Lost: Season 6, Episode 10 Review: The Package

As if I needed another reason to hate V.

The Package

Original Airdate: March 30, 2010

Writer: Paul Zbyszewski and Graham Roland
Director: Paul Edwards

One of the first interesting choices in the flash sideways was the twist in “Sundown” where Jin is found bound and gagged in the restaurant freezer by Sayid after mowing down a room full of thugs.  It raised speculation like the best past interactions in flashbacks/forwards.  Unfortunately, there wasn’t much in the way of shocking details of how they got there, but it seems like things are heading somewhere beyond whose lives are better and whose are worse with the second half underway.

Among the expected answers, it’s revealed that LA X Sun & Jin aren’t married, but Jin is still working for her father, and that they are carrying their affair in secret.  Sun still plans on running away, only in the LA X world she’s doing it so they can be together in America.  Jin has no such plans, and is worried that someone will spot them together, altering the context behind him being upset over Sun’s undone top button from possessive to paranoid.

Their brief bliss doesn’t last long, as Keamy Walken comes asking for the money customs confiscated.  Since they don’t have it, Jin is taken as collateral while master translator LA X Mikhail (who has two eyes for most of the episode) takes Sun to the bank, only to find Mr. Paik covered his bases by freezing her getaway money.

Like Sawyer’s flash sideways in “Recon”, Sun & Jin’s ends openly where Sun gets shot and reveals she’s pregnant.  While I criticized Sawyer’s story for feeling incomplete, this one doesn’t have the problems of a busy storyline like “Recon”.  It’s simple: wackiness ensues when they don’t have Keamy’s money instead of cramming too many elements of back story into a short segment.

Through the parallel Jin & Sun story, the themes of fate vs. free will are the forefront again.  There is LA X Keamy arguing that LA X Jin & Sun “just aren’t meant to be together”.  However, Jack has the slightly goofy “stubborn tomato” argument.  Ultimately I think the show wants to have the individual triumph with choice rather than submit to the will of the universe because most people want Jin & Sun to have a happy ending.

In the 815 universe, Johnny leaves on an errand, presumably to recruit Sun for his mission, which leaves the remaining followers vulnerable to Widmore’s nerds (they finally acknowledge that Widmore didn’t hire mercenaries, but scientists, for this mission).  Who in turn take Jin, claiming his knowledge of possible locations of electromagnetism could be valuable.  This act is the next step in the escalating war, which Johnny formally declares when he meets with Widmore.

A few more details about Johnny are revealed: while he can travel from Hydra Island to the main island in Locke’s form, he can’t float over in the Smoke Monster form.  This could help to explain the mud sink Ben used to “summon” the Smoke Monster in “The Shape of Things to Come”.  Perhaps that water was blocking Smokey’s route to Dharmaville and they had to wait until Smokey happened to come by.

Johnny’s plan about the candidates also gets out, which doesn’t sit well with his first follower Claire.  Even though he tries to pacify her by washing his hands of anything she may do to Kate once all six candidates are under his command, the cracks are becoming more obvious in his leadership.  Claire also could be shaping up to be a Trashcan Man figure here, a character from the stand who is spurned by their Man in Black.

Sayid reveals a little more to his resurrection, as he no longer feels any emotion.  If Sayid is truly “claimed”, like Dogen said, this condition is different from Claire’s, who Dogen said suffered from the same affliction.  Compared to Sayid, Claire is overrun with emotion where she makes Rousseau look normal.  Johnny suggest that may be good for what’s to come, and sends him on a counter mission in Widmore’s camp.

Elsewhere at the beach camp, a lot of people criticized Sun’s aphasia for being too much like a soap opera or Gilligan’s Island.  Honestly, I would’ve been fine with the idea that “the island” is stopping her from speaking English.  Later episodes hint that there may be something to explain her aphasia, but this device is so overused in soaps that it borders on parody and even though there are some good moments here, they don’t quite sell it enough for this concept to work.

The big emotional moment of the episode was Jin seeing the pictures of Ji Yeon, the first time he’s ever seen her.  I echo the sentiment that Sun & Jin’s separation is stretching a little thin, not having the benefit of being a background element of a long term story.  Sun has been even compared negatively to Michael in season two.  However, this was a satisfying tease.

Widmore’s mission, surprisingly, turns out to be in support of keeping Johnny from leaving the island.  With Widmore seemingly helping Locke get on the path to getting killed and Bram’s warning that Widmore was on the wrong side, that he changed sides is interesting.  It could be a case of “the enemy of my enemy is my friend”, and I usually enjoy the dynamic of mortal enemies working together to topple a worse adversary.  It could also be misdirection and he’ll turn evil in the end.

Then there’s the ham fisted reveal that the package is none other than Desmond, last seen in a hospital last season in this time line.  From Sawyer pointing out the locked room in “Recon” to Widmore saying the package was a “who” not a “what” to the desire to learn about the electromagnetic pockets, who else was it going to be besides maybe Walt?  It was so obvious that people in denial insist that there must be another twist in there.  Luckily this mystery didn’t last more than a few episodes, which makes it easy to forgive.

For the inevitable tell all on Lost someone’s going to write either when the money runs out or to cash in on the Lost dollar, certainly something’s going to be written about Henry Ian Cusick.  Despite being a credited lead character, he has been in only a handful of episodes since the first third of season five, and didn’t even play a part in the finale.  It’s hard to see this prolonged absence and not think it has something to do with his legal trouble, much like people who got DUIs and whose characters were killed off shortly afterward.  Why keep on an actor as a lead, where he gets paid regardless of whether he appears, when you can have him be a recurring guest star?  It feels very odd.  I don’t want this to turn too tabloid: I’ve never met either party involved in the legal scuffle and I don’t know whose side is correct, that’s why I haven’t mentioned it until now.  Any future mention of this will only be used in context of a review of an episode.

Overall this episode is an average entry.  It had a few decent elements like Keamy showing up one more time, but there were also awkward moments like the aphasia part, Miles acting as he would’ve when he first got on the island and the unsurprising reveal of how Jin wound up in that freezer.  However, the flash sideways are picking up steam, becoming more than just a sidebar in the season.

Overall Score: 7/10