After the stunning episode last week, Lost came back down to earth with "The Package," a run-of-the-mill episode that wasn't big on everything, but moved the story along enough to keep it from being a total disappointment.
The flash-sideways returned with Jin and Sun as the protagonists. I've never been a big fan of their flashbacks like I am for Locke's, Sayid's, and Ben's, so I came into the episode already inclined to not be a big fan of the episode. The slight deviations were again in play. Sun and Jin are still in love, but they aren't married yet and Jin is a thug for Mr. Paik. He's is more carefree and not weighed down by the dirty tasks Paik would have him do. The uptight Jin disappears as he and Sun have a playful love scene. From there, it all goes downhill. Keamy comes looking for the $25,000 which was confiscated at the airport. He invites his buddy in and gets Jin to come out. Since neither Jin nor Sun can speak English in the flash-sideways, they get Mikhail to translate.
We finally figure out how Jin ends up in the freezer. Keamy ties him up while Mikhail takes Sun to the bank. Sun has secret bank accounts with enough money to pay Keamy, but her powerful father has already reached the bank account and closed it, knowing she is with Jin. The $25,000 was for Keamy to kill Jin. Then, Sayid comes in and the story picks up where Sayid's left off. Sayid is reluctant to free Jin, but hands him a knife. Jin gets out as Mikhail comes in. They fight, and Mikhail gets shot in the eye (I'm guessing he'll need more than an eyepatch for that.), and Sun is shot in the stomach. She reveals she is pregnant. The flash-sideways ends there without a conclusion. Obviously, the story will get picked up later which dampened the entire episode. Another ongoing flash-sideways plot makes the flash-sideways less like vignettes that compliment the island plot and more like a standalone story, one that I don't care much, because these aren't the same people we've been following for five seasons.
The biggest question (in my opinion) is whether Keamy said something about the island. Here's the clip and what I think I heard. Call me crazy, but there is no doubt in my mind he said island. Either that's the case or we can blame Kevin Durand and Paul Edwards. If the flash-sidways and the island are coming together, a slip of the tongue would be a good place to start. It doesn't make sense in context and I can see how "island" sounds like "to ya" the way it was said, so there's a decent chance I'm wrong.
Back at the island, Jin is captured by Zoe, the geologist with Widmore, and brought to a station to confirm pockets of electromagnetic anomalies which he signed off on back in his Dharma days. Widmore shows him a picture of Yi Jeon, and Jin breaks down, melting my heart in the process.
Flocke has an interesting talk with Claire. Claire asks Flocke about the names on the wall and learns she and Kate are not on it. Kate is only there to help get the three necessary people off the island. After that happens, Claire has to go ahead from Flocke to do whatever she wants.
At the other camp, Flocke shows up to draw Sun into her circle, but she runs off and crashes into a tree. When she wakes up, she can't speak English, but she knows what is going on and can understand English. Could this be the intersection between their world and the flash-sideways? Even if it's not, Jack has a touching scene on the beach where he tells her to write down what she has to say.
The big reveal of the episode--Desmond in the locked room--came at the end as Sayid approaches the sub by water. Why does Widmore need Desmond? Widmore knows more about Flocke than he's letting on, but how much does he know. It doesn't seem like he cares much about Jacob either.
Along with "What Kate Does," "The Package" was my least favorite episode of the season. Other than the brief action with Mikhail, there was no action and mostly non-twisty dialogue. We are now past the halfway point in the season, and half our questions have not been answered. Is time running out?
Score: 8.8/10
