Lost - Ji Yeon

**** / ****
Jin-Soo & Sun-Hwa - On Island / Off Island

I admit that for about an hour I just had a good cry. Whereas when it was revealed that Kate was hugging Claire's baby off island in a flash ahead left me unsettled, the visit to a grave at the end of Ji Yeon was almost too much for my heart to take.

Yes, I know. It's just a show, but I invest emotionally in certain characters and story development when they reach me in a way that captures my attention, affection, and heart.

Lost is a show that draws me in intellectually, no doubt, but without the characters and their stories--both performed and enacted with depth and insight into the humanity and frailty that exists in us all--it would just tickle the brain.

But when characters go through real change and we see them evolve, spend time with them, learn about them; their future, foretold in a manner that turns gutwrenching, revealed can be like a dagger piercing deep, twisted and left in.

Or that is how I felt when Jin's grave is visited by Hurley and Sun after a swerve through flashback, shot as if a flash forward. I had asked myself early on how could Jin have made it off the island when we have been told over and over that only six made it off. Sun would have been the sixth.

Perhaps I just couldn't accept what my intellect was indicating to me because the heart wouldn't allow it. The blog allows me to bare my soul in review. Perhaps you felt similarly to me.

On the island Juliet tells Jin that Sun cheated on him. It was to keep them from going to Locke due to not trusting Juliet, Charlotte, or Daniel. She had a right to be suspicious, especially when asking Daniel about rescue. His inability to tell her the truth gives her enough pause to consider leaving for the barracks.

Juliet persists in keeping Sun at the beach. Three days had passed since Sayid and Desmond left in the helicopter. Silence since then was enough to question what was going on.

Sun asking for Jin and the flashback of Jin rushing to get to a hospital after purchasing a panda--and having to purchase a second one when his first is left in a taxi stolen by another walking passersby--is the equivalent of wrapping an arm around you and using a knife to plunge it into you with the other. That was the obvious intention...to bliss you with the birth of the baby then blitz you with the shock of Jin's death.

When Jin fishes with Bernard after needing some time away from an apologetic Sun, he has time to contemplate all of it. He's hurt and needs to think about why she would do it and how he was perhaps responsible for her looking elsewhere.

Bernard, while in the boat with Jin, talked to him about how karma rewards those good people. Jin listened and was attentive while nursing a broken heart, before catching a fish on a hook. Bernard encouraged him because of this. Bernard tells him of Rose having cancer (before the island), understanding why she wouldn’t go with Locke, because he was a murderer. It was purposed to underlie how Locke had fallen out of grace, I think. It was also a conversation to offer a dark irony…Jin’s fate seems far from a reward for being a good human being. But some folks that we might feel didn’t deserve to die often do when this island is concerned. I just really liked the scene because it is a moment that gives Jin and Bernard an opportunity alone together just spending some time fishing and shooting the breeze. Jin needed someone to talk to and Bernard seemed happy to be in the boat with him. 

The other scene I just loved is a private, emotional moment where Jin forgives Sun, reflecting on how he wasn’t as affectionate as he should have been, letting go of his anger towards her. He just wanted to be reassured the baby was his and she joyfully does. With Sun’s bittersweet giving birth to their child in the hospital, welcoming Hurley into her home, and trying to cope with the loss of Jin, this episode is just overwhelmingly powerful. It doesn’t soothe the ache I’m sure many Jin fans felt when this was revealed. Like I mentioned early on, I had to process this and it wasn’t easy. Along with Desmond and Hurley, Jin is my favorite Lost character. Knowing that he is to die, the forthcoming remaining episodes will be especially hard to watch when featuring Jin.

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Captain Gault, introduced in Ji Yeon

The additional "plot B" of Ji Yeon features important details on the freighter. We are introduced to the captain of the freighter, for one thing, Gault (Grant Bowler). He gives us exposition. In fact, he's pretty much an exposition machine. He tells Sayid and Desmond of the staging of the casualties of Oceanic Flight 815, including his presentation of the black box from the plane that was underwater. He actually ties this staging to Ben, and does indeed reveal that people on his freighter have been succumbing to cabin fever. He also tells them that there is a saboteur onboard, continuing to sabotage equipment needed to escape their area. Through Gault, Desmond learns of the freighter's owner, Charles, giving us the obvious reaction of shock. Sayid and Desmond get a chance to meet the janitor on the freighter, too...Michael! Yep, Michael, but question is: where is Walt?! And a note delivered by somebody telling Sayid and Des not to trust Gault...is the spy for Ben purposely trying to create suspicion or is this true or Gault?

Frank, trying to convince Sayid and Des to behave

 Frank does take the helicopter for a flight somewhere, but the location / destination remains a mystery in this episode. Martin (Kevin Durand) communicates with Frank briefly, relaying to us he knows exactly where Frank is going. Frank shares a brief dialogue with Sayid and Desmond, trying to convince them to not make trouble. Sayid and Desmond, though, are puzzled as to why they remain concealed in a room by those on the freighter, as if prisoners who can't be trusted. Eventually they are let out, taken to the surface of the freighter to meet Gault.

Martin Keamy, the suspicious crew member of the freighter

Regina (Zoë Bell)

 Regina is sitting at the door of Sayid and Des' previous "cell", so far gone it seems she is reading an upside down novel, as noticed by a concerned Frank. She later dives off the freighter with chains as weight to anchor her once hitting the water. Sayid and Desmond wonder aloud and panicked to the crew as to why they won't help, and Gault explains that losing anymore men isn't an option. Whether or not they dive into the drink, the results would eventually be the same...Regina would commit suicide just to escape the imprisonment of being trapped in their position near the island on the water.

Dr. Ray eventually shows Sayid and Des to their quarters

 Ray (Mark Vann; CSI: Las Vegas) had previously tried to undermine Sayid and Desmond's mission to communicate to Penny. He considered the communication's officers claims of a time jump "illness" were hogwash. But he takes them to meet Gault, and later shows them to another room which is about as lousy as the cell they had been held in. Blood on the wall from probably a gunshot wound remain which disgusts Ray, ordering the janitor at a distance to come and mop it off. That janitor is...

Michael is revealed to be on the freighter.

The question is whether or not Michael is Ben's spy on the freighter. Sayid doesn't say a word, shaking Michael's hand, keeping his identity a secret. Michael has some explaining to do. Desmond and Sayid have a lot yet to learn. Such as where Frank and the copter went to. And why was the Oceanic covered up and as Gault rightfully questions...the undertaking of such a hoax would be substantial.