Lost Re-view: ...and Found

Do you remember when I laid out my plan to re-watch all of Lost and write new reviews of each episode, taking into account the full knowledge we all now have of the entire story arc of show? It's okay to answer "no," because the last time I posted such a review was more than a year ago. Yikes. But in the hopes that "better late than never" is actually true, I'm going to pick right back up where I left off, moving on to the fifth episode of season two, cheekily entitled "...and Found."

This installment received the A-list team behind the scenes. It was written by the show's head men themselves, Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof, and directed by series veteran Stephen Williams. Nothing about the episode really seems to mark it as a Very Important Episode particularly deserving of these assignments; I simply get the impression that the character stories here were ones the show runners were keenly interested in telling themselves.

This episode centers around Sun and Jin. That in and of itself is a slight tweak to the format. In the two episodes from season one that gave us their past, the first focused on Sun's perspective, while the second gave us Jin's. This episode followed separate flashback storylines for both in equal measure.

Sun's past story involved a busybody mother preparing her for a first date arranged by a matchmaker. Because Sun's father is pushing her to get married, her mother has contracted this set-up with the wealthy young owner of a chain of hotels. Sun is clearly not excited, but resigned to doing her duty in this matter. And then she meets the man, Jae Lee. He's been to America (ooo, exotic!), is charming and disarming, and responds in such a way that Sun feels free to forget some of her mother's rigid coaching and show a little wit.

But then, on a subsequent date, Sun opens up and starts to believe in a possible future with this man... only to discover that he met an American woman while he was a student at Harvard, and that he has been secretly planning to marry her in just six months. This whole arrangement with Sun has been just to placate his parents. She leaves, politely hiding her disappointment.

This flashback plays out in tandem with another story for Jin. Jin has bought new clothes he can't afford and left the tags on just so that he can get an interview at a hotel. As he's dressing for the big day, he's chatting with a friend about how a man has to have a goal in life, and his is not to be the son of a fisherman. But the friend is concerned more with love, and predicting Jin's future from his "destiny book." He says that love will look "orange" -- though confesses not to know what that means.

The interview is a mixed bag. Jin gets the job, but his boss is insulting the entire time. He mocks Jin for his background, and gives him a menial job as the hotel doorman under he condition that he doesn't open the door for "people like him." Jin works this job for a short time (having two near-run-ins with Sun), before a fateful day where a man and his young boy beg to be let in to use the bathroom. When Jin relents and the boss comes to berate him some more, Jin refuses to take any more insults. He quits on the spot.

Later, when Jin is walking alone along the river, he turns to look at a passing woman in a bright orange dress. He turns back just in time to literally run into Sun. The two have a clear and instant "love at first sight" moment, concluding the story of how the two met.

One of the more interesting aspects of this flashback is that it's not as self-contained as it seemed the first time around. The man Sun was set up with, Jae Lee, actually returns in subsequent episode flashbacks, playing a key role during the decay of Sun and Jin's relationship. But that's all down the road. What we have here is a simple but sweet story of how a couple first met. And it has very touching accents of authenticity in the near misses and formative events.

It's been my experience that many couples find out there were prior occasions in their lives where they "could have met" or "almost met," past opportunities for a connection that perhaps wasn't yet ready to happen. Perhaps Sun has to have the experience of a love snatched away from her before she's ready to meet Jin. Perhaps Jin has to have the experience of standing up to humiliation before he's ready to meet Sun. And it seems that neither of them quite fully learns their respective lesson here. Later, Sun forgets how she felt to have a love and lose it, when she stops fighting for Jin and decides to walk out on him. And Jin forgets how to stand up for himself when he allows Sun's father to walk all over him. It's not that Jin doesn't go to a dark place, or that Sun's father isn't amply intimidating -- but the lesson that came just prior to the couple's first meeting doesn't set deeply enough for them to stay together. They have to re-learn their lessons again, in the form of crashing on the Island, for their relationship to be truly put back together.

Hmm.... maybe these flashbacks are more significant than I gave them credit for earlier.

The present day story is also divided. The more resonant story revolves around Sun losing her wedding ring and going into an understandable panic. But interestingly, this simple story becomes a vehicle not just to reveal Sun, but several other characters too.

Jack tells her a story of once losing his wedding ring. He looked everywhere, even digging through the garbage and taking apart the pipes of his sink. In the end, he never found it, and secretly went to a jeweler to have a replica made. And we all know how that marriage ended up.

Hurley thinks Vincent may have swallowed the ring, and recounts of story of an old pet dog of his once eating a fistful of change just because it was mixed with a pocket full of candy. It's a story that makes Sun recall the puppy Jin once gave her, which she named Bpo Bpo -- "a kiss." It's clear that whatever roughness her relationship with Jin went through, she loves him now.

Next, Sun thinks to look in the garden she recently planted, and ends up tearing the entire thing apart in frustration. She breaks down in tears just as Locke appears, leading to another interesting character study. Sun observes that she's never seen Locke angry, and Locke lets her in on a bit of his past that we the audience know of already -- he used to get angry all the time. He says he doesn't now because he's "not lost anymore." And the secret to getting there? Anything lost is found only when you stop looking. This was literally his experience; only when he gave up on the notion of going on Walkabout in Australia did he find what he was looking for on the Island.

Finally comes Kate, who tries to console Sun that Jin is alright, but that's when Sun can keep her secret no longer. She knows he can't be alright, because she found the bottle of messages from the raft and buried it. They go to dig it up together, and Kate reveals her feelings for Sawyer. There in the dirt by the unearthed bottle is Sun's wedding ring. The metaphor is clear: in the moment she lost faith that Jin was still alive, she lost her ring; returning to the bottle, she regained her ring, and with it the belief that he may yet be safe somewhere.

The storyline across the Island -- following the tailies with Sawyer, Jin, and Michael -- is the most workmanlike component of the episode. Ana Lucia decides they're all going to travel to meet the rest of the Oceanic survivors, and split up briefly to gather supplies for the journey. Michael learns which way "the Others" came from, and instantly breaks away to look for Walt.

Ana Lucia is ready to abandon him and move on, but Jin won't have it. He's ready to strike out alone to save Michael, and his determination is so strong that Eko is persuaded to help him in the effort. The two men break off together as the rest start out on their journey.

The search for Michael includes a couple of key moments that resonate with later episodes of the series. First is the moment when Eko and Jin come across the impaled body of an "Other" than Eko identifies as Goodwin. We'll see exactly how this came to happen in just a few episodes, and see more of Goodwin before his mission as the "tailie Ethan" still further down the road.

But even more interesting is the moment when Eko detects the Others coming and, in true terror (which is saying something for a man who has thus far shown himself to be so strong), hides with Jin in the brushes. As the two peek out from their hiding place, a Peter Pan-like parade of Others walks by, dirty and in tattered clothes. Bringing up the rear is a younger one dragging a teddy bear on a rope. Creepy stuff.

With the full knowledge of what will be revealed later, we know that "creepy stuff" is precisely the point here. The entire act of the Others, primitive Island natives that threaten our heroes, is a sham, a costume drama they're putting on. In fact, it seems entirely likely that in this moment, they know they're walking by Jin and Eko's hiding place and are doing this just for dramatic effect. Certainly they can't have missed Michael, staggering around the jungle screaming Walt's name. It's simply not part of their plan to take our people right now.

Though Sawyer and Ana Lucia trade barbs and try to get under each others' skins (Sawyer: "You married? You seem suited for it." Ana Lucia: "You married? Why, you gay?"), the action predominately stays with Jin and Eko as they finally catch up with Michael. Michael is willing to be taken by the Others to be taken to Walt, but Jin brings to bear all the handful of English he's learned to tell Michael he won't find Walt now... but will in time. The three leave together to join the trek across the Island, concluding the episode as Kate and Sun watch the tide from their beach.

Ultimately, this episode doesn't pack quite the emotional punch of the Sun and Jin episodes from season one. But I chalk that up mostly to the anchor of the Michael-chases-Walt-yet-again subplot that draws focus away from the sentiment that works. Even with that, I'd still call this the best season two episode since the premiere, and grade it a B+.

Now the plan is not to go another year-and-then-some before reviewing the next episode.