I agree, and I didn’t mean to imply that all Koreans should be able to converse in English. I’m more familiar with Japan, where English is taught as a required subject in school, but the emphasis is on reading and writing, and NOT on conversation. I would assume that the situation in Korea is similar.
Her name didn’t happen to be Peggy Colina, did it?
Granted, I don’t know much (or for that matter anything) about the Korean eduction system, however, it’s possible that even if Korean kids are normally taught English, Jin may have missed out growing up in a small fishing village.
I never thought Sun was pregnant or that Jin could speak English. I’m glad this episode supported (if not confirmed) those ideas.
Also, I thought Walt had started the fire from the beginning. No one who wanted to leave the island would have done it. So that leaves Walt, Locke or The Others ™. The reason I figured on Walt was that he was being made to leave the island. No one would have forced Locke. I didn’t like the idea of The Others ™ just because it didn’t satisfy me in a literary sense.
I figured Locke might have done it to keep Walt on the island, but it didn’t really make sense to me.
Nice episode, but not as good as the last few. Boy, if they thought we missed the “second chances” theme before, they really hit us over the head with it this time. We get it! Before I get on to my random thoughts, put me down in the “actually speaking English column.” I was leaning that way, but Mauvaise pushed me over the edge with his/her “letter you never meant to send” logic. While you do the argument justice, I am also cursing you for getting a Goo Goo Dolls song stuck in my head…
A few random thoughts:
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Silenus, I too liked my symbolism laced with Asians in skimpy bikinis. Paradise Lost would be SO much more interesting with skimpy Asian bikinis!
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Hurley has the best line of the episode AS USUAL, “I did NOT see that coming!” He is the Reggie Jackson of LOST. The straw that stirs the drink.
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I too don’t think Sun can be pregnant. She’d be at LEAST two months and women at two months, while not fully showing DON’T LOOK LIKE THAT!
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Locke, once again is the best character and has a FEW “Locke Moments.” TOQ is SO good it is amazing. Someone needs to start an Emmy campaign for this guy RIGHT now. I KNEW he was going to say “I like it here, too.” It STILL creeped me out. And seeing his face when the raft went up in flames, I thought he saw an opportunity.
*I think Locke knew Walt did it because Walt was a bit over the top in trying to put out the fire (guilt or trying to cover up) when Locke knows Walt loves the Island. Also, Walt went out of his way to tell Locke he wasn’t allowed to leave the caves AT NIGHT. Locke knows Walt is a free spirit and wouldn’t be so submissive. I think Locke has incredible instincts and played a hunch.
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Another overt theme of the show are daddy issues. How many do we have now? Jack, Sawyer, Locke (there is a GREAT episode there. And Locke used present tense, so Daddy is still alive!), Shannon (her dad died and her step mom cut her off), Jin and Sun.
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Next week looks like we get some advancement on the larger plot. Did I see MULTIPLE guns trained on our heroes?
And then there is the non-dynamic of Claire’s Deadbeat Thomas. I wonder if Charlie will make an attempt at filling his shoes? It would be a little trite, but I could live with that.
We know Walt set the fire, but do we know whether he did so deliberately, or whether his subconscious desire to stay on the island resulted in some wish-fulfillment?
When Locke confronts him, he does look guilty, but it could be that he knows he did it, and therefore is responsible, even if he did it unintentionally, aka mind power.
Of course, that didn’t prevent him from defusing a volatile situation by diverting attention to the “others.”
I can’t help thinking that this is coming back to the political philosophies of John Locke and Jean Jacques Rousseau – with the Lockian view that individuals in a state of nature will form a social order for their own benefit and for the specific advantage of protection from “others,” contrasted with Rousseau’s general mistrust of society in favour of individualism.
I think that the way the “others” have been portrayed so far has very carefully left the door open to the possibility that they’re not a literal presence at all, but a focal point for dangerous paranoia and hysteria. (In particular, I think the the “others” are a deliberate reference to the hallucinatory whisperings that continually pushed Rousseau further and further onto the fringes.)
Locke defines the group and strengthens the center by invoking Them. It’s an old play, but it works.
Hey, two things about Shannon and Sayid I haven’t seen mentioned in this thread yet:
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They’ve been on the island a month. Why is Shannon just now building her shelter?
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Sayid really doesn’t trust himself as a judge of character, does he? One word from Boone was all it took to cool his ardor for Shannon. That really didn’t ring true for me at all.
Shannon was waiting for someone else to do it ofr her! 
My guess is that Shannon had been depending on Boone for shelter but now needed/wanted to have her own.
I’d also guess that Boone just pointed out to Sayyid what he should have already known (indicating he’s been taking Socratic lessons from Locke). It’s not like Shannon’s manipulative ways have been hidden. Sayyid probably was thinking, “Of course she’s just using me. How could I have let myself fall for that?”
I just read something interesting. Apparently when Yoon-Jin Kim first auditioned for the show, she was reading for the part of Kate.
Not only that, but although the producers didn’t think she was right for Kate, they were so impressed with her, they created the part of Sun just for her.
The beach people were recently froced from their previous spots by the tide. Shannon preumably has something else further down on the beach, which was washed away a few days ago.
Don’t forget Walt and Michael. I think everyone who has mentioned a parent has issues with them.
The only more parent-centric series this year is 24, where every character has a parent that has to choose between them and their job/ideology.
One thing that keeps freaking me out about TOQ is how much he looks like guy who was in a Swedish version of Survivor Bjorn Hernefeldt. Oh, and Bjorn means bear.
That’s how I took it to.
Inside Sayid’s brain: “Must not think with penis. Must not think with penis. Damn, she’s hot. DOH! I thought with my penis!”
Kate mentioned her dad taught her how to track. Of course, she could have been lying and she might have killed him… :smack:
I’m glad you brought this up again – I had nearly forgotten. Has the show addressed this again? Didn’t Jack say the beach was “eroding?” Beach just doesn’t suddenly wash away unless something drastically changes does it? Is the isalnd moving? Did the French Lady decide to park her nuclear sub somewhere else?
-rainy
Jin has a truly messed-up sense of honour. It’s my belief that he took his dad’s simple message to heart-- deliver these watches for your father-in-law to Sydney and Los Angeles, and then walk away-- and feels he has to finish this mission before he can win back his wife.
I also think that Sun’s cry that she was about to leave Jin really was in English-- because it’s the second week in a row that the writers have decided to bring two people to the verge of communion, but snap them apart (you’ll all remember how close Sawyer and Jack came to understanding each other, all because Jack failed to elaborate that he was in Sydney to retrieve his father’s body).
Jin does not speak English. If he did, he’d have understood his wife’s message and confessed his own role. If he did, he wouldn’t have walked up to Michael and said “boat.” If he did, he would have understood what Hurley was talking about when Hurley wanted Jin to pee on his sea urchin-induced foot wound.