Lost, or Why Hasn't Charlie Taken His Shirt Off Yet?

So, it occurs to me that I have spoken of many a post to come, and indeed made it sound as though these posts would find their way onto our blog within a set amount of time. Like, before the end of linear time. So that I keep the linear time promise, and so that I don't end up summarizing the entire first season of Lost for you... or, er, not all at once, anyway, I now present to you...

Lost: The Last Two Episodes. (In which Charlie doesn't take his shirt off. DAMMIT.)

(I do warn you now, my memory is extremely unreliable. While I can usually be fairly sure of WHAT happened (though I might throw in some monkeys or ninjas or pirates for fun), I'm not always sure WHEN it happened, especially with a non-linear format like Lost's. So, please bear with me.)

So, as we all know, each episode of Lost thus far has centered on one character, and their life pre-PLANE CRASH OF FIREY DOOM!!! (DOOM DOOM DOOM!!)

The episode before last was all about the Korean couple, and also, apparently, about Charlie NOT TAKING OFF HIS SHIRT. DAMMIT. So, the episode opens with Jin (the Korean gentleman) rushing up and KICKING THE CRAP OUT OF MICHAEL! OH MY GOD!!! (Yeah, I'm totally not kidding.) For reference sake, Michael is the African-American gentleman. So, Jin is kicking the EVERLASTING SNOT out of Michael, and his wife, Sun, is, naturally, freaking out. As is everyone else on the beach.

Flash back to pre-FIREY DOOM. Scene: a very fancy dress party, late evening. Sun (looking very pretty with long hair, I must say) is giggling with her friends. Jin walks over and offers her a drink. BUT THERE'S A TWIST!!! (I like capslock tonight...) Jin is a waiter! OH THE SHAME! Sun giggles a bit (obviously very much likes Jin), and he walks off. Later, Sun is standing by herself, looking out over the scenery, and Jin walks up saying, "miss, you forgot something". Then, of course, they kiss. Aaw. Inevitable conversation follows about whether or not Sun's father (the rich industrialist type) will approve of Jin. Jin gives her a very pretty flower and assures her he will. Aaw.

Back to the beach, Jin is still kicking the crap out of Michael, and trying to drown him in the water. Haha, it was too funny, really. Anyway, Sayid and that annoying kid pull them appart, someone goes and fetches the handcuffs from the woods, and they handcuff Jin to a part of the wreckage. Sun is reasonably upset, and says she'll go talk to the others and try to explain. Jin wants to know how exactly she's going to do that (a good point, indeed), and says that he place is by her husband.

Flashback number two. Sun meets Jin outside a... um... robot factory. Run by pirates. Jin says that Sun's father has given them his blessing, and that they can marry. Sun is surprised... BECAUSE IT TURNS OUT THAT JIN IS A ROBOT!!!!! Okay, I'm kidding. She's surprised because she didn't think her father would agree. Jin says they can marry as long as Jin takes a year of management training, and then works for Sun's father for a year. This does not seem to go over well with Sun... BECAUSE SHE'S A ROBOT AND HAS NO HUMAN EMOTIONS!!!!! Okay, that last part was a lie.

Meanwhile, back on the island, el Doctor Fantastico, Freckles, the crazy old man, and (sigh!) Charlie (WITH A SHIRT, DAMMIT!) have all gone to the caves that Jack discovered in the last episode, chasing either the ghost of his dead father, an evil doppleganger or sorcerer, or his own hallucinations (YOU NEVER KNOW WITH THIS SHOW!), to get fresh water. Charlie wanders off to partake of his pixie dust, and Locke (aka the crazy old man) follows him, which Charlie discovers after taking out his baggie, only to have Locke tell him not to move. Charlie gets defensive and tries to hide the drugs, but Locke explains that he's standing on top of a beehive. Charlie reasons that beehives are supposed to be in TREES and that, logically, these bees SUCK. Jack and Freckles come upon them, and try to rescue Charlie from a mighty stingin' but Charlie and his irrational fear of bees ("Just calm down!" "If I could calm down it wouldn't be an irritional fear, now would it?") makes a funny move, cracks the beehive, and angry bees make him pay most heartilly for it. Inevitably, as they run away, Jack and Freckles whip their shirts off. BUT DOES CHARLIE?! NO. NO HE DOES NOT. DAMMIT!

Back to the flash backery, Sun comes home to find a puppy in a box. Clarification: a live puppy in a box with no lid, thereby letting air in for the live puppy. Let's not be creepy now. Jin arrives and apologizes to Sun for being away so much, and hopes that the puppy will keep her company. Sun still doesn't seem happy, however... BECAUSE THE PUPPY IS A ROBOT!!!! ... cough.

I think at this point Jack and Freckles decided to come back to the beach with the water, leaving Charlie and Locke to salvage what they could from the wreckage Jack found in the caves, and on the way back Freckles inevitably tried to flirt with Jack, to which Jack replied, "...wha?"

Return of the flash backs! Sun is sitting with the dog (clearly some time has passed, or this is some kind of... mutant dog... with... mutant aging powers... that's possible too!), and Jin bursts in and runs for the bathroom. Sun chases after him, asking him what's wrong, and then she sees that his hands are covered in blood. So she asks who's blood it is (a logical question, indeed). Jin inevitably gives her a snerky speech about how he does whatever her father asks, and does it for them. Like most dolt men in this situation, he does not seem to notice that SUN IS VERY UNHAPPY, DOLT. Argh. Men.

Back to the beach, Jack and Freckles arrive on the beach, and Jack begins telling Sayid that they need to go live in the caves to survive, lest he start to peel. Sayid gets all huffy and tells Jack that their best chance of survival is to stay on the beach and wait for a plane or a ship. Jack tells him that he's unwilling to stay without some aloe vera gel. Freckles unsuccessfully tries to look distraught and angsty.

Flash backs: the second coming. Sun and Jin are in their apartment with an interior decorat...ING ROBOT!!! AAAH! Ahem. Interior decorator. She's very chipper, and tells Sun that she's very lucky, and her husband has said she can have whatever she likes for the room. Jin inevitably gets all huffy and tells them to bugger off and take the dog with them, as he's making a very important phone call. Or something. I don't know, he's just being a prick. So Sun and the interior decorator disappear into the bedroom, where things get interesting. The "interior decorator" (NOTE THE QUOTATION MARKS!!! Oooooh! Something is afoot!) asks Sun if she's been "taking her lessons". Sun says that she has. The "interior decorator" asks if she's sure that she cannot reconcile with her husband, and Sun says that she can't. So they go over a plan -- at the airport, Sun will excuse herself at eleven o'clock and there will be a car waiting for her. Her family will assume she has been kidnapped, and once her family assumes she is dead, Sun can move anywhere she likes. OH, THE TWISTINESS OF THE PLOT! IT IS LIKE A PRETZEL! A DELICIOUS PRETZEL OF INTRIGUE!

Back on the beach... um... pirates have attacked? No, that's not right. Let's see, Freckles was being angsty -- Jack asked her what she did (she's the criminal, remember) and she says, "you had your chance to know" as she gazes out at the ocean, trying her best to look all distraught and angsty. Yarf. Charlie and Locke are still salvaging, and at some point Locke asks Charlie whether he misses his guitar. Charlie is rather surprised (ROBOT! cough.), and Locke says something to the effect of, "just because I'm over fourty doesn't mean I don't know music." And proceeds to tell Charlie he's a fan of Drive Shaft (which earns him many cool points!)

Also, Sun gets a bottle of water from a rogue pirate and gives it to Jin. She then walks off into the jungle, and comes upon Michael, who is chopping up bamboo with a machete. She approaches him slowly and he gets rather unnecessarily ticked off, and snerks at her for a moment before she says, in English no less, "I need to talk to you." Michael is not unduly surprised.

At this point, we come to our final flash back (aaw), which involves Sun and Jin at the airport. Jin is in line, and Sun is looking anxiously at the clock -- it's eleven. She can see the car outside, but she just keeps staring at the clock, and starts to cry a little. She looks back at Jin, who in PARTICULARLY BASTARDLY FASHION chooses that ONE MOMENT TO NOT BE A BASTARD, and smiles at her and produces a flower just like the one he gave her at the beginning of the episode. She smiles back at him and continues to cry, and finally goes to join him in line. He gives her the flower and notices that she's crying, and asks if anything is wrong. She tells him that the flower is too beautiful, and the two of them continue on with their passports.

Back on the island, Michael storms over to Jin, starts yelling at him (all the while pointing the machete at him, which is pretty funny), and waving a watch at him. He says something to the effect of, "so that's what this was all about? I found this in the wreckage. Thought, 'why let a $50,000 watch go to waste?' But you know what? YOU REALLY DON'T NEED TO TELL TIME ON AN ISLAND!" He then throws the watch at Jin, winds up with the machete (and really looks like he's about to hack Jin in two) and severs the chain between the handcuff and the wreckage Jin is handcuffed to. Sun and Jin are relieved, Michael wanders off with his machete and his righteous anger.

Then they do the general wrapping up type stuff -- Charlie finds his guitar, cries a little (aaw), I THINK he gives his drugs to Locke, as this is the situation in the next episode, but I missed a few moments because I despise commercials and wasn't paying attention, and, of course, KEEPS HIS BLOODY SHIRT ON. DAMMIT.

Sayid and Jack have also been trying to convince people to either stay on the beach or come to the caves respectively, and Freckles is still angsty about her decision to stay on the beach cos she luuuuuurves Jack. Sun and Michael also exchange knowing glances (somewhat uncomfortably on Michael's part) and then the episode more or less ends.

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So! There you have it! The episode-before-last in a nutshell. I would very much like to speak of the Charlie-centric episode of last week, but this took an hour, and I think my wrists are about to spontaneously combust, so I shall post a comment on this message about the next episode at a later date.

Also, will post: Prydain post, game post and... maybe something with pirates or monkeys relatively soon. Oh! Also, as it turns out, I cannot upload the Peter Pan soundtrack for you, as it is 50 megs, and I only have 10 megs on my web space. Boo-urns. So I shall burn you a copy and bring it over for our night of FUN AND GAMES AND HOBBITS! Always hobbits... Anyway, will also be responding to the fourth, fifth and sixth Tolkien quizzes tonight (which you've not touched yet! Respond to those so I can post the answers, ye blasted wretch and so forth!). Anyway, I think that was more than enough for last night and... yup, see, my wrists just burst into flames. Dammit.