Meh

This past Thursday's episode was called "Ji Yeon" - a title which turned out to be almost as inexplicable as the episode itself.

Let's face it: this one just didn't work very well. First there was the awkward flashback/flashforward switcheroo, a gimmick which finally crossed the line from cleverness to cheating. I don't mind Lost frequently toying with its own structure (I defended it for just that a few weeks ago), but this time it felt like it broke a contract with the audience: either show us the past or the future. Don't, for no reason at all except to trick us, show us both.

Because honestly, what did Jin's flashback scenes contribute? The awkward have-to-buy-a-panda quest didn't play as funny as it wanted to, and served to only confuse the audience when all was revealed. How many of you thought "wait, so in the future, Jin goes back to work for Mr. Paik, divorces Sun, and has been married to someone else for two months" before realizing what the writers were up to? They could've kept the surprise by cutting out these scenes altogether, and they should have.

Then there's the surprise: the little question of Jin's *possible* death. Is he dead? Sun and Hurley seem to think so. But could he just be stuck on the island? Why does he have a grave when the official story seems to be that he died in the plane crash (his grave said he died September 22nd, 2004)? These aren't questions that get me excited, they're questions that annoy me. If I'm going to mourn Jin, I'd like to know for sure that he actually bit the dust.

(Yeah, I'm being uncharacteristically harsh on the show, but I'm about to say a few good things, so bear with me for another minute as I finish ranting.) Was I the only one who thought the dialogue sounded a little awkward between Sun and Jin in the first half of the episode? And what was with the eye-rollingly forced bonding moment between Bernard and Jin? The episode was written by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, a team that has written such gems as this season's "The Economist," last year's Charlie farewell episode "Greatest Hits", and the sublime black comedy of "Expose", the episode that buried Nikki and Paolo alive. But here, everything just felt too forced and too clever by half.

Okay so. The redeeming parts of the episode: Jin's general excellence as a character, and the subplot on the freighter. They seem to be really wrapping up Jin's arc here (which could be a clue that he's really dead): Juliet spilled the beans about Sun's affair (a clever way to give Juliet some of her edge back), but Jin forgave Sun, acknowledging his past failures as a husband. In turn, Sun seemed to find a little redemption as well, as she was able to truthfully tell Jin the baby was his. He was a real class act in these later scenes, coming off not as a chump but, quite simply, as an honorable man.

Then the freighter. This week we came to understand that it's something of a haunted freighter, with a crew that keeps committing suicide, and I love it. Yeah, Michael was revealed as Ben's mole, working as a janitor under the name Kevin Johnson - big shocker. He slipped Sayid and Desmond a message earlier saying not to trust the captain, but ironically the captain seemed to validate Ben's story: that they're working for Charles Widmore. Of course, I say it's best not to trust either side. (One question which will hopefully be answered next week: how in the world does the captain not realize the sketchy new janitor is the freighter's saboteur?)

Sayid and Desmond were in typical top form, playing it uber-cool when the doc introduced them to "Kevin." Hi, buddy, nice to meet you, remember when you killed all the Tailies in an apparently futile attempt to spend some time with your son? Man those two are cool. My man-crush on Sayid is beginning to frighten even me.

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