LOST: Native Tongue

  Feeling a little worn out tonight, so rather than write about tonight's Lost in one big chunk, I'm going with the quick-and-easy bullet points style. I'm not saving a lot of spoilers for the bottom, so if you haven't watched yet, this is a good time to stop reading. Here we go:

•  Not much was going to top last week's Richard Alpert epic, but "The Package" was still a really solid hour. It moved things forward, gave pretty much everyone in the cast something to do, most notably Jin and Sun, who have been background characters for a lot of the season.
• But tonight, they were the stars. It's great that in this final stretch, Lost is giving nearly all its characters one final chance to really own an episode. And even though Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim have to share the episode, they make the most of the time they have, whether it's Daniel's face when he sees his daughter for the first time, or Yunjin's frustration and rage, expressed in dual languages.
• At first, it seemed like a bad decision to follow Sideways Jin and Sun in the early part of their trip, before Jin get taken prisoner in the restaurant. Then Sun opened the hotel door to find Keamy and his evil grin, and everything changed. Very tense stuff, as we learn just how much trouble the couple is in, even after Sayid shows up and -- indirectly -- saves Jin. It may too late for Sideways Sun, however, as she takes a bullet during Jin's fight with Mikhail (!), who -- like his island counterpart, dies and loses an eye.
• This being a sideways story, we get a shot of Sun looking into the mirror just before she answers the door. Moments later, we cut back to her on the island, and she's waking up, having lost her ability to speak English thanks to a Flocke-related head injury. It's called "aphasia," Jack tells everyone. 
• Speaking of Jack, his redemption is just about complete. Him bringing Sun the "stubborn" tomato from her old vegetable garden is the type of thing Season 1 Locke would've done.

•  Tonight's big news: Desmond! As a lot of people have speculated, he was the "package" in this week's episode title, locked in that secret room on Widmore's sub (and apparently doped up to the point he can't walk). But he seemed awake and alert enough to notice Sayid's frogman act at the end of the episode, and to keep quiet about it. The question now: what's Sayid's next move.
• Other questions: How does Desmond's presence on the island help Widmore stop the Man in Black? And after Widmore refers to MIB as the stuff of "myth, ghost stories and noises in the jungle," MIB seems to indicate that Widmore's knowledge runs deeper. What does he mean by that?
• Which was funnier? Miles stating that the only way Hurley could track someone would be if "they were covered in bacon grease" (followed by Frank's "Hey, don't mention bacon")? Or Sawyer's "Yeah, that would be ridiculous" when MIB told him that, duh, he couldn't just turn into smoke and fly across the water.
• Apparently Illana's acceptance/forgiveness of Ben only goes so far, as she's immediately suspicious of him when Sun is injured.
• Another call back to seasons past: Jin wakes up in Room 23, onetime Dharma/Others torture chamber.
• Is there really such a demand for the return of V that ABC needed to have a countdown clock on screen for the entire episode? What an awful, distracting decision.
• And that's it for now. I'll be back next week, and we can talk about Desmond. Something else to think about on that score: in his Twitter feed tonight, Lost co-creator Damon Lindelof noted that "In one week, the conversation is going to change." Oh, brother...

 Tom Coombe

Comments

[Marc]

The bacon grease comment had me laughing, my favorite line from a mostly serious ep

[Tom Coombe]

If they manage to do an episode with Miles, Hurley, Sawyer or Ben before this season is over, it will be the darkest thing Lost has done.