Quick Take: Lost, "The Package" "A wise man once said war is coming to this island. I think it just got here." – Not Locke
Review: Lost, "The Package" (S0609) This final season of Lost has been a standout, perhaps its best since its first when all of the island's mysteries were still so exotic and new. The pacing has been great, the equation of questions answered to new ones asked has been solid, and the momentum building toward The End has been intense and exhilarating.
So, it's acceptable for things to take a little bit of a breather every now and again. It makes sense that one of those moments would be an episode focused on Jin and Sun. They both are solid characters, and Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim are great in their respective roles, but the storylines involving these two Losties tend to be more intriguing/watchable than the masterful plots involving the likes of Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Locke/Not Locke, Richard Alpert (Richard Carbonnell), Kate (Evangeline Lilly), and Jack (Matthew Fox) we've seen of late.
A subtle yet important moment seemed to go down when Not Locke (Terry O' Quinn) tells Sayid (Naveen Andrews) "not to worry" about the fact that the latter reveals that he no longer feels pain, joy, sadness, or much of anything anymore. It's probably best for what's ahead, Not Locke explains, not unkindly.
We know that back at the temple, the followers of Jacob there were keen on knocking Sayid off. Given the extraordinary and game changing revelations we learned in "Ab Aeterno," it makes me think/guess that Not Locke will "pass on" the role of being the dark force that must be bottled up on the island when Not Locke/Smoke Monster/The Man In Black makes his great escape.
Not that we needed it, but further evidence that Not Locke is also a Not Nice Guy is his implication that Krazy Claire is free to kill Kate once the latter helps the selected list to get on the escape plane. And this not nice guy finally comes head-to-head (though separated by strange electromagnetic "pylons) with Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), another Very Not Nice Guy. It would seem that their coming "war," as Not Locke alludes to, will have a lot to do with how things play out for all of our Losties.
More thoughts on "The Package":
Where possible we should take a step back and call out great performances amongst this huge and to a man/woman fabulous cast. Terry O'Quinn is absolutely killing it in the strange new form that his character(s) has taken.
When Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) asked Jin who was after her after she banged her head against the tree, it seemed like he actually cared about her a little bit, didn't it?
Very cool to see Room 23 back in action! Or the Clockwork Orange Real Horrorshow Room of Entertainments, as I like to call it.
Krazy Claire (Emilie de Ravin) didn't seem so Krazy, or even crazy, this week.
Sawyer bantering with Not Locke, telling him that it would be ridiculous for him to turn into the smoke monster to fly across the water, is great fun.
"A wise man once said war is coming to this island. I think it just got here." – Not Locke
Pretty cool to see Jin's flash sideways storyline "catch up" to the events we witnessed in "Sundown."
"Good luck." – Badass Sayid to Jin during the flash sideways
The stupid V "countdown clock" promo blocked the text of Sun's written messages to Jack. Stupid and frustrating!
Oy brothers! Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) is back! I once mused that Lost had run out of flashback stories to tell and someday we'd see Desmond: The High School Years. Well, looks like our Brit (and Penny's guy, let's remember) is back in the form of The Package. What does it all mean? Guess we're going to have to tune in next week to find out.
Sun getting a stray slug in the chest at the end of the flash sideways storyline tells us that if she doesn't make it, pretty much wipes out the alternate reality as happy ending notion. This is Lost though, so I'd take it as there are still huge questions to be answered as yet.
Video: Lost, "The Package" Full episode available on the Hulu right about now…
Recap: Lost, "The Package" Sun and Jin continue to search for each other; Locke confronts his enemy.
From Around the Web: Lost, "The Package"
TV with Alan Sepinwall: Again, I accept that I've lost the clutter fight, but there are some shows and moments that should be above this junk. As Mike Schneider wrote, "this is "Lost." The final season of "Lost." It's sacred ground. You don't clutter the screen during one of the show's final, pivotal episodes. Or you piss people off."
Crave Online: The best aspect of this episode was the reveal of what –er, who – was behind the door on the sub. It was, indeed, Desmond Hume. As for what his purpose is on the island, I’m going to go out on a limb here: I think that Desmond has the ability to cross over into the flash sideways realm and change something.
IGN: The final standoff in the restaurant had a few good action beats and having Mikhail lose an eye again was both hilarious and fitting. If Mikhail had been shot on the island, he'd probably be up and walking around by next week's episode.
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