In This Section
TV Guide Spotlight
Also on TVGuide.com
|
« Roush Dispatch
A Heartbreaking Loss on Lost
Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim in Lost by Art Streiber/ABC
My reactions to Lost are almost always extreme. Extreme excitement, nervous confusion, fear and joy and wonder all mixed up in one spectacularly emotional bundle. This week, Lost earned the ultimate compliment in the Roush playbook. It made me cry.
Yunjin Kim and Daniel Dae Kim have long been among my favorite actors on the show, and their backstory is among the most romantically resonant. The island saved Sun and Jin’s rocky marriage, a union tested by class differences and the self-loathing Jin suffered by having to perform bad acts in the employ of her father. Her surprise/miracle pregnancy was a blessing, but also (given the fate of pregnant women on this island) a curse. In their latest audacious spotlight episode, a gimmicky and uneasy collision of flashback (for him) and flash-forward (for her), we learn that Sun did make it off the island to have her baby: a daughter named Ji Yeon, per Jin’s wishes. Jin, however, was not so lucky. His race to get to the hospital with a giant panda toy was not to celebrate their own blessed event, but was merely an errand years earlier as a lackey for Papa Paik, sucking up to an ambassador with whom his father-in-law was seeking favor.
Nice trick, but by keeping Sun and Jin apart for all the off-island scenes — her in labor, he desperately trying to get to the hospital — it begged the question (since we are already predisposed to expect the unexpected on this show) that we were being bamboozled here. And given how solicitious he had become toward the love of his life — he was willing to pack up and go to Locke’s barracks no matter what, just because that’s what Sun wanted — it was hard to believe he wouldn’t be at her side throughout her delivery. He was there, all right, in her heart and mind, but only as a phantom.
I was already a puddle of emotion before the climactic reveal, when on the island Jin reconciled with Sun, bringing her dinner (after Juliet had spilled the beans about Sun’s affair, an attempt to keep her in Jack’s camp). Having seen the karmic light in a tender tete-a-tete with Bernard, Jin acknowledged that her affair was in response to the man he used to be, a man who withheld affection. Not the better man he became on the island. “I thought I had lost you,” Sun wept, thankful to be forgiven. (Although the fact of the matter is, Sun was the first to forgive, which is why their bond is so strong.) “And you will never lose me,” Jin promises.
A sentiment that made Sun and Hurley’s visit to Jin’s grave so wrenching. “I miss you so much,” she weeps, and right there was Yunjin Kim’s Emmy reel. Heartbreaking.
If I’m ambivalent about the narrative trickery it took to get to this point, with the gimmicky surprise setting up the tragic ending, there’s no denying the emotional impact of these performances.
Of course, like anyone else who’s watched this show, I’m not convinced Jin is actually dead (though I’m at peace if he is, because we sure got the full impact of his absence in this episode). We still don’t know why there’s only an official “Oceanic Six,” and the circumstances of how and why anyone left the island are still clouded in mystery. He could still be on the island, along with many others. On Lost, there’s always hope.
As for the episode’s subplot on the freighter, some good exposition with the captain. But the revelation of Michael as janitor “Kevin Johnson” was no doubt an anticlimax to many, since the show and the network decided as long ago as last summer to reveal the return of Harold Perrineau (who absurdly has been in the cast-regular credits all season long). I’m dying to know how he got there, whether he’s Ben’s onboard “spy” and all that, but this is an example of when the industry’s need to satisfy an audience’s appetite for advance spoilers works against the show’s best interests.
For another take on Lost, see [http://community.tvguide.com/blog-entry/TVGuide-Editors-Blog/Cheers-38-Jeers/Lost-Sun-Rises/800035514]Cheers & Jeers[/url].
|
TVGuide Links:
|
|
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 12:57 PM
|
|
I'm a believer that Jin is one of the survivors that is still on the island. His date of death listed on the headstone was the day of the crash, and we all know that that is just not true! What we now must find out is why they left all of those people! And also - who is the last of the Oceanic 6?
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 1:34 PM
|
repeat after me (in a very hopeful voice):
Jin is not dead
Jin is not dead
Jin is not dead
and it will come true 
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 1:39 PM
|
The Oceanic Six are:
1. Jack
2. Hurley
3. Sayid
4. Sun
5. Kate
6. Aaron
Why won't people count Aaron? The title "Oceanic Six" is not necessarily defined by who was a registered passenger, but rather who "survived" the crash. I'm assuming the title was given to the survivors by the media.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 1:52 PM
|
|
Legally speaking Aaron was not on Flight 815.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 2:26 PM
|
While I think Aaron is the most obvious choice to be the last of Oceanic Six, when is anything on Lost obvious? I begin to think that anyone can be the last of Oceanic Six, even those who was NOT originally on the flight, evn Ben.
If the force behind this whole coverup is so powerful to stage a crash scene with 300+ dead bodies in 3 months time, it sure can doctor a passenger manifest in whatever way / shape / form it sees fit.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:03 PM
|
The term "Oceanic Six" is obviously a media tag (I can see it on the scroll on CNN without even closing my eyes). So what, they are not going to count Aaron just because he was not on the flight manifest? Come on, that is not the way the media works (not to mention the potential philosophical fire storm of when did Aaron become a person - the media is not going to allienate the "human life begins at conception" folks). From an emotional and publicity point, Aaron was alive when they were rescued so he is definitely one of the "Six".
I have a harder time understanding how he could be passed off as Kate's son. Time lines just do not work and while there is some time dilation/contraction aspect when you go to and from the island, it appears the island and the freighter are more or less on the same time (christmas 2004). Just don't see how Aaron could be the age he is and Kate not be way pregnant when th flight originated.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:11 PM
|
Legally speaking Aaron was not on Flight 815.
Why "legally"?
If the term "Oceanic 6" is just a nickname given by the media, there would be no stipulations as to whether or not it's "legal". Aaron can be considered simply because he was rescued.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:11 PM
|
I'm such a sap, I teared up just reading about the part where you teared up, Matt!
I will hope against hope that Jin isn't really dead. I don't want the next two seasons of Lost without Daniel Dae Kim!
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:12 PM
|
|
Jin is alive! I know he is alive on that island - if not why would is date od death be 9-22-2004?
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:13 PM
|
tvchica, they all seem to have lied about who died when they crashed, so Sun would have had to keep that lie up (though don't take this the wrong way, I'm totally with you and hope he isn't dead).
By the way, did anyone else notice that on the "what to watch tonight" part of tvguide.com it said that Jin was pregnant? (Maybe that's why he died)
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:34 PM
|
|
Aaron doesn't have to be one of the Oceanic 6. What if they do a story that says Kate had him when she was on the run and left him with friends before the crash.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 3:55 PM
|
|
I'm surprised that anyone would cry about this episode. Yes, it was depressing to see that Sun is dead, but some people have relationships which wouldn't survive the island--Sun and Jin's is one of them. Also, if all you have to do to survive your pregnancy is to leave the island, why didn't the women Juliet was treating leave? More Lost illogic. I'm more intrigued by the information about the salvage operation that found all the missing bodies of Flight 815, Besides, on Lost, only a few people really die. Some, like Locke, illogically arise from the dead.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 4:14 PM
|
|
I cried my eyes out. But I refuse to believe Jin is dead. Just the fact that Sun believes he is dead was enough to start the waterworks. Jin and Sun's love has touched me from Episode 6 of the first season, when she was about to leave him, and pulled that single flower out of his jacket, held it up to his nose, and looked at Sun, and she came back to him at that moment. That was the very moment that I realized how deeply "Lost" worked on the emotional level.
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 5:07 PM
|
"Also, if all you have to do to survive your pregnancy is to leave the island, why didn't the women Juliet was treating leave? More Lost illogic."
The show has already explained that - Ben refuses to let the women leave. It's illogical all right, but it's illogic on the part of a character, not the show. And Locke didn't rise from the dead. He was shot with one bullet, and he was never shown dying.
I thought it was a great episode, and while it used a gimmick, I think it used it to fantastic effect.
Because of the date on the tombstone, I'm pretty convinced that it's all a lie and Jin is alive on the island. And at this point, it really does look like Aaron is one of the O6. While he wasn't on the plane, nobody in the general public would care.
Just use some common sense, which makes more sense?
"Hey, did you hear about the six people saved from an island?/Yeah, you mean the oceanic six"
OR
"Hey, did you hear about the seven people saved from an island?/Yeah, you mean the oceanic six"
|
|
Mar 14, 2008 6:06 PM
|
|
|
