LOST -- Season 4, Episode 7

Let's jump right in . . .

Knowing the title of the episode, "Ji Yeon," I was not surprised to find that this week's focus was on Sun and Jin. The writers really tried to pull one over on us by showing both flashbacks and flashforwards in the same episode -- a new storytelling technique for them. Honestly, I was a little annoyed by the flashbacks. I felt like the only thing they really did was remind us that Jin used to be a jerk and that he has come a long way since being on the island. Also, I think they were simply trying to throw us off so the ending could be even more of a shocker.

Also, was anyone really all that surprised that the man on the boat was Michael? Not I.

Since last season's finale (and I may have mentioned this before), I've had a hunch that the flashforwards may not be a solid reality. We already know that the future can be changed or altered by Desmond's time-jumping experiences and his discovery of his constant. Even in this episode, I really think that it's possible that when we heard Sun calling out for Jin in the delivery room, she may have been experiencing a different future reality -- one in which Jin is still alive. Perhaps she was jumping back and forth, much like Desmond was jumping back and forth between the past and present.

As for Sayid and Desmond's interaction with the captain . . . I don't know. At this point, it seems difficult to determine who the bad guy is -- if it's Ben or if it's Charles Whitmore. Or if it's both of them. Perhaps they both have a similar end goal in mind and are both using evil tactics to get to it.

Questions I've been pondering:

• Can we trust that Juliet really has Sun's best interests in mind?
• If Jack found out that Juliet had an affair with another man's husband, would his feelings about her change, considering his wife left him for another man?
• Did Michael agree to work for Ben, or has he been forced into it somehow?
• Where is Walt?
• How long has Michael been on the boat, and how did he get there?
• Why is Michael sabotaging the freighter, making it difficult for them to get away from the island? Is he trying to get back to Walt? Is Walt on the island?
• Why is the island having such a negative affect on the people on the boat?
• Knowing that Michael is working for Ben, should Desmond and Sayid trust him?
• Is the captain telling the truth?
• What happened to Jin?
• When Hurley showed up at Sun's house, he asked her if any of the others were coming. She said she didn't think so, and he said, "Good." Why would that be a good thing?
• Why was Hurley the only one that came to see her?
• The date on Jin's tombstone was the date of the crash, but if the baby was conceived on the island and born 9 months later, wouldn't people suspect that someone was telling a lie?
• Why would Sun call out for Jin while she was in labor if she knew he was already dead? Also, the doctor said they were trying to get ahold of him. Was he simply unaware?

Fun facts found on Lostpedia:

• Michael can be spotted on the boat before he's revealed as the janitor. When Regina jumps off the boat, the camera cuts to a group of people standing at the boat's edge.
• Michael appears to be the hooded member. He seems to be hiding his identity from Sayid and Desmond until he is forced to confront them by Ray.
• Jin's tombstone has the date September 22, 2004, on it, the day of the crash.
• Captain Gault is a fictional sea captain created by English writer William Hope Hodgson. A captain for hire - Gault is a morally ambiguous and mysterious character. A collection of his stories can be found in the book Captain Gault, Being the Exceedingly Private Log of a Sea-Captain, published in 1917.
• the Survivors of the Chancellor is the Jules Verne book, about the last voyage of the British ship Chancellor, that Regina is reading upside down. In the novel, at the beginning of its voyage, the Chancellor carried eight passengers and twenty crew members. By the end, only eleven people (five passengers and six crew) remained alive. In the novel, several characters commit suicide, at least one of them by jumping off of the raft and into the water.