The Sun Goes Down On Sayid

LOSTaways-

I see it around me
I see it in everything
I could be so much more than this

I said my goodbyes
this is my sundown
I'm gonna be so much more than this

With one hand high
you'll show them your progress
you'll take your time
but no one cares

I need you to show me the way from crazy
I wanna be so much more than this

-This Is My Sundown (Jimmy Eat World)

Are you liking these songs that relate to LOST episodes as much as I am recalling them from memory? Good. I knew you would.

I was so happy to learn that this week's Sayid-centric tale, Sundown, had nothing to do with Sun. Well, I guess if we want to play Two Degrees of Sun Kwon, Sayid did bump into a bound-and-gagged Jin in the kitchen of a mobster's restaurant. (That mobster being Keamy of The Boat People from Season 4). But this was Sayid's story through-and-through. The troubled Iraqi seems unable to escape his troubled past, both on and off the island.

Another thing he can't seem to escape is a troubled relationship with his Iraqi dame Nadia. The episode started in the alternate-reality world where Oceanic Flight 815 landed safely at LAX and Sayid hopped a cab to what turned out to be his brother Omer's home in suburban Los Angeles. Omer, the brother who Sayid had to kill a chicken for when they were children, is married to Nadia, the woman Sayid feels he does not deserve. Yet again Omer needs Sayid the Chicken Strangler to strangle the chicken named Keamy who is picking on (extorting) poor Iraqi immigrant entrepreneurs who just want to expand their dry cleaning businesses. I wonder what the ACLU would have to say about this?

So Omer is scared and in need of Sayid's help, and Nadia is sad and in need of Sayid's affection. Quite a situation we got here.

As I watched the episode unfold, and saw the off-island Sayid reject his brother's requests to put a hurtin' on his extort-ers, I thought we were witnessing a brand new Sayid. A changed man. A man who would be able to make a fresh, new start. But as I thought more about (and saw the end scenes where he killed the bad guys), nothing has changed with this alternate Sayid. He said he was traveling the world as a translator for oil contracts, and had pushed Nadia into the arms of his own brother. Guilt is his middle name. But he's not even serious about dealing with his guilt. Last year we saw Sayid trying to escape his guilt by building houses in the Dominican Republic. This time he's globe-trotting. Banging a hammer and living abroad won't fix anything. Just like shooting everyone Ben Linus tells you to shoot won't bring back your dead wife. My point with all of this is simply to reinforce just how messed up Sayid is. The change he needs isn't of scenery, but of heart.

The whole off-island, alternate reality story-line is still largely a mystery to me (and I assume you as well), so I don't have a ton of theories or thoughts on the larger meaning of what went down in Los Angeles this week. It was cool that they brought Keamy back, and he's still the unsavory character we remembered him to be. What complicates things is who he had in his freezer: Jin. Jin and Sun were flying to Los Angeles so that Jin could deliver a watch on behalf of Sun's dad, Mr. Paik. The question then becomes, "Was Keamy the person the original watch was going to? Or is this new alternate reality changed that as well?" I also wonder if we won't find out in the near future that Keamy is working for someone...someone named Charles Widmore, just as he was in Season 4.

But the heart of this episode, and the place where some real theorizing and parsing can take place, is on the island...where the original Sayid has been resurrected from the dead for a purpose.

Sayid confronts Dogen The Drunk Driver in his inner lair and demands some answers as to why he was tortured and then almost murdered. Dogen fills him in on the fact that every man has a scale upon which good and evil are balanced. This, philosophically speaking, is often referred to as dualism. Sayid's scales, like the one Flocke took a white rock off of in Jacob's cliff-cave a few episodes back, have tipped towards the dark side. But were they tipped before he was shot, died, and rose again? Or was this reincarnation of his next to the dirty Temple pool what made him poison-worthy?

Which brings me to an aside on Claire...I think she died in Season 4 when Keamy and the Boat Mercanaries (which included Omar, the guy who made Sayid get in the car to go see Keamy in this week's episode) blew up the Othersville yurt she was sleeping in. If you remember, Sawyer went to get here, the house was hit with a rocket launcher, and she was found under a pile of rubble. Soon after that she wandered off in the middle of the night with Flocke (who was posing as Christian Shepard back in those days), never to be seen again...until she lured Jin into one of her bear-traps in the jungle 3 years later. If Sayid was raised from the dead by Flocke for the purposes of helping him do whatever it is he's doing now that the Temple's been pillaged, perhaps Claire was as well. Maybe she died from that rocket launcher and was resurrected like Sayid to be one of Flocke's disciples.

Getting back to Sayid and Dogen awkwardly fighting...

Wow, was that fight scene one fight scene too long or what? I mean I enjoy poorly coordinated stunts as much as the next blogger, but that was brutal (and dragged on brutally long).

The end result of the superfulous tussle is Sayid's temporary banishment, which lasts all of about 4 minutes. That is because Claire and Flocke are at that moment standing outside of the Temple (outside of a circle of ash), agreeing that Claire will go inside and give Dogen the message that Flocke wants to speak with him. The circle of ash is the same kind that was around "Jacob's" cabin in Season 3, and that Bram put around himself in Jacob's lair when Flocke killed him and his friends in this season's premiere episode. But later, when Flocke crashes the Temple party, has the circle of ash been broken? What was really keeping him out? Was it Jacob?

When Dogen is later murdered by Sayid in the same pool of water Dogen had Sayid drowned in, Lennon says to Sayid "He was the only thing keeping him out." So was it Dogen who had the power to keep Flocke out? It must have been because Dogen is the one Sayid was sent in to kill, and the one Claire was sent in to lure out.

What then was the purpose of waiting until Sundown to infiltrate the Temple? Just for show? Is there something in "the rules" about the time of day (or cover of night) that Flocke has to adhere to?

Sayid went out to kill Flocke for Dogen originally, and did in fact stab him, despite it being after Flocke had talked. It was later apparent that Dogen sent Sayid out there hoping Flocke would kill him, and it was at this point that our favorite Iraqi had had just about enough of the New Others and decided to accept the alluring terms of Flocke's deal: You kill Dogen, get me in the Temple...and I bring back Nadia.

Raise your hand if you think Sayid's being conned? Even if Nadia does reappear for him, she'll be nothing more than the Turkish Delight in The Lion, The Witch, and The Wardrobe: a farce. Flocke's promise of having "whatever it is you want" is as empty as Christian Shepard's casket. And I think Sayid knows it. He's simply too far gone to care any more. The years of torturing, the years of running, the loss of his beloved Nadia (in the real world) have culminated with a Sayid who no longer wishes to fight the dark side of his nature. He's a defeated, broken man, and Flocke knows it.

By the way, if for some reason you were thinking that Dogen's warning to plunge the dagger into Flocke's heart before he spoke meant anything (or was true), you're wrong. It was another con on the most con-ridden island this side of Cuba.

Sayid is sent back to kill Dogen and warn the New Others that at "sundown" Smokey Flocke is going to raise hell in the Temple and kill all those who try to remain.

Meanwhile, a contingent among the New Others, led by the stewardess Cindy, decide to take Flockey Smoker at his word and remove themselves from the premises. Flocke does his thing (in one of the cooler scenes in LOST's history) and wreaks havoc in Temple, leaving bodies, hopes, and dreams strewn about the decimated landscape. I LOVED the shot of Kate hanging on the rope ladder with Creeper Claire in the Silence of the Lambs pit as the Smoke Monster went zooming by overhead.

He re-takes the form of Flocke and leads the New New Others, along with Kate, Claire, and Sayid, off into the jungle...allegedly to "leave the island." Flocke insists he will only kill those who won't listen to him, and that this new group of people who came out of the Temple before sundown is safe, but somehow I highly doubt that. If the numbers we saw at the Lighthouse mean that all of those people are "candidates", then everyone on that island needs to be killed. (That is of course assuming that Flocke has to whack each of the candidates to be totally free.)

The mischievously devious smiles that Claire and Sayid had on their faces when coming out of the Temple were priceless. That is actually tough acting to convey a complete turnaround in character with nothing more than slow motion, knowing glances. Another priceless look, from the king of priceless looks, was Ben's when he tried to convince Sayid to follow them out of the Temple through Hurley's secret tunnel. It was "too late" for Sayid. He'd already sold his soul to the Tasmanian devil who was at that moment pile-driving helpless New Others on to the jungle floor.

So we are left with two different groups heading out into the jungle for two very different purposes. Ilana, Lapidus, Ben, Miles, and Sun are off to find Jack, Hurley, and Sawyer. Flocke, Sayid, Claire and the rest of the New Others are supposedly going to "leave" the island. (Perhaps in body bags, but not in actuality.) I think both groups are actually heading to the Lighthouse and Flocke is going to try and meet up with whoever it is that is coming to the island (like Jacob told Hurley last week).



Random Thoughts/Theories:

-The Temple massacre had a "purge-like" feel to it. A clean sweep of those who stand in opposition to Flocke. The original purge was Ben's idea, and also was a clean sweep of the Dharma peeps who did not care about Ben or give him the respect he thought he deserved.

-In the on-going debate as to who is good and who is bad on the island between Jacob and Smokey the Monster, another piece of evidence was thrown our way this week. Before Claire went into the Temple, she asked Flocke if he was going to hurt the people inside. Flocke responded with "Only the ones who won't listen." It would be a hard sell to convince me that this is the statement/actions of a "good" being. Flocke is child-like in his pettiness and scorn. We keep hearing that he wants to kill every living thing on the island.

-The promise Flocke made to Sayid (that he could see Nadia again) echoes the talk of some "magical box" that Ben tried to sell John Locke on back in Season 3. It also made me think of two events that fit into the bigger mystery of who Jacob is and what he has been doing on the island all this time. Ben also promised Juliet that her sister could be cured of cancer if she would stay and continue to try and help Others get preggers. Jacob, we found out this week, made a similar promise to Dogen about his son. How in the world can the guy cure cancer? He's gotta be an angel, right?

-Cindy the Aussie Stewardess, among others of the New Others, were convinced by Sayid's sales pitch as to why they should leave with Flocke. Sayid, speaking for Flocke, said something to the effect of, "If Jacob's dead then you are free and don't need to be here any longer." They bought this. Why? Was everything riding on Jacob?

-Assuming that the Others were recruited by Jacob, did all he have to say to them is, "I'm looking for candidates to replace me as the island's protector...you aren't one of them...it's probably this spinal surgeon or wheel-chair bound bald guy with daddy issues or this fat chicken-loving Mexican...it's a whole thing...but would you mind wearing weird island garb and and whispering in the jungle and being extra spooky and mysterious for a number of years? Oh, and btw, if I get stabbed by my enemy, this entire plan is shot to H, so keep that in mind."

-All the talk of scales and "good vs. evil" in Sayid's nature ties in to the statue on the island. The statue is a representation of the Egyptian God Anubis, who is referenced in The Book of the Dead. Wikipedia describes it as follows:

A writing of Egyptian origin that described their belief of the afterlife and the trials that awaited the deceased. One of the trials, conducted by the jackal-headed god Anubis, involved weighing the deceased’s heart on the scale of Maat, counterbalanced by the feather of Truth. Only if the heart was lighter than the feather (i.e. not weighed down with evil) could the soul move to the reward of the afterlife. In this episode, Dogen explains to Sayid that every man has a scale and that his (Sayid’s) scale is "tipped the wrong way."

-I wondered what the symbol Ilana and Hurley both used to find an escape tunnel out of the Temple meant, and it is something called the Shen Ring. In Egyptian hieroglyphics, the Shen Ring is almost always carried by the god Horus (sounds like Horace). The Shen ring is an ancient Egyptian symbol of eternity and protection. In ancient Egypt, the Shen Ring also represents dual concepts of time; the cyclic line of periodicity and lineal time (into infinity).

-How many times does "Catch A Falling Star" have to be sung on LOST before we take more notice of it. Either the writers/director just love it, or its lyrics have a deeper meaning for the show (or clue to what it all means...or at least what Claire's story is all about). I will have more theories on this next week.

That's the blog this week, folks. For more commentary, here's Doc Jensen's LOST column at Entertainment Weekly's website.

Next week's episode is entitled "Dr. Linus" and we all know what that means.




Until then,

John Locke's Fake Pants