Tonight: a heart of darkness, out of the frying pan, and an Aussie in the hole. Spoilers below.
This past week, Hawaii was in danger of being hit by a Tsunami caused by the Chilean earthquake. Lost producers invited cast and crew to come to the studios for protection in case the massive ocean swells hit. Fortunately, they avoided disaster. In “Sundown,” the inhabitants of Hawaii’s fictional island doppelganger weren’t so lucky.
Lost has always been about redemption. When the passengers of flight 815 were brought to the island, they arrived broken, in need of healing both emotional and physical. Some, like Charlie Pace, were able to redeem themselves by sacrificing their lives for their friends. Others, like Jack, came back to the island after having escaped it, looking for magical intervention that has not yet happened. For Sayid Jarrah, redemption has never been further away.
Sayid came to the island trying to escape his Iraqi torturer past, but no matter what he did, that past kept coming back. He was forced to torture Sawyer in season one, and Ben in season two. After they both left the island, Ben convinced Sayid to work for him as a hitman. He was captured by Ilana, and came back to the island on Ajira flight 316, to ’70s Dharmaville, where he was accused of being a “hostile” and thrown in jail. There he met, and tried to kill, the young Ben Linus. Finally, he was shot by Ben’s father while trying to help Jack set off the H-bomb that ended last season. That gunshot brought him, and his friends, to the Temple, where the Others tried to heal him, but it went wrong and Sayid drowned. He was mysteriously resurrected two hours later—a miracle that inspired the Temple Master, Dogen, to try to kill him again. Why am I telling you things you already know, especially when none of it happened this episode? Because it’s important that we remember Sayid, because, as of tonight, the man we knew him to be is dead.
“Sundown” gave us two very similar stories about Sayid. On the island, he was placed between Dogen and the Man in Black, forced to choose sides in the Island War. In the LA X timeline, he abandoned a quest for atonement when his brother’s family, and the love of his life, were threatened by a dangerous (and familiar) mobster.
The LA X story begins with Sayid’s arrival at Nadia’s house. In this reality, he knows where she is: married to his brother, Omer. Although he and Nadia obviously have feelings for each other, Sayid has chosen to live a nomadic life as a traveling businessman of some sort, so convinced that he does not deserve to be with her that he pushed her towards his brother. Turns out Omer isn’t perfect either. In order to open a second dry cleaning store, he took out a loan with a man who is not satisfied with just getting his money back; he wants continued monthly payments… or else. Sayid’s brother asks him to help, to pressure this man to leave him alone, convinced Sayid can get it done because he “knows what kind of man” he is. Sayid refuses, and Omer ends up hospitalized by the man’s thugs. Sayid considers revenge, but Nadia begs him not to intervene. He holds back, choosing instead to help her at home with his niece and nephew. But, like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, he gets pulled back in. The mobster sends men to pick up Sayid and take him to a restaurant, where he meets the man, who also happens to be Martin Keamey (aka. the mercenary who killed Ben’s daughter). Keamey threatens Sayid and his family between bites of freshly fried egg. Sayid responds by punching the guy standing next to him (who was one of Keamey’s on-island mercenaries), shooting both henchmen and killing Keamey. Faced with no good choice, Sayid chooses what he knows: violence.
Back on the island, Sayid confronts Dogen about his poisoned pill ploy. Dogen admits that he believes everyone would be better off if Sayid were dead. Dogen tells the shocked Iraqi that he is becoming evil, then proceeds to engage him in a kick-ass fight sequence that was still only the second coolest scene in this episode. It ends with Sayid right where Dogen wants him, pinned to the desk with a knife to his throat. But the Temple Master stops when the baseball on his desk falls to the ground. He lets Sayid go and tells him to leave the Temple. Before he can go, however, crazy Claire shows up with a message: the Man in Black wants to see Dogen. Because you don’t get to be Temple Master by stupidly walking into traps, Dogen refuses and has Claire thrown in “the hole” (which is exactly what it sounds like). He then asks Sayid to go out and kill the Man in Black for him, with a ceremonial knife buried in one of his flower boxes. You will know who to kill, he tells Sayid, because he will look like someone you know who has died recently.
Sayid heads out into the jungle, once more looking for redemption. He meets Locke and, without hesitation, thrusts the knife into his chest. Turns out it’s not that easy to kill a Smoke Monster. After pulling the knife out, Locke simply hands it back to Sayid, telling him that the only reason Dogen sent him out here was so Locke would kill him instead. Sayid asks the Man in Black what he wants from him. Locke tells him that all he wants is for Sayid to deliver a message. In return, he promises to give the lovesick Sayid a second chance with Nadia—conveniently leaving out the part where he brings her back from the dead.
Meanwhile, Kate returns to the Temple, unaware that something super freaky is about to go down. She meets Miles, who tells her about Claire’s return. Kate demands to see her, and tries to make the psycho mom happy by telling her the good news that she took Aaron and raised him off of the island. Bad move, even if she doesn’t realize it yet.
Sayid comes back to the Temple with the Man in Black’s message: Jacob is dead. Leave the Temple and follow Locke and he’ll take you off of the island. Stay at the Temple and you’ll die. He gives them until sundown to make their decisions, but it doesn’t take nearly that long for most of the Temple folk to run like scared rabbits. Without Jacob, they think, the Temple isn’t safe, and no begging by Lennon can change their minds. During the exodus, Sayid finds Dogen by the pool, holding the baseball. Dogen tells Sayid that before he came to the island, he was a businessman with a drinking problem. One Friday, he picked his son up from baseball and they got into an accident. At the hospital, Dogen was visited by Jacob, who promised that his son would live if he accepted a new job, on the island. The only catch was that he could never see his son again. Sayid listens attentively to the sad story, then grabs the Temple Master, drags him into the pool, and drowns him. Lennon rushes in just after the murder and yells at Sayid, telling him that Dogen was the only one keeping the Smoke Monster out of the Temple. Sayid says that he knows, then takes the knife and cuts Lennon’s throat.
Then, all hell broke loose.
Unleashing all his pent-up fury, the Smoke Monster lays waste to the Temple and its remaining inhabitants. And I mean waste. Bodies everywhere, walls collapsing, men with guns brutally smashed against rock. The attack on the Temple has to be one of the craziest scenes in Lost history. Up ’til now, the show’s stakes have been relatively low. People have been kidnapped, killed, and betrayed, of course, but now that I’ve seen a column of smoke tear tear apart an ancient monument, everything that happened before just seems like appetizer to this cajun-blackened main course. Dogen described the Man in Black (whom the show still refuses to name, further annoying those of us who have to write show recaps) as “evil incarnate.” After this week’s episode, it’s hard to argue. There may not be time to argue, though, now that the line has clearly been drawn, with Locke having amassed an impressive army that includes major players like Claire, Sawyer, and possibly even Kate (though Ms. Austen just seems to be wandering after Claire). The biggest “get” for Locke, though, is Sayid, a turncoat general who puts Brutus and Darth Vader to shame. After the cold-blooded murders of Dogen and Lennon, I’m not sure who the real Man in Black is anymore: the pillar of smoke, or the guy in the black A-shirt.
All of which has to be heartbreaking for diehard Sayid fans. They may hold out hope that he’s “just playing along,” or is due for ultimate redemption, but this close to the end it’s hard to imagine him recovering from tonight’s episode. Looking back, it’s not surprising that he ended up this way, the same way we shouldn’t be surprised that Jack is being set up as the hero. Maybe Sayid never really had a choice. I’ll leave it up to the Lost theologians to argue about whether Jacob manipulated Sayid to turn to the dark side. All I know is that even though he wasn’t involved in Jacob’s death, he fits the Judas role way better than Ben does.
Speaking of Ben, how about him showing up at The Temple with Ilana, Frank, and Sun? They came to fight Smokey, but got there too late. They tried to extract the Losties but only managed to pick up Miles. And he’s not even a candidate. The episode ended with a slow motion shot of Locke leading a fearsome-looking army off into the woods. With Jacob dead and his forces scattered and scared, things aren’t looking good for Good. Jack had better get used to his role as island savior in a hurry, because there’s not much time left (eleven hours, to be exact).
Not too much to theorize about this week; it was bound to happen with things wrapping up. Like I said above, it’s possible that Jacob wanted Sayid to do what he did, or at least that his switch to the dark side is part of Jacob’s ultimate plan. And like I said in the comments for one of my earlier posts, things aren’t looking too good for Kate. It’s unlikely that Claire will actually kill her, unless the LA X timeline bleeds through like some fans are predicting and Kate’s island death ends up not mattering in the end. Going back to Sayid’s LA X storyline, it’s telling that his is the only one we’ve seen so far where a character goes from redemption to brokenness and not the other way around. Also, if I’m not mistaken, he was the only one we didn’t see look in a mirror (perhaps because his island self is gone?). Like the other LA X episodes, his story was packed with cameo appearances: by Jack, in the hospital, Keamey, and Jin, tied up in the restaurant cooler. Here’s hoping that we get to the Jin-Sun storyline soon. Their reunion has been a long time coming.
Am I missing anything? Do you think Dogen didn’t kill Sayid because the baseball reminded him to be a better man for his son’s sake, or do you think that, as Temple protector, he was unable to kill Sayid lest he risk breaking whatever spell kept the Man in Black out? Is it really up to Jack and Hurley to save the day, or will Kate find her way back to Team Jacob (as it were)? This is bound to be a polarizing episode, so let’s hear it in the comments. Sayid fans, make your case!
3. March 2010 at 9:03 am
Wow! I’m afraid I feel attacked by the Smoke Monster because predictably I am a Sayid fan. I guess my penchant for wearing black tank tops betrays which side I am on ultimately. I don’t think they will make the answers so black and white in the end though. There very well may be some super doses of shades of gray coming. I don’t think we are done with Sayid being beyond saving.
One such source may be a crazy theory floating in the Internet corners. People are asking if we don’t know MAN IN BLACK’s name because it is JACOB. Perhaps he is simply the “Bad Twin” to Jacob’s “Good Twin” routine. Just as Locke may end up fighting himself in the finale if the two timelines collapse, perhaps Jacob will fight his dark half as well. Even if their names are not the same there is a true Cain and Abel vibe coming on here in our island Garden of Eden. How long before Kate eats some forbidden fruit, or we remove a rib from Jack to make a new species of alcoholic spinal surgeons who like Asian tattoos?
Still not much in the way of answers tonight though. They are gonna need to move quickly to cram in as much mythology as twelve remaining hours can handle…
I still need to meditate on this one for a while…
More questions later on.
3. March 2010 at 9:56 am
We may have to be happy with more story than answers. As much as I’d like them to go down the list of mysteries and check them all off, it’s probably better for them to focus on giving us a thrilling conclusion to the series. Tonight was a good start.
I’ll grant you that Sayid may still have his Anakin-Vader redemption moment at the end. It will just take a lot to make that turnaround satisfying.
Not sure how they’d explain the Man in Black and Jacob being the same person. That might strain credibility a bit, even for Lost.
So, thus far we’ve gotten Jack, Kate, Locke, and Sayid episodes. I assume we’ll get Sawyer, Sun-Jin, and Hurley episodes as well. Any other guesses or requests for LA X storylines before they wrap them up?
3. March 2010 at 12:34 pm
Well, the promos are driving me over the edge… “NO MORE QUESTIONS! THE TIME HAS COME FOR…. ANSWERS!!!!!” They keep promising and promising, but the delivery is always delayed.
They have finally broken from the season one pattern with this episode. If they truly were following the first year the show last night would have focused on Sun, and they fooled me by calling it “Sundown”. I thought it would be Jin and Sun with that title, and maybe it should have been called “SAYID DOWN”.
Okay, and you are worrying about believability and stretching it for LOST? The show that introduced time traveling bunnies as a major plot point along with a frozen DONKEY wheel that unsticks an entire island in time? At what point did they not stretch credibility?!? I mean seriously here. I don’t think it would be all that far out of the realm. I’m really wondering why else they would keep DARK MAN’s name a secret for so long…
3. March 2010 at 5:03 pm
I’ve always had an itch that Smokie isn’t actually the Man in Black, but there’s no good reason to believe that, so I try to forget it. Anyway, assuming he IS…We’re just getting to know the guy, you know. As a PERSON. What are his morals, what are his goals and motivations…and I don’t think he’s lied too much. If anything, his is just one viewpoint we’re getting, and he’s spreading the love, because at the very least there’s no question this is a war they’re fighting.
Anyway, the minute they give him a name, he’s gonna get pigeonholed. There’s almost no doubt it’ll be something with strong mythical resonance, and since there’s so very little time to develop him, better we get to know what he’s like before we get the Big Idea behind the curtain, as it were. It’s not like with Jacob, who for so long was just a name people were tossing every which way and a fleeting, creepy memory of a cabin in our heads (and now, we have to question even that). As it stands, we actually know (A LITTLE) more about Smokie than we do Jacob, and the way O’Quinn is playing him…it’s hard not to root for the bastard. Man.
Next week’s episode is going to rock. Bennnnnnn.
4. March 2010 at 11:11 am
I would like to see a scene where Fake Locke or UnLocke transforms into the smokey cloud. O’Quinn is certainly playing the heck out of it all, and he deserves an Emmy nod for this year solely based on what we have seen thus far.
So perhaps next week is a “Ben” -centric episode. That will be good, he usually is as strong as Locke when they give him the whole show. But I will be shocked if they kill him off… and whatever has become of his and Widmore’s seeming fight for control of this island? Is that a mystery to remain unsolved?
My big question right now is what relevance does the ALTERNATE TIMELINE have? Is there a grand purpose for all these side flashes to a universe that exists in another era under different circumstances. I am seeing less and less “bleed through” as we go along which concerns me. I hope there is a significant payoff.
4. March 2010 at 11:14 am
Oh, and KATE totally should have looked at Claire and said with a straight face “It puts the lotion in its skin or else it gets the hose!”
7. March 2010 at 2:09 pm
It would seem that the Ben/Widmore conflict is one of those things they’ve chosen to answer by process of elimination. There are various little things from last season’s Ben episode that flesh the whole idea out…although some of Widmore’s actions (like helping Locke when he left the island to bring everybody back, and what he knew about the “coming war”…) are absolutely baffling. Anyway, stuff like how/why Widmore left the island in the first place – banished and replaced by Ben – really gives us an idea of what Widmore was trying to do. He just wanted his place on the island back, likely because it must have seemed like a birthright at the time – didn’t Richard say the process of becoming a leader of The Others was something that took a long time?
I think the whole Widmore/Ben conflict was a sneaky narrative device to help us buy into this whole Jacob/MIB thing. Not to mention the constant theme of cirularity. “There’s these NOBODIES, and wouldn’t you know it, what they’re doing basically mirrors this other thing that these older, far superior people have been doing for a long, long time.” And it’s similarly grey, too – Ben and Widmore have reasons for being what they are, and haven’t always been the easiest people to like. Lol, I almost said “Ben and Widmore are equally bad.”
It’s not easy to keep up with this show. All of the most important clues are at opposite ends (which have then switched and jumbled) of a seriously skewered timeline, seems like. Which whay is up? @____@
8. March 2010 at 1:19 pm
Other niggling questions as we get ready for the next chapter…
What kind of bank position did Dogen hold that they trained him how to fight like a ninja? Do you know many accountants or tellers that could take on Sayid like that? I mean seriously.
So is Kate gonna hook up with the Bad People now? Her character does seem to bounce back and forth, but I essentially thought she was good. But I’m glad she is with Team Smokey for the moment, she’s never good luck for anybody she is with.
Anyone remember that video game MYST where you were on an island and working for one brother that said he was good and told you the other was bad? Then it switched and the bad brother said he was good and the other brother was bad? Then you got to the end and found out that BOTH brothers were bad? Just a thought to put out in the ether…
Why were both Sawyer and Jin absent from the Temple Slaughter? I know Jin is probably hobbling now thanks to E-Clair’s bear trap, but what is Sawyer’s excuse?
Brandon… I just wonder about this Ben and Widmore business because it was so prominent at one point. I mean weren’t the Freighties sent by Widmore? And we got that video tape from Ben that was pretty incriminating against Widmore. Just seems like that has fallen by the wayside right now, and I am wondering why. Also no word on Hanso or the DeGroots who both were featured pretty prominently in earlier seasons and such… Maybe Man in Black is ALVAR HANSO or a DeGroot?
And boy those Others scurried over to join the bad guy quickly… hmmmm!
Alright, let’s see what we are in store for this week.
BTW, I got a Tweet from Carlton Cuse saying they JUST finished writing the next to last episode of the season and he is so excited about how good it is. Let’s see if he has reason to celebrate.
9. March 2010 at 8:31 am
While it’s certainly possible that they’ll resurrect the Widmore storyline this season, I wouldn’t be surprised if they leave it (like Brandon said) as a “sneaky narrative” foreshadowing the Jacob/MiB conflict. I got the sense that the Ben/Widmore rivalry was a kind of schoolyard fight, where Ben was the usurper, and Widmore was just trying to reclaim what he saw as rightfully his. Would the island be in peril had Widmore stayed on as leader? Hopefully tonight’s episode will give Ben the chance to start his turnaround from self-obsessed shrew to legitimate good guy.
9. March 2010 at 8:39 am
I don’t mind if they kick the Widmore and Ben fight to the background… but COME ON! We went through that entire season four with the freighties, and talk about “you broke the rules” when you killed my daughter, and videotapes of Widmore beating people up, and Penny’s other attempt to rescue the Losties with no clue what her father was doing.
What is frustrating the crap out of me is it seems the mysteries from season to season DO NOT TRACK right now. Why did the OTHERS kill so many of the tail section Losties? They are all buddy buddy now, but it makes no sense. How did Ethan go from Dharma to Other?
There are just so many frakking questions and they simply keep introducing more as we go. Recall that truly MAN IN BLACK and JACOB were not really introduced until the last episode of the fifth season.
We have 12 hours to go… eleven after tonight…
I hope they make them count. For their sake, because I am sure some fans will go evil Claire on their ass and set a bear trap unless we get a satisfactory resolve with at least a good bit of the mythology explained.
9. March 2010 at 8:44 am
Another thing bugging me after these last few episodes… Claire’s baby…
In the episode from Season Four “CABIN FEVER” or whatever that was… We saw Christian and Claire sitting in the cabin. When asked about Aaron Christian says “The baby is where he is supposed to be.” Claire doesn’t seem too damned distraught about it either.
Then in the Kate episode where she contemplates the whole “WE HAVE TO GO BACK!!!!!” she has a preminition dream with normal Claire saying “Don’t you dare bring him back!” Would this feral E-Claire say that now? I would think she would want him on the island at any cost.
It simply seems like some bad continuity here between explanations of how Claire feels about where her baby is.
But secretly I do hope she kills Kate because I think it would be a VERY cool dark scene, and that character sorta annoys me. Plus, it could kill the whole triangle between her, Jack, and Sawyer.
13. April 2010 at 1:29 am
Darn it
I just entered a long and comprehensive comment, and when I tried to submit it my Internet Explorer freaked out.
Was it somehow saved or should I retype it all again?