Lost Review: “The Package”
Well at long f*cking last. I thought we were going to get this Jin/Sun interlude about a month ago when we saw Jin locked in a freezer in the alterverse, but a bunch of much more interesting episodes cropped up and pushed it back until now.
A Jin/Sun episode poses the challenge of making Jin and Sun seem relevant, and although I like their characters, I can’t really say that’s something they’ve ever been. The focus this week was that one or both of them are necessary to Not-Locke’s escape as they’re both possible candidates since Jacob doesn’t feel the need to write first initials on his giant wall/compass name list.
Not-Locke tells Jin that he’s very important, and he’s going to reunite him with Sun so he can get everyone off the island. He reveals that all the remaining candidates need to leave with him, which we assume is so no one is left to step up into Jacob’s shoes and keep him constrained there with magic angel powers.
Badass? Yes. Future island demi-god? Unlikely.
Meanwhile in the alterverse, we get to see the long and kind of boring lead-up story to Jin’s freezer escapades, which involves him and Sun being detained at customs and hunted by Keamy who reveals that Sun’s father paid him $25K to kill Jin because he found out the two of them were doing it. The inexplicable “otherverse” change here is that for reasons that will probably remain unclear forever, though the two of them are intimate, they aren’t married, and are instead carrying on a secret affair.
Back on the island, a Widmore raiding party attacks Not-Locke’s camps with tranq darts, and they take Jin prisoner. It’s revealed that since he was a Dharma expert in the 70s, he’s now useful to show Widmore exactly where pockets of energy on the island are that he can use with his “package” (holding all jokes on that one) which is not a package, but rather a mysterious person (who I totally guessed right). In return, Widmore promises to get him and his wife off the island and back to his daughter, who he conveniently (and a bit creepily) has pictures of offhand to show him.
Flash back to the otherverse where Sayid kills Keamy and his crew and helps Jin get out of his duct tape restraints. Sun and Mikhail (naturally we needed that cameo to fulfill our weekly quota) show up, and Jin gets into a struggle with the two-eyed man that eventually leaves him with one. Fate! Oh also, Sun gets shot. And she’s pregnant. Oops!
“Damn you alterverse!”
Not-Locke sails over the island because he’s inexplicably stuck in not-smoke form for whatever reason. Are we clear on what the hell cause him to be stuck in Locke’s body and no longer able to transform into smoke? I swear I’ve seen him be smoke in the past few episodes. Remember that one with the first person smoke-cam a few weeks ago? I assume Jacob’s death has something to do with it, but it’s all very unclear, and it’s weird that evil incarnate’s ultimate plan is to pilot a jumbo jet to freedom.
Not-Locke has a chat with Widmore behind his anti-evil pylons and nothing comes of it so he heads back to camp where Sawyer and Kate are pacing around being angsty. The ace up Not-Locke’s sleeve is Sayid, who is conducting underwater covert ops near the sub where he sees “the package” being hauled out of the sub in a drugged state. It’s Desmond! Hallelujah, I knew he was coming back.
There are some interesting bits to note in this episode that aren’t necessarily attached to the main plotline. One is a brief convo between more-sane-than-usual Claire and Not-Locke, where she learns she’s not a candidate, and Locke tells her that Kate was, but is no longer. I sort of assumed all the survivors were candidates at one point, or else why would they be there, and it’s even more strange to note that Kate got crossed off while she was still alive. What exactly did she do to get DQ’ed?
The lonely convict, pouting with her candidate status revoked.
I also don’t really understand what anyone’s motivation is for staying on the island, and the only people truly on Jacob’s team these days are Illana and the newly reformed Richard. Why would any of the candidates A) believe that they’re seriously going to take Jacob’s job to keep evil in the wine bottle or B) accept the job, becoming some sort of lonely god who never sees their friends and family again and passes their days making planes and boats crash. Sun had the right idea flipping out on Richard for his plan to blow up the jet. Is he planning on hanging out in the jungle for another 150 years?
The alterverse poses new questions yet again. We’ve seen characters like Jack and Dogen have children where previously they had none or lost them, but this time, things end up much more tragic for Jin and Sun. Sure, they’re more in love than they were when heading back from Australia in the original timeline, but now Sun is shot in the stomach and is probably going to lose her baby. Not really the best tradeoff. If one of these universes is supposed to show what life is like when “evil escapes,” I’m not really sure which timeline is making people better or worse off overall.
Island life is probably better for Jin and Sun in the end it seems.
Lastly, it’s been fairly obvious that Desmond has been a pretty big key to the island for a long time now and it’s nice to see him back. He failed to push the button, he blew up the hatch, his mind travelled through time, and his past was altered by Daniel Faraday. He’s an important part of almost everything that’s happened so far, and I’m glad to see he might be the key to it all, even if his time-transcending abilities are never quite explained.
This week was a bit of a clusterf*ck compared to last week’s Richard adventure with a singular plotline, but I suppose it was necessary to move things forward. Are we halfway through the season now? Wait, more than halfway? Six left? Man, it’s really ending…
SUN BOOBS!
“Well at long f*cking last. I thought we were going to get this Jin/Sun interlude about a month ago when we saw Jin locked in a freezer in the alterverse”
That line right there pretty much solidified my stance on never getting sucked into this show.
I hear its a good show, I just dont want to have another show I need to play catch-up with. I’m already doing that with The Wire & Generation Kill.
That and I dont ever want to have to explain to someone what an “alterverse” or “black smoke monster” is.
I’m pretty sure MIB can still transform to smoke. I think he was just saying that he couldn’t fly over a large area of water to get to the other island in smoke form. Maybe he can only turn to smoke for a limited time now..?
He is stuck as appearing only as Locke though, that’s for sure.
Nice review. Thanks for helping to make some sense of this show. I watch the episodes but I need someone like you to tell me what I saw. 🙂
I don’t think Not-Locke is unable to use his smoke form. I think he was implying that he couldn’t cross the water in smoke form. Though I don’t know why that would be. Maybe it’s even impossible for him to take smoke form anywhere off the main island.
Also as to Kate’s candidacy I’m pretty sure she’s still a candidate Not-Lock was just lying to Claire because he wants to use her as part of his plan. She was asking if he needed her because she doesn’t want to go back so he made up a story about how Kate isn’t a candidate and how Claire could eventually kill Kate if she just waited and stuck around.
I get the feeling that Not-Locke’s plan has to do with getting all the candidates in one place and then killing them leaving no one to take Jacob’s place.
Best line of the episode was Sawyer’s “‘Course not. That’d be ridiculous.” When he asked Not-Locke why he didn’t just smoke across the water, and was told it didn’t work that way.
I think we all totally foresaw Desmond being the package as soon as they said it was a person.
And, something about that “zoey” woman with Widmore really annoys me. I just hate her face.
I am now of the sound theory that Not-Locke’s one weakness (in Smoke Monster form) is water, you know, kind of like the aliens in Signs..
And clearly Kate is no longer a candidate because she’s a whiny bitch who, although she killed a man, thinks she is a saint. That being said, Kate has always been my least favorite character.
Yea I was also wondering if all of the main Oceanic 815 crew were candidates, and how they lost that candidacy (asides from dying). Kate is definitely not a candidate anymore cause she was crossed off of the cave wall.
And I’m with you XenoIrish, i have that Zoey bitch.
*hate
That Zoe looks like Tina Fey having a bad day… or rather Sarah Palin having a normal day. Kate is my favorite character, I love her. I don’t think she is off the candidates list. I think is the kid the Jin/Sun last name the list refers to and not the parents. She was conceived in the island, isn’t she?
Oh, and maybe Not-Locke just can’t leave the island under his own power. He needs the help of the people he has “corrupted”.
MIB (his actual name is Esau, btw) isn’t stuck in Locke-form, he just can’t cross the water as smoke as Joe mentioned. Otherwise, he would’ve been able to leave the island a long time ago, and there’d be no show. If memory serves me right, I seem to remember an instance long ago where the smoke actually stopped before crossing a stream… but my brain could just be making things up to amuse itself.
The Smoke monster can’t go on water! He needs power! He is like a hoverboard, and Jacob is like a Pit Bull and that is why UnLocke wants to kill him. There you go, I just solved Lost.
Three things:
1) Suck on that Lost fanboy bitches. Keamy is more than some guy who makes good eggs in the alterverse.
2) I hope that annoying, chubby Widmore crew member gets shot in the face.
3) Sun’s boobs = awesome.
I think MIB was just saying that he can’t get off the island by himself, period.
And that doesn’t mean he can’t turn into smoke, he did turn to kill everyone at the temple. He just can’t turn and get off the island.
I’m pretty sure Desmond is so important because he can travel throught time on his own. I think Widmore plans on getting him back to a very long time, and ask Jacob what to do given he’ll be dead someday and a candidate wasn’t being chosen. Then, Desmond will be the only one who could do something in time to make sure all the right pieces are in place.
“I’m pretty sure MIB can still transform to smoke. I think he was just saying that he couldn’t fly over a large area of water to get to the other island in smoke form. Maybe he can only turn to smoke for a limited time now..?
He is stuck as appearing only as Locke though, that’s for sure.”
Ahhh A brilliant hypothesis. But is anything for certain with Lost?
Illana said on a previous episode, that the Man in Black “is stuck this way” and as such continues to masquerade as the one and only John Locke. So is he ‘stuck’ as John Locke in human form, but also prevented from his full power in smoky form?
I would propose no to the latter, but I would also propose no to the former and that the Man in Black can still change his human form as well!
Why do I think this after the fact that Illana said he couldn’t change his appearance?
Do any of you remember Ben’s adopted daughter, Alex? Remember near the middle of last season? On the episode, Dead is Dead, Ben fell through the entrance to the Temple and into the lair of the monster. The smoke monster curled around him and then eventually appeared to him in the form of Alex, and subsequently commanded Ben to obey Locke’s every word.
Well, why was he able to change his form not only into his smoke shape but also into Alex if he is prevented from changing his human form from John Locke?
A good reason why this might be is due to the process of killing Jacob. Perhaps he has lost some of his power in this process? But the problem I have with this is that it seems a little backwards. Surely he should gain more power with his nemesis removed and hence without a captor. It might be that there needs to be a balance between both the Man in Black and Jacob, and so with the ‘death’ of Jacob, the Man in Black actually loses some of his power due to the balance being persevered.
But I have my doubts this limits his ability to change human form, because it appears to not affect his ability to turn into smoke. After all, after Jacob’s death he’s killed several men within the four-toed statue and massacred a whole load of people in the temple.
But regardless, perhaps he is weakened, and this can be seen in his inability to traverse over water. But I would care to wager that the ocean surrounding the island can not be traversed by the Man in Black at all. Perhaps if the island is the ‘cork’ of the bottle holding the ‘malevolence’ in, then perhaps the ocean serves as the glass and as such the bars of his cage. But then why was he able to travel by boat to the other island? Surely over his long stay on the island he merely could have built a big raft like the survivors did and escape his prison altogether. I would put forth the theory that, not only does he need a method of transportation to leave the island but also needs to kill/convert all of the candidates to disrupt the particular magnetic field around the island (the same one that makes your consciousness travel through time).
But let’s get back to the Man in Black not being able to change form. Although this is a tv programme and generally most of the time what is told to us is assumed to be true I would care to venture that when Illana said the monster could not change form, she merely assumed that this was the case. After all, only a few episodes previous Dogen told Sayid to kill the Man in Black by stabbing him with a knife. It’s been said by the Man in Black that he only said this so that the smoke monster would kill him in retaliation, but I think Dogen did believe he might be killed, or at least injured, because he seemed surprised to hear that stabbing the fake Locke did nothing.
And so that’s why I think the Man in Black can still change his human form, still retains his full power in his smoke form, and can not traverse the ocean.
But then there could always be some magical beansprout that touched Desmond back in England, which then Charlie picked up and brought to the island, which was then sniffed at by Vincent, which in turn caused Jacob (when he died) to inhabit the body of the beansprout and because of this the Man in Black can’t change his human form, or travel over water, or eat peanuts. Due to the moon’s alignment with the bounciness of Sun’s boobs.
What?
It makes more sense than half the stuff on this show.
A few points:
– Kate is still a valid candidate, but Smokie does not know this. He does not know she ever was one, as evidenced by her name not being on the cave wall.
– Smokies name is not Esau. That is a fandom nickname given to him based on the biblical Jacob having a brother named Esau.
– Sun’s boobs were awesome and took me by surprise.
@LAO
– Kate’s name just didn’t appear on camera. Its oughta have a 51 – “name” in there, or else MiB would have known something was up. We can’t assume Kate’s name wasn’t there.
– Sun’s boobs were awesome since S01, she appeared on some bikini shots.
just a side: it’s not all that unlikely widmore would have pictures of jin/sun’s daughter. as he says, they checked the plane and found the camera.
it’s obvious that all the shots taken (by sun) were intended to show jin when she found him. she spent 3 years finding a way to locate & bring him back, thus she would have used photos to show jin everything he had unfortunately missed from his child’s life.
this is completely logical & not coincidental or “convenient”.
@Mr. Jim
I didn’t see any bounce, just an amazing glow.
@LAO
I actually found her repulsive in season one. But for some reason, she was super sexy in last nights episode.
And as for the Kate being a canidate, who cares. Lately she’s been annoying and she needs to die, just so she can stop running away from everything.
i began the chant “desmond, desmond, desmond!” pretty much at the beginning of the episode…
so glad he’s back.
since i refuse to hypothesize anymore and argue my points, i will focus on 2 laugh out loud moments on last night’s episode…
keamy opening the bathroom door to find half-naked jin looked straight out of a porno.
desmond being dragged out of the sub clearly out of it only to fall on the dock and see creepy sayid head poking out of the water like some sort of monster.
my final note, kate is a stupid bitch and i hope claire stabs her. kate has always been the worst character on the show but with an exceptional back-story that makes me think that it is simply bad casting. she sucks.
Kate was awesome in the first two seasons. It wasn’t until see lived up to the title of a classic Beach Boys song and become super annoying.
And it might be me but I don’t really care that Desmond is back. Meh.
POSSIBLE SPOILER: Did anyone else notice in next week’s scenes where it shows John Locke staring out over the water from the beach…in his funeral clothes?? It’s not Widmore or Fake Locke because this bald white guy was in slacks. Discuss.