"Sundown"

“You think you know me, but you don’t. I’m a good man…”

Greetings Losties!

This week’s episode, “Sundown,” was AWESOME!!! Sayid-centric episodes generally are, though.

From the minute the action started, we were thrown for a HUGE loop! Sayid's NOT with Nadia?!? Wha??? The surprises keep coming throughout the episode as Sayid deals with his eternal essential question – Was Sayid born to be bad?

Since the first season, Sayid has grappled with his inner-torturer – constantly asserting himself as a good man who does bad things, but maybe he’s just a bad dude. A stone-cold killer posing as a good man, but when pressed will return to his destructive roots and what he knows, killing.
Regardless of all his struggling, by the close of the episode, it’s pretty apparent what team Sayid is now playing for – Team Smokey.

Let’s recap, and then analyze –

Timeline A

Sayid shows up at Nadia’s doorstep – yay! I love them together J. Anyway, he shows up to be greeted by her and presumably his kids – but the kids call him Uncle Sayid! No! And who walks into the scene, but Sayid’s brother, Omer. Omer has married Nadia and these are his kids – NOOOOOOO!!!! That’s NOT supposed to happen! Boo.

Anyway, after lots of long suggestive looks, the discovery of Nadia’s photo (that Sayid has been carrying with him for years), and a few whispered conversations, we learn that Sayid’s the reason why Nadia married Omer, that he pushed her onto him. We also learn that while Omer has a seemingly prosperous dry-cleaning business, he’s in over his head with some evil loan sharks. Omer begs Sayid to take care of the situation for him – to rain down some Iraqi Republican Guard kind of persuasion. But, Sayid refuses to help – saying that he’s no longer that man.

The next day, Omer is “mugged” by some thugs who are clearly connected to the loan shark. Sayid is PISSED! The only thing that keeps him from getting all Al-Qaida on their asses is Nadia – she begs him not to exact his own vigilante-style of justice on these people. Meanwhile Omer gets surgery – in the same hospital where Jack Shepard just happens to be doing some doctorly rounds (Ooh! Connection! Yay!) – and later Nadia returns to have a deep conversation with Sayid – where it comes out that they both still love each other, but that he won’t let himself be with her because she’s too good for him. He acknowledges that he’s tainted from performing so many atrocities and doesn’t feel he deserves her.

Aw… that’s a bummer L. But, honestly, it’s probably true. Damn Sayid, I love how you’re a badass, but why did you have to comply with all that torture nonsense? I’m reminded of the episode, “He’s Our You,” where young Sayid deftly kills a chicken (for his brother) with his bare hands – no hesitation. That whole episode, he searches his soul for who he is, culminating in his acid trip and eventual Little Ben Linus shooting. Remember how he said, “You were right about me. I am a killer"? It’s kind of the core of this episode – Sayid, whether he likes it or not (and whether we like it or not) is a killer. Once a killer, always a killer.

This point is only exacerbated when Sayid is taken to see the loan shark – it should be noted that he didn’t choose to go, but was forced to, by a few of the loan shark’s henchmen (recognize Omar, the Arabic-speaking guy, from the freighter? He was the one who was Keamy’s #1 guy on the boat!). Walking into the kitchen of a restaurant, Sayid notes several scary-looking knives in various stages of food prep. And, guess who the asshole loan shark is?

Keamy! Remember that slime ball? He’s the guy from the Freighter who went all rogue and killed not only the Freighter’s captain, but also Ben’s daughter, Alex (in a moment that I’m dubbing as one of the most powerful scenes in Lost history – watching Alex plead for her life, Ben disown her, and Keamy mercilessly kill the poor girl was straight PAINful!).

So, of course, in this timeline Keamy is still a total shitbag – trying to extort unlimited amounts of interest from the Jarrah boys. All while eating eggs, oy vey! Omer might have taken it, but Sayid is having none of Keamy’s crap. During the shakedown, Sayid elbows a henchman in the groin, uses him as a human shield when the other henchman shoots at him (one dead!), steals his gun to shoot the other henchman (two dead!), and exhibits little sympathy as Keamy begs for his life – offering to just forget about Omer’s “debt.” Now, Sayid’s Momma clearly only raised one fool (Omer), because Sayid is NO ONE’s fool – so when Keamy begs for him to just forget about it, Sayid half-whispers, “I can’t” and splays him with bullets. Yay!!! Not quite as satisfying as watching Ben jump out of a corner and stab the shit out of Keamy, but seeing as how this time he isn’t strapped to a heart monitor that will cause a freighter-full of people to explode if it stops, his death is pretty satisfying in this new Timeline.

After putting another bullet in Keamy, Sayid hears someone struggling from a walk-in refrigerator. And, OMG! It’s “I-don’t-speak-English” Jin! How the heck did he get in there?!? But we don’t get to find out because that’s the last we see of Timeline A Sayid. Holy Smokey, Jin's a prisoner in BOTH Timelines! What's the significance?!? I don't know.

Which brings us to,

Timeline B

Holy Smokey! SO much Temple action this week! We start with the balls-out confrontation between Sayid and Dogen. Sayid is PISSED about Dogen trying to kill him, so he goes to speak to Dogen about it.

Dogen suggests that Sayid has been found to be evil and it would be better if he were dead. At which point, the longest one-on-one fight scene in Lost history commences – Dogen vs. Sayid!! For a few minutes they fully try to kill each other, and they’re seriously well-matched, so the fight is mesmerizing! While Lost is no stranger to the random fist-fight or Smoke Monster attack, they rarely have such severe one-on-one contact, I mean, this isn’t The Sopranos, right? But man! This seemed like the writers were aching to have a few really good fight scenes in the final season and these two got to enact the nerdy dreams of the writer’s table.

So anyway, Dogen gets the opportunity to kill Sayid, but has his train of thought squashed by his baseball falling to the ground. The baseball is clearly a loaded object, because it immediately causes Dogen to pause and regroup. He tells Sayid to get out and never come back – but doesn’t kill him. Is it because he’s not allowed to kill candidates? Probably. Because Jarrah (#16) is still a candidate, he hasn’t been crossed off the wall yet, right?

Outside the Temple, Feral Claire and Fake Locke (Flocke) discuss the plan. Claire’s going to go in, although she’d rather Flocke do it (but he tells her he can’t, he would if he could, but he just can’t…?) and she says she’ll do it as long as he lives up to his promise to get her baby back. He says he always does what he says he will – REALLY? I mean, this is Lost, no one EVER straight just says what they mean, or what they’re going to do – revolutionary! I think I’m liking Flocke – he’s full of answers, he’s direct, and does what he says he will! The exact opposite of everything Jacob does, hmmm….

Also, Claire asks why Sawyer can’t do it – which means she’s aware that Flocke has recruited Sawyer into his band of merry men. But where is Sawyer? When did he and Claire see each other? I would have like to see that reunion – especially since Sawyer nearly risked his life to save Claire, back in New Otherton (when the Freighter Folk were attacking). Where the heck was he during all this dark madness? Is Flocke trying to keep Sawyer from seeing this destruction, so he won’t know who he’s dealing with? It just seemed like Sawyer would have been just as effective to deliver the message. Although, he isn’t quite the cold-blooded killer that Sayid is, which makes me think that Sayid’s main objective was to kill Dogen.

Sayid prepares to leave, but runs into Miles who gives him a HUGE “FYI” – that the Templars didn’t save Sayid’s life, they tried, but that Sayid was dead for two hours. That whatever brought Sayid back, it wasn’t these Temple peeps. Then Claire walks in with the message that “he” wants to see Dogen. It’s made clear that Flocke wants Dogen to come to see him, but Dogen knows that if he goes outside the temple that he’ll be killed. Dogen seems to be safe when in the temple – Claire suggests that he should send someone who Flocke won’t kill.

Claire is put into a holding pit, and Dogen is peeved to find out that Jack and Hugo are gone. Dogen decides to put exile on hold and makes Sayid come with him into a room, where he digs up a little chest (out of this little garden). Dogen tells Sayid that Claire is “a confused girl under the influence of an angry man.” He says the man has been trumped for years, but now that Jacob’s gone, the man is free. The man will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on the island. That the man is evil incarnate – ooh! Creepy!

Sayid infers that Dogen wants him to go speak to this man. Dogen’s like, no, I want you to KILL him. Dogen warns that the man will come to Sayid as someone he knows, someone who died, and to kill him on sight by shoving the large knive (that he dug up) into his chest. Sayid’s warned that if he allows the man to speak, that he will already have lost. Sayid questions why the heck he would want to do this, since all the Templars have done for him lately is try to kill him! Dogen plays upon Sayid’s need to be affirmed as a good man, and calls upon him to prove his remaining goodness.

Sayid accept the challenge and leaves to go into the jungle. As he goes, he runs into Kate – she’s very confused, and when I was watching this, my first thought was, Oh Shit! He’s totally going to kill Kate! No! But that didn’t happen. Sayid leaves Kate to continue his mission, and she heads back from to the Temple, where Miles takes a break from his card game to fill her in. Miles correctly ascertains that Sawyer “sent Claire packing” – after spending three years as La Fleur’s second-in-command, he seems wise to the ways of our favorite con-man J. I have to say, I love Miles! I think he’s underused, because every time he’s on-screen, I find myself chuckling. Granted, this isn’t a knee-slapping show, but I appreciate the moments they give us to smile – Hurley’s good like that too J. Anyway, Miles lets Kate know that Claire’s back – noting several times that she’s still hot, heh! Kate, with rabid intensity, asks where she is and takes off to find her.

Cut to Sayid walking through the jungle to kill Flocke. He hears the smoke monster, and then Flocke appears. VERY cool! He only gets out a “Hello Sayid…” before Sayid stabs him, quite solidly, in the chest. For a normal person, this would inspire screaming, maybe some blood. Flocke calmly takes out the knife, and with an annoyed expression asks, “Now, why’d you go and do that?” Sayid stands on, looking totally freaked out.

Now the use of the knife intrigued me. So now we know that not only is he capable of dodging bullets, but he’s also of being invincible. But why? Jacob clearly wasn’t invincible, so shouldn’t they have equal powers? Then again, Jacob couldn’t turn into smoke AND could leave the island AND could give life. But, when Flocke handed Ben the anger and the weaponry to kill Jacob, that knife worked. So, is it that the special knife that Dogen gave isn’t capable of killing ANYONE, or is it that Flocke just can’t be killed? I’m baffled. But either way, guns don’t do the job on these guys, it’s clearly gotta be knives!

Okay, after a commercial featuring an ad for Hot Tub Time Machine (oy!), Flocke gives Sayid the knife back. Sayid asks what Flocke is, Flocke answers with a question. He then tells Flocke that he feels bad for Sayid – that Dogen’s manipulating him even though it’s obvious Dogen wants him dead. Sayid, cleverly, deduces that Flocke wants something from him also – he recognizes he’s being used by both men. Flocke wants Sayid to deliver a message (that would be more effective coming from Sayid then from Claire). Flocke tells Sayid that if Sayid does this for him, Flocke will give him anything he wants in the world – dead Nadia. Flocke alludes to the fact that somehow, he’s capable of making Sayid and Nadia a reality. Sayid’s eyes say it all – Flocke’s got him.

Back at the Temple, Sayid finds Dogen (who’s pondering by a stream), ignores him, and then walks into the middle of the Temple and freaks everyone out by saying:

“There is a man in the jungle, about a mile south of us by the outer wall. He sent me back here to give you a message. He wants you to know that Jacob is dead, and because he’s gone none of you have to stay here anymore. You’re free. The man that I met is leaving the island forever, and those of you who want to go with him should leave the Temple and join him. You have until Sundown to decide.”

Sayid also says that if they choose to stay at the Temple, they’ll die. Oooh! Ominous!
Now, it’s interesting to note that in medicine, the term Sundowning refers to the phenomenon where people with psychosis or dementia become very agitated at dusk. At this time they are more likely to go wandering off away from safety when they are very confused. Not too unlike the psychosis that seems to be affecting Claire and Sayid, no?

Meanwhile, Kate’s looking for Claire. She gets Lennon to help her make a visitation – during which Claire creepily sings the “Catch a Falling Star” song that both she and Kate are so fond of singing to Aaron (EXTREME creepsville!). Kate admits to Claire that she took Aaron, not the Others. Claire seems like she might kill Kate with her bare hands at hearing this confession. Kate uses the words “I raised him” – which makes me think of “You’re not supposed to raise him!!!” But Kate quickly says that she came back to get Claire, to bring the two together, and that she’s going to rescue her. Claire boldly says that she’s not the one who needs rescuing, “He’s coming and they can’t stop him!” Claire warns, ominously (everything with Claire is ominous since she went all feral though).

Sayid heads inside to talk to Dogen, throws the knife down, and then has story time with the guy. Dogen knew that Sayid had spoken to Flocke, to which Sayid admits to, and asks Dogen why he sent him out there to get killed. He doesn’t understand why Dogen didn’t just do the job himself. So, Dogen tells his sob story about how he drove drunk with his young son in the car, they got into a horrible accident where he was okay but the son was not. He was picking his son up from a baseball game, so that baseball he’s always messing with is a memento from his son. Jacob came to him, and offered him his son’s life in exchange for him to come to the Temple and run the show. The only catch is, he’s never allowed to see his son again. Sounds VERY similar to Juliet’s story – how her sister was magically cured by Jacob and his magical Cancer-Curing Wand. Except Juliet got no memento of Rachel, her sister, but Dogen gets his heavily symbolic baseball. They both seem to acknowledge that both Jacob and Smokey are using them both for their own self-interest – yet Dogen’s sacrifice seems noble, while Sayid’s seem personally motivated. Could this be an indicator as to who the good guy is and who the bad guy is? VERY possible!

Dogen’s story seems to lure Sayid in – they seem to be on the same page for about three seconds. Dogen asks Sayid whether or not he’s planning to leave with the Smokey crew, or stay. Sayid says he’d like to stay, luring us into a false feeling of calm. And then he suddenly grabs Dogen and holds him under the water – drowning him in a similar fashion that he, himself, was drown in by Dogen’s crew. Woah! As he loses his life, Dogen lets go of his son’s baseball
It’s shocking, it’s horrifying, and it totally makes sense. With this act, Sayid has officially crossed over to the dark side. There’s no question as to whether or not the darkness will affect his soul – he’s evil now. And he takes on this sort of dazed, manic, dark persona that totally FREAKS me out! I guess the question was, did Sayid choose to kill Dogen on his own? Or was it all part of Flocke’s message?

Lennon comes running in, horrified at Dogen’s death – screaming to Sayid that Dogen’s the only thing keeping it from coming in – d’oh! Sayid deftly slits Lennon’s throat, with an evil smile, “I know.” Oh dear! If we had any doubts about Sayid, like maybe Dogen was a mercy-killing, they officially fly out the window. He had purely Flocke-oriented intentions – he is the quarterback of Team Smokey.

Smokey decides to make his grand entrance now and flies through the Temple, killing everyone he sees who isn’t on his team. Except, seemingly, for the children – does he not kill kids? He didn’t last night. Everyone’s running all over the place – stewardess Julie and some of the Others have already left the Temple (presumably to defect to Team Smokey). Kate and Miles make a dash for the exits – but separate when Kate goes to “save Claire” (Oh hon, didn’t you hear Claire? She doesn’t need saving!). Miles runs into Ilana, Ben, Lapidus, and Sun (who’s SHOCKED to hear that Jin was at the Temple, but now is gone) – Ilana follows the hieroglyphics on the wall and opens it up to provide a hiding place for everyone except for Ben.

In regards to the hieroglyphics, Doc Jeff Jensen on http://www.ew.com/ made a fascinating point:

“We remember the scale with the black and white stones in the Cave. Given that the Temple is all tattooed with Egyptian hieroglyphics, Dogen's story was probably nodding in the direction of the Egyptian myth known as ''The Weighing of the Heart.'' Anubis had the responsibility of judging the dead in the ''Hall of the Two Truths'' by putting a person's heart on one side of her ''scales of truth'' and weighing it against an ostrich feather belonging to, if not embodying, Ma'at, goddess of truth. If the heart-soul was fatty with evil, it would tip the scale, and the human owner would not be allowed to pass into the afterlife. Instead, the soul would get fed to Ammit, the devourer of the dead, and the ''embodiment of all that the Egyptians feared.'' To be eaten by Ammit either meant that the soul would be doomed to wander forever a restless spirit (literally like Ghost Christian; metaphorically like rootless, homeless, frequent-flying ghost Sideways Sayid) or dumped into the Lake of Fire for immolation/annihilation. (Think: Keamy and eggs.)”

Ben goes to find Sayid. Sayid is still in a daze by the eternal life spring. Ben runs in, assesses the situation and they have the following exchange:

BEN: There's still a way out of here. There's still to me
SAYID: Not for me.

I’m totally weirded out by the idea of touchy-feely Ben, and am relieved when he (upon noticing Sayid’s killer-trance) backs out of the door and RUNS! Ben is no fool and he can clearly see that Sayid has crossed over to the dark side.

Meanwhile, when she goes to “rescue” Claire, Kate acknowledges that maybe Claire’s prisoner hole might be the safest place to hide from Smokey. As Smokey is ripping through the Temple, Kate jumps into Claire’s little hole and gets an up-close and personal look at Smokey’s underside as it flies overhead.

Once the Smokey has cleared, Sayid walks across the Temple courtyard. There are fires, dead bodies, and the place is WRECKED. He has an oddly ghost-like trance thing going on, underscored by insanely creepy music, makes the whole situation so damn depressing and creepy. Claire and Kate follow, with Kate pausing to take a gun off a fallen Other. They join up with a group of Others who left the Temple and joined Flocke. Flocke does that eye twinkle/half-smile thing (that Terry O’Quinn does so well J) at Claire and Sayid, as if to officially welcome home his evil son and feral daughter. Then his eyes sweep over Kate, and he squints a little in a suspicious way – she’s NOT in the clear with him, but she’s part of the crew!

And yeah, I guess Jacob was right. It was a good thing that Jack and Hurley weren’t at the Temple to deal with all this Smoke Monster stuff. Better that they have their little magic mirror journey, right?

Wow… So basically, for people who are totally lost (pun totally intended), two sides are gearing up for a MAJOR confrontation. Clearly Jack’s been led away from the fray because he’s got to lead the other team. It’s crazy how all this time travel, the secrecy, the island itself, has always been what they’ve said it was – a giant game, black vs. white. Jacob vs. the Man in Black (who, BTW, I REALLY wish they would just give a name to already, sheesh!).

How are you guys finding the duel storylines? I feel like the flash sideways is an interesting convention, but it’s not telling me anything I don’t really know about these people. In his flash-sideways, the most prevalent theme with Sayid is what his flashbacks have highlighted as well – his search for redemption. He’s so tortured over what he’s done in the past that he constantly questions his own self-worth and moral compass – and this episode took it all to a head. Everything we’ve learned about Sayid – is he good? Is he bad? Is he a killer? Is he a savior? came to a culminating point when he killed Dogen – he made his choice.

As viewers are left to reflect upon it all. For me, it was incredibly sad. I loved the character of Sayid. I’ve always viewed him as a badass with a big heart – the guy you totally want on your team, and the guy you totally want if you have to travel at night through a dark alley! Yes, he was a torturer, but I felt he’d worked so hard towards the path of redemption, that I forgave him. God, or Allah in his case, might not have forgiven him, but we as viewers totally had. But in retrospect, he kept doing things that were totally offensive that he’d couple with a hugely redemptive story arc – so even though we were angered by him, we didn’t stay angry for long.

But when you think about it, even since Season One, he’s been doing so seriously suspect things. He’s tortured Sawyer, he totally wanted to kill Ana Lucia when she shot Shannon (although that was pretty justified), in a flashback we learned that he’d set up his BFF for a suicide bombing plot (just to get back to Nadia), he kidnapped Charlotte, he worked as a contracted killer for Ben, when he travelled back in time he tried to kill Mini-Ben, and now he’s been brought back from the dead to be Smokey’s henchman. Yeah… in retrospect, he hasn’t been the most upright citizen.

Next week is a Benjamin Linus episode – squeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!

I know this blog was long, but next week it’s going to be an epic novella! I heart Ben, and I think he may die in the next episode. And if he doesn’t, damn them for making me think he might!

Grrr….!

Let’s wrap this bad boy up with…

TARA’S BIG LIST OF LOST QUESTIONS

1. Why does the baseball keep Dogen from killing Sayid? Surely, there’s got to be more to it then the story of Dogen’s would-be-dead kid?


2. If Sayid had been dead for over two hours, how was he resurrected? Was it Flocke’s doing?


3. When Sayid was “dead” was Miles able to talk with him?


4. Why can't Flocke be killed with physical weapons the way Jacob was?


5. Why didn’t Sawyer deliver the message from Flocke?


6. Why did the ash circle only keep Flocke out as long as Dogen was alive?


7. Where is Sawyer and why was he not seen with everyone else and Flocke?


8. Why does Claire think the Others have her baby? Does she not remember walking into the jungle with Christian?


9. What’s Claire going to do to Kate, now that she knows Kate took Aaron?


10. What’s Ilana’s connection to Ancient Egypt? How does she know what to do with the hieroglyphics? I didn’t notice anything written on her arm!


11. Will Sun and Jin ever be reunited? They’re SO close! Argh!


12. When did Lapidus become all important? Do you think he and Ilana have hooked up? Are they Adam and Eve?


13. Why was Jin being held captive by Keamy?


14. In Timeline A, where's Sun and how did she and Jin get separated?


15. Is Sayid really evil? I mean, I’ve stated multiple times that I think he is, but what if Team Flocke are really the good guys?


16. Why couldn’t Dogen just kill Sayid himself? Does it all go back to the idea that candidates can’t be killed?


17. Does the fact that Kate’s on the lighthouse dial, but not on the candidate wall correspond to her joining Team Smokey?


18. How does the machine measure a man? And how cool is it that Jacob has an evil-measurer in his Temple!


19. How can Dogen keep the Temple secure, even when Jacob is dead? Doesn’t Jacob control that protection power? Or did Dogen have special powers that were independent of Jacob?


20. Who’s gonna clean that Spring of Eternal Life? Because between Ben, Sayid, Dogen, and Lennon – that thing is DIRTY!


21. Did the conversation between Ben and Sayid foreshadow bad things for both of them?


22. How is Flocke going to deliver on all these promises of grandeur he keeps making? Does he really plan to get Aaron back to Claire?


23. Is it possible for Smokey to travel off the island? He clearly doesn’t have the same come and go capabilities that Jacob had – why is he a prisoner?


24. What is the significance of the characters in Timeline A constantly crossing each other’s paths?


25. When will the timelines merge? Will they merge?


26. And seriously, is Flocke going to sink the island?

“For every man there is a scale. On one side of the scale there is good, on the other side, evil. This machine tells us how the scale is balanced, and yours, tipped the wrong way...”

Until next week, Losties! I CANNOT wait!!!!

Namaste!