...In Translation

"...In Translation"

"...In Translation" is the seventeenth episode of the first season of Lost. The episode focus on Jin's background. It was directed by Tucker Gates and written by Javier Grillo-Marxuach and Leonard Dick. The episode first aired on February 23, 2005 on ABC.

Plot

Jin has flashbacks of when he started working for Sun's father, Mr. Paik. The latter is the head of a Korean automobile chaebol (a large business conglomerate) who is not above using violent and dirty methods to get what he wants. Jin worked for Mr. Paik to prove his commitment and worthiness to marry Sun, claiming he would do anything to marry her.

Sun's father gives Jin the task of conveying a message of displeasure to the Under-Secretary for Environmental Safety-- Jin visits the secretary at his home and seems confused when the visibly terrified man gives him a puppy (the same puppy we saw Jin bring to Sun in a previous episode). However, upon finding Jin has not done what was implied for him to do (to threaten the secretary into retracting one of his policies), Mr. Paik reprimands him and directs him to return to the Secretary's home with a hit man who will demonstrate how to properly deliver a message. Jin returns to the Secretary's house, but before the hit man can act, he beats up the Secretary in front of his family, to give him "the message" as Sun's father originally intended and to save him from being murdered.

The raft Michael had been building is discovered to have been burned. Immediately, Michael suspects Jin due to their disagreements in the past. However, Sawyer finds Jin first, roughs him up, and brings him down to the beach with his hands tied behind his back. Later Sawyer releases Jin on the beach and he and Michael fight each other. The rest of the survivors watch the fight, hesitant to stop it until Sun yells out in English for them to stop. The survivors are dumbfounded that she speaks their language and has been keeping it from them the whole time. Jin is obviously distraught at this revelation.

Later, Locke sits down to play a game of backgammon with Walt, and asks him bluntly, "Why did you burn the raft, Walt?" Walt then says that he is tired of always moving and he likes it on the island. Locke agrees with him.

In the cave, Jin has another flashback, revealing that his father is not dead (as he told Mr. Paik), but a poor fisherman of whom Jin was obviously too ashamed to reveal. His father, on his humble fishing boat, asks Jin why he works for Mr. Paik, and advises him to complete the latest task he has been given —delivering watches to Sydney and Los Angeles (or firing people)— then remain in America with Sun to escape Mr. Paik.

The next day on the beach Hurley listens to Damien Rice's Delicate on his CD player and the batteries eventually burn out. Meanwhile, Sun goes into the ocean in a bathing suit as a free, but lonely woman. While Jin helps Michael build the new raft.

Trivia

• Hurley can also be seen on the television that the threatened man's daughter is watching. He seems to be on a news show, possibly chronicling his lottery win.
• The song Hurley listens to at the end is Delicate by Damien Rice, though it ends abruptly when his CD player's battery dies out.
• The episode's title is a reference to the phrase something was lost in translation.