As with the majority of this seasons episodes, The Package begins with something unexpected. This week’s episode opens with a blurry, green night vision image of Sawyer, Kate and Fake Locke being observed by an unidentified watcher.
Once the watcher, who it can be assumed is linked to Charles Widmore and his technically advanced team, has seen their fill and departed, Fake Locke sits down to chat with Jin. The two have not seen to have much communication so far in this season but their first meeting sets the scene for the episode. Fake Locke asks Jin if Sawyer told him about the names on the wall of the cliff cave – remember this from a few episodes back now? And that there was only one Quon that had not been crossed out.
Jin asks if that means it is he or Sun whose name remains. Fake Locke tells him he doesn’t know, but unless the right ones are there, none of them can leave the island. Straight into the flash sideways, we find Jin and Sun back at the airport in LA, and prepare to find out what happened to them between being stopped in customs and Jin ending up bound in a storeroom. In their hotel, Jin tells Sun that he has to deliver a package to the person he was sent to LA to give it to. It is likely that this is the same restaurant he is then held prisoner in. As Jin prepares to leave, Sun delays his leaving by offering herself to him.
The next scene finds Martin Keamy arriving at the door to tell her that she has a package for him. Keamy tells Jin that he wants the money that they brought with him. This money was confiscated at the airport, but Jin won’t tell them this. In order to interpret Sun and Jin’s Korean language, Keamy brings in Mikhail (last seen on the Island blowing up the underwater Dharma station which leads to Charlie drowning).
Sun tells him that they can get the money for him. Keamy says that she can go to the bank and he will take Jin to the restaurant. At the Bank, Sun discovers that her father has closed the account she intended to get the money from, obviously hoping it would lead to Jin being murdered by Keamy, hence ending his relationship with Sun (which he has always disapproved of).
In the restaurant, Jin is bundled into the storeroom and tied to a chair. While binding Jin, Sayid’s name is mentioned and one of Keamy’s cohorts is sent to find him. Keamy tells Jin that the money Suns father sent him with was to pay for Keamy to kill him.
Inside the storeroom, Jin hears Sayid shoot Keamy. Sayid enters the storeroom and gives Jin a razor to free himself with. Arriving at the restaurant, Mikhail finds the bodies of Keamy and his men. Jin sneaks up behind Mikhail and holds a gun his head. After a struggle, Jin shoots Mikhail in the eye (the same eye that is covered with a patch in his life on the Island, is this another hint as to the difference between the flash sideways and events on the Island).
Sun is also shot during the struggle. Here ends the flash sideways of this episode, bringing up to date most of the gaps in the flash story, but still not explaining its purpose in the grand scheme of the season and what relevance it will have to the overall story. On the Island, Fake Locke tells Sayid that he is leaving the camp for a while to run an errand. Sayid asks why he can’t feel any emotion. Fake Locke tells him that might be best. With Locke gone, Jin decides he is leaving to find Sun but before he can go Charles Widmore’s men ambush the camp with poison darts.
With the camp member’s unconscious, Widmore’s people take Jin and leave the others behind. In the second camp, Ilana, Ben and the group question whether Richard will be returning. Seemingly infuriated by the conversation, Sun storms off to tend to her long dead tomato plants. Jack follows her and ties to tell her about their names being written into the lighthouse that Hugo took him too. She refuses to listen and Jack is forced to leave her be. Soon after, Fake Locke arrives at the clearing where Sun is alone and tells her that he can take her to Jin.
Sun refuses to believe him, and though he attempts to convince her to go with him she flees from him back to the beach, pursued by Fake Locke every step of the way. As he chases her through the high grass, Sun risks a look over her shoulder which leads her to run straight into an overhanging branch of a tree and knock her out. Sun awakes to find Ben next to her. He asks what happened and she tells him about Fake Locke chasing her. Locke however is already long gone and has discovered his camp has been attacked. He manages to wake Sayid but find that he knows nothing of the people who attacked them. Then he notices that Jin is missing. Jin is also waking up in a place familiar to viewers as Room 23 of the Dharma Initiative, the room in which Alex, Ben Linus’s daughter found her boyfriend being brainwashed back in Season 3.
The woman from Widmore’s crew enters the room and tells Jin that she cannot let him leave. She shows him a map that belonged to the Dharma Initiative. Jin tells her that if they want to get answers, she should take him to Charles Widmore. Fake Locke begins arming his camp to head over to the main island. Claire approaches him and asks if her name was on the wall in the cave. He tells her it wasn’t, and neither was Kate’s but he needs Kate to get the three people he wants to help him get off the island.
As he is about to leave, Sawyer asks Fake Locke what the guns are for. Locke tells him that they are going to get Jin back. Jack tends to Sun’s wounds while Illana suspects that Ben had something to do with the attack on her. The knock to the head leads to Sun being unable to speak English any more, although she can understand it.
A moment later, Richard returns and tells then they need to pack their bags. Fake Locke lands on the island and after being shot at he is taken to Charles Widmore. Widmore tells him that he knows he is not Locke, but doesn’t know exactly what or who he is. Fake Locke says he doesn’t believe that because of the electrical pylons Widmore has erected as a perimeter around the island to keep him out (as he cannot pass through these Pylons, which were once upon a time erected around the Dharma village). Locke says he wants Jin back but Widmore says he doesn’t know what Locke is talking about.
Ask the camp were attacked by people with darts, could it be that there are yet more “Others” on the Island? Or is Widmore lying? We already know the answer. Jack asks Richard why they have to go. Richard tells them that they have to destroy the plane to stop Locke leaving the Island. Sun tells him, in Korean, that she does not intend to go with them to destroy the only way off the Island.
Widmore meets Jin, who asks why he has been brought there. Widmore tells him that on the plane that brought Sun back to the Island they found a camera. On it are pictures of Jin’s daughter who he has never seen before. Widmore says he knows that Jin wants to be reunited with his wife and daughter, but if the thing pretending to be John Locke gets off the Island then everyone will cease to exist and none of it will matter anymore. Widmore says it is time Jin sees the package. When Jin asks what the package is, Widmore tells him it is not a what, but a who.
Jack talks to Sun and gives her a pad to write on. He also shows her a tomato he found in her garden, then asks her what Locke told her. She writes that he told her he had Jin. Jack asks Sun if she trusts him, and if she does than he promises to help her find Jin and get off the Island.
In Locke’s camp, Sawyer tells Kate that Widmore should have killed Locke by now. As he says it, Fake Locke returns but without Sayid. The reason for this is that Sayid is lurking in the water by Widmore’s submarine and by being there he discovers that the “who” Widmore has referred to as the package is actually Desmond. So we know little more than we did before the episode began, and there have been no revelations like in Episode 9, but we really don’t expect every episode to be filled with answers.
Instead we now have the question of what makes Desmond so special that he can help prevent Fake Locke getting off the Island for good? Those who have been with the series from the start will remember that Desmond prevented the Island being destroyed in Season Two by pushing a button which released the first “flash” and discharged a great amount of built up electromagnetism that had been trapped inside the Island and held in place by the Dharma Swan site.
Does this event have some bearing on Desmond’s future involvement? As next week’s episode is devoted to Desmond’s story, we are assured some clarification if not an entire answer. The end is fast approaching now, and the momentum is building towards a climax that has increasing expectation upon its two hour long shoulders.
