HOUSE OF THE RISING SUN

Or, Sun-Hwa Surprise

[Originally Aired October 27, 2004]

This is the second episode in a row named after a crappy song from the Sixties. If this keeps up I am so through with this show. Jin-Soo beats the shit out of Michael on the beach. Sayid and Sawyer break up the fight and cuff Jin to some wreckage. No one knows why Jin attacked Michael, what with the language barrier and all, but Michael blames it on Koreans not liking Blacks. Later, via subtitles, Jin calls Michael a thief. Jack and Kate and Locke and Charlie head back inland to get fresh water for the rest of the survivors. Sun gets her flashbacks and we discover she and Jin were in love, and she was a rich girl and Jin a servant back in Korea. Jin convinces her father to let them marry, but in the deal he must work for her father. This displeases Sun. He spends longer and longer hours at work and one night comes home, literally, with blood on his hands. He's agreed to do whatever her father asks, and that is apparently some pretty dastardly shit. Jin showers Sun with gifts, including a puppy, but she misses simpler times when he wasn't a thug and would just give her flowers. Back inland the trekkers find the water, in a grotto, and the remains of more wreckage. Meanwhile, Charlie wanders off to snort more smack but stumbles into a beehive, and Locke tries to save him but shit happens and they all must flee the swarm. Stumbling back to the grotto, two bodies are found. Dead 40 to 50 years, maybe. Jack concludes taking twenty-plus gallons of water to the beach everyday is more trouble than it's worth, plus the surroundings make an easily defendable position, and would make a better camp. Kate and Jack head back to the beach while Charlie and Locke look through the wreckage for anything of value. Back on the beach, Jack and Sayid disagree over moving. The camp is split into those who want to maintain the signal fire and those who want to stay someplace safer. More flashbacks as we see Sun was on the brink of leaving her husband and heading underground to escape him and her father's clutches. She changes her mind at the last minute and ends up on the plane with him. On the island she approaches Michael and asks him for help, in English. Michael gives the watch he found to Jin (it belonged to Sun's father) and frees him. Inland Locke tells Charlie he knows who he is and that his second album was kind of shitty and that he needs to quit the heroin. Locke convinces him the island will magically give him his guitar if he gives the island his smack. It's true. Charlie hands over the smack and Locke reveals the location of the guitar. I hope he doesn't break a string. Jack brings Hurley and some others to the grotto, while Kate and Sayid and Sawyer stay on the beach. (N.B. Boone, Claire, Shannon, and Rose do not appear in this episode.)