Belated Lost Synopsis: The Glass Ballerina

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Episode 3:02, "The Glass Ballerina" opens with a Sun flashback, and what we see quickly enough is that Sun is a lying little liar, and has been that way since at least as far back as the age of eight, when she sold her maid down the river over a glass ballerina that she, herself, had broken. Granted, Sun's dad appears to be so incredibly menacing and threatening that perhaps anyone would be driven to lie to avoid his wrath. But the point is, we're establishing a history, and the history has "liar" written all over it. The flashback ends, and we move immediately to the shark tank, which is Jack's tank, which we discover to be bugged, as Ben is privy to all that goes on there. Currently, what is going on there is that Juliet has brought Jack a nice bowl of homemade soup.

"You never made me soup," Ben snarks to Juliet as she exits the tank.

Juliet's about to be all "But Benny, you know that I'm not the most gifted chef, what with the burnt muffins and groty grilled cheese....and besides, I didn't know you wanted your soup to be mmm mmmm good, Benny" when the entrance of Juliet's sexy doppelganger, a sexy blonde with tight jeans, curly hair and a ferocious alpha female attitude, interrupts the moment. The tension between Ben and the baggy-clothed, straight-haired, beta female Juliet immediately transforms to tension between Juliet and the Sexy Blonde, whose name we learn is Colleen and who is all, "Am I interrupting something [as of I cared]?" Juliet is all, "Would it matter if you were [you curly-haired ho]?" Seems that aside from this (oh dear God, NO!) love triangle thing between Colleen, Juliet and Ben, there's a "situation" with "the Iraqi" having a sailboat and having discovered the "decoy hut village". Even as Juliet is all, "Chill out, so what's the big deal?" Ben's giving Colleen free reign to come up with a plan to wrest the boat from "the Iraqi" and to move ahead with said plan on an asap basis. That's "stat", if you're Jack.

Obvious question: How is it possible that the Others had not known about Desmond's boat, The Elizabeth, seeing as it it had been docked somewhere on or near the Island for at least two years while Desmond was in the hatch inputting the numbers and slowly going insane?

Moving right along, Kate wakes up to Sawyer's amusing himself with his Fish Biscuits. Despite that he offers Kate a nice Fish Biscuit to get her morning going, you must now get your mind out of the gutter. Please. Kate doesn't have a chance to get her fill of Sawyer's Fish Biscuits before a group of Others arrive to move them out of their cages. On their way to wherever they're going, they are intercepted by Colleen, who receives a sweet and flirty cheek kiss from the big scary guy carrying the rifle who goes by the name of Danny. Or was that Daddy? Well, let's just go with Danny for now. Sawyer takes this in with a snicker, which does not go unnoticed by the big scary guy with the rifle: "What are YOU lookin' at?"

Flashback time again. We see Sun has upped the ante on her childhood deceptions: She is now sleeping with Jae, the dude who taught her English, whom we soon learn is a particularly bad choice as an affair partner, considering that he is the son of one of a business associate of Sun's dad, no less mean and scary than he was 20 some odd years ago. Said mean and scary dad catches Sun and Jae in flagrante delicto, and we just know that there will be hell to pay. And it's not that Sun's dad is going to tell Jin. It will be far worse than that - you just know that. And sure enough, in the next flashback, we see Sun's dad ordering Jin to kill Jae. Dad doesn't exactly tell Jin that Jae is Sun's lover; however, it seems that the implication is there. Sun's dad talks about it being a matter of honor, and my shame is your shame kind of things. Jin takes this information back to Sun, and again, without ever mentioning Jae, the affair, or even the word, "kill", asks Sun for her thoughts on "delivering a message" for Sun's daddy. Again, the large, pink elephant in the room (Jin's affair with Jae) is ingored as Sun begs Jin to leave the country with her, to get out from under her father's influence. Instead, Jin goes off to "deliver the message", one that FedEx would not be legally permitted to deliver the next day or ever.

When next we see Sun and Jin, they are with Sayid, and they are discovering the Pala Ferry dock, where Michael and Walt were sent on their merry way at the end of last season. Sayid shows that he too is a fairly skillful liar, claiming that the dock appears to have been long abandoned. Sayid "hatches" a plan to dock the boat, build a signal fire and attract "Jack"'s attention. Of course, it is especially easy for a lying liar like Sun to see right through Sayid who begs Sun to keep the "real" plan (i.e., to attract the Others, ambush them, capture two so that one will make the other behave...hmm....funny how much Sayid thinks like the Others) from Jin until the fire is built (i.e., when there's no turning back). Since Jin is comfortable being lied to and pretending he is not, it all goes according to plan for the time being. Sun takes cover on the boat, where Sayid tells her there is a gun, which she implies to Sayid that she may or may not use to defend herself (or to off herself) in the event that the Others come on board because "If they get past you, it will mean my Husband is dead, and it won't matter anymore." There's the way to think outside the box, Sun! It's a good thing for the Others, who later board the boat without offing Jin in the process, that they are a bit more creative in their thinking. More on that later.

Meanwhile, Kate and Sawyer are led to what appears to be a Craphole Island construction site (perhaps a new housing development in Other-burbia?). We see that there are Others already at work. Kate and Sawyer are ordered to break rocks and haul them, respectively. "In this dress?!" Kate asks Danny with an appropriate measure of righteous indignation. "You can take it off it you'd like," is the predictable answer, which first draws another snicker from Sawyer and then the appropriate righteous indignation from Sawyer. When Kate curls her lip and says, "I'm not doing anything until I see Jack," Sawyer's the one who receives an electical shock of some sort. Sawyer and Kate are warned that there's plenty more where that came from if they don't fall into line and stay that way.

Work commences, but it doesn't go well: Sawyer has trouble staying focused on his work, what with Kate's dress failing to properly cover her lady parts as she drives her pickaxe into a pile of rocks. And Kate is having trouble staying focused on her work what with Sawyer's drooling all over the place and what with the teenage girl hiding in the bushes and whispering, "Psssst......Where'd you get the dress....because, you know, it's mine....although it looks better on you....and have you seen Carl, the guy who was being kept in the cages? No?????!?!!!!!" The teenager is Alex, whom we have seen in prior episodes, seemingly reluctantly taking orders from other Others and saving Claire's life by helping her to escape from Ethan. Alex may or may not be the French Woman's long-lost daughter. Alex may or may not be on the outs with the Others or with THESE particular Others. This all remains to be seen, perhaps in a year or two or three or never.

Juliet and some cute Other guy are flirting, after which she takes a swig of water from her Dharma canteen. Seeing Sawyer eyeing her, Juliet flirtatiously throws Sawyer the canteen. Then they proceed to eye each other in a way that makes me have absolutely no clue what they are communicating. I so wish that they would use their words. But it is not to be. Instead, Sawyer proceeds to empty the canteen onto the ground, which looks and sounds very much like Sawyer is pissing all over the Others and their sexed up work ethic. More metaphorical pissing ensues as Sawyer decides that what with all the Otherly flirting, he will not be outdone, and so Sawyer marches over to Kate and gives her a giant Hollywood kiss. This doesn't go over well with the Others as Danny proceeds to plant a rifle butt in Sawyer's head and Juliet holds a gun to Kate's. Sawyer somehow then manages to wrestle possession of the taser as well as the rifle, but he quickly realizes that Juliet is a cold-blooded killer who wouldn't think twice before blowing Kate's head off. Sawyer surrenders the weapons and gets a big shock from the taser.

Back in the not-too-distant past in Korea, Jin drives to Jae's hotel to do his business, but Jae's anguished begging and apologizing gets to Jin, who orders Jae to leave the country and never return or else Jin will "finish the job." Jin goes down to his car, where a moment later, he sees that someone else has finished the job already: Jin's body hurtles from the hotel above and lands right on the hood of Jin's car, clutching the string of pearls he had wanted Sun to have. Was it suicide? Or murder? Did the taxi that had followed Jin into the hotel parking lot have anything to do it? A moment between Sun and her dad at the funeral raise the question, at least in my mind, as to whether Sun had anything to do with it. But don't worry, I am sure that no questions will be answered. So, it may be best to forget this ever happened other than with regard to the take away message: Sun is a lying liar who lies.

Speaking of which, did anyone really think that Sun would find that life was not worth living without Jin? As the Others board the Elizabeth, Sun cocks her gun and waits, even if she thinks that her husband MUST be dead for the Others to have gotten past him and Sayid. She and Colleen have a rather unpleasant tet a tet, in which Sun demands to be let off the boat, and Colleen not only refuses but taunts Sun, "I know you, Sun-wa Kwon! And you are not a killer! And we are not the enemy, unless you shoot me, in which case we will go from being your friends who steal your boat and kidnap your friends to your friends who are enemies!" Needless to say, Sun shoots Colleen in the stomach, manages to avoid Mr. Friendly's fire and dive overboard, where she is met by Jin, who surprise, is not dead despite that the Others actually boarded the boat without going past him and Sayid.

Sayid is mortified. Let's hit the long way home, he tells Jin and Sun. What he should have told them is, "From now on, you must listen to everything I say. And then do the exact opposite."

Meanwhile, back at the chain gang, Kate and Sawyer are led back to their cages, where they recap the events of the day. In short, Sawyer tells Kate that the Others are sorely lacking in experienced fighting manpower, that Juliet would have been more than happy to have actually put a bullet in Kate's head, and that (awwwww) Kate tastes like strawberries; Kate asks Sawyer if he saw the look on their faces when he got hold of the rifle and tells him he tastes like (awwwwww) Fish Biscuits. Kate asks what they should do now. Sawyer tells her that they just need to sit back and wait for the Others to make a mistake. Ben is, of course, watching all of this on his monitors back at the Jack Tank, so I wouldn't expect any more mistakes to be forthcoming any time soon.

This apprently is rather tedious for Ben, who decides to entertain himself by beginning his campaign to "Stockholm" Jack, you know, get Jack to identify with his captors. He tells Jack that if he makes an attitude adjustment, he will deliver Jack back to his home. I assume that by home, Ben means the charted earth, and not the other side of the island. Jack needs some convincing as to Ben's connection with said charted earth, and Ben spews some current events to prove that he knows what's going on in the world. Since one of those current events is the Red Sox winning the pennant, Jack is quite certain that Ben is lying. Ben shows him the footage, which oddly, convinces Jack that Ben is telling the truth, that Ben has access to planet earth and the ability to get there from here. If it were me, I'd be a bit suspicious of anything concerning a Red Sox win, video or no video. I mean, they can do all kinds of things with editing these days, no? But apparently Jack is ever the optimist and may choose to believe in "Henry Linus" who has "lived on this island all my life." Well, so much for the theory that Craphole Island is populated by Dharma refugees: Ben is far too young to have been a Dharmite in the 70's, when he would have been, at most, a teen.

So, there you have it. Not the best work I've seen on Lost. But a good diversion nevertheless.

Next week, Locke stars in "Honey, I'm home."

YC