Lost (Episode 6, "House of the Rising Sun")



The big story in “House of the Rising Sun” is the flashback into the life of Sun, revealing why she appears so cowed by her husband. Or perhaps I should say “apparently revealing” because the flashback left me with a lot more questions than answers.

- Sun says she’s afraid of Jin’s temper, and it’s implied he’s been physically abusive to her. However, we never see any abuse. An odd omission, I think. In fact, the only physical abuse we were shown is her hitting him, which makes me wonder if there isn’t going to be a flashback from Jin’s perspective that will put a whole new spin on the situation.

- Along similar lines we never find out what business Sun’s father is in. It’s implied that he’s a mobster of some sort (in Korea?), but I for one am not willing to make any assumptions when it comes to plot points in Lost.

- Perhaps the oddest thing about the whole Sun/Jin storyline was the watch that apparently caused Jin to attack Michael. If that is Sun’s father’s watch, what the heck was it doing on the airplane? Was he on the plane? Did Sun mean “the watch my father gave my husband as a present”? Something about that situation just doesn’t scan.


"I'm sorry honey, we have to fly United."

Back on the island we had several developments, most notably the survivors breaking into two groups, one that wants to stay at the plane wreckage (i.e. the actors who like location shooting) and the other that will be staying in the caves Jack discovered last episode (i.e. the actors who want to shoot on a set). I think the strangest development in this episode was the two bodies they found in the cave. Nobody seemed very interested if figuring out who they were and how they died. I’d have thought this latter point would be of obvious importance to the survivors. It’s possible that this will be dealt with a later episode, just as the search for the power source sending the French distress call was left unmentioned for a couple episodes. That is one disadvantage of the flashback heavy episode structure; matters of simple logistics are tending to have to wait until they can be fully explored.

Posted: Tue - November 2, 2004 at      

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