They never made it to Albuquerque in the flash-forward future (at least, not yet), but Jin and Sun landed somewhere deeper in last night's moving, deviously tricky installment of Lost. Back on point after last week's subpar Juliet-centric episode, ''Ji-Yeon'' had me dabbing my eyes repeatedly. You're always going to get me watery with a story about the sometimes perilous road of bringing new life into the world; it's a personal thing, and Lost tapped it well enough, so there you go: I'm sold. Even better, I loved how this story, unexpectedly, dealt with resolving Sun's sin against her husband — her infidelity with Jae — yet also completed Jin's redemptive reconstruction into a husband worthy of his wife's faithfulness. I'm not sure if Jin really is destined for death, as the final moments of the show seemed to suggest, but in many ways the episode felt like a valedictory for the character. Recognizing his own moral failure during his fishing-boat heart-to-heart with Bernard (a kinda corny but altogether effective scene), the former underworld strongman was able to forgive his Sun and recognize his role in pushing her away. But the beautiful moment came when he said he would follow her to Locke's camp — this, from the man who just a couple months ago in Lost time demanded his wife obediently trot after him. The role reversal closed the circuit on Jin's redemptive arc and had me searching for tissues anew. When he asked, with great vulnerability, if the baby was his, and Sun assured him that it was, I grabbed more. Well played by Daniel Dae Kim and Yunjin Kim, this was Jin and Sun's finest hour since season 1.
But we're going to rumble over that flashback fake-out, aren't we?
As I write these words at 12:50 a.m. PDT, I'm already getting e-mails from readers irked by what could be seen as a pretty manipulative storytelling tactic. ''Ji-Yeon'' seemed to contain a shared flash-forward that seemed to reveal that both Jin and Sun had made it off the Island. More, it appeared to tell the story of the birth of their child, a daughter named Ji-Yeon (which means either ''delay'' or ''flower of wisdom''), and how Jin missed the blessed event because of a comic episode involving his frustrated quest to buy a giant stuffed panda. But then the show pulled the rug on us. Hard. Lost had given us an episode with both a flashback (that panda business was part of an errand Jin was running for his mobster boss, Sun's father, Mr. Paik) and a flash-forward (we learned that Sun, a member of the Oceanic 6, got off the Island in time to successfully duck its anti-pregnant-lady curse and give birth). But I dig narrative gamesmanship, especially when it's supported by a strong, compelling character idea. Jin's flashback served as a touchstone that reminded him (or just us) of the morally flimsy man he used to be. He needed to feel that anew — and we needed to see that again — in order for him to be able to (very quickly) reach reconciliation with his wife in the Island present. So it worked for me. I look forward to reading your beg-to-differs on the boards below.
While you're at it, debate this: Do you think Jin's really dead in the flash-forward future?
NEXT: Grave issues
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