"The Glass Ballerina" (Season 3, Episode 2)

As most of you who have read my e-mails over the past two years know, I typically am not thrilled when the episode features a Sun and Jin flashback. However, I am happy to say I liked this week's show. We saw new layers to Sun and Jin's relationship and the impact her father had on them both. (There are those pesky parent issues again that all of these characters seem to have.) I was intrigued by Sayid's comment to Sun, "And what would you know about lying?" when we had earlier seen her as a child lying about breaking the glass ballerina (of the episode's title), thus costing a maid her job, and cheating on her husband with her English tutor. (So whose baby is she carrying?) I also enjoyed Sawyer's various expressions throughout the show. Whether he was imaging Kate out of her sun dress breaking rocks to him admiring "the view" of her to the look he gave Juliet - his face spoke volumes. The other scene I liked was with Benjamin Linus (the artist formerly known as Henry Gale) and Jack. It was almost surreal that Ben would be referring to these current events with which we are all familiar (Bush's re-election, Christopher Reeves's death, the Red Sox winning the World Series). I guess the world outside the island does exist as we know it and not just Penelope Widmore in her bedroom and two Porteguese men in a quonset hut in the snow somewhere.

Best Line: Kate to Sawyer after he told her she tasted like strawberries: "You taste like fish biscuits." I think fish biscuits will be to this season what the Apollo candy bar was to Season 2.

Did You Notice?

• Jin was really angry in this episode.
  
• I'm thinking that Ben and Juliet were once more than co-workers. "You never made me soup."
  
• Recurring Name Alert #1: Colleen mentioned an Other by the name of Brian who had spotted "the Iraqi" at the decoy village. Brian was also the name of Walt's mother's boyfriend, who told Michael he didn't want to be Walt's father after she had died, and Brian was the name of Shannon's boyfriend when Boone went to Australia to get her. It's also my name but I am sure that's just a coincidence since the producers still refuse to take my phone calls. Recurring Name Alert #2: The Other who harassed Sawyer was named Danny. Ana Lucia's boyfriend in LA was also named Danny.
  
• The music played in Sawyer's cage is John Phillips Sousa's "The Thunderer". Interesting side note: This march was dedicated to the Knights Templar, which are featured in a couple of fiction books recently published due to the popularity of "The DaVinci Code".
  
• Why does Ben so desperately want the sailboat? Was the boat he gave Michael their only one? What happened to the Pala Ferry that the orientation videotape mentioned last season and whose dock was where the Others brought Jack, Kate, and Sawyer? How did the six Others get to the sailboat? Close captioning revealed Colleen says to Danny that Ben said to take the "Galaga" to investigate. Is this a boat? Galaga is the name of a classic arcade game where the player controls a spaceship to shoot aliens. Hmmm.
  
• The Others are not a happy bunch.
  
• The girl in the bushes whispering to Kate was Alex, Rousseau's child. She shows up out of the jungle, makes strange statements ("You're not even supposed to be in the cage"), then disappers. Like mother, like daughter.
  
• Do you think Sun's tutor/lover jumped to his death? Or was he pushed? And if so, by whom? Sun's dad? Or had Sun rushed to his room prior to Jin showing up and afterwards, she and her lover argued and she accidentally (?) pushed him out of the window?
  
• Colleen's comment to Sun, "We are not the enemy", was reminescent of Ben telling Michael in the season 2 finale "We're the good guys."
  
• These Others seem to know a lot about the passengers. Juliet knows Sawyer's real first name is James. Colleen knows Sun's last name and that she's not a killer. Well, one out of two right on that one.
  
• Throughout the episode, Sawyer called Kate "Freckles" until he made the strawberries remark, then he called her "Shortcake".
  
• Why is Jack being drugged?
  
• What did Benjamin Linus mean when he said he's spent his whole life on the island? If he was born there, then who were his parents and how did they get there?
  
• The fact that Ben mentioned the Red Sox to Jack ties in to the episode where Sawyer realizes he met Jack's dad in the bar in Australia since the elder Shephard made a comment about the likelihood of the Red Sox ever winning the World Series.
  

The Numbers - 4 8 15 16 23 42 (and sometimes 108)

Apparently I did miss a reference to The Numbers last week. During Jack's flashback when he was calling the various phones numbers from his wife's phone, his beeper sitting on the desk displayed the time of 7:15:23. As for this week, I saw one reference. The room number of Sun's tutor/lover was 1516. This is odd since we saw Jin get off the elevator on the second floor. Wouldn't the rooms start with a number 2? And could a fall from a second story window kill you? This also leads me to predict that this season we will have a whole new set of numbers to listen and watch for. The first two numbers being 2 and 6. Let me start with 6: Ben had 6 monitors in his room to watch the goings-on. The Other named Colleen said she was on the sailboat with five other people, making a total of 6 for the boarding party. As for the number 2: The Other named Danny referred to Sawyer and Kate as "you two"; Sayid wanted 2 hostages; when Jin followed Sun's tutor/lover, the elevator was marked with a "2"; Sawyer told Kate that only 2 of the guards were a concern; and Ben was watching Jack on monitor 2. This was also the second episode of the season. That's a lot of 2's. We'll have to see what I find in the next episode to see if my prediction holds true or if I'm just going through Numbers withdrawal.

Previews

How about those previews? Locke and Eko survived the implosion but for how long since it sounds like the monster/security system is back. Candidate for best line for next week would be Hurley noting to Desmond that the explosion blew his underwear off.