Lost Recap: The Glass Ballerina

I am loving Lost again!! I’ll be honest, with all the repeats and the Hatch business, I lost (no pun intended) a bit of interest in the second half of last season. But the first two eps of this season have been really interesting and I find myself right back in it.

You know who else is into the show? Michelle, our fabulous Lost recapper. Lost is NOT an easy show to recap, so my hat is off to you Michelle for for writing such detailed and fabulous recaps.

So are you watching Lost? What do you think about the new season so far?

Title: The Glass Ballerina
Original Airdate: 10-11-06

Tonight, we visit with more of our castaways, as the storybranches out to cover more characters that weren’t seen last week. Are Kate and Sawyer still living in the cages? Are they still performing their circus tricks? Perhaps they’ve learned to run their maze well enough to earn a liver treat to go with their fish biscuits…yum!

FLASHBACK: Sun, as a child, breaks a glass ballerina, which shatters brilliantly on the floor. When confronted, she tells her father that the maid did it. He tries to get her to recant her story by telling her that he’ll be forced to fire the maid if this is true. But she sticks to her guns and tells her dad the maid did it. Turns out Sun is not afraid to lie…a pattern that will serve her well later in life. And in this episode.

Jin, Sun and Sayid are in the boat, still waiting for Jack to respond to their smoke signal (don’t forget, they don’t know they’re actually at the “fake” Others camp, or that Jack and crew have been captured). Jin wants to leave, but Sayid wants to wait longer. Jin pulls out his Angry Possessive Husband card and tells Sun that she should agree with what HE wants, and that they will have to leave when he wants because he’s the only one who knows how to sail the boat. She pulls out her Julia Roberts in “Sleeping with the Enemy” Card and tells Sayid that SHE knows how to sail and can help him sail the boat. I don’t know what to make of Jin and Sun’s relationship…secrets, lies, power struggles, betrayals. I bet they’re the couple with whom most people in America can best identify.

Back in Jack’s aquarium, Juliet brings in soup for Jack. I happen to LOVE soup. That being said, I can’t say it would make up for the fact that crazy scientists/rednecks were holding me hostage in a dank aquarium on a freaky island. Jack apparently feels the same way and ignores his meal. Juliet is approached by Henry Gale/Ben (“You never made soup for me,” he tells her. Yes, he really said that, and even that seemingly innocuous line is creepy coming from him) and a woman we come to know as Connie. Connie tells Henry Gale/Ben (henceforth known here only as Ben) that Sayid, Jin and Sun have a boat. Ben wants the boat. Ben tells Connie to make a plan to get the boat.

FLASHBACK: Sun is in bed with Jae, the hotel magnate’s son from last season; at one point, Sun thought he was interested in her romantically, but eventually he became her English tutor. And obviously more, based on this scene. He gives her a necklace and she rejects it, telling him that she’s married. He tells her he is tired of sharing her. Just then…Sun’s father walks into the hotel room (say what you want about all of the crazy and unexplainable things that happen on the show, but for me, this event may be the most inexplicable yet. Why would Sun’s father be allowed to just walk into an occupied hotel room? What exactly was his business there? Did he follow her? The Others be damned – this is the real mystery to me). He is mortified when he sees her and tells her to get dressed.

Meanwhile, back on the island, Kate and Sawyer are released from their cages and are now on work detail, smashing rocks and carting them away (you didn’t know you were watching “Prison Break,” did you?). It looks like the work is meaningless and without real purpose (maybe someone is observing them?). The obnoxious guard warns them:

“If you do anything at all that pisses me off, you’re gonna get shot.”

I love that. Direct, honest, straightforward. So what does Kate do? She announces that she will not work until she sees Jack. The guard tasers Sawyer. Sawyer falls on his ass. I laugh. Sawyer gets pissed. (I wonder if they’ll make this “Sawyer gets tasered” a regular event on the show, sort of their signature event every episode. I think I might like it).

FLASHBACK: Sun’s dad asks Jin to take care of Jae (don’t forget, Sun’s dad is apparently in deep with some sort of big-time crime syndicate, so we know what “take care of” him means. We all watch “The Sopranos.”) Sun’s dad doesn’t tell Jin about his daughter and Jae; he just says Jae stole something from him and he needs his honor back (didn’t Desmond use words eerily similar to this when talking to Penny about her dad? And look what happened to him. Oh, wait – we don’t know what happened to Desmond yet).

Back at the rock quarry, Sawyer unabashedly checks out Kate’s ass. A woman hiding in the trees asks Kate if she’s living in the cages and if Carl (the young cage-dweller from last week) is still there. She then tells Kate that the dress Kate is wearing really belongs to her, but she can keep it. We’re in the middle of this, and we’re discussing wardrobe possession? Really? My sisters and I used to have clothing wars all the time, and they were ridiculous then, but they were nothing compared to this one. This just seems…weird.

On shore, Sayid, Jin and Sun see a dock and decide to tie up the boat on shore. Sun calls Sayid out on his plan:

“Why are you lying to me, Sayid?”
“And what would you know about lying, Sun?”

Jeez. As usual, it appears that some people on the island know more about other castaways than can be explained. That, or it was a totally random comment that just happened to hit too close to home for Sun. Yeah, probably the latter, but who knows? Sayid admits that he’s building a fire to attract the Others; when they arrive, he’ll kill them all but two. Why keep two, you ask? “One to make the other cooperate.”

Of course. And that’s exactly how the Others are using Kate to keep Sawyer in check, and vice versa. I love parallel storylines.

FLASHBACK: At home, Jin tells a nervous Sun that her father asked him to deliver a message (again, remember who Sun’s father is, and what the “message” probably entails). Sun tells him he doesn’t have to do it. Jin argues that he does because that’s what it takes to say married to her (some men do dishes, Jin feels it necessary to follow his father-in-law’s orders to kill people…some families are just less ordinary than others, obviously). Jin leaves to deliver the message.

Back on the island, Jin asks Sayid for a gun. BIG REVELATION: Jin knows what’s going on because he understands English better than he’s let on to anyone, even to Sun. I didn’t see that coming…I mean, just because he seemed to know everything they were saying to each other on the boat, and even used some English words himself. Anyway, he shows Sayid that he knows his way around a gun (and is frighteningly proficient at it – I guess Sun has kept her secrets, and Jin has kept his).

Now things get really good: Juliet (from Jack’s aquarium) joins the work crew and gives water to a tired, grimy-looking Sawyer, who appears to be flirting with her. Sawyer takes the water and promptly…dumps it out. My grandmother would call this “cutting off your nose to spite your face,” but it took me a long time to understand what she meant by that, and I don’t have time to explain it to Sawyer, because…HE WALKS OVER TO KATE AND KISSES HER. Just like that. Plants a big, deep, wet, passionate one right on her lips. Top 10 TV kiss, easy, and it was totally unexpected, so bonus points. Unfortunately, Sawyer is promptly bashed in the head by a guard, but they wrestle and Sawyer gets the gun. Alas, Juliet regains control by holding a gun to Kate’s head (one to keep control of the other, you know) and getting Sawyer to give up the gun. Sawyer gets tasered and falls down. He gets pissed. I don’t laugh.

FLASHBACK: Jin beats up Jae, per his father-in-law’s request, but, remembering Sun’s insistence that he doesn’t have to do this, he stops short of shooting him. Rather, he tells Jae to leave the country and to have no communication. Of course, Jae thinks all of this is because of Sun and that Jin is warning him to say away from his wife. Jin leaves Jae, bloody and frightened, and walks to his car. While he’s sitting in it, Jae’s body falls from the hotel-room balcony and lands on the hood of the car. He’s holding the strand of pearls he wanted to give Sun. Did he jump? Probably. But he pissed off a guy involved in organized crime, too, so all bets are off.

At the shore, the Others have, inexplicably, made it past Jin and Sayid and are now actually on the boat, where Sun is waiting “safely.” Connie confronts Sun and tells her: “I’m not the enemy. We are not the enemy.”

Well, then, I’m at a loss to explain the guns, the kidnapping, and the work camp, just to name a few things. Connie tells Sun that she knows Sun will never shoot her. So…Sun shoots her. The commotion stirs up an old-school shootout on the dock, Sayid and Jin vs. the Others, before the Others take off with the boat…with Sun still inside. She falls overboard after one of the Others shoots at her. Jin meets her in the water. They’re wet. They kiss. They’re happy to see each other. I so don’t get that relationship.

FLASHBACK: At Jae’s funeral, Sun’s father tells her that it’s not his job to tell Jin what was really going on between Sun and Jae. Guilt is a bitch. It will haunt you forever, and Sun’s father knows this.

Sayid concedes that Jin was right all along, and that his plan was foolish and he shouldn’t have put them in danger. Too late now, dude. It’s dark, you have no boat, and it’s a long, long walk back to your camp. Get moving.

Sawyer and Kate are escorted back to their cages, where there’s more heavy flirting between bars:

“Chain gang looks good on you, Freckles,” Sawyer croons.
And they discuss their kiss:
“You taste like strawberries,” he tells her.
“You taste like fish biscuits,” she replies. But in a nice way. She likes him.

They discuss strategy for overpowering guards while Ben watches their entire exchange on a bank of TV monitors. He goes to see Jack, who is sitting forlornly in the corner of his aquarium (I have beta fish, and every time I see Jack in his fish bowl, I can’t help but think that the beta fish look like they’re having more fun than Jack is. But they’re all fun to watch, in different ways). Ben tells Jack that his name is Benjamin Linus and that he’s lived on the island his whole life. They do have communication with the outside world, too, according to Ben. To prove it, Ben tells him that their flight crashed on September 22, 2004, and they’ve been on the island for 69 days. In that time, George W. Bush was re-elected President of the U.S., Christopher Reeve died, and that the Red Sox won the World Series.

This is a great scene: Ben offers a recap of the Sox being down 0-3 in the ALCS to the Yankees, but tells Jack that they come back to win it and the World Series. Jack laughs; he tells Ben that if he wanted him to believe him, he should have used a team other than the Red Sox winning the World Series. So Ben goes to video tape:

“Back to Foulke, Red Sox fans have longed to hear it.” [GMMR: those words STILL give me the chills]
I don’t know if Jack is more surprised that the Sox won it or that Ben really does have access to the outside world and he’s watching a tape of a recent event. Regardless, Ben promises that he will take Jack home if Jack does what he’s told. What does that mean, exactly?

In the words of Ben, “Patience.”