No fancy opening this week. We’re just gonna’ get Lost!

Well, that settles it. We’ve almost exhausted the sideways trips per character, with the exception of Hugo. In two weeks, we get an episode titled Everybody Loves Hugo at which point balance will be brought to the force and my guess is that the last 7 hours will be focused on the end game. Speaking of which, the title for the two-hour finale (airing on Sunday, May 23) has just been released. Fittingly, it’s called The End.

So, here we got a twofer, showing Jin and Sun in their LA adventure – an episode that once again served the needs of the story by moving chess pieces around while also sending us a bit backwards in the sideways tale to show us how Jin ended up on ice.

Prior to Sayid’s discovery of Jin in that walk-in freezer, we had seen Jin being carted off by Customs Officials in the Season Premiere. That’s where this episode opened. With Jin released from custody and given back Mr. Paik’s watch. Unfortunately for Jin, Customs was holding on to the $25K that was to accompany Jin on his mysterious errand – putting him in a bad predicament with Martin Keamy – the once and future mercenary who in this alternate tale is one of the millions who can successfully pull off a Christopher Walken impression.

A few interesting wrinkles occurred in this sideways tale which sort of changes our perception of what we’ve been seeing. There are many out there who believe that everything we’ve seen in this alternate tale is a result of changes made when Jughead detonated – hence the whole idea of a splintered alternate timeline. The theory was that both timelines share exactly the same events pre-Oceanic Flight 815’s departure, but these changes were then effected on the back end. Of course, we’ve already seen that’s not entirely the case in this alternate universe, since Sawyer is a cop and not a crook. Nadia is alive and kicking. And now we discover that Jin and Sun never married as they pleaded with Keamy to keep their secret from Sun’s Dad.

Knowing that Jacob was originally present at their wedding (where he laid his healing hands upon them), this now makes me believe that we are seeing a world where Jacob never existed – or at least one where his influence wasn’t felt. And in this world, things have changed – some big, some small – but all likely significant.

The interesting thing about this alternate storyline is that the side characters are peppered with those we’ve met before. It’s almost a reincarnation sort of thing – with Charlotte popping up here and Miles there, etc. They’ve all been “recast” in different roles – although all seem to be destined to come together. I guess this brings “soul mates” into the equation. The Package reintroduced Mikhail Bakunin – the one-eyed watchmen of The Tempest station in Season 3 who ended up fried by the sonic fence. And as fate would have it, Mikhail ended up losing his eye in this world too. Which makes you wonder if the more things change, the more they stay the same?

Unfortunately for Jin, it turns out his errand was to effect his own demise. Now, in the original timeline, Jin was on a similar errand. In that world, he’s married – but he was still on course for LA where he was to deliver a watch. Despite the fact that he is married to Sun in that world, would the end have been the same? Was he on the same date with destiny in both worlds?