"Lost" Ji Yeon (2008)

Director:

Stephen Semel

Writers:

Jeffrey Lieber (creator) and
J.J. Abrams (creator) ...

TV Series:

"Lost" (2004)

Original Air Date:

13 March 2008 (Season 4, Episode 7)

Genre:

Adventure | Drama | Fantasy | Mystery | Romance | Thriller

Plot:

Juliet exposes Sun's pre-island affair to Jin so that they won't defect to Locke's camp. Sayid and Desmond meet the ship's captain and discover that Michael is working on the boat.

Plot Keywords:

Suicide | Flash Forward | Birth | Truth | Complications

Cast

Naveen Andrews	...	Sayid Jarrah
Henry Ian Cusick	...	Desmond Hume
Jeremy Davies	...	Daniel Faraday
Emilie de Ravin	...	Claire Littleton (credit only)
Michael Emerson	...	Benjamin Linus (credit only)
Matthew Fox	...	Jack Shephard
Jorge Garcia	...	Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes
Josh Holloway	...	James 'Sawyer' Ford (credit only)
Daniel Dae Kim	...	Jin Kwon
Yunjin Kim	...	Sun Kwon
Ken Leung	...	Miles Straume (credit only)
Evangeline Lilly	...	Kate Austen
Rebecca Mader	...	Charlotte Lewis
Elizabeth Mitchell	...	Juliet Burke
Terry O'Quinn	...	John Locke (credit only)

Runtime:

43 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English | Korean

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

1.78 : 1

Sound Mix:

Dolby Digital

Certification:

USA:TV-PG | Venezuela:PG-13 (DVD rating)

Filming Locations:

O'ahu, Hawaii, USA

Company:

ABC Studios

Goofs:

Crew or equipment visible: When Jin smashes his cell phone in frustration, you can clearly see the shadow of the cameraman in front of him.

Quotes:

Bernard Nadler: Rose... has cancer. She's sick. Dying. Well, she was dying. She says she's better now. She says it's this place. The island. But when the camp split up, I was sure that she'd want to go with Locke. Why would she want to leave the island and risk getting sick again?
Jin Kwon: Then why do you stay with Jack?
Bernard Nadler: Because it was the right thing to do. Locke, he's a murderer. It's all about karma, Jin. You know karma? You make bad choices, bad things happen to you. But you make good choices, and then good...
[interrupted as a fish gets caught to Jin's rod]
[...]

Movie Connections:

References "Naruto" (2002)

"Ji Yeon" is one of the most emotionally effective episodes yet and further excellence from Kitsis & Horowitz

Jin and Sun episodes have been inconsistent in quality, in spite of the enormous dramatic potential of their story. When written well, they are two of the most compelling characters on "Lost". When written poorly, they are two of the dullest. While I like both Jin and Sun as characters, especially Jin, I never found myself emotionally invested in their relationship before "Ji Yeon". This episode, in spite of one or two groan-inducing moments, is absolutely brilliant generally, with strong character writing for everyone involved, a well-executed couple of reveals which are tremendous bits of storytelling (and yes, the Jin flashback is barely relevant at all, but it's fun to watch and very enjoyable, and the payoff is worth it), and genuine moments of sweetness that are kind of rare on "Lost", such as the wonderful scene between Bernard and Jin.

The stuff on the freighter is intriguing as well, Regina's cabin fever-induced suicide, Desmond and Sayid's interaction with those on the freighter, especially the neat scene with Gault, and it's just generally a fast-moving and entertaining episode, and doesn't clash badly with the main dramatic focus of the episode- Jin, Sun, and their relationship. Honestly, this made even the dullest Jin/Sun episode feel worthwhile, I really think this had a great dramatic payoff. Jin's actual fate is still debatable (pre-season 5), of course, and we know that if he died he died on the island, because the date on his tombstone is the date of the plane crash. Fantastic acting here, I thought Daniel Dae-Kim was incredible. There's also a very awkwardly-delivered line by Jorge Garcia late in the episode, I have no clue what he was thinking there.

Technically speaking, this was a good episode. I enjoyed long-time editor Stephen Semel's directorial debut on the show, though he has a long way to go to match the likes of Eric Laneuville and Jack Bender. Michael Giacchino did a noticeably excellent job with this episode, which, musically, matched this season's highs like "Confirmed Dead" and "The Constant". Lots of nice variations on established themes (and a couple of great new ones) in this episode which provided just the right sort of ambiance for the episode. Really, really great stuff, and a fine script by Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz, it's been really unique to see their development as writers on this show, from "Born to Run" to "Greatest Hits", "The Economist", and this.