Rewatching LOST: 1.17 “…In Translation”

Jin comes under suspicion when Michael’s nearly-completed raft is destroyed by a fire, leading Sun and Jin to a turning point in their relationship. Shannon also reaches a turning point in her budding romance with Sayid.

• Sun steps out onto the beach wearing a bikini bathing suit, and when Jin sees her in what he considers indecent public attire, he freaks out, leading to a heated argument between the two of them. Sun lands on the ground when Jin begins to drag her out of sight, and Michael runs in to intervene. When things almost come to blows between Michael and Jin, Sun ends it by slapping Michael hard. Michael is left stunned and alone when they walk away, into the jungle. Later, Sun speaks to Michael privately and explains that she did it to protect Michael from Jin, because Michael has no idea what Jin is capable of.
• At the caves, Jin suspects something is “going on” between Sun and Michael, but Sun denies it. Jin retreats to Hurley’s golf course to blow off steam.
• Shannon and Sayid begin openly flirting with one another, their growing feelings towards one another no longer uncertain. Later that night, Sayid visits Boone to “extend a courtesy,” informing him that he and Shannon were becoming an item. Boone warned Sayid that Shannon was notorious for liking older men and using them to get what she wants; and that Sayid fit the bill here on the island. The next morning, Sayid takes Boone’s advice to heart and tries to let Shannon down easy, but she immediately realizes he’s been talking to her brother. Shannon takes off into the jungle to find her brother, but only finds Locke, who hasn’t seen Boone all morning. Locke offers her some advice, too: if she’s interested in Sayid, she should focus on him and just leave Boone out of it, no matter how hard Boone tries to feed off her attention. That night, she returns to Sayid and kisses him, explaining that as Locke told her, “everyone gets a new life on this island,” and she wanted to start hers with Sayid.
• Michael continues work on his raft, and as he nears completion, Jack warns him that the survivors are talking to each other about Michael’s intentions. Michael explains that the raft will only hold four people, and there’s only one spot still open. Jack asks who the third passenger is after Michael and Walt; it’s Sawyer, who traded some needed supplies with Michael for a spot on board.
• Late that night, Kate and Sun are alone in a tent on the beach. Kate asks Sun how much longer she’s going to let Jin treating her so poorly. Sun replies that Jin wasn’t always like this. Before Sun can explain why Jin changed, they’re interrupted by dozens of survivors running along the beach in a panic. They leave the tent to find that Michael’s raft — which was largely constructed of bamboo — is on fire. Furious, Michael immediately suspects Jin as the culprit.
• Sun runs off to find and warn her husband, but she finds Jin at the caves, searching through Jack’s medical supplies because his hands are burned. Sun is shocked that Jin burned the raft, but at the mention of Michael’s name, Jin angrily stalks away from her.
• The next morning, Jin wakes up in the jungle, having fallen asleep there alone, in the night. As he’s preparing to wash up in a small creek, Sawyer sneaks up on him from behind and knocks him out. He ties Jin’s hands behind his back and forces him to walk through the jungle back to the beach. A huge shouting match breaks out between several of the survivors, who crowd around Jin. Jin angrily replies to them in Korean, and Michael hits him. Sun watches along with everyone else as Jin goads Michael without retaliating, but finally intervenes with a cry of “Stop it! Leave him alone!” Jin’s reaction to her spoken English is palpable and heartbreaking, but Sun defends her husband, telling Michael that the raft was already on fire when Jin got there. He burned his hands trying to put the fire out. When things nearly become heated again, Locke steps in and reminds them that they aren’t alone on the island and every one of them knows it. He tells them that instead of fighting each other, they should be worried about “them.” With the scene broken up, Sun attempts to explain herself to Jin, but he turns away from her and leaves.
• Michael returns to the raft to examine it in the daylight and determines that nothing is salvageable. When he realizes Walt witnessed his angry tirade, he apologizes and vows to rebuild the raft from scratch. Walt surprises his dad by volunteering to help.
• At the caves, Sun and Jin run into one another when no one else is around, but Jin is packing up his supplies and leaving. She begs him to talk to her, questioning why he didn’t tell her sooner that he wasn’t responsible for the raft’s destruction, but he won’t speak to her. Emotional, she confesses that she learned English as part of a plan to leave him, though she couldn’t go through with it because she loves him too much. She asks if they could go back and start their relationship over, but he replies that it’s too late, and leaves her.
• Late that night, Locke and Walt engage in a private game of backgammon, during which Locke tells Walt he knows that Walt burned the raft, but he doesn’t know why. Walt admits that Locke is correct, and that he did it because he’s tired of moving from place to place. He likes it here, and wants to stay here with Michael.
• The next morning, Michael is about to begin work on his new raft when he’s stunned by Jin’s sudden appearance with fresh bamboo and an offer to help.
• That same morning, Sun returns to the beach in her swimsuit, unashamed and free to be herself at last.

• Jin was raised as the son of a simple fisherman. But he had great ambitions to open his own restaurant and eventually, a hotel.
• When Jin asked Sun’s father for her hand in marriage, the very traditionalist and very powerful Mr. Paik grilled Jin about his past and future plans. When he inquired about Jin’s father, Jin lied and said that his father was dead. Mr. Paik agreed to give his blessing to the marriage, but only if Jin would come to work for him.
• After Sun and Jin’s wedding, Jin put off plans for their honeymoon because he wanted to show Sun’s father that he was committed to being worthy of her by working hard. After several months of working in the Paik industries factory, Sun’s father promoted Jin to his “new special assistant,” and immediately gave him his first assignment: to go to the Korean Secretary for Environmental Safety and deliver a message. When Jin arrived at Secretary Han’s house, he was surprised to find that Han was frightened of him. He delivered Mr. Paik’s message, but Han wouldn’t let Jin leave without a gift, hoping that Jin wouldn’t hurt him or his daughter. His gift turned out to be the puppy that we saw Jin give to Sun early in their marriage, back in “House of the Rising Sun.” Jin didn’t want to take the dog from Han’s daughter, but Han insisted out of fear and respect for Paik.
• One evening as Sun and Jin sat down to a special dinner she prepared, Jin tried to leave work aside, but Paik refused to stop harassing them by phone until Jin answered. He reported to Paik at his office where he learned that Paik’s manufacturing plant had been shut down by Secretary Han. He ordered Jin to drive an “associate” to Han’s home to properly deliver the same message Jin was sent to deliver earlier. In the car, Paik’s associate prepared lethal measures to use against Han, so when they arrived, Jin barged into the man’s house and beat Han to a bloody pulp — in order to save his life from the hitman, who would have done far worse. This was the same night we saw in “House of the Rising Sun,” when Jin came home with blood on his hands and Sun slapped him for what she thought he’d done in her father’s name. After she left him alone in the bathroom, he broke down into tears, appalled at what he’d done.
• Some time later, Jin visited his father and apologizes for being ashamed of him. He told his father all about Sun, explaining that the two of them didn’t talk anymore because she’d grown to hate him, when she should have hated her father instead. But Jin couldn’t bring himself to tell her how bad her father really was. His father advised him to start over with Sun, and Jin really wanted to, but he felt he had too many responsibilities with her father’s company to ignore. Sun’s father was sending Jin to Sydney and L.A. on business, and Jin’s father told him to make that his last job for Paik, to run away with Sun to America after that. Jin liked the idea and agreed to do it.
• The reason Sun and Jin were on Oceanic 815 is that Sun’s father ordered Jin to personally deliver expensive watches to some associates of his in Sydney and Los Angeles.
• The company owned by Sun’s father, Paik Industries, is a car manufacturer.
• Locke and his father have issues.

• Jin may have a temper, but he loves his wife deeply, and feels highly protective of her. She fears him because he came home from work one night with blood on his hands, but loves him deeply as well. But this was a misunderstanding on her part. What she didn’t know is that that night, he didn’t take a life — he saved one. Jin is fundamentally a very good person, despite appearances.
  Question: Why is Jin so domineering over Sun? 1.01

• Based on Locke’s reaction to Walt’s question, there’s some major baggage between Locke and his father. What’s the story?
  Answered in 1.19.

• “…In Translation” is the first Jin-centric episode of the series.
• This is the ninth episode of the series to begin with a close-up on a single eye opening.
• “…In Translation” functions as a mirrored counterpoint to 1.06 “House of the Rising Sun,” recounting the same events we saw as Sun flashbacks in that episode, from Jin’s point of view. As is always the case with Lost, context is everything, and after sixteen episodes of thinking that Jin was something of a controlling jerk, we found out he’s not a bad guy at all.
• I remembered enjoying this episode a lot because of the unique storytelling technique it used — flipping Sun’s earlier episode on its head and revealing Jin to be a different man than we believed him to be. But I had forgotten all about that final twist — that on the same trip where Sun was planning to leave Jin, he was making similar plans to run away with her and leave his employment with her father. To this day, that blows my mind. This was the episode where I first began rooting for Sun and Jin as a couple.

Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 1 cast promotional image and Oceanic Airlines logo: American Broadcasting Company.