Do you have an idea for a new wiki? Please share it with us here

From Lostpedia

"House of the Rising Sun"

Season

Episode

1

6

Airdate

October 27, 2004

Flashforward

{{{flashforward}}}

Flashback

Sun

Day(s)

7

Written by

Javier Grillo-Marxuach

Directed by

Michael Zinberg

Special guest star(s)

{{{specialguests}}}

Guest starring

{{{guests}}}

Co-starring

Sora Jung - Decorator

Uncredited

{{{uncredited}}}

Episode transcript
[[{{{transcript2}}}|Part Two]]

Episode Images

"House of the Rising Sun" is the sixth episode of Season 1 of Lost. When Jin attacks Michael without provocation, a rivalry begins to form, much to Sun's dismay. Meanwhile, Jack proposes that everyone move to the caves, though some argue that this would be giving up on possible rescue. Flashbacks in this episode concentrate around Sun and Jin's marriage and how it was slowly falling apart.

Synopsis

Flashbacks

Jin giving Sun a white flower

Sun chats at a dinner party and is offered some champagne by a waiter, Jin. He also hands her a napkin, which contains a message. She meets with him away from the party goers, and the two kiss. Sun wants to elope but Jin tells her that her father would not allow it. As a symbol of affection, Jin reassures her by giving her a white flower and promises that it will one day be a diamond.

Days later, Jin finds Sun outside in the garden where the party was held. He has spoken to her father and had been granted permission to marry his daughter, much to Sun's joy. However, her happiness subsides as Jin continues to explain that he would be working for her father, if only temporarily. He presents her with a diamond engagement ring, paid for with the money from his new job.

Some time after they wed, Sun and Jin live in a posh apartment in Seoul. Sun returns home to find that Jin has bought her a puppy. He sincerely apologizes for working such long hours lately but Sun replies that in the past, all he had to do was give her a flower to express his love. She seems to miss their early relationship, when Jin was not under the command of her father. Before she can continue talking, Jin's phone rings. It is Sun's father.

Sun is saddened by the fact that she has not escaped her father's world

Later, Sun wakes up as Jin rushes into the apartment. She finds him in the bathroom, washing blood off his hands. She asks what happened but her husband simply states that he was working. However, Sun does not relent and eventually slaps Jin across the face when he does not give her a straight answer. He said that he does "whatever her father asks", for the sake of their marriage.

One day, Sun is showing around a decorator while Jin relaxes in the living room, appearing to be in a bad mood. Sun takes the woman to the bedroom, where it is revealed that the decorator is in fact undercover. Sun had hired her to help her flee the country, from her father and husband. She gives Sun fake documents and tells her that "at the airport" she would have to make an excuse to walk away from her husband and get to a car waiting for her outside. She would then be taken into hiding. The woman orders Sun to repeat the time of the escape over and over, "eleven fifteen".

At Sydney Airport, Jin and Sun prepare to check in for a flight to Los Angeles, as part of Jin's work. Sun moves to one side, noticing that it was 11:15. However, with tears streaming down her face, she finds that she could not leave her love. She returns to her husband, who, with a smile, gives her a white flower. He asks why she looks upset and she lies, answering that it is because of the flower's beauty.

Real-time events

Jack and Kate flirting

Sun opens her eyes after sniffing flowers. She looks on as Jack and Kate talk playfully about his tattoos. Kate cannot see how the spinal surgeon could have such a wild side but their "verbal copulation", as Charlie calls it, is cut short as some of the group prepare to head for the caves to retrieve drinking water.

Meanwhile, Sun wonders what is wrong as Jin runs toward Michael in anger. He violently attacks him while Sun and Walt shout for them to stop. Sayid and Sawyer pull them apart, and Sayid orders the con man to give him the marshal's handcuffs from the plane. He does so, and Jin is cuffed to a large piece of plane wreckage to restrain him.

In the jungle, Jack leads a contingent to where he found the fresh water. When they arrive, Charlie sneaks away to take some of his heroin but Locke interrupts him, telling him to stay still. Charlie has walked on a beehive. Jack and Kate run to get something to cover the hive, and Charlie is forced to stand on the spot as bees buzz around his body.

Back at the beach, Michael explains to Sayid what happened. He attributes the attack to racism and when Sun points at her wrist, Sayid reinforces that the cuffs will stay on until the issue is resolved.

Charlie stands still on the beehive

Jack prepares to cover the beehive with a piece of luggage, but when one of the bees sting Charlie, his movement splits the hive and the group runs away as bees scatter. Jack and Kate get to the caves, stripping off their clothes, but Kate suddenly jumps as she spots a skeleton on a ledge. Jack finds another set of remains and assesses them; the bodies have been there a long time, approximately half a century. On one of the skeletons, he finds black and white gemstones. Charlie and Locke arrive and Jack expressed that one of the two corpses is a female and the other male, leading John to dub them "our very own Adam and Eve".

After some time, Jack and Kate head back and John stays to help Charlie look through some Flight 815 wreckage they had found nearby. However, before they leave, Jack pointed out that the survivors need a lot of water and carrying it back and forth would be extremely tiresome work. He thinks that perhaps everyone should move to the caves, where there is shelter and protection from the elements, as well as easy access clean water.

Walt asks Michael why he said Korean people do not like black people. In their ensuing conversation, Michael in turn asks Walt what his mother told him about his father. Walt bluntly says she never really mentioned him. Neither of them knows much about each other.

Trekking back to the beach, Kate mistakes Jack's pondering stare as an attempt to check her out. He explains that he is actually thinking about construction at the caves and Kate gets the point, forgetting about her attempt to flirt. As he talks about convincing the other survivors into moving, Kate adds that he had yet to convince her too. At the caves, Charlie and Locke talk about Drive Shaft and Charlie's lost guitar. John promises that he would see it again, much to Charlie's confusion and disbelief.

Michael agrees with staying on the beach

Jack and Kate find Sayid, who fills them in on what happened at the beach. Jack is more interested, however, in his cave idea. Sayid disagrees with the plan, believing that a signal fire at the beach is the best hope of rescue. To move was to give up on the hope of leaving, and some will be less willing than others when it came to this decision. At the shore, divisions are already starting to form, with Hurley agreeing to follow Jack and Michael siding with Sayid. Sawyer asks Kate whether she was going with the pessimist or the optimist but she declines to reveal her allegiance.

In the woods by the beach, Michael chops bamboo but is interrupted by Sun. Before he has time to react properly, she says, "I need to talk to you" in perfect English. Michael stands stunned. She reveals that Jin does not know she speaks English, which is why she has not done so publicly, and that the watch Michael found in the wreckage had been entrusted to Jin by her father. Protecting it is was "a question of honor" for Jin. Sun says that she can fix the situation, but she needs Michael's help.

Charlie manages to sneak away in the jungle but Locke follows him and tells Charlie that he is aware of his drug problem. Locke guesses that he will be running out of the drug soon, but wants him to give it up by choice. He asks if Charlie wants his guitar more than the drugs. Charlie agrees, and as he hands over the heroin, Locke simply tells him to look up; wrapped in roots above is Charlie's guitar case.

Michael and Sun share fleeting eye contact

At the beach, Jack tells Kate that it's time to head back to the caves. However, she proclaims that she can't "dig in" as Jack called it. Jack asks what had caused her to be this way — what she did — but Kate says that he had his chance to know before. Meanwhile, Michael approaches Jin with an axe in his hand. Threatening him, he returns the watch he found and cuts him free from the wreckage with the weapon. Michael gives Sun a glimmer of eye contact in recognition as he walks away, having finished what she had asked of him.

At the caves, Jack arrives with the "new tenants," among them Hurley, Jin, and Sun. At the beach, Sawyer, Sayid, Shannon, Boone, and Kate sit by the signal fire. Kate stares into the flames, as does Jack with his fire at the caves.

Trivia

Production notes

• This is the first episode with a flashback of one character (Sun) featuring interaction with another main character (Jin) in the flashback.
• Claire did not appear in this episode and Emilie de Ravin was not credited, for the first of several times in season one.
  • The first episode in which Claire does not appear.
• Boone and Shannon appear, but without speaking lines.
• This is the first episode when the whoshing noise is made before and after every flashback.

Bloopers and continuity errors

• The gold watch disappears from Michael's wrist when Jin is trying to drown him, but reappears after the fight.
• When Sun visits Michael when he is chopping wood, his left arm is extended holding the axe, but in the next shot he is not carrying the axe and it is his left arm that is extended.
• The length of the chain that links the handcuffs originally worn by Kate becomes much longer when used on Jin.
  • This is not a blooper. The chain appeared shorter when the cuffs are on Kate because it is looped through the chain on her ankles. It is also possible that the Marshal had more than one set of cuffs.
• During the song at the closing of the episode, Jack is shown sitting down at the caves, with his tattoo clearly appearing on his right arm. As the scene cuts back to the group at the beach, and then again back to Jack at the caves, his tattoo is now back to normal on his left shoulder. Odd since this is a real tattoo. (Film and TV, for various reasons, often mirror image shots)

Recurring themes

• Jin gave Sun a puppy. Charlie was attacked by bees. (Animals)
• Jack and Kate found both black and white stones on the dead bodies at the caves. (Black and White)
• Jack was seen at the airport arguing as Jin and Sun waited in line. (Character Connections)
• Jin was handcuffed to a piece of plane wreckage. (Imprisonment)
• Sun lied to Jin about planning to leave him, deceived all the survivors into thinking she could not speak English, and persuaded Michael to play along with Jin's question of honor regarding the watch. (Deceptions and Cons)
• Sun's left eye was shown at the start of the episode. (Eyes)
• Charlie gave Locke his drugs rather than wait until he naturally ran out of his stash. (Fate versus Free Will)
• Sun continually made reference to her father being a stern man who Jin could not possibly reason with. (Parent Issues)
• Sun contemplated and indeed planned to leave Jin. (Relationship Issues)
• The survivors faced the choice of living on the beach in the hope of rescue, or moving to the caves for self-reliance. (Religion)
• Charlie relinquished his heroin, and looked up into the sky to find his precious guitar. (Salvation)
• Sun is to meet a car waiting outside at 11:15. (Numbers)
• While Jin is washing off the blood on his hand, Sun repetitively asks Jin what has happened but he doesn't answer. (Relationship Issues)

Cultural references

• Adam and Eve: these were the first man and woman created by God, according to the Bible and the Qur'an. (Religion and Ideologies)
• "The House of the Rising Sun": the title of the episode is also a popular American folk song. The "house" in the song refers to either a brothel or a prison, and the lyrics are either from a female or male vantage point depending on the version of the song. The female version of the song tells the story of a woman who has been led astray by a rough sort of man, and she ends up working at a brothel. The male version tells the story of a man who suffers from the vices of gambling and drinking and ends up in a prison. In both versions, the narrator of the song is ultimately tied to the House of the Rising Sun, unable to leave it. Similarly, Sun was tied to her relationship with Jin and cannot leave him.
  • A lyric from the song reads:

One foot is on the platform

And the other one on the train.

I'm going back to New Orleans

To wear that ball and chain.

This lyric was echoed in Sun's actions at the end of the flashback. At the airport, she was prepared to flee ("One foot is on the platform / And the other one on the train"). But rather than abandoning her old life, she returned to it ("I'm going back... / To wear that ball and chain"). (Music)

• "Are You Sure?": at the end of the episode, Hurley is listening to this Willie Nelson song on his CD player. The chorus of this song repeats the question, "Are you sure this is where you want to be?", reflecting the survivors' choice of the beach or the caves. (Music)

Literary techniques

• The origin of Sun's puppy and Jin's bloody hands are revealed in "...In Translation". (Foreshadowing)
• Right after Jin attacked Michael, Sun's flashback starts with a scene of the watch on her wrist. Later it is revealed that Jin attacked Michael because of the watch he wears. (Foreshadowing)
• Sun had planned to leave Jin, but couldn't leave the man she loved; on the Island, she put herself in danger by talking to Michael in English, in order to free Jin. Essentially, Sun chose to stay with/help Jin despite the risks both times. (Juxtaposition)
• Jin's actions both before the crash (coming home with a blood-stained shirt) and after (attacking Michael) were done for reasons of honor, except that neither Sun nor Michael knew his motive. (Juxtaposition)

Storyline analysis

• Sun contemplated and indeed planned to leave Jin. (Relationships)
• Michael and Jin's initially negative relationship begins. (Rivalries)

Unanswered questions

For fan theories about these unanswered questions, see: House of the Rising Sun/Theories

• What is the history behind Adam and Eve?