March 30, 2010

Tonight on LOST: 'The Package'


Tonight on Lost, "The Package" is a Sun/Jin-centric episode. But we'll see some other old, familiar faces too.
ABC's promo, which is marginally more informative than last week's, says:
Sun and Jin desperately continue their search for one another, and Locke confronts his enemy.
Since UnLocke's biggest enemy, Jacob, is now dead (though still hanging with Hugo in his very special, Obi-Wan Kenobi way), this means UnLocke must be confronting his other enemy, former Others leader Charles Widmore, who has arrived on neighboring Hydra Island, via submarine. Widmore is, as the enhanced version of "Recon" reminded us, "a very dangerous man," even if he is not a man who can turn into murderous black smoke. And just exactly what or whom has Widmore got locked up aboard that sub of his, anyway? Maybe his son-in-law Desmond, who's been MIA since S6's premiere ep, "LA X"? O Brother Des, where art thou?
That enhanced version of "Recon" also reminded us that in the S5 finale "The Incident," UnLocke told Richard (who at the time still thought this was John Locke, Jacob's anointed leader) that he would have to "deal with" the Ajira 316 survivors. In the "Recon" scene showing the Ajira massacre victims on Hydra, the subtitles noted that we don't know what happened to them.
But we can guess, can't we? We know who carried out another recent mass killing, at the Temple.
My personal belief is that this is why Richard has been so distraught and suicidal: not just because because he temporarily lost faith in Jacob, but because he has realized that he was complicit in those Ajira murders, which he had believed he carried out at Jacob's behest. Now he knows that he was unwittingly the instrument of UnLocke, a.k.a. the MiB or Smokey. What's more, Richard must be wondering if the previous mass killings we know he participated in -- the US Army brigade in 1954, and the Dharma purge in 1992 --- were not also instigated by MiB, masquerading as Jacob. No wonder Richard has believed he was in hell, or at least destined to go there.
Speaking of destinies: Are Sun and Jin destined to reunite tonight? Frankly, I would not bet on it happening -- not in the Island timeline, anyway. Though of course, we should see the Kwons together in the 2004 Sideways World.
But wait: Are the Kwons even married in that parallel universe? I'm not convinced that they are.
In the Season 6 premiere ep, "LA X," it was deliberately made difficult for viewers to see if either Sun or Jin happened to be wearing a wedding ring. In the few shots where their left hands were briefly in the frame, no rings were spotted -- not by me, at least. And at the LAX Customs desk where Jin was questioned about the illicit cash he was carrying, the female Customs agent addressed Sun by her maiden name, as "Ms. Paik." Hmmmm.
On the other hand, Jin still treated Sun in the same abrupt, domineering way that he did in the early days of the original timeline -- including that whole "button up your sweater" thing. Would he be that overbearing to his boss's daughter if they weren't married?
Maybe yes -- say, if Jin were Sun's bodyguard, anxious for her not to attract male attention. Or maybe yes, if the Kwons were already divorced and simply traveling together for some Paik business-related reason.
So: Check back here tonight, as soon as Lost ends, and tell us what you thought of the episode.
Remember, tonight's show again runs a couple of minutes long. It will be immediately followed by a new episode of V, starring Elizabeth Mitchell -- our late, beloved Juliet.

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