Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Lost “The Package” Recap & Review

Photo from ABC

Lost “The Package” was a fast moving episode but seemed to offer little in answering any real questions. It also may have seemed like a fast moving episode because it was heavily laden with commercials, something that has always been an annoyance with “Lost” but an issue that seems to be getting worse by the week.

This episode was also heavy in subtitles, as Jin and Sun spoke in Korean for much of it. I find that subtitles make it difficult for me to pay attention to details that are happening on the screen as I am too distracted by the reading, as a result, I feel like I may have missed some important visual tidbits or clues. As a rule, I just find subtitles too “labor intensive” for me to watch, and, for a 9 PM show I am just not in the mood for the added effort. Aside from that, it seems that all we found out was that Desmond was the person locked up on the sub, and in all honesty, I think most viewers out there had already reached that conclusion. Not that I don’t care about Sun and Jin, I have just never been interested in their relationship, either in the present, or in this alternate time.

But the commercials! It seemed like every 5 minutes there were 4 minutes of commercials. I dread to think what the finale will be like, with reported cost for a 30 second spot running upwards of $900,000. It seems that with “Lost,” ABC has found a way to make a lot of cash.


Here is the quick recap:
In this episode, the focus is on Sun (Yunjin Kim) and Jin Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) and while they remain separated in their life on the island, they are very much together in the other timeline. As we saw previously, as they tried to enter the country, they were stopped at customs because of the large amount of money Jin attempted to bring through undeclared. Customs allowed him to have the watch he brought in with the money, but paperwork is required for Jin to get the money, something he clearly is not in a position to do.

When Sun and Jin get to the hotel, Jin is a little obsessive about making sure they have separate rooms, but that’s because Sun’s father does not know of his relationship with Sun. Another problem is that Jin was supposed to deliver the money and the watch to a man, and now Jin has no money. But Sun has been stashing some away without her father’s knowledge, and plans to use that to help Jin.

After the two meet in Sun’s hotel room for a little fun in the sack, they hear a knock on the door, and it’s the nasty guy Martin Keamy who pestered Sayid (Naveen Andrews) in an earlier episode, who Sayid had shot in a blaze of gunfire. He catches Jin hiding in the bathroom, and then demands the money. The matter is complicated as Sun and Jin know no English, so Keamy brings in a translator, Mikhail (Andrew Divoff) and Sun tells them she can get the money from her bank account. Mikhail takes Sun to the bank, and Keamy takes Jin to the restaurant. Sun is shocked when she finds her father closed her bank account and took the money; Jin is shocked when Keamy ties him up, duct tapes his mouth, informing him the money Jin was supposed to bring was the payoff money that Sun’s father owed Keamy for killing Jin. He locks Jim in the refrigerator room, and soon after, we hear lots of gunfire. As Jin kicks on the door to make noise, the door opens, and it is Sayid. (This ties Sayid’s earlier storyline from this timeline together with Jin's.) Sayid gives Jin a box cutter but leaves it to Jin to get him free.

Sun and Mikhail return to the restaurant to see Keamy’s crew shot and Keamy lying near dead on the floor. While Mikhail is distracted by Keamy, Jin comes up behind him and holds a gun to his head, and when a scuffle ensues, bullets fly and Mikhail is shot in the eye. The problem is, Sun also is shot by a stray bullet, and as Jin races to assist her, she tells him she is pregnant. (Nice timing, Sun.)

Meanwhile, back on the Island, Locke decides to take off for a while and while he’s gone, someone shoots tranquilizer darts at the group and knocks them out, and they take Jin. The other group of people on the Island is waiting for Richard Alpert to get back, and Sun gets pissy about the whole thing and walks off to tend to what’s left of a tomato patch. While she is there, Locke approaches her and tries to get her to come with him as he says he can take her to Jin, but she doesn’t trust him and runs off, running into a tree and knocking herself out. When she comes to, she can only speak in Korean, but she can understand English.

Meanwhile, Jin is on Hydra, being held by Charles Widmore’s (Alan Dale) people in room 23, one of the torture rooms, and he demands to see Widmore. When Locke returns to the camp he finds the group out cold, but seems more worried when they come to that Jin has been taken. Locke decides to go to Hydra to get him back. But, on Hydra, he finds that they have the electronic fence set up which keeps Locke AKA The Smoke Monster out. Face to face with Widmore, who is on the other side of the fence, Widmore plays dumb when Locke asks about Jin. Locke says "A wise man once said that war is coming to island. I think it just got here."

The other group on the Island is surprised when Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) returns and says they want to destroy the plane on Hydra so Locke AKA Smokey couldn’t leave. Sun walks away from him, telling him in Korean that she isn’t going to help him destroy their way off the island.

On Hydra, Widmore was angry that Zoe kidnapped Jin, and he tells her to retrieve a package from the submarine and take it to the infirmary. Widmore then meets with Jin and gives him a camera that was found in Sun's luggage on the plane. It contained pictures of their daughter, whom Jin has never seen, and Jin cries. Widmore says he, too had a daughter and understood what it meant to be apart. Widmore told Jin that "everyone we know and love would simply cease to be" if Locke got off the island and they had to make sure that didn't happen. He also tells Jim he should see the package, adding "It's not a what. It's a who."

Meanwhile, Jack (Matthew Fox) gives Sun pen and paper so she can communicate, as it seems she can at least write in English. She tells him she does not trust Locke. But she does trust Jack and he promises to help her find Jin and get her on the plane and as far from the island as possible.

Elsewhere, Locke has returned to his group and he asked Sawyer (Josh Holloway) about the guarded room on the submarine that was hiding something Widmore didn't want Sawyer to see. Locke adds "I don't like secrets" before walking away. It seems that Locke has given Sayid the task of checking the guarded room out, and as Sayid swims, under cover of darkness, to the dock, he sees that the package is none other than Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick). They see each other briefly when Desmond is dropped to the ground, but neither acknowledged they had seen the other – and the episode closes as they take Desmond away.



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