OK, how the [CENSORED] did Mikhail show up?

Kind of a marking time episode, eh?

From today: Kind of a marking time episode, eh?
From April 5: Kind of a marking-time episode, huh?

What exactly do you mean by a 'marking-time episode'?

Nothing much happening; a place-holder; just "marking time" until something big happens.

I would disagree with Left Behind, but not this one. This was certainly filler. Though we did get to learn that Jin was the daddy, for those whom may have wondered about that one.

I guess Mikhail showed up because he wasn't really dead. Kate didn't exactly do a bang up job of checking, IIRC.

I think we learned a lot actually. (Spoilers) Jin's the father. Sun's life is therefore in danger. The last line, even though we don't know what it means or who said it. Mikhael (probably splled wrong) seems to have survived, even though we don't know why, or if that's actually what happened. We learned that Julliet still hates Ben. That Kate might be pregnant. That the chances of conception are five times greater on the island.

I'm not saying these are all major revelations.

Nor do I personally need things happening every week. I prefer a story that's not afraid to unfold slowly.

Kim Yujin, who, BTW, is not considered a good actress here in Korea, did a really good job this time.

I'm not trying to defend this particular episode really.

That's true, the last line from the chopper person was awesome.

Of course...

[PARANOID CONSPIRACY THEORY]
TPTB managed to fake the wreckage and the bodies.
[/PARANOID CONSPIRACY THEORY]

Nit on this episode and on Catch-22.

A chopper does not have an incredible amount of range. There needs to be a support ship somewhere out there. Why aren't they looking for the chopper when it lost contact (crashed)?

We learned that Julliet still hates Ben.

My daughter interrupted me at exactly that point. What happened when Juliet went back into the hatch while Sun was outside?

I didn't see this ep as filler. I liked it, and agree with Kevin.

At the end of the ep, when Juliet tells Sun that she'll go back into the bunker, I was hoping that Sun would secretly follow her because she didn't trust her. It was certainly obvious that she was up to no good when she said that.

Luigi, what happened then? I missed those couple of minutes

From Lostpedia:

"As they are leaving, Juliet makes an excuse and returns briefly to the locker room, where she leaves a message for Ben on a tape recorder. She informs him about Sun's condition and then says that she is moving ahead on collecting 'samples' from the other women among the survivors, including Kate. After shutting the tape recorder off, she says (presumably to Ben), 'I hate you'."

Juliet takes a tape recorder from a locker and records a message for Ben, informing him that Sun is pregnant, she got tissue samples from her and will get some from Kate. They didn't say that Kate is definately pregnant, but there is that five-times-greater chance. (Which also means that, very ironically, Anna Lucia was probably pregnant a second time when she got shot the second, and final, time. Unless Sawyer used condoms, which is not impossible. If anybody had some it would have been him.)

After Julliet gives her message, she stops recording but continues talking to Ben, adding, 'I still hate you.'

I, too, was hoping Sun would have followed her.

Speculations on that last line.

1. The whole thing is a dream. This doesn't work because people don't come parachuting into dreams and inform you of real life events. This is the case even if everybody died in the crash but the healing properties of the Island kept one alive/resurrected one who is dreaming this in a coma. (Besides, the healing properties of the Island would be a revelation from the dream anyway.) It could be Hurley's psychotic dream, where reality is trying to break through, and Hurley is the one the parachute woman told this too, but I would just like to think the writers wouldn't spring an it-was-all-a-dream revelation on us.

2. A second airplane crash was faked so no one would look for the Losties. In order to do this, not only would they have to have a duplicate plane, but they would also either have to kill all its passengers or else fill it with a bunch of already dead people. Even if it crashed in the middle of the ocean, there would have to be *some* bodies strapped to their chairs. Furthermore, where are the people who orchestrated this? It certainly wasn't the Others. They knew nothing about a plane coming. If it's the Hanso Foundation, where are they? It's been three months. Are they invisible observers? And if the crash was indeed orchestrated, is it just a massive coincidence that it happened when Desmond didn't get back in time to push the button?

3. The Parachute Woman was just coming to and didn't know what she was saying. This would be the easiest, most logical answer, but it would be too much of a letdown. I don't think the writers would do this to us.

So in other words, I have absolutely no idea what she meant.

Oh, and what does 'D.O.C.' stand for anyway? Net searches keep converting it to 'doc' so I get things about doctors or .doc files. The only acronym I did find was 'department of corrections.'

Scott, for this episode and future reference, you can watch entire episodes for free right here.

Kevin: Oh, and what does 'D.O.C.' stand for anyway?
Luigi Novi: Date of conception. Sun and Juliet wanted to know when Sun's baby was conceived.

For future reference, I'd recommend Wikipedia. It has extensive articles on all things Lost, including detailed articles on each episode and major character. There's also ABC's Official Lost wiki.

Oh, I know. I just missed two minutes, didn't feel like watching the whole thing over.

Can't one skip to later Acts with that page?

I'm not sure Juliet mentioning Kate necessarily means Kate's pregnant. She says that she's going to take samples from all of the survivors. I can't imagine they're all with child.

I think this episode probably deserved the title "Catch-22" more than the previous one. Desmond had quite a predicament, but I think that "either the baby isn't your husband's or it is and you'll die" wins out.

I forgot to say, I loved the moment where Sun learns that the baby is Jin's. Yunjin Kim did a sensational job with that.

Luigi Novi: Can't one skip to later Acts with that page?

Yes, you just have to sit through a 30 second ad, but that's it.

Luigi: Date of conception

Ah, leave it to a D.I.N.K. like me not to know that acronym.

A chopper does not have an incredible amount of range.
Hurley did ask something to the effect of 'Is a helicopter supposed to sound like that?' suggesting that it wasn't a real helicopter, or at least not a standard one.

I thought the "is a helicopter supposed to sound like that" meant that it had engine trouble, sort of confirmed by the crash.

Well, Kevin, I single and have no kids either, and I didn't know it either. I just got it from watching the episode.

Kevin: I think we learned a lot actually....
Luigi Novi: And in addition to the things you mentioned in the "present" story, there are the two major things we learned in the flashbacks. First, Jin's mom is alive, and was a prostitute who had no rapport with the son she gave birth to, and is an extoritionist. And more importantly in terms of the continuity of the flashback story arcs, we find out out Mr. Paik felt that Jin "owed" him.

Why did Jin's mom demand from Sun "one hundred thousand dollars?" Shouldn't she have asked for one hundred thousand won? Hell, at the exchange rate on September 22, 2004 (the date of Oceanic's crash), a hundred grand U.S. would be about 114,440,000 won (117,100,000 if the scenes were up to a year earlier than that), so the writers wouldn't have even have had to change the amount that much in order for the American viewer to "understand" that the amount was large.

She did ask for it in won. The subtitles converted it.

Ah. Well, then the exchange rate was innaccurate, unless the scenes were set earlier than a year before the crash.

Thanks, Kevin.

It's generally rounded off. American expats in Korea often refer to W5000 as 'five bucks' (which sometimes confuses expats from other countries).

There isn't much difference between W5000 and $5. There is between W5,000,000 and $5000, but we still tend to round it off.

I think if they had actually calculated the proper exchange, people would have wondered where the heck a number like 114,440,000 came from, thinking there was some special meaning (especially in this show!) to it.

Hmm. Okay. Thank you for your insight.

Luigi Novi: Why did Jin's mom demand from Sun "one hundred thousand dollars?" Shouldn't she have asked for one hundred thousand won? Hell, at the exchange rate on September 22, 2004 (the date of Oceanic's crash), a hundred grand U.S. would be about 114,440,000 won (117,100,000 if the scenes were up to a year earlier than that), so the writers wouldn't have even have had to change the amount that much in order for the American viewer to "understand" that the amount was large.

You don't consider changing from one hundred thousand to 115 million to be that much of a change?

Sorry, when I first wrote the post, I didn't see that the figure was in the millions. I thought it was in the thousands. Thanks for pointing that out.