“We’ll see how those hot jerks like this homoerotic subplot we have in mind!”Photo courtesy of ABC
Lost: Tough Job for a Recapper on Maternity Leave
Set as it is on the Island of Dead Pregnant Women, this was never the ideal show for a recapper on maternity leave. But they really messed with us last night by throwing Sun into flash-forward labor and leaving us in tears over a tragic twist we were completely unspoiled for. Granted, we’re vulnerable and a little moody. But you Vulture bastards? Don’t you dare put it in the headline! Spoilers below!
There were other revelations: Michael is indeed Ben’s little man in the boat. Rose chose Team Jack because “it’s the right thing to do.” Juliet is a bitch. But we particularly liked how everyone kept asking direct questions — especially Sun, who at one point also told her husband not to ask questions. It was all very prosecutorial and meta and satisfying. Then why do we have so many questions?
Present: Lima Beans and Shock Marriage Therapy
Imprisoned on the freighter of hot jerks, Sayid and Desmond eat lima beans and watch a strange woman walk the plank. They receive two warnings not to trust the captain — and then meet the captain, who is a hot jerk but also, as Sayid puts it, “surprisingly forthcoming.” Captain Gault explains that the freighter is owned by Widmore (as is Flight 518’s black box) and the fake wreckage is Ben’s queasy art project, since he’s one of the few people who might actually have 324 spare bodies lying around.
Meanwhile, Sun goes all Jack McCoy, cross-examining the Freight Gnomes and Juliet. Suspecting they’re up to no good, she decides to switch sides to Team Locke, but this plan alarms Juliet, Sun’s self-appointed OB/GYN of Despair, who reveals Sun’s adultery and earns a long-overdue slap. A heartbroken Jin stalks away, but then a surprisingly meaningful monologue from Bernard saves the day. Sun and Jin reconcile. He forgives her and agrees to stand by her side in a powder-blue suit and pearls, if it comes to that.
The Future — Or Is It?: Mad About Sun
In the future, Sun puts on lipstick and goes into labor. In what appears to be a comedic B-plot torn from the Mad About You playbook, Jin desperately tries to buy a huge stuffed panda bear, only to be delayed by cell-phone misfires and cab-stealing shenanigans. Despite the red herring of a dangerous (and odd even for TV) birth, Sun pops out a healthy baby girl — but then the chronological worm turns, and the comic subplot is revealed by our cruel narrative overlords to be a tragic Über-plot: Jin’s panda-bear chase is in fact a flashback to the days when Jin was merely a newlywed gofer to evil. In the future, he’s DEAD, as we learn when Hurley arrives to cuddle Sun’s enormous baby. This is both extremely sad and very confusing, and raises numerous new questions, which we can only hope people will ask vigorously and have answered.
What We Now Know
• In the future, Sun has a healthy baby and a dead husband (wah!).
• Widmore’s people claim Ben created the fake wreck, or at least the bodies in it. Except that we’re not supposed to trust them. Or him. Or ourselves.
• Michael is Ben’s man on the Freighter. But you knew that!
The Wha? Factor
• Or wait a second — maybe Jin isn’t dead! His tombstone said 9/22/04, the date of the plane crash. Which means … what exactly? Is he still on the island? Or he is indeed dead, but they’re claiming it happened in the crash when it actually happened afterward?
• Who the hell is that chick in chains, why was she reading Jules Verne upside down, and why did she jump?
• And how will Michael redeem himself? Because he’d better. —Emily Nussbaum
