Lost 6.10, "The Package"
Lost 6.10, "The Package"
Apr 07
So does every pair of lovers on the island need to have their stars crossed?
This is a show that has a big thing for tortured romance. Whether it’s the unrequited triangle of Kate/Sawyer/Jack, the gone-too-soon tragedy of Sayid and Shannon, or the torn-apart agony of Sun and Jin, the course of true love never does run smooth on Lost. It makes me pine for the days when Bernard and Rose were a more regular presence, although there again, you’ve got the terminal cancer.
In “The Package” Sun and Jin take the spotlight in the alterniverse, where Jin is delivering a “package” for Sun’s crime boss father. Things start to go awry when the $25,000 contained as part of this “package” is confiscated by airport security, and even as Sun begins persuading Jin to elope with her in America and is about to reveal an exciting surprise, the hand of fate knocks on her hotel room door. You know instantly: This will not end well.
On the island in 2007, Sun and Jin continue to miss each other, though they have both searched across time and space in the hopes of a reunion. Charles Widmore takes Jin captive and shows him pictures of his young daughter; Sun is confronted by the Man in Black with a tempting proposition before injuring herself and losing her ability to speak English. (Shades of the Garden of Eden there, including an unfortunate encounter with a tree and a red “fruit” appearing near the episode’s end.)
One’s appreciation of “The Package” will depend largely on one’s patience for these gut-twisting near-tragedies of love’s labors lost. There are a few chunky bits of information shared about the “present-day” action on the island, but the emotional heart of the episode is set in the alterniverse and the inevitable tragic end to Sun and Jin’s trip to America.
The producers continue to weave in smart-ass connections in the alterniverse between the same characters who’ve been bound together by the island; that batshit eyepatch dude Mikhail is a translator for Martin Keamy, and Sayid’s violent encounter with Keamy a few episodes before just happens to intersect with Jin trapped in a meat locker in the same location. It’s hard to tell if these are continuing to reinforce the themes of fate and free will that the series is exploring, or if it’s just many little easter eggs for the die-hards to nibble while they wait for answers. Either way, it’s entertaining.
Did I buy into the angst? To a degree, yes. It kinda snuck up on me; one minute I was rooting for Sun and Jin to escape Keamy and start a new life in the states, and the next one, it suddenly dawned on me that there was gonna be a heartache tonight. The bullet went through Sun’s middle and the knife twisted again. Well played, Lost. Well played.
