'Lost' - "D.O.C."

As we near the season end, we're finding out a bit more each week. At least to this point, I'm much more satisfied with the series than I was last year at this time. I now think the writers may actually have a plan.

I think so, anyway.

Tonight's episode was Sun-centric and told us a bit more about her past, as well as Jin's. Oh... and we found out whose baby she's carrying, too! That was a concern and, alas, remains a concern for a different reason.

In Flashbacks:
A happy Jin and Sun, newly married, are planning their life together -- a new apartment, plans down the road... the future. They're deeply in love, but trouble is brewing.

Sun is approached by an older woman on a park bench. The woman recognizes her as the daughter of the man who owns Paik Automotive. She looked at the wedding picture and soon tried to extort Sun. Not only is Jin's father a mere fisherman, but his mother is a prostitute. For a sum of $100,000, she'll remain quiet about it. She gives Sun three days to get the money.

Sun questioned Jin about his parents. He had told her that his father had died, but he was in the army when he passed. Sun knows the timeline is off -- Jin would have had to have been in the army at the age of sixteen. He was staedfast about it, so she dropped the conversation.

Sun then tracked down Jin's father. She told him that Jin had told her that he was dead. He told her he wasn't invited to their wedding and that he had raised Jin alone as Jin's mother "had many men." He did not want him to suffer the shame.

Sun went to her father's business to ask him for the money to pay off the woman. He originally denied her, but she told him of the shame it would bring to the family. She told him that she knew what he did and how he operated his business, but if she had the money she would keep pretending not to know. He gave it to her.

Jin saw her at the business, but she told him she didn't want to bother him at work. Then he found the envelope of money. She lied and told him her father gave it to her for their honeymoon and furniture. Jin told her to give it back to him because "I don't want to owe him anymore than we already do."

Instead of giving it back, she met the woman. As she gave it to her, she told her that she knew she was Jin's mother. The woman said, "I only gave birth to him." Sun shoved the money at her and told her to never contact them again.

On the Island:
In the Sun storyline, she was approached by Jack and was suspicious of several health-related questions he asked her about the pregnancy. She went to Kate asking if she had noticed any changes in Jack since he returned, since he started being around Juliet. Sun was worried that the Others want her baby and that Jack was working with them.

Kate told her that Juliet is a fertility doctor and how she helped Claire. Sun went to Juliet and asked her what happened to pregnant women on the island.

"They die. They all die," replied Juliet, feigning ignorance of Sun's pregnancy.

Juliet told Sun she could help her, but she needed to come with her alone and trust her. Sun was reluctant, but went along.Juliet had promised an ultrasound which could pinpoint the time of conception -- whether the baby was conceived on the island or before. Of course, we know that if the baby was conceived on the island, it's Jin's baby. Before they arrived on the island, Jin had been diagnosed as having too low of a sperm count for conception. And, Sun had a fling before they came to the island. So either way, it's bad news as babies conceived on the island means the mother dies.

Juliet led Sun down a hatch and through a hidden door, then declared the baby was conceived since the plane crash. The ultrasound revealed that Sun was in her first trimester; Juliet told her that pregnant women who conceive on the island don't live to the third trimester.

When Sun asked about the room, Juliet told her it had been the nursery. But then it became just where they would bring the pregnant women to die. She had tried to help nine other mothers in three years, but all of them died.

Juliet told Sun that the island affects sperm count, making it six times higher than elsewhere. She and Sun both started to leave, but Juliet told Sun that she just wanted to double-check that they had covered their tracks. Yeah, right. Instead, she called Ben to tell him she was collecting samples. She said, "I hate you." Then she hung up the phone and rejoined Sun.

In the Jin, Hurley, Desmond, Charlie, and Woman From the Skies (Naomi) storyline -- She woke up speaking Spanish. Hurley translated and said she claimed she was dying. They noticed that she had impaled her chest on a tree branch and was surely dying. Hurley picked up a gun which fell from her pack... BANG. "Oops." At least it was just a flare gun.

Then the woman spoke in Chinese. Jin recognized the language, but didn't know what she was saying. And then... then... MIKHAIL came through the bushes! Yes, dead Mikhail! Jin started to fight with him as he fled, then held the flare gun to his neck. Mikhail pointed out that it was a flare gun. Someone else told him it would still be bad at close range.

"So? I already died once this week."

Mikhail made a deal with them that they'd let him go and he'd help Naomi (not that they knew her name yet). She spoke again, this time in Italian. She said she was dying. Mikhail intubated her lung to relieve the build-up of blood in her lung. He told the others that healing is different on the island and she should be okay soon.

Naomi said "thank you" to Mikhail in yet another language. Desmond told Mikhail he could go and Charlie had a fit. "He's one of them! We can't keep letting them go!" Desmond told him that they've killed more of the Others than the Others have done to them.

But when Mikhail left, Jin chased after him and retrieved the phone that Mikhail had lifted (Naomi's). Mikhail left.

Naomi then regained consciousness once again. "Where am I?" Hurley was with her and he went on and on: "Are you here to help us? Were you sent here to rescue us? We were on Flight 815. We're the survivors!"

"Flight 815 out of Sydney?," asked Naomi. "That's not possible. They found the plane. There were no survivors. All of the passengers were dead."

"What?"

LOST [thunk]

Oh, what an ending! And, how is Mikhail alive? Is it due to the healing powers of the island? If so, why have others died? Or was he never dead at all? And... he seemed to crash through the bushes looking for Naomi, not realizing that Desmond and all were there. He wanted that phone and he was the communications guy. He also asked what else she had in the pack. What's the connection?

Oh... and have we been watching dead people for three years?

I see dead people, y'know.