D.O.C.

I found tonight's episode of Lost good, but not exceptional. The pattern with Sun/Jin episodes holds for me once again -- each time the writers focus on them, it's never a bad episode. I chalk it up to the very rich emotional content of their backstory. It's a backstory that actually got a little more deep tonight, as we learned that Sun not only knows the truth about Jin's father, she knows more of his mother than he does.

I found it particularly interesting to learn that Sun's actions are actually what directly led to Jin working for her father. At least, her father made her believe that. So now we know that among all the other feelings Sun had about leaving Jin, she also had guilt that she was responsible for transforming Jin into the "monster" he'd become working for her father. Powerful stuff.

Meanwhile, the plot on The Island took a couple baby steps forward. (Pun not intended.) Actually, several new bits of information were revealed to us, though no explanations of any of them were given.

The Russian Other that we thought had died in fact did not. What was the ruse of his death supposed to accomplish? Is the other Other (heh) that he shot not actually dead as well?

Juliet is gathering intel on the women at camp for Ben. I'm not sure why they couldn't have obtained samples from Kate during the time the Others had her in captivity... unless it is specifically samples of pregnant women they want, and that Kate is also now pregnant with Sawyer's baby. Which she wasn't while she was a prisoner of the Others. (If you're a "S/kate" 'shipper, you think that's great. If you like Jack, you think that sucks. If you're not into the love triangle, then you're probably indifferent.)

But the big news came right at the end of the episode. The wreckage of Flight 815 was apparently found, and all people aboard were dead. I'm not going to spend too much time speculating on the meaning of this, other than to say that two theories I've heard "out there" years ago both could explain this.

One -- the Island is purgatory, and all our castaways are dealing with leftover emotional baggage from life they have to resolve before they "move on" to the afterlife. The creators of the show have specifically refuted this notion in interviews, though -- and I think we've now had enough off-Island interaction, what with Juliet's flashbacks, glimpses of Desmond's honey, and so forth, to know that's not right.

Two -- part of getting these castaways to the Island was deliberately making everyone in the real world think they were dead, by planting fake plane wreckage for seachers to find. Now, part of this theory also put forth that the time was not really when the castaways think it is... that they were all somehow put in a form of stasis for an indeterminate period of time, then awakened later on the beach, with planted fake wreckage, made to think it was still September in 2004 when it was in fact a good while later. Of course, I think that piece of the theory is also pretty well refuted by what we know of Desmond, Ben, and Juliet. But hey, at least the "fake plane wreckage" part is looking to be true.

You can see why I try not to get too deeply involved in this aspect of watching the show. These theories will make you crazy. Bottom line, I liked the character components of tonight's episode, and thought it was pretty good.