Thoughts on LOST: Sundown

Trying to knock this out before the weekend starts, so no preamble...let's get to it!

- YAY!!! Sayid is going to see Nadia!!

- BOO!!! Nadia is married...to Sayid's BROTHER! Ugh...the same guy who was too much of a pansy to take care of that chicken. As we will see later, not much has changed in this dynamic.

- I couldn't tell for sure, but this looks to be the same neighborhood where Locke was inspecting Nadia's house back in "Lockdown".

- Sayid continues a pattern that I keep forgetting to mention...our X timeline characters seem to spend an awful lot of time looking at themselves in mirrors. In this case, Sayid's face is very visible in the reflection of Nadia's door...except for the half of his face that is in darkness.

Yeah, I think that probably has some meaning.

- Sayid probably should have hidden that picture better before he told the kids to go search his bag....AWKWARD!!

- "For every man there is a scale. On one side of the scale there is good. On the other side, evil...yours tipped the wrong way."

So...we've always figured that the Monster was somehow judging people before he decided whether or not to kill them, assuming that Smokey was operating on behalf of the Island. Knowing what we know now, does that mean that maybe Smokey killed them because their scale tipped too far in the OTHER direction? Like Mr. Eko, for example...maybe he knew he had no chance of bringing Eko over to his side, so he killed him? But when he "scanned" Juliet, Kate, Locke, etc., he left them alive because he thought they may be useful later?

(Yes, I know that Mr. Eko was killed off because the actor who plays him wanted to leave the show. Just trying to figure out if there is more meaning to HOW he died, while Smokey let others live)

- Sayid tells Dogen he is a "good man". For over 5 seasons now, Sayid keeps trying to tell people this, and they never believe him. He doesn't really even believe it himself anymore.

- Great to see Sayid in another awesome fight...isn't this the first time we've actually seen him lose one? Guess it's because he's slowly becoming Not-Sayid.

- I'm sorry, but every time I see Dogen obsessing over that baseball, it just reminds me of Warren. "Have you seen my baseball?"

- OK, Smocke can't cross the ash line here, so he sends Claire...but later, he comes in with a vengeance. We'll address that later...

- "I ALWAYS do what I say." We'll come back to this a little later, too...

- Back in the X timeline....Sayid's brother still can't take care of his own business and has to get his brother to handle his dirty work for him.

Poor Sayid...just like he tried to convince Dogen, he tells his brother he is "not that man anymore." The people he loves just keep putting him in situations where he HAS to be that man again, both on and off the Island.

- Back at the Temple, Miles fills Sayid in on a few details that Jack left out...it wasn't the Temple folk who really brought him back to life. Not that I blame Jack...Miles's skill set is a little better suited to figuring out what is going on with dead people.

- I love the dynamic between Claire and the Temple people...they are obviously used to dealing with each other, and the undercurrent of hate and distrust just made me miss football season in the SEC even more.

(hey, remember when I used to talk about football on this blog? Yeah, me either...)

- So, first Dogen asks for Jack and Hurley, but when told they are gone he calls Sayid instead. So is Sayid his third choice to be the one to deal with Smokey?

(oohhh...can we please assume that Claire has been stealing things from the Temple people and somehow getting away with it? Because I am DYING to start calling them Smokey and The Bandit!)

Anyway...I truly do think that Dogen sends Sayid out after Smocke because he figures that either way, ONE of them will be dead. But I'm also thinking that if it had been either Jack or Hurley, the knife would have worked. Just my theory.

- And Dogen calls Smocke "Evil Incarnate". I agree with what Erika said over at LongLiveLocke...that's probably the closest anybody on this show will come to calling him "Satan" without actually saying the word.

- Man, does Matthew Fox have something in his contract that calls for him to appear in every episode? Because we get like a 2-second glimpse of him when Nadia and Sayid get to the hospital, but nothing comes from it.

- Geez, I really wish that they would give Miles more to do. Because he continues to kill it, and somehow gets the best line of the show every week despite only having 3-4 lines to work with.

"Oh, that Australian chick's back...you know-the blond? The one who had the baby? Yeah, she strolled in here a couple hours ago, acting all weird. Still hot, though".

Hee.

- So, why didn't the knife kill Smocke? At first I thought it was because he spoke to Sayid before he had time to stab him, but I don't think that's it. I think we are back to the "rules" again...I think that Sayid is far enough gone that he no longer has enough "good" in his soul to vanquish Smokey.

Is that part of the "loophole"? Did Smokey have to find somebody with enough Evil in their heart to be able to kill Jacob? Because I'm pretty sure Benjamin Linus would fit that bill, no matter how much I love him.

- And, I know I say it all the time, but I don't care. Terry O'Quinn is a freaking genius actor. You could just see the wheels in his head spinning as he was trying to find the right argument to use in order to turn Sayid completely to his side.

- I was planning on addressing this later, but now is as good a time as any...Smocke offers Sayid "anything" he wanted. Once Sayid tells him what (or who) that is, Smocke promises that he can have her again. And, like he said....he ALWAYS does what he says he'll do.

So...is what we are seeing in the X timeline the characters receiving from Jacob and Smokey what they were promised? Because this would be the way that Evil Incarnate would fulfill that wish...yes, Nadia is alive, and you can hold her again (remember the very affectionate hug when she greeted Sayid at the door)...but now she is married to your brother, and there is no chance for you and she to be together.

One of my favorite TV writers, Jacob at TelevisionWithoutPity, used to use a phrase all the time in his BSG recaps...not sure if he made it up, or if it came from somewhere else, but it certainly fits here:

Everything you ever wanted...in the worst way possible.

It will be interesting to watch the X timeline play out and see if it continues to fit this theory, but right now Jack, Hurley, and John seem to be finding closure and some measure of contentment in their X story, while Sayid, Kate, and Jin (as we'll see in a minute) still seem to be spinning their wheels, or even worse off.

- Further proof...in the X timeline, Sayid seems to have resigned himself as to who he is. "I can't be with you, because I don't deserve you." Something about how he tells her this makes me think that he's not just talking about his time as an interrogator.

- Sayid mentions something else in his speech at the Temple that I meant to talk about when Dogen was sending him out after Smocke...now that Jacob is dead, Smokey is "free", and he tells the Temple people that now they are, too.

Continuing the God/Satan metaphor...I don't think "free" means what they think it means. I think Jacob was protecting them by confining them, and under his protection is where the real freedom was. The freedom that Smokey is referring to is closer to chaos, anarchy, and ultimately death.

- Oh, boy...Creepy Claire has totally lost it. Man, her hanging out in Buffalo Bill's pit singing "Catch a Falling Star" became maybe the creepiest thing I'd ever seen on this show...for about 20 minutes, until the last scene of this episode.

- Kate just signed her death warrant. Claire's face was pure hatred when Kate said she "took" Aaron, but Kate is so relieved to see her that she doesn't notice.

- "I'm not the one who needs to be rescued, Kate....He's coming, Kate!! And they can't STOP him!!"

::shudder::

Seriously, I'll bet Emilie de Ravin is having a blast...this is probably a lot more fun to play then the sweet, innocent Claire of the first few seasons.

- I totally didn't recognize Omar when he told Sayid to get in the van...I'm glad I didn't, because that would have ruined the surprise of seeing...

- KEAMY!!

- "I make good eggs".

- Keamy is probably my most hated character on this show...but Kevin Durand (who plays him) is teh awesomez. His delivery of every single line of dialogue in this scene was perfectly dipped in sarcasm, arrogance, and danger.

- And, as I mentioned before, watching Keamy take a bullet is always satisfying, no matter which timeline it happens in.

- So, apparently that bundle of cash we saw Jin with in "LA X" had something to do with Keamy, huh?

- Sayid accuses Dogen of trying to get him killed by Smokey, and he doesn't deny it. Like I said, I think Dogen was banking on ONE of them dying, and he would deal with whichever was left. Oops.

- Dogen got a similar offer from Jacob that Sayid got from Smocke...and as we saw in "Lighthouse", his son is alive and well in the X timeline.

- I've watched the scene three times, and I still don't know what Sayid means by "I'd like to stay" right before he drowns Dogen. Does that mean that he won't be leaving with Smokey, or was he saying that there was part of him that DID want to go, but he wasn't strong enough? Similar to when Keamy told him just to forget the whole thing, and his reply was, "I can't".

- And, apparently, somehow it was Dogen PLUS the ash that was keeping Smokey out of the Temple. No clue how that works. Probably something to do with why Jacob asked him specifically to come to the Island...there is probably something "special" about him the same way there is about Walt, Desmond, etc.

Ooohhh...maybe Desmond is the one that Jacob was talking about being on his way to the Island last week, and he's going to be the new Dogen?

- I always love watching the Smoke Monster wreak havoc.

- Stupid Kate...the one time you DON'T tag along with Jack, and look what happens.

- I guess Miles probably WAS pretty surprised to see Frank...last time he saw him, he was piloting a helicopter away from the Island.

- And, just like I was afraid of, this whole "Jin and Sun keep barely missing each other" thing is getting old already.

- Brrr...Creepy Sayid may give Creepy Claire a run for her money after all.
- And now, the creepiest scene I can remember...a really off-kilter version of "Catch a Falling Star" (I'm not sure, but I think that was Claire singing...can anybody confirm?), as Smokey's new army files out around him.

At first, I couldn't figure out what Kate was thinking by joining him...but she has no way of knowing that Locke is the Monster (though I'm sure she was pretty shocked to see him alive), and she's pretty much zeroed in on Claire now.


Final Thoughts:
OK...nice job of moving the on-Island story forward. At least we can kind of see where it's going, although I'm still a bit fuzzy on the "end game". Is Locke just going to try and lead all of these people "off the Island" now, like he says? And what are the ramifications of that, and is Jacob going to try and stop them?

And, while I have some theories as to what is going on in the X Timeline (see above, and this post from earlier in the week), we still don't know any more than we did before. I'm sticking to my "Trust the Writers" mantra, but I still wish they would clue us in as to what significance that timeline has, if any.

Namaste.