Hello, haters! I may be one stubborn tomato, but I tried to zen out this week, for sanity’s sake. Granted, I didn’t love the episode — especially with Smokey more devilish than ever. Sun was bonked on the head and speaks only Korean, but can write in English, which is just ridiculous, and having Miles say it’s ridiculous doesn’t make it less ridiculous. Plus, I wasn’t wild about Keamy as a poor man’s Tarantino villain and Tina Fey as a nerdy woman’s Juliet.
Still, it’s hard to kvetch too much about an episode with so much cardigan-unbuttoning. That shooting-Mikhail-in-the-eye bit was nice, in a what-the-heck-is-this-timeline way. Mainly, though, there was a lot of vamping, as this week’s soul mates longed from afar and characters conferred, smoldered, and confirmed stuff we knew (a war’s coming, did you hear?). Then, that final reveal: Desmond, a.k.a. the Package, a nickname no man can object to.
And on to the recap.
Night-vision footage: Sawyer offers faux cocoa to Kate while Locke approaches Jin. He explains the candidate dealie and dangles Sun access, but Jin ain’t biting.
Flashsideways! Pre-fluent Jin has his $25K confiscated at the airport. When Sun, Mad Men-ish in a pencil skirt, questions him, he explains her dad gave him the money for delivery. At the hotel, the clerk offers one room, but Jin needs two: They aren’t married!
Meanwhile, Locke deputizes zombified Sayid, who, like me and Morales, feels nothing: no anger, pain, itching. Maybe that’s best, saith Smokey. It’ll help him get through what’s comin’.
Jin and Sawyer confab: Jin’s off to find Sun! Until he’s knocked out by a dart. Tina Fey and her puffy henchman lug him away.
As Frank and Miles play cards, Ben kvetches, doubtful Hurley’s gonna bring Richard back. (“Unless he’s covered in bacon grease,” snarks Miles — and if the one truly funny line in the episode is a fat joke with a bacon chaser, that’s no good.) Ilana has faith. Sun slams her knife down, then huffs off to garden.
The symbolic tomatoes are dead. And though Jack tries to tell Sun about the Lighthouse, she’s not interested in anything — Richard, candidacy, destiny. (Lady, what about your kid?)
Meanwhile, in the Timeline of WTF, Jin visits Sun’s room. He’s anxious, she’s loosey-goosey — and flirtatious as he accuses her of being a shopping freak, and she opens a button, and ooh la la. Bra ahoy. Sexy, plus I love that this provides an alternate explanation for why he asked her to button her sweater on the plane.
On the island, Smocke approaches Sun, dangling access to Jin, but she’s picky about trusting mass murderers. Those people were confused, Smokey protests! They had a choice! He’d never make her do anything against her will! She runs. He chases.
In the Flashsideways Hotel of Huh?, Sun wakes up, kittenish. She suggests running away, avec secret bank account. There’s much tawny, delightful semi-nudity, then a knock. Sun looks in a mirror, eerily. Opens the door. It’s Keamy, toothy thug.
On the island, Ben finds Sun. She’s speaking Korean.
Smocke is displeased that his followers are unconscious. What happened? They were attacked, says Sayid. By whom? Where’s Jin? There are a lot of scenes like this in the episode.
Anyway, Jin’s in a locked room — full of freaky techno music and pop-art slides, same stuff they used to brainwash Ben’s daughter’s boyfriend what’shisname.
“Wow, that was weird, huh?” says Tina Fey, the low-rent Juliet with folders. “You know all about the Dharma Initiative, huh?”
She tazes him. Shows him maps of magnetic pockets. Brings him to Widmore.
Over at Team Smocke, Feral Claire’s obsessing: She’s no candidate, so Smocke doesn’t need her. But Kate isn’t a candidate either and he reassures Claire that, although he needs Kate to collect his markers, after that, she’s toast: “Whatever happens, happens.” It is what it is. You snooze you lose! Bros before foes.
Smocke and Sawyer exposit that Smocke’s gonna get Jin back, and there’s the first of several meta “anyone who questions the plot is being way too picky” moments:
Sawyer: Can’t you just turn to smoke and fly over to the other island?
Flaucke: If I could do that, do you think I’d still be here?
Sawyer: Oh, yeah, because THAT would be ridiculous.
Meanwhile, in FlashPsycho, Keamy is ogling Sun’s bedroom — why do so many Sun scenes feel like rape threats? She hands over the watch, but he wants money. “No English,” she says, as Thug Two (Omar) arrives. They find indications of henchman-princess sex, then open the bathroom door to reveal Jin’s freakishly perfect torso.
This should stun them into submission, but instead, Keamy snarks about feeling like he’s in a Godzilla movie, which is both racist and illogical, since they’re Korean. They fetch Mikhail to translate, which cheers me up, as he’s intriguingly unscarred. Mikhail translates, and the upshot is Sun’s off to the bank, and Keamy’s taking Jin to the restaurant.
On the island, Sun’s been bonked on the head and everyone suspects Ben. “Why won’t you believe me?” “Because you’re speaking.”
“She hits her head and forgets English?” asks Miles for me. “We’re supposed to buy that?”
“Ask the man who communes with the dead,” offers Frank — and once again, even in a supernatural universe, snark is not the universal solvent for plot absurdities.
Jack thinks it’s aphasia.
Richard returns.
On the beautiful beach of Hawaii, which I someday hope to visit, Smocke is attacked by Widmore’s minions. “Easy, friend, I come in peace.”
He and Widmore meet and wave their antlers about. “Everything else I know is a combination of myth, ghost stories, and general noises in the night,” Widmore tells Smokey about his rep.
Smocke suspects he knows more, given those pylons. Widmore lies about Jin being there.
“A wise man once said war was coming to this island,” smolders Smocke. “I think it just got here.” He unbuttons his cardigan.
Meanwhile, on the beach, Richard’s got his groove back, plus a hard-on for destroying the plane. Sun’s pissed, in subtitles: She’s anti-plane destroying, pro–getting Jin, and frankly a little uppity about the whole I’m-a-candidate thing.
In the Flashsideways, she finds out her daddy closed her precious secret bank account.
Meanwhile, Jin is beaten by Omar, then bound by Keamy, who reveals the $25K was payment for whacking Jin — punishment for givin’ Sun Jin’s own package. “Some people aren’t meant to be together,” he says, closing the fridge doors.
Widmore and Tina Fey bicker over timelines and I’m not really following, but anyway, Fey says, “Maybe you should put a mercenary in charge, rather than a geophysicist.” He needs her to get “the package” from the submarine and take it to the infirmary.
Widmore hands Sun’s camera to Jin, so he can see pictures of Ji Yeon. This affects me like crazy, for I am a sucker, and Jin’s a good actor. Widmore has a daughter, too! And if Smocke gets on the island, their daughters — daughters everywhere!! all the daughters!! — will simply “cease to be.” It’s time for Jin to see … the package. Is this a universe without double entendres? Or am I 14?
In the Timeline of Mysterious Provenance, Jin tries to escape. Sayid breaks in and while he doesn’t release Jin, he puts the box cutter in his hands.
Then Mikhail and Sun enter to find bleeding Keameyites. Who did this to you? says Mikhail, crouching. But Jin holds a gun to his head, and just because someone says “You’re an idiot” doesn’t mean this behavior makes sense for an experienced thug, but then, during the showdown, Jin shoots Mikhail’s eye out, which was great. Except for Sun being shot. And pregnant.
Jack joins Sun on the beach. He hands her a notepad — and apparently, she can write English, unlike me, currently post-seder and low on coffee. “That’s one stubborn tomato,” he says. “Guess no one told it it was supposed to die.”
She doesn’t trust Smocke. She trusts Jack. Jack will find Jin. He PROMISES.
Sawyer joins Kate, arguing that Smocke’s dead. Instead, he returns — letting them know he’s sent Sayid over as a spy. Devil-man, why so much thinking out loud? Seems less than strategic. And as many suspected, the package is Desmond. Dazed, Des looks down and is shocked to see Sayid, swimming quietly below him.
What We Know Now:
• Desmond is the Package.
• Zoe is a geophysicist.
• Smocke can’t leave the island till he collects all the candidates …
The Wha? Factor:
• … and it might help his oddly poor Othering skills if he dropped that “they died because they chose not to follow me!” schtick. He sounds so sincere, but dude, no one sympathizes.
• What’s Widmore’s motive? He’s anti-Smokey, anti-Ben— and Jacob’s against him, too. He’s obsessed with the Black Rock and the worst father-in-law ever. Discuss.
• As the ep ended, Damon Lindelof tweeted, “In one week, the conversation is gonna change.” Okay! I assume that means they explain the Flashsideways. Any theories?
