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- TV Series: Lost (Final Season)
- Episode: The Package
- Starring: Michael Emerson, Terry O'Quinn, Matthew Fox, Evangeline Lilly, Jorge Garcia, Josh Holloway, Elizabeth Mitchell, Nestor Carbonell, Naveen Andrews, Daniel Dae Kim, Yunjin Kim, Ken Leung,
- Written By: Paul Zbyszewski and Graham Roland
- Directed By: Paul A. Edwards
- Network: ABC
- Series: Lost
Lost: The Package Review
Best Episode of the Season By Joe Oesterle
March 31, 2010
Sun (Yunjin Kim) in ABC's LOST: The Package(2010).
© ABC/Bob Trate
Hey there fellow Losties. Up against some major deadlines today, so I’m going to have to forego with the usual clever prose (for the most part) and just speak in bullet point format.
AMAZING episode last night. For my money, The Package was easily the best installment this season, and perhaps the one of the top ten episodes of the entire series. I am numbering the talking points, (making my own kind of Jacob’s List) to make it easier to address each topic in the comment boxes that follow. Like Jacob’s List, my list seems to have no particular order about it…. Or does it? No… actually it doesn’t….. or does it?
1) The thing that struck me the most peculiar is that we always assumed that Jacob’s touch affected each live after that incident. In this episode however, we find that even though Jacob touched Sun and Jin at their wedding, the couple were not only not married in the Safe Landing Universe (SLU) but Jin didn’t need any magic island dust to activate his tiny babymakers.
2) Sun obviously doesn’t speak English in this episode, as she is clearly perplexed and needs to wait for Mikhail to explain the reason why she can’t activate her bank account.
3) After Jin is captured by Widmore’s team, he is held against his will in the subliminal message experimental holding tank, “Room 23.” (23 being one of the numbers.)
4) Lots of daddy/daughter issues are brought forth in this room. Ben tortures Alex for dating his daughter Alex in this very space. Charles Widmore confides to Jin that his own daughter, Penny has been estranged to him. He is aware of Jin’s daughter, and Widmore is empathetic to his plight. Then of course there’s Mr. Paik. The reason Jin ended up on this damned island in the first place.
5) Charles Widmore is looking more and more like a good guy too. Perhaps he and Ben have always both had the island’s best interests at heart, but they had two different interpretations of what is best for the island. (I also still have a sneaking suspicion that Widmore got hung up on the power, and that power corrupted him, thereby eliminating him as one of Jacob’s candidates.)
6) Sayid Sayid is still in there. He just doesn’t “feel anything.” No anger, no happiness no pain. I take this to be good news for Sayid fans out there. My guess…. He’ll start to feel again just in time to die a hero’s death and be absolved for all his sins. Then again that seems a little too trite for these guys. Still, it’s where I’m sitting at this point in his character arc.
7) I’m not much of a card player – not even sure what game Miles and Lapidus were playing, but I have to assume Miles had a good hand there. Both Miles and Hurley seem to be very good at games. Do the dead help them win?
8) Waiting at the beach for Richard to come back, Sun is not happy and storms to her garden. Jack follows. Sun’s symbolic tomatoes are dead, a harbinger of things to come, but which way? Jack and Sun have a little candid candidate chat. Jack and Sun’s conversation is reminiscent of many of Jack and Locke’s conversations throughout seasons 1-5. This of course is Season 6 Jack. A kinder, gentler Jack. A Jack of faith. And now he sees what a stubborn, reactionary dick he was for five seasons. Jack’s bedside manner just got a whole lot better.
9) Sun seduces Jin in the hotel, and reveals to Jin that at least two of her tomatoes are ripe and ready for squeezing.
10) Upon hearing a knock on the door after Jin “tended to Sun’s garden,” Sun begs Jin to hide in the bathroom, looks at herself in the mirror and proceeds to join the list of SLU 815ers who seem perplexed at their own reflection.
11) Sun bangs her head running away from Smlocke, and the next scene she waked up in bed, almost groggy. Both Sun and Jin receive accidental noggin knockers in this episode.
12) Claire seemed a little needy this episode, but strangely a little saner as well. I guess she now feels like she can be her own woman now that she no longer has to mother the frightening animal-skull/pelt infant.
13) Smlocke seemed to give Claire a tacit invitation to murder her. In a nice play on an old island mantra, “Whatever happens, happens,” Smlocke “subliminally” told Claire she’s free to kill Kate as soon as Smlocke is done using her for his own agenda.
14) “Whatever Happens, Happens.” Notice the present tense this time. Nothing is set in stone, it doesn’t matter what happened before, everything has changed – like the subliminal message in Room 23 told us. My thinking is Flocke is going to start trying to pit people against each other.
15) Flocke can’t turn into smoke and fly his ass over the water. I’d like to take this opportunity to point out a theory I’ve been thinking of for some time, and I believe I may have posted it late in the comment boxes two weeks ago. What if the Smoke Monster can’t be controlled by Flocke. What if the Smoke Monster only “appears” when Flocke’s physical form is being threatened, or when it’s summoned, but for some reason, Flocke/MIB has never had any control over the monster.
16) “I feel like I’m in a Godzilla movie.” Good old Keamy, the psychotically charming subtle racist.
17) How about the return of Mikhail (aka Patchy?) Doesn’t look nearly as intimidating without the patch. He looks like he’d fit in at the teacher’s lounge with Ben and Artzt.
18) Is the Smoke Monster and MIB/Smlocke akin to the Hulk and Dr. Bruce Banner?
19) Richard Alpert is still a tiny, tiny man. Less than 4 inches tall according to the website, www.microscopichunks.com
20) Smlocke makes sure to stay on the safe side of the pylons, but something tells me he might be able to cross the invisible barrier in Locke form, not as Smokey. Perhaps his powers are gone on that side, or he can no longer transform into the deadly plumey scoundrel we’ve all come to fear and love. Just a thought, because I do expect it to surprise the shit out of Widmore one day when Smlocke take a step over the line and chokes old Charlie to death.
21) I knew Mikhail was going to lose an eye before his character died. Did not expect it to be so soon.
22) Keamy is a Woody Allen fan. (“The heart wants what the heart wants.” This delightfully charming psychotic subtle racist has a good sense of humor.)
23) Perhaps the most important line of the entire show. Widmore to Jin. “Everyone we know and love would simply cease to be.” It’s interesting and important to note he didn’t say “die.” Cease to be suggests something else entirely, though I’m not sure if that in itself would be the hell Richard’s wife Isabella warned us of through Hurley last week. Sounds to me like his Penny and Jin’s daughter would never be born. This makes me lean toward the SLU will all turn out bad, and for the 815ers and friends, better the devil they know in the original timeline.
24) Widmore isn’t an evil man. Sure he hired cold-blooded killers to blow up the island and everyone on it, but he (like Ben after and before him) was acting for the greater good. To quote Spock, the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
25) I am a big fan of Matthew Fox’s acting abilities. We often heap praise on Terry, Navin, Henry and recently Nestor, but I’d like to go on record and proclaim I am a fan of the Fox. His complete 180 this season has been fun to watch and his fireside chat with Sun was warm, and tender. The exact opposite demeanor, but the same absolute conviction as Sawyer who is also making island ditching promises to his cohorts over in Team Evil’s camp.
26) A tomato survived. Tomato equals Baby Kwon, who may not make it in SLU (and if not, Widmore’s actions are valid, because the love of a father for his daughter is strong enough to excuse killing an island of strangers over)
27) Desmond was the package.
Only six episodes remain. I hated just writing that sentence. Please make sure your safety belts are secure, your trays are in an up, and your seats are in an upright position. I have a feeling we’re in for a rough landing.
Joe Oesterle says, read his story about the world’s heaviest Elvis impersonator. Not for Joe’s sake, but for your own.
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Well, I guess now it will have to be Penny that brings little Charlie, baby Kwon, and Aaron to the island so that they can receive their island powers and defeat Smlocke with toddler-fu.