'Lost:' 'The Package' . . . Unwraps Yet More Questions

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lost ahead.*

Waaaaiiittt a minute! Hold on just one second . . .

Sun is pregnant in her sideways-flash? With Jin’s baby or Jae Lee’s, the guy who taught her English? (Or did she not know English in her sideways-flash and had never met Jae Lee in the sideways universe? Wasn't clear on her linguistic abilities in the sideways-flash.) Why weren’t Sun and Jin married and what does their being married have to do with Oceanic not crashing? Why was Martin Keamy working for Sun’s father and not Widmore in the sideways-flash? What’s up with Mikhail (previously known as Patchy, a Dharma-ite) escorting Sun to the bank, only to be, ironically, blinded in one eye by Jin, after Mikhail shot Sun in the stomach?

Questions, questions . . . questions to which I fear we’ll never get satisfactory answers in the handful of episodes remaining, especially when new characters (Zoe with the crooked specs) are introduced at this late date.

I’m getting a bit weary from these massive shifts in momentum. First few seasons, here’s how it went: Get off the island. Get off the island! Get OFF the island!! (And stay away from the smoke, and that mean Ben guy.)

Then, it changed: Hey we’ve got to go BACK to the island to save our friends. We’ve got to go back Kate! We’ve got to go BACK! We’ve got to get a specific group of people (the candidates? the people whom Ben & Locke were collecting) to go back to the island TOGETHER. Remember the oldie but goodie: "Live together, die alone?"

Now that they’re all on the island(s), the mantra has become: We’ve got to get off the island! Oh, and we’ve got to get a certain group of people together in order to do this, however, if we do that, hell will be unleashed upon the earth, so, maybe we shouldn't . . . This time, the Man in Black is the people collector, trying to persuade the remaining candidates to replace Jacob to accompany him off the island.

On this subject, I found intriguing the Man in Black/Locke's comment to Claire about needing Kate to persuade the others to leave the island, even though Kate's no longer a candidate(?): “Once she does, whatever happens, happens.” (Another oldie but a goodie.)

Near the end of "The Package," it struck me that Jack -- after all he’s been through and all his mistakes -- had the chutzpah to act as though he’s the one to be trusted, to lead the group. He once led them some of them off the island. Then he led them back on. Now he seems to be leaning toward going to the Hydra island, where the plane is, and, perhaps, stopping the Man in Black/Locke. (Doesn't Jack look like he's blessing Sun in the above ABC photo? Hmm.)

Of all the scenes in "The Package," the one with Jin looking longingly at the digital photos of his daughter, whom he’d never seen, made me tear up. So while I was feeling great sympathy for Jin, Widmore dropped this nugget into the mix: “If that, thing, masquerading as John Locke ever got off this island, your wife, your daughter, my daughter, everyone we know and love would simply cease to be. I came here to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

“How?” Jin asked.

“Come with me,” Widmore said. “I think it’s time for you to see The Package.”

“What 'package'?”

“It’s not a what, it’s a who.”

Could he be speaking about Desmond? Ack! I allowed myself fall into the trap of trying to figure out what’s happening and trying to make it make sense, even though I vowed I wouldn’t do this. Damn, my head hurts now.

Image credit: Mario Perez/ABC.

Still Catchin' Up, JUST Saw 'Lost' Premiere . . . Brain is Cramped

When my family and I arrived back home from a week at Disney World on Sunday evening -- after traveling for eight-plus hours -- The Spouse and I were too tired and lacked the brain capacity to take in the two-hour premiere of Lost that was burning a hole in my DVR. Last night we were finally able to settle in for the two-hour island extravaganza.

*Warning: Spoilers ahead. Do not proceed if you have yet to see the new Lost episode.*

And after watching the antics of the Oceanic 6 & Co., I'm starting to grow concerned about how the second half of this series is going to play out. Can the writers tidily wrap everything up in a neat bow? Will things make sense by the time we get to the last episode or will we have to, because we're Lost fans, pretend as though everything makes sense?

In order for this new phase of the show to make sense, we have to buy into the fact that the island is time traveling, but our castaways -- plus freighter crew folks and Juliet -- remain the same, as if they're being moved like game pieces along a timeline.

We're supposed to continue to believe -- without being given a reason -- that the people who were on the island but are now back in the real world are able to see people who have died on the island, like Hurley's Ana Lucia sighting (and saying Libby said hello!) and Jack seeing his father in the hospital.

Hurley's recap provides a vivid description of what the writers still have to explain for this all to come to a fabulous conclusion (link to the video here):



One of my favorite TV shows, Alias, lost some of its creative mojo when the writers didn't seem as though they knew how to fit the individual episodes into a larger picture to logically complete the story. I hope the same fate doesn't befall Lost. In order for it to play out to my satisfaction a lot of questions must eventually be addressed, not just abandoned. However I am patient. I will wait.

That being said, as for last week's two-hour season premiere, I was left feeling intrigued.

I was surprised to see so much focus on Hurley. (Cannot wait to see how one of TV's great evil geniuses -- Ben --is going to bust Hurley out of jail.)

The notion of the island itself time traveling, while the people who were on it (or in the water next to it) when Ben triggered the time traveling subterranean wheel remain the same, puts an entirely different twist on the show. Thus far, the series had only leaped backward and forward in time to illustrate something about the characters' backstories and personalities.

However now that some of the characters themselves have been unmoored from time -- time travel had seemingly been limited to Desmond and Daniel -- all bets are off. Throw in what Daniel said about how you cannot change what has already happened, yet he went against that line of argument by visiting Desmond when he was hatch-sitting to urge him to seek out his mother, and I'm hooked, as well as crossing my fingers that I won't be disappointed

Now that you've had time to ponder the season five premiere, what do you think?

Image credit: ABC.