Spoilers below!
This week on LOST, Jin is kidnapped by Widmore’s crew and Sun can’t speak English. Off the island, Jin and Sun are in a forbidden relationship, and Keamy is his usual creepy self.
Read our discussion and share your thoughts, theories and predictions in the comments. Just remember, no spoilers for episodes that haven’t aired.
General thoughts & reactions?
SALLY: Well, I’m convinced Cara had some prior knowledge to the schedule this season because I get two painfully boring episodes in a row and she gets two awesomely awesome ones in a row. Boo to you!
CARA: Knowledge of the schedule, perhaps! An in with the writers, sadly, no. If I had that, after being annoyed all season that Sun and Jin have barely gotten to talk, I would have ensured that when they finally got an episode, it was good. The episode wasn’t bad — unlike Sawyer’s, which dragged, it seemed to go by really quickly somehow and kept my attention. But not much happened, and they didn’t really do much with either Sun or Jin on the island. And as seems to be the mark of a bad episode, I was yet again more interested in the off-island happenings than our main plot.
LAUREN: General frustration. I have very serious issues with how The Ladies fit into our island story. It dawned on me last night that all of the primary female characters on the show have stopped dealing with Big Island Issues and are primarily concerned with Lady Issues. Kate and Claire are deadlocked over a baby and the only tension in their story is whether Claire is going to stab Kate to death. Sun’s primary concerns are whether she can reunite her traditional heterosexual family, without a voice no less. Even Ilana whose story might have been viewed as “just a soldier following orders” has suddenly been given daddy issues and has full-on admitted that she’s only doing what she’s doing because, without any explanation of course, her daddy-god told her to. So the men on the show are dealing with the end of the world and the ladies are dealing with marriage, babies, and the Electra complex. Awesome job, Writers of LOST.
SADY: YUP! Yup and a half, in fact! Like, suddenly they realized they were running out of episodes and needed to tie up all the character arcs, and were like, “but wait. Aren’t a bunch of these characters… LADIES??? Instant writing shortcut, my friends! Suddenly, none of them require interesting scenes AT ALL!”
JILL: My one hope is for Liz Lemon. I mean, she was the one who hauled Jin off (even if apparently was a mistake?), and she seems to be relatively important in the Widmore world…
SADY: Man! I feel worse and worse about Liz Lemon lately! Although I do look forward to the episode arc where she starts dating Jack and he becomes The Only Boyfriend Worse Than Dennis.
LAUREN: Liz Lemon? You mean Zoe Ramone?
Off the island, Jin and Sun aren’t married, but they are secret lovers. Except not so secret because it turns out Keamy was hired to kill Jin for sleeping with the boss’ daughter. Also, Sun is pregnant. Thoughts?
CARA: I think that Mr. Paik was always a major dick, but he seems to be an even bigger dick in the alterverse. It’s so awful, having Jin unknowingly deliver the fee to the hitman who has been hired to kill him. And yet it’s so sinister, it’s kind of delicious. I think this show is messing with my moral compass.
Also, Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim have such incredibly chemistry during sexy scenes! I love them together.
SADY: I think the chemistry may have been aided by the fact that Daniel Dae Kim spent seriously like 25% of the episode with no clothes on. It was like he saw all the Sawyer episodes, where it is established repeatedly that Sawyer has some special skin problem that makes it impossible for him to keep a shirt on for more than 2.5 minutes, and was like, “I can do better than that.” But you’re right: These actors seriously commit to being sexy, which makes it all the more frustrating that they haven’t really been in a room together for like two and a half years.
LAUREN: As usual, Keamy was extra-creepy, Mr. Paik is a manipulative dickhead, Sayid was super-hot (except for the swimming sequence which was hilarious), Mikhail lost his eye (again), and Sun and Jin were totes in love. For one, I can’t decide if Jin and Sun are terrible at baby-making or really good at it. Baby Kwon is cuter than skull baby, for sure. For two, I noticed in sideways world that neither Jin nor Sun are as gangster as they are in island world. Both seemed to be shuffled along in sideways world, victims of circumstance, whereas both are rather confident and purposeful in island world. For three, in sideways world, Jin speaks English and suddenly Sun can not, a reversal to correct poor cuckolded Jin from being emotionally castrated by his wife for the duration of the series. Without really knowing how sideways world works just yet, I can’t discern the significance of this change.
JILL: “Baby Kwon is cuter than skull baby, for sure.” I am “LOL”ing, if you will, at that line. I’m sure that’s what every new parent would like to hear: “Wow, your baby is so much cuter than a creepy animal skull with patches of hair stuck to it! You guys are awesome at baby-making!” I hope someone puts that in a greeting card to me someday.
But anyway, can we all just cheer for a minute about how they brought back the Russian? AND HOW HE LOST HIS EYE?! Amazing. Although the Sun/Jin storyline bugged me for the same reason that Lauren pointed out above — it’s a continuation of the Lady Problems. Jin is concerned mostly about not fucking up his job, while Sun is like, “Let’s run away together!” and then just lets Keamy into the hotel room even though you know that guy is trouble. Although, re: Sayid being hot: I have probably the biggeset Sayid-boner of anyone, and I think they’re purposely making him unappealing because they’re going to kill him off. (I KNOW, I’M SORRY BUT IT’S TRUE).
CARA: You are WRONG, Jill. I was just going to mention that Evil Sayid is totally hot. Not hotter than Good Sayid, but I’d say differently yet equally hot. I can’t say the evil is working for me personality-wise, but in the looks department, I have no complaints.
SALLY: I think Sayid’s shining moment in the episode was when he was an asshole and didn’t let Jin go. Not because of his actions, but he just looked so unbelievably hot that I felt the urge to rewind and see it again. And, sadly, I agree with Jill’s prediction that Sayid’s going to be killed off.
On the island, Flocke says the only way to get off the island is to get the candidates together. Was our prediction last week correct – is he going to kill them?
LAUREN: I believe he’s either trying to round them up and kill them, or that he really does need them to get off the island. Either way I don’t see a good outcome. I’m also a little concerned about MY BOYFRIEND SAYID, JILL AND CARA, saying that he doesn’t feel any pain or emotion anymore. Because I need him to feel his love for me.
JILL: First of all, LAUREN WHO IS MARRIED AND JUST STARTED WATCHING LOST LIKE 6 MONTHS AGO AND ALSO USED THE TERM “EMOTIONALLY CASTRATED” EARLIER WHICH I THINK GETS YOU KICKED OUT OF FEMINISM, Sayid has been my boyfriend since the beginning. And I am sad that he has to die, but he does, because the “I don’t feel pain anymore” thing is another reminder that his soul is dead because he is infected. Otherwise, agreed. They have to either die or get off the island, and Sayid is going to die soon, and I don’t trust Flocke and I think he might try to kill everyone.
LAUREN: Touché, sister.
CARA: Jill, I am very pleased that you stood up to Lauren, but very disappointed that you so brazenly claimed Sayid as your boyfriend, even though he is clearly also my boyfriend. (I believe we have discussed that neither one of us wants to win his sole affections, as show precedent states that this results in instant, violent death.) Anyway, I’m concerned about him, and also worried that he’s going to die — but mainly, I will just be incredibly pissed if they kill him while he’s still evil, and if this is how his character arc ends. If that happens, I will never, EVER forgive the writers for as long as I live. Sayid deserves redemption, and he has struggled with wrongly seeing himself as a bad person since the very beginning of the series, and so if the story ends with him actually being a bad person … I, for one, will never get over it.
SALLY: I am nonmonogamous and am therefore above the fray in this fight over Sayid. Sayid can be all of our boyfriends. I’m sure it wouldn’t make the sex any less hot.
SADY: I personally am dating Jin. Until his wife finds out, at which point I will not be so much “dating” as “attempting to recuperate from all the various stab wounds in my face due to.” Oh, okay, this is too risky. I am dating Jacob’s Bag of Ashes. He is very low-maintenance, but also, so lazy! I basically have to carry him everywhere when we go out!
Flocke also says that Kate was a candidate but her name has been crossed off. What do we make of this?
CARA: I don’t know, but I’m annoyed! Not only because that means that every single candidate might be male, and best case scenario only one woman is in the running, but also because every single theory I’ve seen for why Kate would have been crossed off the list while everyone else has stayed on is incredibly sexist. I want to somehow try and turn it into her not being a candidate saying something positive about her … but how could good folks be kicked off the list when our lovable Hurley is still on?
LAUREN: Right. I’m annoyed too! I’m annoyed that Flocke insinuated that Kate is being kept around as man bait. (Or alternately, that Kate is being kept around a few more episodes before Claire gets at her, probably to smother Kate in her WIG OF HORROR. Mean girl lady drama!) I have always hoped that a woman would be the final standing candidate, the one the show hinges on, especially since the original plot line was supposed to revolve around a woman leader: Kate. Setting up Jack as the ULTIMATE FIGHTER but twisting it toward a different candidate, like Sun, my candidate of choice, feels more poetic. I can dream.
SALLY: Yeah, I was most bothered by Flocke giving Claire the green light to kill Kate, so long as she does it AFTER Kate has served her purpose. Normally, I go back and forth on whether or not to trust Flocke, but I feel like that scene was written in a way that made it inevitable. Like, yes, Kate will serve her purpose so stay tuned for the Claire-Kate brawl. That really pissed me off.
SADY: Again, a scene from the LOST writer’s room: “Well, but what are we going to do with Kate, though?” “Have you noticed she is… A LADY?” “Cross that one off the list, my friend! Problem solved! Man, we are some TV geniuses in this room right here.”
Flocke tries to get Sun to go with him to Jin. She hits her head and can’t speak English. Meanwhile, Jin’s captured by Widmore’s crew. Why does Widmore choose Jin?
CARA: I loved when Sun suddenly got all badass and told off Richard! But I was really annoyed that immediately before she did it, they took away her ability to speak in a language he would understand, and without even a translator around. I really hope that her loss of ability to speak English is going to serve some greater plot point down the road, because otherwise it really just looks like: “Here’s one of about three female characters left on the show! We haven’t let her talk all season. Now it’s finally her episode, so we kind of have to let her talk. But that doesn’t mean we have to let her be able to communicate effectively!” Until the very end of the show with Jack, she wasn’t able to have a conversation with anyone. They’ve kind of taken her “voice” away from her (since she is only around people who speak English and Spanish), and it’s totally not cool if they did that just for funsies. Especially since this “oh, I bumped my head and now have some kind of selective amnesia” plot line is so common and boring to begin with.
LAUREN: I wholeheartedly agree. This episode was a feminism fail on two levels, first, the Kate conundrum I mentioned above, and secondly, the inability to let a woman have a voice — a competent voice, agency, even — on this show is, like, more than the writers can stand. Worse, now we have Zoe, aka the lost Ramone, aka Liz Lemon’s long lost breathy cousin, who for a geophysicist is surprisingly dingy. Can a LOST lady get a break?
CARA: I thought we answered that a long time ago, Lauren. The answer is no. No, she cannot. (But she can have her character used poorly and then killed off in a moment that is very dramatic and significant for a dude!)
LAUREN: This really doesn’t incentivize anyone’s Hollywood aspirations. Can I bring up another grievance? Because I’m going to. The extended foreplay scene between Jin and Sun, which did have a lot of hawt chemistry like Cara mentions above, spent a lot of time sexualizing Sun. Usually the skin in Lost is incidental or situational, even sweet, but the gaze in this scene was so overwhelming to me, the emphasis on BOOBS! Yunjin Kim has BOOBS! Look at her BOOBS! BOOBS 4 JIN! HERE COMES THE SUN! that it was jarring. Sex scenes can be done, and done really well, without overemphasizing the sexy sexiness of the sexy ladies. In conjunction with the other Lady Issues I mentioned above, the gaze in this scene was bothersome. Equally bothersome is how fans and recappers, usually cis het men, then react to said sexualized scenes. Can you blame them for reacting as they are heteronormatively supposed to react to erotic scenes specially crafted for their personal nerd spank banks? I can and do.
I judge your spank bank.
JILL: Yeah, the “Hey guys look, I know Kate was The Hot One but Sun is super hot too!” thing is weird and tiresome. Although when the Sun Boobs Shot came on, my roommate and I did both shout out in unison, “WOAH! SUN HAS GREAT BOOBS!” And then when they showed Shirtless Jin a while later, we both sighed. Loudly. And spent the next commercial break discussing how insanely beautiful Jin is. So, points for the videographers for getting good chest-shots, I guess…?
Although I will say that “X character hit her head and now has amnesia / cannot speak / WHATEVER” is one of my biggest TV plot pet peeves. It’s just so cheap! I mean, seriously LOST, you’re going all Days of Our Lives now? If they wake up and This Was All A Dream I may have an anuerism. (And yes I know I am mixing up my soap operas, just go with it).
LAUREN: I judge your spank bank too, Jill, although I stand in solidarity with your protest against TV head injuries.
SADY: Oh. My GOD. The boobs thing. Like, OK: I have established in the past that I like the Sun and Jin relationship. And I will tell you why, now, because it’s the only relationship on the show that actually does work for me. I read someone saying somewhere that Sun and Jin were a “less interesting Desmond and Penny,” and I was like, OH, you got it BACKWARDS??? Because ALL Desmond and Penny do is (a) long for each other when they’re apart and (b) moon over each other when they’re together. But Sun and Jin are a fleshed-out relationship, with complications and backstory, that actually still works. It’s a lot more three-dimensional than anything Kate has ever done, relationship-wise, like EVER. Or Desmond and Penny, which: I get it, and it’s very swooningly romantic, but not for me. I like Sun and Jin, because I like the fact that first HE was the jerk, because he was snappish and controlling, and then SHE was the jerk, because she was a cheater, and then you understand that they’re NOT jerks, they just fucked this marriage up, and they’re both actually good for each other in some ways, so you can completely understand why they fell apart, and you can completely understand why they want to be together. So I tried — I tried! — to see this as a character moment. Like, the first interaction we saw them have was Jin telling Sun telling to button up that damn sensible cardigan, and she complied, and we were meant to infer a terrible relationship. And this is like, the opposite of buttoning-up, and first it seems like defiance, but then it becomes sexy and intimate, and whoa she’s naked underneath the sensible cardigan! Who saw that coming? Now we know that he probably knew and there was actually a sexual current there, in the “button up” moment! But seriously, you can convey “naked” without five. Fucking. CLOSEUPS. Of her boobs. It wasn’t just exploitative, it was bad TV. And I know that Daniel Dae Kim is out to win the Most Well-Defined Torso Award that they’re going to hand out at the wrap party, and he was naked a lot TOO, but it wasn’t like we got a cut-away to his six-pack every five seconds. We got boobs. LOTS. OF. BOOBS. IN MY FACE. NOT APPRECIATED.
CARA: I agree that the boobs thing was jarring. It’s hardly like we don’t get male eye-candy on the show — I’d say that as a general rule, there’s actually a bit more of the bare-chested dudes than there are cleavage shots. But they also don’t do long, lingering closeup studies of Sawyer’s pecs that I’ve noticed, so, yeah.
Back to Jin! For now I’m trusting that they wanted him for the reason that Zoe said — because he had information about the island through his Dharma work in the 70s, which they needed. I’ve no guesses as to ulterior motives at this point, but I wanted to say that I liked Jin finally getting to see photos of Ji Yeon! I swear, it’s the first time that girl has been mentioned since Sun got off the phone with her down at the docks in Season 5. (And wouldn’t Sun’s outburst about how badly she wanted to get off the island have been the perfect time to bring it up?)
SALLY: I guess my confusion came from asking Jin at all. He’s no scientist or anything, so why should he know anything more than what’s written on the map? Also, the fact that Widmore then took him to see “the package, DUN DUN DUN” made me question whether Zoe’s interest was different from Widmore’s. Or, you know, I’m just overthinking all of this because it’s LOST and that’s how it goes…
In regards to the cleavage shot, I also found it a bit odd, but was quickly overwhelmed by their awesome chemistry. And my desire to sleep with Jin.
SADY: I… I am coming back now. Because I am going to tell you a secret. A secret for which you will judge me. My secret is, I liked the “Sun can only speak Korean now” thing. Even though it was just bizarre and stupid and I knew it at the time. Because I was like, “but now Jin is LITERALLY THE ONLY ONE THAT CAN UNDERSTAND HER.” And then Jin cried when he saw his baby. HANDSOME MAN CRIES TEARS OVER CUTE BABY, the girl-enculturation portion of my brain yelled at me. HANDSOME MAN LOVES WIFE LOVES BABY FEELS FEELINGS, my brain continued, FURTHERMORE, HANDSOME MAN FEELINGS FEELINGS BABY HANDSOME LOVE PROCREATION HANDSOME. And then my brain, unsure that it had expressed itself strongly enough, spontaneously gave me a sappiness-related aneurysm, and I died. I died! So you can judge me all you like. You cannot hurt me now.
SALLY: Sady, I won’t be judging you, I’m too busy getting teary-eyed at the mere thought of that scene. I think I actually felt my ovaries exploding from cute overload.
Speaking of Widmore, what’s he doing on the island? We know he’s there to stop Smokey, but what does a geophycisist interested in electromagnetism have anything to do with it? Is it related to the pylons they erected to keep Flocke out?
LAUREN: Now that I’ve been all curmudgeonly, did anyone else make a half dozen jokes about Widmore’s package?
JILL: It’s bigger than I thought it would be. And so much more “European,” if you get my drift…
LAUREN: Yeah, I don’t have good, firm grasp on Widmore’s role here, but I’m tres curious about the pylons they erected on the beach. The scene when Flocke and Widmore meet on the beach didn’t fill a lot of holes in the storyline, but I was stimulated by the thrust of their conversation, i.e. “myths, ghost stories, and noises in the night.” Also, Widmore was curiously amused by Flocke’s limitations — very cat-and-mouse.
JILL: Heh heh. “Erected.” “Thrust.” “Filling holes.” LAUREN YOU ARE DOING THIS ON PURPOSE.
SADY: Stimulated by the thrust! No less!
SALLY: LOL I love y’all. Y’all rock my socks.
LAUREN: All kidding aside, what do you think Widmore meant when he said to Jin that should Smokey get off the island, everyone will “cease to be”?
SALLY: That Smokey is the apocalypse. Last week, he was hell, now he’s destroyer of all life.
CARA: I just find it notable that we have far more thoughts on the hotness of Sayid and Jin than on either Flocke’s motives or the potential end of the world. Also, more dick jokes. Ah well, thus are the priorities of the Feministe team!
LAUREN: Ha. I apologize for bringing this level of low-brow to the team. In our defense, we did get some theory and insight in with the dick jokes.
And, of course, we have the return of Desmond, brotha!
CARA: DESMOND! I’ve desperately missed Des all season, and I’m so excited to finally see him. I’ve also been saying for what feels like forever now that I think Des is going to play a big role in the show’s conclusion. I’ve been utterly convinced of it. And though we still don’t know where this is going, it’s really, really strange to think that anything I’ve predicted on this show more than one or two episodes out might actually be coming true!
JILL: Yay Desmond! I thought The Package either had to be Desmond or Walt. Now that Des is back, we just need Walt and Libby to complete the trifecta of People I Believe To Be Very Important In Concluding This Trainwreck. Planewreck. Whatever.
CARA: I’m really hoping that Desmond’s episode is going to be awesome. Three out of five Desmond-centric episodes since the show started have been outstanding (the Season 2 finale, Flashes Before Your Eyes, and The Constant), so I’m hoping that the writer’s will dig deep for Des again. I’m skeptical, since we just had such a fantastic episode last week, but still hoping. I also hope that Desmond manages to grow a beard on that island fast, because he is about 100,000 times hotter with it than without it.
SALLY: I love Desmond! I feel that any episode is instantly better because he’s in it, so I definitely can’t wait for next week. Though, at this point, even if the episode is only average I feel that’s a step up.
SADY: I… feel bad about earlier stating my lack of enthusiasm for Desmond? Anyway! Hi, Desmond! Your episodes tend to be particularly well-structured! Also, there was no way they were writing you out! So welcome back!
LAUREN: Desmond is our constant.