LOST- Episode 6: House of the Rising Sun

  My thoughts and prayers go out to the Hendrick family- this weekend was a sober reminder of what really happens when a plane crashes.

After a tedious recap (tedious for those of us who watch every episode three times), things kick off through the eyes of Sun.  Don't you love it when episode titles are puns?  She smells the lovely flowers and watches as Kate teases Jack about his tattoos, which she thinks are out of character for him.  Charlie disrupts the two and suggests they get a move on to fetch the water because everyone is thirsty and Mr. Locke looks eager to be off.  They finish packing up and head off- Charlie openly disturbed by the notion of Kate and Jack hooking up.  Sun takes all this in with a sad look on her face.

  Watching her husband beat a fish to death triggers a flashback to a party where Sun receives a note on a napkin from the waiter- the waiter is revealed to be Jin who does everything but wink at her.  Later, in private, he kisses her and they talk about marriage.  I don't speak Korean, but there's subtitles.  Sun wants to elope to America but Jin would rather do the right thing and ask her father for permission.

We quickly shift back to the present where Jin is in a huff and storming toward the water.  He tackles Michael from behind and starts beating the holy hell out of him, complete with ridiculous movie sound effects.  Walt and Sun scream for help, but the only thing that comes is the creepy LOST title screen.

Back to the action, Sayid and Sawyer (brawling makes strange bedfellows) come to the rescue- a textbook tackle by Sayid gives Sawyer time to drag Michael to safety.  Sayid calls for the Marshall's handcuffs which Sawyer keeps in his back pocket for reasons unknown.  They chain Jin to the wreckage and ask Michael what happened.

Off in the magic jungle, Jack leads the way to water.  Charlie suggests looking through the wreckage for useful stuff and Locke agrees, much to Charlie's surprise- I guess Charlie is not used to having any good ideas.  In a bit of irony, Jack emphasizes that they should look for drugs.  Before he even picks up one suitcase, our favorite rock star scampers off behind a tree to hit his stash.  Locke is right on top of it- not because he was performing a drug bust, but because Charlie is standing on top of a beehive.

On the beach, Michael is getting awfully tired of being harrassed- he didn't do anything!  He points out that the attack could have been a clear cut case of racism.  Sun watches silently and thinks back to when her husband got her an engagement ring.  The only catch is that he has to go to work for her father- a prospect which Sun doesn't think too highly of.

  Back in the jungle, Jack tries to cover the beehive with a suitcase, but before he can, Charlie slaps at a bee too hard, causing the hive to shatter and everyone to run for their lives.  One gratuitous bra shot later and Kate and Jack have stumbled onto a cave filled with skeletons.  Kate wonders where they came from and Jack reminds her where they are- a jungle with polar bears for goodness sake!  Anyway, the bodies have been there at least forty years according to Jack's speculation.  Charlie and Locke show up- Charlie immediately blows Island Secret Number 1- now Locke knows that they knew there were people there before them.  I don't see the big deal- he was about to find out anyway.  Locke dubs the bodies Adam and Eve.

  Sun tends to her captive husband and thinks back to the time when he bought her a puppy- compensation for his tirelessly working for her father and consequently never being home.  Before they can properly argue about their lifeless marriage, Jin has to take an urgent cell-phone call from Bossman Dad. 

  Water team is finally ready to head back, but Locke wants to stay behind to get to know Charlie better as he continues to salvage.  Jack punches the numbers in his head and realizes that it would be a lot more logical to move everyone to the waterfall than to keep coming back to fill 46 jugs.  It makes sense, though over the course of a week, he seems to have forgotten about the Giant Invisible Monster.

  At the shore, Michael realizes that his son knows nothing about him- not even his birthday.  As if being in Australia hadn't cut Dad out enough- Mom apparently never even talked about him.  Elsewhere, Sun urges Jin to let her explain things to everyone, but he refuses- her place is by his side and they are not going to explain anything to a thief!  Flashback to Jin arriving home covered in blood.  Sun is getting a fishy feeling that what Jin does for her father may not be entirely savory.  Being covered in blood that's not yours is usually a pretty big clue.  Jin reminds her that he does whatever he is told and he does it for the both of them.

  On the way home, Kate stops to tie her shoe right in front of Jack and asks him if he was checking her out.  In her dreams though, because he admits he was only thinking about how great it will be to start a new jungle society.  Kate bursts his bubble by telling him that she is not entirely convinced about the merits of his plan.

  At the second crashsite, Locke annoys Charlie by following him around.  Apparently he knows who he is and what he's looking for.  Once again, this isn't a drug bust- Locke has heard of Driveshaft and has both of their albums, which he gives his opinions on.  You know, I can suspend my disbelief that a plane could have the good fortune to crash on land and 48 people could survive, but an aging militant liking a modern rock band from England seems a little far-fetched for me.  Anyway, Locke seems pretty sure that Charlie will see his lost guitar again.

  Jack and Kate bring Sayid some water and have a civil, unspoken power struggle over what to do with Jin.  Jack changes the subject to the big move, which Sayid disagrees with.  Does that qualify as irony that an Iraqi guy doesn't want to move into a cave?  Sayid rightly asks why he and Kate weren't in on the decision making process, yet again.  Turns out, Sayid would much rather stay on the hot beach and keep the signal fire burning.  Settling down in the jungle would be like giving up on the hope of a rescue.

  Later at the beach, Jack recruits some extras and Hurley for his new civilization plan, while Sayid signs Michael up for staying right there.  Sawyer teases Kate about being caught in a love triangle with the leaders of each group.  They weigh the options of being an optimist or a pessimist.  Meanwhile, Sun follows Michael into the shallow woods and watches him chop wood.

  She flashes back to a conversation she had with her interior decorator.  Once out of Jin's earshot, the two ladies plot Sun's escape.  At the airport for their scheduled trip, a car will be waiting for her outside-  all she has to do is excuse herself, leave, and her husband will think she has been kidnapped.  Brilliant in its simplicity!  Back to her watching Michael, she approaches him and as it turns out, she can speak English!  Michael is appropriately shocked, but does manage to learn that he is inadvertantly wearing her father's watch.  A watch Jin feels obligated to protect at all costs.

  In the jungle, Charlie tries to shake Locke and this time, Locke finally asks him to hand over the drugs.  Locke only wants to help so he starts up on his crazy magic island talk- if you want your guitar back badly enough, the island can make it happen, but you have to give something in return- like your drugs.  Charlie reluctantly agrees and then- voila!- he looks up and his guitar is in a tree unscathed!  The only question is, did Locke see it there and play a head game with Charlie, or is there something to this Magic Island of Wish Fulfillment?

  On the shore, Kate finally breaks it to Jack that she is not going with him.  He would like to know why she is the way she is and what crime she committed, but she has changed her mind about wanting to tell him.  Elsewhere, Michael does a little yelling at Jin, gives the watch back and chops the handcuffs off.

  Sun flashes back to the airport scene from last week where Jack is trying to get his father's coffin on board.  She sees the clock- it's time to go, the car is waiting, but she is a sucker for flowers.  When Jin holds one up to her, she decides she can't leave him, wipes away her tears of regret and walks back over to his side.

  That night, Jack and company arrive at the waterfall to settle down.  Hurley puts on his headphones and listens to an appropriate song that asks if this is where you want to be.  Over at the beach, Walt asks his dad when his birthday is, and gets a playful headlock as an answer.  Jack and Kate both look sad that they have been split up.  Fade out...

Next week: It seems Charlie is going to get chased by that Giant Invisible Monster everyone forgot about, beg Locke for his drugs back and be responsible for Jack getting trapped in some kind of cave collapse.

On a side note, I had some problems with this installment- first no one bringing up the strange tree-pushing dangers that come with moving into the jungle.  It was never really made clear what Jin and Sun were doing in Australia.  I assumed they were in Korea the whole time.  Finally, there was no Claire, Boone, or Shannon.  I was very interested to find out if the pregnant woman would go with the doctor or understandably stay put.  I suppose these are questions left to another day, but they seemed answerable enough for this one episode.