Summary: In flashsideways, Sayid returns home in LA to his brother Omer, who has married Nadia. Omer is in trouble after borrowing a loan and he wants Sayid to help deal with it. Sayid initially refuses because Nadia doesn't want him to be a bad person, but after Omer is hospitalized and Sayid is picked up to meet Keamy, Sayid kills all of them. On the island, Sayid confronts Dogen and Dogen fights Sayid, trying to kill him. Dogen wins but his conscience intervenes. Dogen wants Sayid to leave. Claire arrives at the temple and demands that Dogen meet with MIB. Dogen refuses and Claire is captured. Sayid is sent by Dogen to kill MIB. Kate returns to the temple and tells Claire that she took Aaron. Sayid meets MIB and stabs him but it doesn't kill him. MIB convinces Sayid to deliver another message: for everyone to leave the temple by sundown or they die. Some people leave and a panic starts. Sayid finds Dogen at the pool and Dogen tells him his backstory. Sayid kills Dogen, which allows MIB to enter the temple and start slaughtering everyone. Ilana's group arrives and they take Miles to safety. Sayid, Claire, and Kate end up going with MIB.
The Good: This was a dark and depressing episode in all the right ways. The last two episodes have shown our main characters (Locke/Jack) get happy endings in the flash-sideways universe. In a lot of ways, it feels like this season has been celebrating the characters by giving them happy endings in the flash-sideways, while challenging them in meaningful ways on the island. With this in mind, it would be so easy for "Lost" to fall into a pattern and become predictable in these final episodes. So naturally, this episode completely bucked that trend and gave us a haunting and depressing character piece on Sayid that gave him anything but a happy ending. Leave it to "Lost" to always surprise you in meaningful ways while telling a really compelling story. As mentioned above, Sayid's story is really dark, and it works superbly well. Sayid has always been one of the most inherently tragic and intense characters on the show, so it makes perfect sense to have his episode feature a turn towards darker storytelling. Sayid's flashsideways story may not be as entertaining to watch as the others, but it is based around a spectacular idea. Unfortunately for Sayid, even in this idealized flashsideways world, he still doesn't get what he wants. He isn't with Nadia because he is still wracked with guilt over the horrible things he has done, and no matter how hard he tries, even in this world Sayid ends up becoming a coldhearted killer in order to pave his own future. For Sayid there is no escaping his nature, and that is an incredibly sad gutpunch to realize, made worse by the realization that other characters (Jack/Locke) were able to find peace, but Sayid still is unable to (see: The Unknown for speculation as to why). This inherent evilness to Sayid is contrasted perfectly on the island, where Sayid appears to have literally become evil now that he has been infected. The episode plays up the mystery of if this is actually Sayid impressively well. From the subtlety of this strange British accent that Sayid has developed to the extremely out-of-character claim from Sayid that he is a good person, there are always reasons for you to doubt that Sayid is even himself anymore. And that mystery builds and builds to the end of the episode where we see Sayid at his most ruthless, murdering Dogen and his translator in cold blood, damning everyone in the temple to death. It's a shockingly ruthless move, especially since Dogen had just opened up to Sayid about himself in an attempt to make peace with him. And Sayid responds to Dogen's one moment of tenderness by killing him, a decision that the Sayid from previous seasons likely would not have made. And the cherry on top is the scene where Ben confronts Sayid in the pool. Ben tries to get Sayid to come with him and that there is still time, but in one of the episode's best and most chilling moments, Sayid replies with a cold smile "not for me". Simply brilliant storytelling. The island story had some tremendous and exciting moments throughout even without Sayid's storyline. The fight between Sayid and Dogen was intense and excellent, and it has to be one of the best choreographed fight scenes in the show so far. It was intense and thrilling. In contrast to epic action, we also got an amazing conversation between Sayid and MIB that had me at the edge of my seat. It was amazing to watch MIB manipulate Sayid to get control over him, while also doing what Dogen and the others failed to do: showing Sayid that he understands him and offering Sayid something to gain. Their entire scene is tremendous, and I love that Sayid initially listened to Dogen by stabbing MIB (almost) immediately. Poor Sayid really does want to prove that he isn't as awful of a person as he thinks he is. But it just isn't meant to be. Lastly, I thought the climax of the episode was dramatic and excellent. Dogen's backstory was sad and engaging, and it was the calm before the storm as MIB's attack on the temple provided the episode with an exciting game-changing climax that completely changes the story for season 6. I also really enjoyed the eerie "catch a falling star" sequence to end the episode as MIB assembles his new army, planning to get off the island. This episode was so different that it was even short on references to season 1. The first five episodes had the same centric episodes as season 1 (two-part premier, Kate, Locke, Sawyer), but this episode bucked that trend with Sayid. However, we still got a nice callback to "Solitary" when we see the picture of Nadia that Sayid had early in season 1. And while it's not a season 1 reference, I was thrilled by the cameo appearance of Keamy, who is just as much fun to watch as a mob boss making scrambled eggs as he is being a ruthless mercenary. The Bad: The temple storyline ended up being a questionable waste of time. The temple is supposed to be a big part of the show's mythology and could have provided a crucial look into the lives of the others and answered plenty of questions. But all it amounted to in the end was a bunch of frustratingly vague characters who never answered questions properly and caused endless frustrations before the temple storyline got unceremoniously killed off. The others have to be the biggest disappointment of "Lost' so far, so I was really hoping that the temple would correct that and fill in some gaps about why they are here, how their Jacob religion works, how they decide their leader and what their goals are. Instead we get nothing at all, and that is a massive waste of potential. Furthermore, the others are incredibly confusing in this episode. In "LA X Part 2" we saw that Dogen learned of Jacob's death and sent orders to release a flare to summon everyone to the temple. And it's clear from Richard's face that he understood that the message of the flare is that Jacob is dead. Yet this episode still has a scene where Sayid reveals that Jacob is dead and that's somehow a big shock for everyone. They have known this for several episodes now! Why is this a surprise? And it is alarming how quickly they abandon Jacob and turn to MIB's side. It's incredibly unclear why these people stay here and believe in Jacob if news of his death is enough to instantly send them running to MIB's side. This makes absolutely no sense, and the thoughtlessness of this storyline is really anger-inducing, because we should have spent more time exploring the culture of the others in this season and in season 3 so that we might be able to understand their actions better. I really just wish that the others had been developed better, because as things stand right now, they are a ridiculous and contradictory faction of people. One incredibly stupid twist was the reveal that Dogen was the only one keeping MIB out of the temple. Now I can buy into the idea that Jacob gave Dogen this power, that is not the problem. What is the problem is that Dogen, the only thing protecting the temple, is inexplicably left alone with Sayid who the others believe is corrupted! Why doesn't Dogen have any protection? It's simply absurd. Furthermore, we saw in a previous episode that some of the others were going around making ash circles around the temple, seemingly to keep MIB out. Did those just disappear? Apparently they didn't even matter because MIB came in anyways. That's really poor writing to forget about this detail. A final frustration comes from how inept Jacob and the others are at communicating. MIB had one single scene with Sayid, and he told him everything he needed to know. And in this one scene, MIB told Sayid more than the others told him in the last 4 episodes. Seriously, why did the others need to be so vague? Had they at least communicated, I'm certain that Sayid would not have sided with MIB so easily. It's no wonder that Sayid chose MIB, because the others gave Sayid no reason to stay with them or trust them. Additionally, I have to question Jacob's decision-making. The others are supposed to be his people and he is their god. So why did he just condemn them all to death, knowing that MIB was going to wipe them out or make them join him? Jacob comes off as an awful leader if he just allows this to happen, and it makes me question if the others even mattered at all. The Unknown: Why is Sayid unable to have the happy ending that other characters got? Is this because he is still somehow infected in this alternate universe and is therefore incapable of finding true happiness and closure? This could give credence to the idea that this alternate universe is somehow happening after the events of season 6 and is a sort of epilogue for the characters. Sayid hesitated and let MIB say hello before he stabbed him. The episode doesn't play with this idea much, but would Sayid have actually killed him if he attacked before MIB even said a word? It's an interesting idea to think about. How does MIB plan to give Nadia back to Sayid? Could this possibly be tied into the alternate universe, because Sayid is with Nadia in that world. Does this mean that MIB is responsible for this alternate reality? What is next for Sayid? He definitely does seem to be colder than before, so I think that the infection is a real thing. Is there any way for him to break free from it, or disinfect himself? Or will he remain "evil" until the end of the show? What is Jin doing in the freezer? Why was he captured? Is there any significance to Sayid encountering him? Best Moment: Sayid and MIB's conversation was gripping and thrilling from start to finish. MIB remains fascinating to watch, and watching Sayid grapple with morality and grief is always compelling television. Character of the Episode: Sayid. Conclusion: This ended up being a real mixed bag. On one hand, there were several terrific scenes here and Sayid's story was profoundly sad and memorable. But the plot-related events of the episode were hugely disappointing, with the resolution of the temple storyline and the others being wholly unsatisfying. This is probably one of the toughest episodes of the show for me to score because some parts of this episode were the best of the season so far, while others were the worst. I want this to score much higher, but I can't justify calling this any more than a really good episode as a whole. Score: 67
0 Comments
Your comment will be posted after it is approved.
Leave a Reply. |
Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
March 2024
Categories
All
|