S6E10 ROTTEN TOMATO

The English word tomato comes from the Spanish tomatl, first appearing in print in 1595. A member of the deadly nightshade family, tomatoes were erroneously thought to be poisonous (although the leaves are poisonous) by Europeans who were suspicious of their bright, shiny fruit.

In many respects, "The Package" was poison to the sprint to the climax of the LOST story.

As with this season's filler, the sideways story line really does not move the island story line ahead. The focus of the first five seasons was the island. Now in season six, the island story is dragging on with missions, reverse course, new missions, wandering, and sitting around campfires waiting for something to happen.

What continues to happen is an assault on the viewer's sensibilities:

1. Sun hits her head and loses her English speech, but can fully understand and write English?!
2. Flocke can't get to Hydra island except in human form by boat? Except he makes smoking fast time around the islands: his camp in the middle of the jungle, the beach camp days away, then to Hydra which would have been several more days away, then a full day's paddle back and forth . . . Flocke must have won gold in the Mount Olympus games.
3. Sun's dumbness extreme: she refused to go to the Hydra to to stop Flocke, but then at the end she agrees to do the same thing with Jack. And what was with the touching of Jack's hand? Was this a hidden message that this was not Jack but MIB impersonating Jack, tempting Sun with a fruit like the serpent from the Garden of Eden, then "claiming" Sun with the trusting touch?
4. How could Widmore's little submarine team construct an entire sonar fence array around the Hydra compound in less than a day? And do a recon assault mission to get Jin?
5. And Flocke at the fence with Widmore, it was like two feuding neighbors over a nuisance complaint. And given the opportunity to tell us what Flocke really is - - - the writers punt with a myth and ghost story gibberish explanation.
6. The reveal of "the Package" was bleh . . . why would you put several locks and an armed guard in the hall when Desmond was OD'd on sleeping pills? And why is Desmond important now - - - except to add another "son-in-law issue" to the Jin-Sun arc?
7. Why return to Room 23 to tell us, it was used for mind control experiments? We already knew that! And was Tina Fey Zoe trying to mimic Juliet in that scene . . . badly?

And those were just on the main island story line.
The sideways world was just as confused: what restaurant does not have workers in the kitchen at noon? How did Sun actually get shot by the magic bullet? When Jin picked her up, I thought he has to be off to the Egyptian Temple in LA to heal her, right?

In the days of vaudeville, patrons threw tomatoes at the actors if their performances were bad. I know more than a few loyal viewers felt like emptying out the refrigerator crisper during this episode.