is pretty gross! It is quite obvious that men write the show, by and large. I think in the next episode it will be revealed that men can do 100 times the normal amount of push-ups before tiring, and that they can chug 20 beers without feeling any effect. Actually, now that I think about it, there always had been a theory about The Others having super-strength - if you remember Ethan's early fights with Jack, he seemed to be almost robotic (until Charlie shot him six times). Perhaps all of these things are connected.


4) Juliet's reports

JULIET: Ben, it's six a.m. on Saturday morning. Kwon is pregnant, the fetus is healthy and was conceived on-Island with husband, he was sterile before they got here. I'm still working on getting samples from the other women, I should have Austen's soon. I'll report back when I know more.
[She turns off the recorder]
JULIET: [Pauses] I hate you.


I will start off on this topic by saying that as lame as it was that Sun told Juliet about her infidelity, it was even lamer that she did not follow her back into the hatch. Hellooooo?!?!?! It was obvious at that point that Juliet was up to something sketchy. I thought she was going to go back in there to somehow email the ultrasound pictures to someone, or go into another-as-of-yet-unrevealed secret room, but instead she left the audio report for Benry. And then of course she just had to make sure that we all know just how conflicted she is by dramatically stating (to no one) that she hates him.

This scene gave us two major bits of information:

1) Benry probably isn't too far away if this was their predetermined spot for leaving messages for each other... and,
2) Juliet was not sent as a mole to the Lostaway beach because they already knew Sun was pregnant - that genuinely seemed to be a surprise to Juliet. Instead, her purpose on the beach seems to be to take "samples" from all of the women, but of what, we can't be sure. Some people on the boards think that because she specifically mentioned Kate (Austen), that there is a good chance that The Others think Kate will become pregnant because they know about her tryst with Sawyer in the cage, and they know what good odds there are of conceiving on the Island, and that therefore the samples do have to do with seeing who, if anyone, is pregnant. I don't know enough to know what kind of "samples" Juliet could take that could determine pregnancy without being really obvious, though. I hope to God this show doesn't dissolve into Juliet going around trying to hold cups under all the women when they go #1 in the jungle or something. For all we know, the samples could be of something totally unrelated to pregnancy, and the Sun news was just a bonus for The Others.



RETURN OF THE PATCH

I just *knew* he wasn't going to stay dead.

Patchy was back in all his glory, in what appeared to be a response to the flare gun being fired. This immediately caused many people to assume that Parachutist Chick is an Other, and that she was expected. More on that shortly.

First we must deal with how Patchy has returned to life. The producers basically answered this question in the podcast debrief, but since they also said it WILL be quickly referenced on the show, I will not mention it here. If you want to know in advance, read the Official Podcast Debrief section below. If not, then rest assured that you will find out how Patchy survived at some point during the remaining four episodes.



SHE TALKS IN MYSTERIOUS WAYS

When Parachutist Chick was rattling on and on in all those different tongues (at least five), it was one of those moments when I once again regretted not learning more languages back in the day. French has gotten me nowhere except being able to read some signs in Canada, and knowing how to order a grilled ham and cheese sandwich (le croque-monsieur!) while in Paris. French Chick/Rousseau hasn't even spoken French since the freakin' pilot episode in the radio transmission?!?! C'est la vie.


I really hope that no one who reads this blog was naive enough to think that Parachutist Chick ACTUALLY said "Thank you for helping me" to Patchy, per his translation.

No, she said.... drum roll, please: "I am not alone."

D'oh!

But before we get into the theories around THAT statement, we must first address the fact that she specifically spoke a bunch of different languages to ensure she knew which ones the Lostaways DIDN'T understand, but Patchy did. I mean, why else would she say everything else in English later on? This is a major reason why a lot of people think that she, too, is an Other. She could've been trying to tell Patchy that there were other people with her that he needed to go look for.

The flip-side of that argument is that perhaps she knew that Patchy was bad, and she was lying and telling him that she wasn't alone more out of fear than anything else. Kind of like, "Hey, I'm not alone, there's five really big guys with me and they will kick your ass if you do anything to me!" But I don't really buy that one.

Another possibility is that she thinks Patchy is someone he is not. As he was the one who was actually helping her wound, she may have thought that he was with some "friendly" group that she was told about, but didn't really know how to identify. Since he didn't respond back to her statement, this is possible. It would have been an ideal opportunity for him to get more information from her, but he didn't.


SO... WHO IS SHE?


In my book, the only concrete piece of evidence we have about this woman's identity is the fact that she was carrying a photo of Desmond with her, and said his name when she first came to. This is why I think that the most likely scenario is that she was sent there to specifically look for Desmond. It doesn't necessarily mean that she is "good," all it means is that her purpose was to find him. She could've been sent by Penny, or she could've been sent by the Widmore Corporation (at the behest of Penny's father). I'm still leaning toward "she was sent by Penny" because the Catch-22 book was in Portuguese, which is what the guys in the tent who reported to Penny were speaking. Additionally, this would explain why she may know nothing about Flight 815 (or only knew what she heard on TV), because Desmond was not connected to that flight, so it wouldn't be Penny OR Widmore's concern.

However, it does appear that Patchy appeared on the scene right after Hurley fired the flare gun. So it could be that Parachutist Chick is in some way related to The Others and had a pre-arranged signal to meet Patchy. We know that there were some people, like Bushy Eyebrows Long Eyelashes Guy, who came to and from the Island often. And we know that ever since Desmond turned the fail-safe key, The Others lost communication with the outside world. If Locke really did blow up the submarine and/or hide it, then perhaps Parachutist Chick is an Other who had no way to get back to the Island other than to fly close enough to it and then eject when the magnetic force pulled down the helicopter?

Regarding the other people who may or may not be with her... options are:

1) Penny IS on the island as well, rendering Desmond's visions accurate.
2) She was lying, no one else is with her.
3) Other Others are with her.



DO NOT EVEN MENTION, MUCH LESS THINK, THE P WORD!!!


PARACHUTIST: Who are you?
HURLEY: Hugo Reyes. I crashed here on Oceanic Flight 815. A bunch of us survived, is that why you're here, were you looking for us?
PARACHUTIST: 815. Flight 815? The one from Sydney.
HURLEY: Yeah!
PARACHUTIST: No, that's not possible.
HURLEY: Yeah I know. It wasn't easy but we found food, and a hatch...
PARACHUTIST: [Interrupting] No. No, Flight 815 they, they found the plane. There were no survivors. They were all dead.
HURLEY: What?!


So before anyone goes down the path of thinking that the producers lied back in Season One when they assured everyone that the characters are NOT in that awful limbo between Heaven and Hell known as Purgatory, you should know that the producers stated once again, just a few days ago in the latest podcast, that the Lostaways are STILL not in Purgatory. Phew.

OK, now that that's out of the way, what meaning do the Parachutist Chick's statements about Flight 815 have for our beloved Lostaways?

Possible scenarios:

1) She was lying. If she is an Other, or "bad" in some other sense, she may want the Lostaways to lose hope and/or question their sanity.
2) She is telling the truth as SHE knows it. If she was sent there to look for Desmond and is in no way connected to The Others or Flight 815, then she may relaying what she knows to be true from the media. We know from Patchy's video room that there was a search for Flight 815 right after it disappeared in September. What we do not know is how that search was brought to closure. There is a possibility that there was a huge cover-up to make it seem like Flight 815 had crashed and everyone on board had died. Before you think that the media couldn't be manipulated, go see Wag the Dog. Yes, it's a fictional movie, but still. Don't be naive, people!!!
3) They were never on Flight 815. The "real" Flight 815 did crash and everyone did die, but the flight that the Lostaways were on was a different flight, that was manipulated by The Others, DHARMA or some other group, to have that specific set of people on it (who believed they were on Flight 815).
4) Desmond did something with his time-traveling that changed what happened (don't ask me to explain this one, because I can't).

I vote for #2.



OK, OK, *WE GET IT!*

Did you notice how they are now trying to make it VERY obvious that characters have been talking to each other off-camera? First, you had Charlie knowing who Patchy was because Kate and Sayid had told him. Then you had Sun saying that Kate and Claire had told her about the presence of the Medical Hatch. I think it's fair to say that we don't need to be complaining about why the Lostaways don't share information anymore.


EVERYBODY WAS KUNG-FU FIGHTING!




You may be wondering where Jin picked up those wicked moves when he threw the beat-down on Patchy. Eagle-eyed viewers spotted old karate trophies in his dad's home. Hi-YA!








OFFICIAL PODCAST DEBRIEF

I have written this section transcript-style for you once again... minus spoilers. The following is what producers Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof had to say about "D.O.C." and the next episode, "The Brig."

- So we found out that Jin is the daddy.
- And that men have 5 times the normal sperm count on the island. That may be the most important salient fact we've learned in three seasons.
- The circuit is complete now with their flashback - we learn that Sun was directly responsible for Jin getting promoted to do bad things for her father. She took the money to help Jin avoid shame if he learned about his real mother, but it ended up causing problems in their marriage later when Jin came home with blood on his hands. But she knew the consequences, her father basically told her that he would own Jin after that point.
- But what everyone is really talking about is what the parachutist said to Hurley at the end of the episode - that it's impossible that they're the survivors of Flight 815, because they found that plane and there were no survivors of its crash.
- Everyone's immediately going to say, "Those guys were lying! It IS purgatory!" What would we say to that?
- We would say that we were NOT lying and that the island is still NOT purgatory.
- What are the other possibilities then? 1) She's lying. 2) Conspiracy theory - they DID find a plane with bodies on it. Who could be responsible for that? Have you ever seen the movie Capricorn One - where they stage the moon landing?
- It will get more interesting in the next episode. She will expand upon her mission.
- What's up with Mikhail (Patchy)? We thought he was dead? There are a few explanations for that - 1) The fence was not turned up high enough, so he survived, or 2) He did die and the island brought him back to life. People probably wouldn't like the second answer. He may throw a sentence at an explanation in the future - I would stay tuned for that. But I would go with the first answer.
- Let's move on to The Brig. We wrote The Brig [e: They rarely actually WRITE the episodes themselves anymore]. It answers one big question - where the heck has Locke been? What has he been doing, what have The Others been doing? We will find out what they've been doing and where they went or are going.
- Here's what I want to know. Last we saw Locke, he was saying good-bye to Kate in the game room. But before that, the last we had seen of him was when the door was opened and his father was sitting there. I would want to see what happened in between those two moments - what he did after he saw his father sitting there. Where did his dad come from? What's up with that?
- We've been waiting six weeks to find out how Cooper (Papa Locke) got in the room. And we will find out.

Fan Questions & Answers:

Q. It was hinted at in Season Two that Desmond brought down Flight 815 by not pushing the button. But now the hatch is gone, and the helicopter with the parachutist in it met the same fate. Is this supposed to mean that there is something OTHER than the electromagnetic anomaly causing the crashes?
A. That's an interesting question - because we've seen a few crashes now - Yemi's drug plane, Rousseau's research vessel, the Black Rock is in the middle of the jungle... So the button is not the only reason for crashes on the island, but when you are talking about a 747, it's going to take something major to bring you down - more than the average electromagnetic pulse. If you're a major vessel, you're going to need the extra kick of the button not getting pushed to bring you down.

Q. Toward the end of the debate when Hurley and Charlie were debating The Flash versus Superman, there was a blue flash on Hurley's forehead. What was that?
A. That was a camera angle that caused an effect that looked like a spark. We never saw it when we edited it, and we don't mean to discount the fact that people saw the blue spark, but we didn't see it or mean for it to be there.

Q. I know that you guys said that there will be scientific or pseudo-scientific explanations for everything in Lost, but I'm hoping that there will be some bordering-on-supernatural elements. Will you at some point revisit the psychic's prediction for Claire's baby and Walt's seeming ability to predict or manipulate future events? Moreover, is there more to The Others obsession with children and babies than just the womens' inability to get pregnant? Are they interested in children who have special abilities?
A. Yes to all. And, we were drunk if we ever said there would be scientific explanations for anything. PSEUDO-science is the key - basically, if it's something that could appear in a Michael Crichton novel, like nanobots or dinosaurs or time travel, then that is what pseudo-science is to us. [e: I definitely got the vibe that they were trying to tell people that there will NOT be scientific explanations for everything and that they regret having ever said anything close to that. Which, as you know, is fine by me. Bring on the unicorns!]

Q. Are we going to get back to the four-toed statue any time soon?
A. What do you mean by soon?
Q. Before the show ends?
A. Yes.
[e: That means it won't be this season]



WISE WORDS FROM THE BOARDS

- I knew something was off with Mikhail saying she was telling him thank you. That dude has shifty eyes...I mean, eye.
- If Hell (purgatory) is a beautiful desert island with hot chicks sunbathing, women and food falling out of sky, faster healing, and screaming infants being hauled into the woods away from the camp...then sign me up, Satan!
- If they crashed on 9/22/04, then 9/23/04 was “one full day.” And if they’ve been on the island for 90 days, then Christmas is coming in just a few days.
- In addition, the "either way, I lose" stuff reiterated some of the themes of the Island, specifically 'inevitability.' Sun tried to spare Jin from shame, but brought it to him anyway. They couldn't have a baby, but she finally got pregnant, and they won't have a baby anyway, because the baby and Sun will die. Just like Desmond trying to save Charlie - the end is inevitable, only the route to get there changes.
- Sun is usually pretty smart, but not following Juliet back into the hatch was dumb. Just because someone is nice to you (or, sort of nice to you after scaring you while you’re asleep and taking you on an apparently secret trip to a secret “death room” inside an old hatch) doesn’t mean you should trust them. Although it did allow for a pretty cool scene: Juliet stops the tape recorder and says “I hate you” with a crazed look on her face.
- In regards to the wreckage of the "other" Flight 815 that was maybe kinda partially found... perhaps The Others didn't fake it, but the Hanso Foundation -- in conjunction with Widmore Industries, Paik, and whoever else -- did. The Hanso Foundation (via their branch organization the DHARMA Initiative), nutbars that they are, went to that island for a specific purpose. Whatever that purpose was, it was seemingly aborted during "the Purge." I'm not sure how badly The Others really want most of the castaways to stay there, with the exception of Walt, Locke and a couple of the baby mommas. But if Widmore (and, consequently, Hanso) had reason to believe that a new team of "subjects" had crashed there, they may have (and could have more easily) faked a plane crash in order to discourage search parties and sacrifice the Losties as guinea pigs in an attempt to do whatever it is they came to that island to do 20 years ago. Or maybe The Others did it for similar reasons. Or maybe neither of them did it and it's got something to do with Desmond's time-trippin', I don't know.
- A con on the media seems the most likely choice to me. The Others must have planted some part of the plane, or a replica of it, meant for the world to find. As far as bodies being identified, if there were no survivors, couldn't everyone have died in an explosion, and there were no human remains left? Maybe the real world just found part of the plane (perhaps the tail was recovered) and the Others put it somewhere to be found.




BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE


Desmond: I said, who are you?
Charlie: He's the guy who shot Sayid. Kate told us he lived out in that station that Locke blew up. He's an Other.
Hurley: I thought Locke killed that guy with the electro-fence thingy.
Desmond: You've got 5 seconds to talk...or I fire this gun, brother.
Patchy: That's a flare gun.
Desmond: And how do you think it will feel...taking a flare to the chest at this range?
Patchy: As your friend pointed out, I already died once this week.



Desmond: You know brother, by my count...you've killed more of them than they've killed of you.
Charlie: They started it.





[Jin grabs the phone from Mikhail and shoves it towards Desmond's face]
JIN: Phone!
CHARLIE: You stole this.
PATCHY: How could you respect me if I didn't try?
CHARLIE: How about I take your other eye? Would you respect that?
PATCHY: [Motions to his ear] Sorry, what?




Sun: [Subtitled] Why didn't you tell me you were Jin's mother?
Jin’s Mother: [Subtitled] I gave birth to him. But that does not make me his mother.
Sun: [Subtitled] You know how powerful my family is. My husband believes that you are dead. Do not force me to make that a reality.






[Hurley sits with the parachutist. He attempts to make the satellite phone work, and holds it to his ear]
HURLEY: [Sarcastically] Mom?





THE FINAL FOUR

5/2 - The Brig
5/9 - The Man Behind the Curtain
5/16 - Greatest Hits (previously called 'The Truth About Lying')
5/23 - Through the Looking Glass - TWO-HOUR SEASON FINALE and special episode afterward


There you have it. I am très excited about "The Brig" - Locke is BACK, baby, YEAH!!!! I think I'm going to have a nervous breakdown.

Enjoy,
- e