Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Lost ep 2: The Glass Ballerina
Just finished watching this week's ep of Lost, and CTV cut into the end of the ABC feed and cut it off completely (argh) as Jack was staring at the television playing the Red Sox's victory so I had to watch the CTV feed that came on at 11 to find out what I'd missed. But that said, I thought this episode was even better than last week's.

As I thought, we didn't get to see anything about Locke et al, but instead focused on Jin and Sun. The episode was called "The Glass Ballerina," which puts more emphasis on the small incident at the beginning. Sun breaks a glass ballerina, but rather than admit to her father what she'd done, she lets him fire the maid, insisting that she was the one who'd broken it. Twenty-odd years later, Jae Lee kills himself because Sun won't 'fess up and be with him instead of Jin.

Highlights for me:
-Sawyer kissing Kate
-Danny saying if they step out of line, they'll get shocked, and Sawyer saying, "We'll be shot?!"
-Alex!!
-Sawyer telling Kate she tastes like strawberries. That was TOTALLY a Buffy line for all of us Buffy fans out there -- in a season 6 ep of Buffy, Rack is this "magic dealer" who is dealing serious dark magics to Willow, and he reaches into her aura and tells her that she tastes of strawberries. This episode was co-written by Drew Goddard, who was one of the major writers on Buffy in seasons 6 and 7. Yay, Drew! (BTW, Rack nicknames Willow "Strawberry" after that so let's see if Sawyer does the same... I do love that he immediately calls her Shortcake.)
-Jack laughing when Benry tells him the Red Sox won the World Series. Since his father's favourite saying to comment on truth and fate is, "Well, that's why the Red Sox will never win the World Series," we know that him seeing that clip on the television has changed his entire world view.
-Sun shooting Colleen after she says you're not a killer and you won't shoot me.
-Sawyer finally telling Kate that his name is James.
-we get a real time of how long they've been on the island, and a connection to the outside world, which is awesome. November 29th. To give some perspective of how long ago that was, "Raised by Another" aired on December 1, 2004.

Did you notice:
-when we see Sun as a little girl, they use the same house that Walt grew up in in Sydney (you can see that same wooden octagon beam structure on the ceiling)
-Benry's got his own Pearl station in the Hydra -- he's watching 6 televisions, and one is on Jack, one on Kate's cage, one on Sawyer's, one on the hallway outside Jack's room, and the two others aren't clear. One of them is obscured by his head, and one of them appears to be alternating between a bed and a jungle. Could it be looking at somewhere else further away on the island?
-Benry didn't know about the boat!!! What's with something going on on the island and Benry not knowing about it?? Have we ever seen him genuinely baffled about something?
-the new chick, Colleen (one of the prostitutes on Deadwood) seems to be very jealous to see Juliet and Benry having a private conversation, and then she turns around and acts intimately toward Danny (who we've known until now to be Pickett)
-Sayid tells Jin and Sun that the important thing is to kidnap two of the Others, because you can use them against each other to make them do things. It's exactly what the Others are doing with Kate and Sawyer. If Kate steps out of line, Sawyer gets zapped, and if he steps out of line, they hold a gun to her head. What's most interesting about that is that Sawyer gets zapped when Kate asks about Jack; the thing is, they didn't need a stun gun to send volts through him when she asks about Jack.
-Sawyer calls Danny "Boss" all the time, like he's done hard time before and is used to referring to the guards that way
-Juliet seems to have been put there to make both Jack and Sawyer trust her. Neither one does.
-Kate still has a look on her face like she sorta knows what's going on, and feels terrible about what is happening to Sawyer. I'm still convinced they've asked her to be part of some scheme against Sawyer. She's not acting like herself.

Questions:
-it appeared that Sun slept with Jae Lee, but did she? She was saying no to him, but personally, it looked to me like she was saying no to the affair continuing. I think she really did sleep with him. And if she did, does that mean that she's carrying his baby, or is there still a possibility that it's Jin's?
-did Jae Lee really kill himself, or did Paik know that Jin wouldn't go through with it? Did he have a henchman in there to finish the job that Jin wouldn't?
-what sort of labor are the Others doing? is it all a front?
-what was Alex talking about? Is she involved with Carl? What did she mean when she mumbled something about "not supposed to be in the cage"? Who wasn't, Carl? Kate? Sawyer?
-Is Alex in on what the Others are doing, or is she a victim, too? Since the dress Kate is wearing was Alex's, did they do some social experiment to push Carl and Alex together in the same way they're trying to push Kate and Sawyer together?
-how much English does Jin understand?
-Benry says that he's always lived on the island. Is that true?
-Considering Steve was killed when the Others came from the water, why didn't Sayid think of that instead of leaving Sun alone on the boat??
-what will happen to Sun now that she's shot Colleen?
-why was Sun suddenly so subservient to Jin again? These two swing a little wildly sometimes, and there's an inconsistency to their characters that can be annoying at times. One minute Jin is the world's sweetest man, the next he is telling her to NEVER question him. One minute Sun seems to be this strong, independent woman, the next she's saying, "Only if my husband says I can."

Ze numbers:
-Jin is staying in room 1516... blooper: when Jin gets off the elevator, you can see the 2 by the numbers, as if he's on the second floor. Not only would 1516 not be on the second floor, but a jump from a 2nd floor balcony probably wouldn't do much damage to a person.
-when Sun is playing piano as a little girl, the metronome is set to 116

Linus:
Benry tells Jack that his full name is Benjamin Linus. Linus was one of the three sons of Apollo (think Apollo bars on the island). All 3 of the sons were named Linus, and they all ended their lives badly. (One killed by Apollo, one killed by wild dogs, and one, a musician, was killed by Hercules by his own instrument.)
More importantly, Linus Pauling was a chemist who won the Nobel Prize twice, once for chemistry, once for peace. Perhaps this Linus is aiming for a similar thing?

Next week on Lost: John Locke has lost his ability to speak! I hope it's not permanent; I love listening to his preaching. I've heard a spoiler about Eko that is similar to this, so it's interesting to me how they'll be dealing with different outcomes of the blast. I cannot WAIT!!

6 comments:

Crissy Calhoun said...

i agree, i agree! i thought the episode was awesome.

it's interesting that Sun's character is more like Sawyer than we thought -- she'll lie and shoot when she needs to. And Jin locking and loading like a pro ... kinda scary.

i'm dying to find out what Benry wants Jack to do. And whether Jack wants to go home bad enough to do it.

Blondie said...

I thought this episode was fantastic!!

My thought was that perhaps it was Sun that killed Jae. Maybe she IS a "killer" after all...

Nikki Stafford said...

WOW... ok, my brain must be fried with way too much television because I NEVER thought of that, Blondie! That's an awesome idea... I was going to say in my blog that maybe the Others don't know Sun so well after all, and if you're right, that is certainly true!

Crissy Calhoun said...

oh lordy. Maybe that's why he was holding the pearls -- cause Sun was there. If Sun is a killer and pregnant with the child of the man she murdered to protect her web of lies ... snap!

The Chapati Kid said...

That totally makes sense: because isn't she holding the pearls when Jin goes back to the apt.? Or the box, anyway? But maybe she didn't literally push him. Maybe she drove him to his death. Either way, creepy. BTW, is it just me, or were her boobs looking bigger in this episode? (I've been reading too much awfulplasticsurgery.com these days.) And I still can't get over Monalilly.

Anonymous said...

I too think Sun finished off Jae. She proved Collen wrong when she shot her - not a killer indeed!