I think Jin's using the lack of a common language as a way to keep himself and Sun separate from the others, and actively avoided learning English in order to keep up that protective barrier.

A protective barrier need also be as little as not practicing, or not listening well. I took a year of Japanese, and Jin may very well have more English than I had Nihongo after passing that course. I still couldn't read anything targeted at kids over 4.

Hell, I've even seen native Quebec Anglophones just fail to pick up French, and that's with media in that language all around them.

If you don't try, and sometimes even if you do, it's still all Greek.

Locke made a lot of non-creepy sense this episode. Yet, still, no one seemed pinged to the outside threat.

I did not recognize Walt in this ep - he looked like a different actor.

It was the same kid. Doing more acting, though. He was good.

I think the writers have done a good job of showing most of the events that made Jin change from who he was in the beginning to who he is now. The one thing I don't follow is his new-found concern over Sun and her body. At the very beginning, he seems to love her low-backed dress. Then at the wedding, she's wearing that high-necked thing. Now, he seems so paranoid about her exposing any part of herself. To me, that doesn't really follow from either a broken relationship or being BossDaddy's enforcer.

To me, that doesn't really follow from either a broken relationship or being BossDaddy's enforcer.

It may come from cultural isolation. Suddenly he's all old school proper because he's all the Korea there is.

I think the writers have done a good job of showing most of the events that made Jin change from who he was in the beginning to who he is now.

Yes.

The one thing I don't follow is his new-found concern over Sun and her body.

And yes again. As someone above pointed out, he's trying to isolate himself from the rest of the passengers by using the language barrier. I think Sun is the only thing he has on this island, and he's afraid of someone seeing her hotness and taking her away from him. I guess.

Suddenly he's all old school proper because he's all the Korea there is.

Oh, yeah. Another thing Jin's flashback cleared up was that they were, in fact, in Korea the whole time. The Sydney airport was cause of the job. It wasn't really explained how they got there before.

Although we know it's not true, I can see how fishing village!Jin might believe that everyone else on the plane is some high class person by virtue of the fact that they could afford the long flight. This, plus the language barrier, may have made him feel isolated from the beginning. Perhaps that has made him want to control the one thing he thinks he can - Sun.

It finally occurred to me why Jin went nuts on Michael's possessing of Sun's father's watch back in the early days of the season. It wasn't that it was something given to him by his FiL, but it represented everything about his new life with Sun that he hates about himself, as well as the end of that life (if he had decided to take Sun and disappear in the U.S. after delivering the watch in San Francisco).

I took a year of Japanese, and Jin may very well have more English than I had Nihongo after passing that course.

I had the same experience. Six credit hours and all I learned were the kanji for my name, the verb desu, and a vague sense that ka, on and no are useful words. I discovered as I was studying for the final that I'd had yes and no confused all semester.

The whole mess dragged my GPA way down, and I'm still bitter.

I did not recognize Walt in this ep - he looked like a different actor.

I had the same thought at first. He definitely has that about to enter a growth spurt" look.

The watch being so important to Jin makes me wonder how committed he was to walking away. I think he wants to, but he still hasn't really talked himself into it. I think that maybe helping Michael and spending more time as just Jin rather than Sun's protector and Korea's representative on the island will give him whatever he needs to break free of Boss!Daddy.

-t

The watch being so important to Jin makes me wonder how committed he was to walking away.

I think this was a writer error, actually. They did a good job connecting IT with HORS, but there are still some continuity errors (e.g. the age of the dog) and some characterization errors.

I can believe that. I like conflicted Jin, though.