Flashback: Sun

I really love Sun. She is one of my favorite Lost characters, especially from this freshman cast. Before this episode she’d really only been presented as a secondary character—the wife of Jin who only knows about plants—but “House of the Rising Sun” is her show, and Jin is the one guest starring. It’s just too bad her first centric episode isn’t quite as great as she is.

“House of the Rising Sun” distinguishes Sun as independent, someone who can exist outside of her relationship with Jin, even though it is one that is obviously profound and significant to her. She is smart, strong-willed, and resourceful. Her flashbacks trace the evolution of Sun and Jin’s somewhat star-crossed love, from their “bubble” period (coined by Leslie Knope of Parks and Recreation as the beginning of a relationship when there are “no problems, no fights, just white wine, cuddling, and crazy amounts of… History Channel documentaries.”) to Jin’s eventual negligence of their marriage, to Sun’s resentment, and finally to her decision to leave him.

“Remember when all you had to give me was a flower,” she reminded Jin after he gave her a puppy to keep her company while he was away working for her father (who isn’t shown in this episode, though it is implied he is the kind of man you don’t want to mess with). Jin did remember the flower, and he gave her another at just the right moment, when she was on the verge of leaving him at the Sydney Airport before their Oceanic flight. That sight of that flower was enough to change her mind, and she stayed with him.

Sun’s decision not to leave Jin is the first time we know that there’s got to be something deeper to her husband than what we’ve seen (i.e.: scolding Sun about buttoning her shirt, brutally attacking Michael, etc.), that there’s got be some good in him. We got a little taste of it when he gave Sun that first flower at the dinner party back in Seoul, but the kind and sensitive Jin from that flashback didn’t stick around for long, at least in this episode.

“House of the Rising Sun” delivers another fine Lost character twist when it is unveiled that Sun speaks English, something she learned when she was planning on abandoning her marriage. The reveal wasn’t on quite the same level as John Locke’s paralysis, but it was still pretty surprising to me the first time I saw this episode. There was a nice moment in the opening scene where Sun seems to get distracted and engrossed in the flirtatious banter between Jack and Kate—and now we know why: it was because she could understand what they were saying.

Speaking of Jack and Kate, we are led to believe for the first half of the episode that their relationship is probably going to transition from innocent flirtation into something romantic. Everyone sees it too. Charlie jokes about them “verbally copulating” and Hurley asks Jack, “So what’s up with you and Kate? You guys going to move into a cave together or what?” So while we watch as Sun and Jin’s relationship dissolves via flashbacks we get the formation of Jack and Kate’s relationship in this inverse plotline. But just as Sun makes the decision to stay with Jin in the end, Kate opts for leaving Jack behind, which we will discuss a little later on.

Sadly, the rest of the Island events suffered once more from feeling rather pedestrian. I know we’re only six episodes (and seven Island days) in and the survivors are still basically strangers with the challenging task of keeping themselves alive while waiting for rescue, but there have got to be better scenarios out there than the ones we’ve been given. There are ones that work—Locke hunting boar in “Walkabout” (S1E4) or the water shortage in “White Rabbit” (S1E5)—but so often it’s kind of tedious, or just total nonsense, for instance the trials and tribulations of Shannon proving to Boone she has the ability to catch fish for herself.

While another man wearing Jin’s watch (originally belonging to Sun’s father) may be a matter of honor (those of us rewatching Lost know that the watch becomes an item of importance later on), I do not believe Jin would simply have attacked Michael as he did, language barrier or not, violent history or not. And don’t even get me started on the fakest-looking computer-generated bees I’ve ever seen (actually this probably wins that title), which seemed again like another excuse to have some “action” in an episode.

On the more plausible side, the water shortage plotline continues and evolves into a debate of whether or not the survivors should relocate inland to the Caves, the location of the only freshwater source they’ve found so far. The writers throw us a mythology bone here when Jack and Kate stumble across two corpses (which Locke names “Adam and Eve”) with two stones (one black and one white like the backgammon game pieces Locke showed Walt in “Pilot” [S1E1+2]) in the back of the Caves that, according to Jack, have been there a long time (at least 40 to 50 years, though we’re pretty sure it’s longer). The sight of Adam and Eve give Jack an idea:

These caves make too good a shelter just to be used for burial. Adam and Eve, they must have lived here. Their plane crashed or maybe they were shipwrecked. They probably found this place and knew they could survive here. Unlimited supply of fresh water, tree canopy keeps the temperature down, shields out the sun, the openings are narrow, easier for protection against predators. We don’t need to bring the water to the people. We need to bring the people to the water. I think we could live here.

Jack foolishly believes everyone will hop on board with this plan, but they don’t, starting with Kate. Many of the survivors feel that if they abandon the beach, they will miss the boat or plane that will inevitably pass by at some point. Jack’s counterargument is that on the beach they are exposed and without the necessities (water, shelter, etc.) that the Caves could provide.

In the end, some people go, but some stay, including Kate. “I don’t want to be Eve,” she tells Jack. “No one’s asking you to,” he responds, clearly wanting her to join . But, alas, she says, “I just can’t… dig in.” Jack wonders why she’s so closed off the way she is. “How did you get to be this way?” he asks. “Just what is it that you did?” But Jack is too late with this question. Kate was able to feel the connection between she and Jack growing stronger and retreats, and so Jack loses his in with her, at least for the time being.

I like this scene between Jack and Kate. Their dynamic feels very realistic to me at this point, and I enjoy that Kate is a complex character, with a past and a personal struggle that is hers to sort through, not to be resolved through the love or support of a man or anyone else. We all know her story gets a bit convoluted at some point, but here, after “Tabula Rasa” (S1E3), Kate’s decision to stay on the beach really sits well with me.

There are a couple of other pairings throughout “House of the Rising Sun”. Jin’s attack triggered some thorny, but necessary communication between Michael and Walt, a father and son who are just getting to know one another. And then there were Locke and Charlie doing a little dance around Charlie’s heroin addiction. This pairing was middle-of-the-road for me, but mostly worked. I had a hard time believing that Charlie loves his guitar more than heroin, but only because Charlie’s love for music is rooted in his Drive Shaft backstory, which always felt kind of stale to me (I will speak much more about this in my next review). If anything, the scenes with Locke allowed for him to have more crazy Island talk: “What I know is that this Island might just give you what you’re looking for, but you have to give the Island something.” What is up with that man and the Island? And, whatever is up, is it to be trusted?

I am not sure where the title “House of the Rising Sun” comes into play, other than the fact that it includes her name. I mean I sort of get it. It is named after a traditional folk song where the individual in the song is stuck in a place or situation that doesn’t feel healthy to them. It can be from either a male or female’s point-of-view; in the male version the “House of the Rising Sun” is a prison and in the female version a brothel. So are we supposed to look at Sun’s life with Jin as her “House”? And that’s why she tries to escape? It doesn’t quite fit… The only other thing I can think is that the writer, Javier Grillo-Marcuach (of Seasons 1 and 2) thought he was being clever by writing a Sun episode with a title that has some sort of Asian connotation (Japan is referred to as “The Land of the Rising Sun”). If this is the case, that would be silly and basically racist, because as we all know (except for Hurley) Sun is Korean.

The episode ends on a song played from Hurley’s discman (as it did in “Tabula Rasa”), though thankfully this one—an old Willie Nelson tune—doesn’t stick out like a sore thumb as much as the last one. But there’s something about the inclusion of these songs in general that feels off to me; even though it totally makes sense for Hurley to have a discman and still be able to listen to music on it, these popular songs just feel so out of place on the Island. The Island is still a mystery to us, pretty freaking weird and magical, and any song that they play in these scenes (that’s not from Lost composer Giacchino) kills that magic. And I guess that’s my problem with this episode as a whole. Even liking Sun’s backstory, and the Caves, and Jack and Kate and Michael and Walt, there was just no real magic to this episode, nothing that gave me those first season shivers. It only made me want more—and not because of how amazing it was, like “Walkabout”, but because when the creepy Lost title awkwardly pops up after the gentle crooning of Willie Nelson, I just felt sort of indifferent.

Grade: B-

Questions:

Who are Adam and Eve and what is the significance of the black and white stones found with them? (see S6E15 “Across the Sea”)