Lost 3:2, "The Glass Ballerina"

[cleolinda]

Last week on Lost: HULK JACK KILL MUFFIN!

Again: all dialogue approximate, longhand notes, one viewing, etc.

This week: The glass ballerina, she go smash. Baby Sun's father interrupts her at piano practice to ask, "Did you break the ballerina?" All of you who have children, or have had younger siblings, or, indeed, have ever been children, know exactly where this is going. "No." "Are you sure?" [Nod.] "Who broke it?" "The maid." "If the maid broke it, Sun," says Sun's father, who wasn't born yesterday, "I'll have to fire her. Now. Who broke it?" "The maid," says Heartless Baby Sun. Actually, knowing her father, she's probably afraid he'll take a hit out on her. Sun's father, pissed that he can't make Baby Sun confess, storms off to fire the maid as promised, if by "fire" you mean "set up with a pair of cement shoes."

Back on Desmond's sailboat, Sun splashes her face in a sink and tells Jin that she's just morning-sick, not having a thematically-appropriate flashback, nothing to worry about, etc.

Up on deck, Sayid and Jin and Translator Sun are arguing about the signal fire on the beach--the one they'd set so that Jack and Sawyer and Kate could find them at the Others' decoy village or whatever. Look, I don't remember. I'll get season two on DVD and recap that or something. Jin's argument-by-translator is that it's been more than a day and that the Love Trio aren't coming back. Sayid says that he told Jack he'd be waiting and dammit he's going to sit here with this fire and wait, and in fact the smoke doesn't look big enough and is kind of getting blown sideways and so Sayid is gonna go start ANOTHER fire, you just watch him. "NO!" Jin shouts. Ah, the universal negative. Sun tries to argue with Jin and Jin bursts out with "SAYID'S NOT YOUR HUSBAND!" OKAY! And then Sun turns to Sayid and says, "Jin's not the only one who knows how to sail. I can help you sail the boat." Dude! What else haven't you told the man that you can do, Sun?

Shark Tank, Otherville. Muffin brings Jack a bowl of soup that she made all by herself. Jack's not eating it because Jack's lost his will to live. So Muffin goes back into the hall to report to Benry, who's tucked away in a tiny room lined with monitors, much like the one we saw last season out in the middle of nowhere. He takes off his glasses and says, somewhat wryly, "You never made soup for me."

In bursts a blonde who's basically identical to Muffin Juliet, except that she's got wavy blonde hair and a major attitude. "Am I interrupting something?" snips Bitchiet. "Would it matter if you were?" Muffin snips back. Rrrrowr! "Ben[ry], we've got a situation," says Bitchiet. "The Iraqi found the decoy village." "Great," says Benry, "that's what we wanted him to do." You know, hence it being a decoy, Bitchiet. "They have a sailboat," she says. "HOW?" Benry blurts out. Man, Benry is starting to really grow on me now that he's not the Creepy Guy They Keep Locked in the Closet. "They could find us!" hisses Bitchiet. "Can you put a team together?" "Within an hour." "Well, don't waste it talking to us," says Benry (or something to that effect). "Oh, and Colleen? I WANT THAT BOAT."

New Sawyerland National Zoo, Otherville. Sawyer hauls his shoe off at the target again to get his morning fishbiscuit (and offers half to Kate) when up come Zeke and the zookeepers (have you heard my new band, Zeke and the Zookeepers?) to put them to work. Foreman: some guy named Danny, who gives Sawyer an old-school dome-lid lunchbox and kisses Bitchiet on the cheek. Sawyer sort of snerks to himself and Danny's all, "What're YOU lookin' at?" He's lookin' at the women he's gonna be stealin' from y'all, that's what.

Boat of Tension, Sunisian Coast. "I'm sorry," says Sun, "I shouldn't have disagreed with you in front of Sayid." "You shouldn't have disagreed with me AT ALL," retorts Jin. FLAMES, FLAMES UP THE SIDE OF MY FACE. "Why did you even come?" "You know why," says Sun, looking wombward. "Because I didn't want to be [on the island] without you."

Sunisian flashback. Sun is naked in bed with THAT GUY OH SHIT SHE REALLY DID SLEEP WITH HIM! AHHHHHHHHHHH! That Guy--Jae, who was teaching her English--gets up and presents her with a pearl necklace. I'm... I'm just gonna keep my head down and keep typing on that one, y'all. "I can't wear it," says Sun, pointing out that she's married. "I don't want to share you any more," Jae declares with great emotion. "Your English is excellent. We could go away together--" And just then there's a knock on the hotel room door, and it's a bellhop, and Jae starts yelling how dare he intrude except that oh shit the bellhop's brought Sun's father with him and ohhhhhh noes. Sun's father sees Sun and Sun visibly flinches. "GET DRESSED!" he snaps. I'm still not entirely sure why Sun's father was there, or how he knew to be there, but... so bad. So very, very bad.

Slave camp, Katebabwe. Danny informs them that Kate's gonna chop rocks (chop rocks? chop rocks?) and Sawyer's gonna haul 'em. "You want me to work in this dress?" says Kate, indicating her pretty, pretty sundress. Danny smirks and says, "No, you can take it off if you want." Sawyer turns and gives Kate the How you doin' look and she glares back at him and Sawyer, who knows what side his bread is buttered on, turns back to Danny and says, "How dare you!" Danny continues: if they try to escape, or they talk to each other, or they don't work fast enough, or maybe they breathe particularly loud, they're gonna get shot. "SHOT?" cries Sawyer. "What, we don't even get a warnin'?" "I said SHOCKED!" shouts Danny, brandishing a taser. "Now get to work!" (Sawyer: "I got a question, boss--" "No." "She got to ask a question!") "Not until I see Jack," says Kate defiantly, even as she seems to expect a tasin'. So Danny turns and shocks Sawyer, who falls to the ground and convulses. Sigh.

Office of Terror, Jinmark. "We have a problem," says Sun's father, slapping down b&w pictures of Jae on the table. "This man has been stealing from me." "Stealing what?" asks Jin. "NOT IMPORTANT! YOU MUST PUT AN END TO IT!!" "You want me to send him a message?" offers Jin helpfully. "NOT A MESSAGE! PUT AN END TO IT!!" "I cannot do that," says Jin. "That is not my job." "YOUR JOB IS WHAT I SAY IT IS!!" 'Then I can no longer work for you," says Jin, getting up with a courtly bow. Jin, are you new here? "YOU DON'T GET TO QUIT!" roars Sun's father. "THIS MAN HAS SHAMED ME!!11!" And then Crazy Capslock Mafia Father gives Jin a scary shoulder grip (Jin kind of shoots his shoulder a bad touch! bad touch! look) and tells him that since Jin has married Sun, Jin is his son now, and his shame is Jin's shame. You know, Crazy, you could expedite this entire process with the simple phrase "Because he is screwing your wife."

Galley, Boat of Tension. Jin chops a fishhead with feeling. Sun and Sayid call him out on deck to look through some binoculars at... the International Gazebo of Pancakes. "The dock is overgrown with seaweed," says Sayid (I think he said seaweed; I kind of missed a few words here), "so whoever was using it, they're not here now." Oh, the irony.

Slave camp. Kate chops rocks. In her sundress. Sawyer becomes preoccupied with trying to figure out if they also gave Kate underwear, as far as I can tell, because he keeps staring at her ass. "GET BACK TO WORK!" snaps Danny, Master of Rocks. Meanwhile, Kate hears someone pssssting at her from the foliage. It's some girl who reminds me, for some ineffable reason, of Liv Tyler. Have we seen this girl before? Did she help Claire? Is this Alex? I can't remember. (ETA: Yes, this is Alex Rousseau.) Some Girl wants to know if Kate saw Carl back in the zoo cages, but unfortunately, she's asking the wrong captive, because Kate has no idea who she's talking about. Which suggests to me that Carl wasn't someone the Others planted to test Sawyer; Carl really was locked up for some infraction, maybe, and really was trying to escape, and something really bad really has happened to him now. Really. "Where'd you get that dress?" Some Girl asks. I think Some Girl is ADD. "They gave it to me," says Kate, nervously trying to make sure Danny, King of Tasers, hasn't noticed anything amiss. "Oh. It's mine," says Some Girl. "You can keep it, though--it looks better on you." And Some Girl scampers off. Kate kind of straightens up and shakes the secretive look off her face: "Quit starin' at my ass, Sawyer." "Gimme somethin' better to stare at," he jackholes.

International Beach of Pancakes. Sayid's building a second signal fire, and he wants a lot of wood. "Why are you lying to me?" Sun says all of a sudden. "What would you know about lying?" Sayid says coolly (o snap). "You're putting our lives in danger!" says Sun. So Sayid lays it all out for her: "I'm fairly certain that Jack and Kate and Sawyer have been captured. The dock was actually covered in fresh tracks, most likely made yesterday." "But you said--!" "That was the lying," says Sayid. "The fire is for the Others. They'll come for us, but they won't get here until nightfall, at which point we can ambush them. I will take two hostages and kill all the others." Sun manages one question in the face of all this logic, and that one question is, "Why two hostages?" "One to make the other cooperate," says Sayid. If only he had a taser, he'd be in business. But until the fire's done and it's too late for them to leave (for some reason)? Sun needs to keep lying to Jin.

Sunisian flashback. Jin comes home for dinner, and it's awkward. He mentions that Sun's father came to see him, and this look of terror sweeps over her face: "Oh [SHIT OH SHIT WHAT DID HE SAY I'M SO SCREWED]?" "He called me 'son' for the first time," says Jin. "Why?" asks Sun, which... kind of tells you everything you need to know right there. So Jin tells her that he has to deliver a message, and Sun, without even knowing who "the message" is going to, begs him not to, even offers to run away with him and start a new life and Jin's all shouty with the "THIS IS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE MARRIED TO YOU" and Sun replies with "YES BUT IS THIS WHAT IT TAKES TO BE MARRIED TO YOU?" and Jin gets pissed off and storms out to kill, unbeknownst to both of them, Sun's lovah.

Back over on the International Beach of Pancakes, Jin walks up to Sayid and demands, "Gun." Sayid's kind of like, "Wha?" WOMAN, TRANSLATE! "He knows what we're doing," Sun translates with slow, growing horror. "He says he understands English... better than we think he does. He knows I betrayed him." Sayid hands over a gun, because this is more domestic drama than he signed up for. "Do you know how to--" begins Sayid, and Jin takes that gun and totally makes it his bitch. Lock and load, fuckers. Sayid turns to Sun and says, "I think you'd be safer in the boat." Hee! He also tells her about a gun under the blue something in the somewhere, which she'll need if the Others get past them, and Sun says, very melodramatically, "If they get past you, that means that my husband is dead, and I won't care anymore." And Sayid kind of looks at her for a moment and says, "Yes, but the gun is under the blue something..."

Slave camp. Muffin and some shaggy young guy are flirting. She looks over at Sawyer staring at them and feels pity, so she hands him her canteen of water. And he turns it upside down and pours it all out. O, SNAP. And then he looks over at Kate, hot, ragged, exhausted Kate--to whom you could have given that water, dumbass--and marches over there and kisses her. This is the giant make-out kiss from the previews, and... I'm still not sure why it happens, because there's this very sad, almost desperate look on his face--not to get all mushy on you here, but it's the look of a man who feels awful that someone he loves is suffering. I mean, it's totally hot and all, I'm just not sure why he thought a romantic interlude in full view of the Others and, more to the point, Danny, Lord of Electroshock, was going to solve anything. (Well... more on that in a minute.)

So of course, shit proceeds to go down. Sawyer get a rifle butt to the head and everyone's pulling out guns and throwing punches but Sawyer does manage to wrest a rifle away, and probably would have gotten away with it, too, if it weren't for that darn Muffin very calmly holding a gun to Kate's head. So Sawyer puts the rifle down and gets another good shocking. Kate, like Jack, is also losing her will to live, because she barely even blinks at all of this. She just looks incredibly worn and defeated.

Night shift, IBOP. Sayid and Jin are lurking in the foliage all ready to rumble. Back on ship, Sun's trying to light the range and put a kettle on when she hears footsteps up on deck. She grabs the gun out from under the blue something, and we see like five people climbing on board in the dark. Greaaaaaaat.

Back in a Jinnish flashback, Jin is in his car mustering up the steel to go kill Jae, and I'm pretty sure this would have been a whole lot easier if Crazy Capslock had just told him why. So Jin goes up into the hotel ("Do you know who I am? Do you know why I'm here? [No, seriously, tell me why I'm here, they won't tell me]") and throws Jae through a wood screen and starts beating him to a pulp and Jae cries like a little girl. A little girl with a sexy bald head, I guess. Jae just keeps weeping and saying "I'm sorry" over and over--I don't know if he knows that Jin is Sun's husband, but I have a feeling that he's the only other person who knows exactly why he's got to die. Jin crams a pillow down over his face and pulls out his gun and WHOA this is totally hardcore. This is not a man who's trying to scare someone; this is a man who knows what he's doing. And Jin keeps trying to pull the trigger and he just. can't. do it. Finally he throws the pillow aside and starts shouting, "You will leave this country and you will never come back! Start a new life! Any contact at all, and I WILL FINISH THIS! YOU DON'T EXIST." Mostly because Jin is going to be totally screwed if Jae ever shows his face again. Jae weeps. But Jin goes back down to his car and he sits behind the wheel and I was totally expecting a gun to come out from the side of the screen or something because one of the Mafia henchmen saw that he didn't kill the guy, so I was totally surprised when JAE'S BODY LANDS ON THE HOOD OF HIS CAR WTF. Jae has thrown himself from the balcony for love of Sun, as symbolized by the pearl necklace still clutched in his hand.

Night shift. "They're not coming," says Sayid. Mmm, tastes like irony.

Bitchiet climbs down below to find Sun pointing a gun at her. "Let me off this boat," demands Sun. "I can't do that," says Bitchiet. "It's not my decision. You won't shoot, Sun. I know you, Sun Paik Kwon. You're not a killer. I am not the enemy--we are not the enemy. But if you shoot me, we will become the enemy." And then Sun totally shoots her. AHAHAHAHAHAHA.

Back on deck, the Others open fire and back on the IBOP the men (stupid! stupid!) start shooting back (and Sayid is totally in his element here, I might add), while Sun tries to open a hatch on the boat and Jin jumps into the water to swim after her. Sun manages to get out, at which point Zeke sees her and, rather helpfully, causes her to lose her balance and fall into the water before the Others can shoot her, and the boat glides away. After about five minutes of Jin shouting tragically in the water, Sun swims up and they are reunited. Awww.

Funeral, Sunisian flashback. Sun's on an overlooking hillside when her father confronts her all, "You shouldn't be here." "And you?" she asks. "I do business with the young man's father," says Sun's father pleasantly. Capslock is stone cold, y'all. "I am told that he jumped from a balcony. He must have felt great shame. Now GO HOME TO YOUR HUSBAND." I don't know how he managed to forget to slip in a "WHORE" at the end of that. "Will you ever tell Jin?" asks Sun. "IT IS NOT MY PLACE TO TELL HIM," her father capslocks irritably. Gah, Sun, you should know these things. It's the father's place to take out hits on their daughters' lovers, not to actually inform their spouses.

IBOP. Sun is shivering on the beach, and Jin brings her some kind of blanket--something they brought on shore before they lost the boat, I guess--and kisses her cheek. "I don't know what I'd do without you," he says. "Both of you." Sayid then comes over and apologizes: "Next time I will listen to your husband, for I, like the lowly woman, have no right to contradict him." This may or may not be a direct quote. I'm just saying. "We should go," adds Sayid. "It's a long walk."

Zoo, New Sawyerland. The Others shove Kate and Sawyer back into their cages. "You okay?" she asks wanly. "Never better," he jackholes. That out of the way, Kate launches straight into, "What the hell were you thinking?" "I couldn't help myself," he says. "You just looked so damn cute swingin' that pickaxe." That's not what the look on his face at the time said. Again, I'm just saying. And then Sawyer gets a sly look on his face. "Two of those guys got some fight in 'em; the rest, not so much. Most of these boys never seen any real action." And Kate starts to smile, because she realizes that Sawyer picked a fight to test their captors out. (Was the kiss part of that, or was it just a bonus?) "Those zapper things got the safety on 'em." Now, I'm not sure if he said a safety or the safety, because the former is more of an FYI, but the latter would indicate that he didn't get shocked at all. Well, maybe the first time. But at least one of those times, if he said the safety, he was faking it. Slick bastard. (ETA: Ah, he said "a safety"--referring to the reason they were able to shock him but he couldn't shock the Others back when he wrested a taser away from them. I missed that part.) "That blonde woulda shot you," however, he informs her. "Why'd she call you James?" asks Kate. Sawyer looks at her for a moment. " 'Cause that's my name." Did Kate not know this? I can't remember who did or did not know what anymore.

"I noticed something else," he jackholes again. "You taste like strawberries." Kate kind of laughs in a sad little way: "You... taste like fishbiscuit." Awww. Rather than ASK HER WHERE SHE GOT STRAWBERRIES, DUMBASS, Sawyer proceeds to tell her ("Well, Shortcake"--HEE) his plan, which is to wait until the Others screw up, because clearly he can take most of them. Except that Benry happens to be watching the entire conversation in his little monitor room. Sigh.

Benry goes to visit Jack. "Hello, Clarice Jack," he says, looking more and more Young Christopher Walken every time I see him. "You know, it's crazy--a week ago we were in opposite positions. You know, with me in the... and you..." Jack is totally not responding to any of this. I think they broke him. "I know you were angry that I lied, Jack, but--hell, do you blame me? If I'd told you I was one of the people you called the Others, it would have been right back to Sayid and his... fists." There's a really uncomfortable pause before Benry decides to go with "fists." I'm not gonna think about this for too long, because I don't like where I'm going with it. "I want for you to change your perspective. And the first step in doing that would be to introduce myself honestly. Hi. My name is Benjamin Linus (?), and I've lived on this island all my life." Wow, does THAT explain a lot. "Aww, not gonna shake?" he says to a near-catatonic Jack, and then, "Bring it in, please." And a big TV, kind of like the kind you'd have in your school media center--you know, on the tall cart--gets wheeled in. "Where are Kate and Sawyer?" Jack grits finally. (See? He put Kate first.) "They're fine," says Benry, "and they're... close. That's all I can say about that." Jack gets snitty with Leader of the Pack over the fact that he basically knows everything, because that's his job. "That's all I choose to say about that," Benry corrects himself. "If you cooperate, we'll send you home." "Like Walt and Michael?" says Jack, voice dripping with sarcasm. "Yes." "If you could get off this island, why would you still be here? You're stuck here just like the rest of us!" "We're still here because we choose to be here," says Benry, and he starts rattling off the date the plane crashed, the fact that "today" is November 29th, 2004--"We do have contact with the outside world. That's how we know that the United States reelected George W. Bush. Christopher Reeve passed away. The Boston Red Sox won the World Series--" And Jack starts laughing so very, very hard. "No!" cries Benry, his face coming to life: "They were down three and [baseball baseball baseball, baseball baseball]!" Benry then turns on the TV and lo, a tape of the Sox winning the Series is playing. Jack gets up and gets really close to the screen and starts gazing at the TV with an almost hungry look, and tears actually spring to his eyes. "That's home, Jack," says Benry. "That's home, right there. If you trust me, when the time comes, I'll take you there. I will take you home."

Wow, that was totally creepy.

Next week: Hey, what did happen to Eko, Locke and Desmond? Apparently they are going to get around to telling us! Also, Hurley informs Desmond that his underwear has been blown off.

(You know, I remember an article from a couple of weeks ago where one of the producers listed off a bunch of things that weren't going to happen on the show, most of them obviously outrageous that no one would expect to happen anyway, but tucked in there was "Desmond running naked through the jungle." And then the producer added, "I could be lying about any of that.")




October: Domestic Violence Awareness Month

Comments

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

In this case, isn't it because Kate actually had strawberries for... wait, was that the day before, or the same day, or... now I'm all confused again. I wanted him to ask how she'd eaten strawberries, basically.

[laurelin-kit.livejournal.com]

And then the next thing he'd say would be "Give me my fishbiscuit back!"

[cleolinda.livejournal.com]

Cliche or not, I love that she followed that up with, "You taste like fishbiscuit."

I also keep trying to imagine that whole scene from the Others' perspective. "The hell--?"

[laurelin-kit.livejournal.com]

You know, at first I thought she said something about him tasting like whiskey, and so I was rolling my eyes even more. But fishbiscuit totally buys that scene back for me. Awesome.

Heh, they have their own personal reality tv show soap opera! I'd be milking it for all it's worth. (Which...creepily, is what they might do.)

[sialater.livejournal.com]

Well, how long has it been since she ate strawberries? At least 24 hours, right? I dunno bout y'all, but 24 hours after I've eaten anything without a toothbrush coming near my teeth, my mouth just tastes like, well, icky morning breath, to which my husband will attest.

However, I do appreciate the writers attempting to make fun of that cliche. Notice how the next nickname he called her was 'shortcake?'