'Lost' recap: The Complete 'Package'

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Then Sayid happened. Jin thought he had been liberated — deus ex assassina. But Sayid didn't really care, and told him so. Sayid turned to leave. Jin protested. Free me! Sayid spotted a box cutter and placed it in his palms. ''Good luck,'' said Sayid, the shruggy hero. Free yourself, comrade. I am otherwise indifferent to you. Now, I must go to my Ayn Rand book club. Ciao, Stranger. It was the most this Good Samaritan felt obligated to do.

While Jin cut through the tape, Mikhail arrived with Sun. They found a kitchen nightmare that would make even Gordon Ramsay curl up in a ball. Mikhail crouched down to examine Keamy. Interesting: Keamy was a still alive. And he was strong enough to tell Mikhail that there was a Korean guy behind him with gun to his head. Mikhail — who shrewdly deduced that Jin was incapable of the carnage around him but concluded perhaps incorrectly that Jin was no killer — smiled an angel-of-death smile and snapped into killing-machine mode. He spun away from the gun and they fought. The gun discharged twice. Jin — whose Island iteration had kicked Patchy's ass in ''Catch-22'' — got some distance on Mikhail and proved him wrong about his killer's gumption by popping a cap in Bakunin's eyeball. Ouch. Mikhail died one eye blind, Battleship Potemkin by way of Moe Green. Do svidaniya, Russian guy.

Had Jin escaped from evil? Yes. But Sun had been touched by it, perhaps fatally. One if not two of those discharged bullets blasted into her abdomen, threatening her own precious package. ''I'm pregnant,'' she told Jin, finishing the thought that had been interrupted by Keamy's fateful arrival into their lives earlier that afternoon. We left the lovers lost in Los Angeles, one them dying, the whole of their love imperiled. Cliffhanger. Paging Dr. Jack Shephard! Paging Dr. Jack Shephard! Stop picking Sun's Island tomatoes and report to your Sideways ER, stat!

This Island Earth!
Land of Confusion

In the Sideways world, Jin and Sun were at the mercy of those whose language they didn't understand. On the Island, their plight was slightly worse: They understood, but they couldn't discern the sincerity. If there was a sign that hung on the gates of this epistemological inferno, it should read: ''Trust no one — even someone you think might be telling you the truth.'' This wasn't just a Jin/Sun problem in ''The Package'' — this was everyone's problem. The theme was perhaps best articulated in the exchange between Ilana and Ben, whom she suspected of being deceitful. Ben: ''Why don't you believe me?'' Ilana: ''Because you're speaking.'' (Ilana may have been willing to take Ben into her company back in ''Dr. Linus,'' but she's clearly not yet ready to trust him.) And now we know why Dogen and the Man In Black advocate the policy of ''stab and kill with the weird ceremonial knife first, ask questions later.''

To me, ''The Package'' seemed to mark the true start of the Island endgame. Said contest will boil down to a competition among storytellers, long-conners, and unreliable narrators for the hearts, minds, and trust of the castaways/candidates. Whom to believe? Right now, the matter seems to be undecided. The episode itself mirrored that uncertainty with its very first scene. The opening shot — seen through night vision goggles — evoked the surveillance cinematography of reality shows like Survivor, Big Brother, and of course that mega-hit Dating In The Dark. (I will also accept the film Paranormal Activity.) We saw and heard Kate and Sawyer talk about faux cocoa. Then we saw Fake Locke stroll through his camp twirling his big stick — and then the shot broke off, as if Spooky Smokey's unreal visage had short-circuited the equipment. It was a very un-Lost bit of storytelling. Opening an episode on an eyeball fluttering awake? Yes. Seeing the world through an eyeball? No. I found the effect rather disorienting, which I think was the intention. Who's in control? Who's running the show? Whose vision will win out on Master Plan Island?

NEXT: Sayid's soul isn't dead, it's just sleeping — really, really soundly