I suppose some explanation is required for my blogging absence for the last few days. But on the other hand, not really. I got lazy. After four straight weeks of blogging without a single missed day, I got lazy. I had trouble thinking up compelling material to last the week, and with the four digit length of my posts, it’s kinda a pain to type one every night. So I gave myself a four day break. That’s beside the point.
The point is LOST. All this season, no episode has been like another. “The Substitute” was mythos-heavy, mind-blowing madness. And while “Lighthouse” still contained a little bit of insanity, it was primarily a very well done character study of Jack. So what is “Sundown”? We didn’t learn a lot about the Island, or Smokey, or Jacob. We didn’t gain much insight into Sayid’s character via the flash-sideways. It did however, move the plot along at an epic pace. They’re coming. And by that, I mean week after week amazingness is upon us. Sundown.
So, due to the nature of this episode, I’m gonna try abandoning my usual droll format and go with something a little more insightful, a little more to the point, a little more interesting. If you prefer one format over the other, please comment! I’d love to make these reviews as easy on the eyes and comprehension skills as possible.
We didn’t learn tons from the flash-sideways. We saw Nadia again (Yay!), but this time with Sayid’s brother Omer (not to be confused with Omar, who comes into play (if that’s what they call it) a bit later on). Sayid still loves Nadia, Nadia stills has feelings for Sayid, Omer is the third wheel in this relationship despite being the frakking husband. Child actors like the one who played David Shephard are rarely happened upon, as demonstrated in this episode, the kids’ dialogue feeling clunky and unbelievable (in part to both the writing and the acting). Happy Sayid, however, is a WONDERFUL sight, and seeing Naveen Andrews with a smile across is face is just a delightful experience that occurs far too rarely.
When Omer gets involved with the Los Angeles crime scene, taking a loan to open up a second dry-cleaning shop, things don’t end well, delivering Omer to a hospital where Dr. Jack Shephard, M.D. also presides. Sayid ends up getting involved, finding himself in a van with Omar, mercenary / grenade fodder extraordinaire from Season Four Island time. Omar and random other meatbag bring Sayid to the restaurant kitchen of none other than Martin Christopher Keamy, who’s making eggs! This reminded me of the episode “Eggtown,” which, coincidentally enough, contains the fantastic line, “Enjoy your breakfast.” I’m sure Keamy could cook up an enjoyable breakfast indeed.
So Keamy is still awesome in this alternate universe, though in a totally different way. While not the absolute bad ass he once was, he makes you smile. Sayid’s diplomacy with Keamy ends in the death of Omar and other meatbag, at which points Keamy pleads for his life, offering to call off Omer’s debt to him. Sayid, however, keeps his gun aimed at Keamy’s heart and pulls the trigger. He cannot forget.
This was the core point of the Sayid flash, as is so often with his centric episodes. At his center, at his core, Sayid is a killer, and he cannot forget that part of him. He tortured people. In the Islandverse, he was an assassin under Ben. At his most basic, Sayid is a killer. More on that later.
Sayid then hears muffled cries and banging noises coming from a walk-in freezer. Sayid enters the freezer and ungags the man, who proceeds to plead for mercy in Korean. It’s Jin. I sense future flashsideways! Which means that Keamy will return! Huzzah.
As insane and eventful as the on-Island stuff was, there’s not much I can say without boring you with near-verbatim Lostpedia recaps. Let’s see if I can pull this off.
Sayid barges into Dogen’s chambers, demanding for information about the machine and the tests Sayid endured in “What Kate Does.” And Dogen delivers one of the most important (though somewhat forced) lines of the season:
“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 this scale is balanced. And yours tipped the wrong way.”
I’m sorry, Dogen, did you say scale?
In this episode, it became quite clear that infection was not a method of Smokey seizing control of a host. He still had to recruit Sayid. The infection, however, lapses the host into a primal state, in which one’s core emotions, one’s true soul, seizes control of one’s thoughts and actions. At his base, Sayid was a killer. And after the infection reached his heart, such was what he became. We saw this in the flash-sideways – despite his best attempts to abandon his life as a torturer and a killer, that life kept dragging him back in. At her core, Claire was just a mother concerned about the well-being of her son. After three years on the Island evading Others and the like, she went crazy, psycho killer Clousseau. A.k.a., best Emilie de Ravin ever.
In both cases, however, they weren’t automatically claimed by Smokey. It comes down to free will, one of those central themes the show has always revolved around. Smokey takes advantage of their mentally malleable state, bringing the infected over to his side of this war with Jacob. Now that they are no longer candidates of Jacob, having died and been infected, they are free game for either side – only Smokey takes advantage.
And oh yeah, the imagery with the scale. Like that scale in the cave, white stone on what balance, black rock on the other. One theory I’ve seen getting kicked around is that Jacob and Man in Black are, in fact, the same person, an ultimate case of split personalities. Was the scale being tipped in favor of the dark a way to represent that the darkness won, that in the end, it was Smokey who emerged victorious? There’s good and evil in all of us, shades of grey, if you will, and for it to be as clear-cut as presented in the cave just seems ludicrous to me. Neither Jacob nor Smokey represent pure good or pure evil to me. Merely varying violent shades of the same black. And lest we forget, it only ends once. Everything before that is just progress.
So we have an epic brawl, senior ninja master versus Iraqi soldier! And it was probably the best fight on the show thus far! Just pure awesome. Team Jacob nearly wins the feud had it not been for Dogen’s baseball dropping to the floor. But alas, it does, and the round is over with Dogen on top, banishing Sayid from the Temple. RING DING DING!
Claire arrives at the Temple, sent by Smokey, and tells Dogen that Smokey wants to see him. Dogen, the smart pretentious Asian he is, respectfully refuses, sending Sayid with an ancient ceremonial dagger instead to finish the Man in Black off. And Sayid does so, stabbing Not-Locke in the chest after some epic Smokey sound effects and whooshes are cued. It’s not very effective as Not-Locke removes the blade from his chest.
“Now why’d you go and do that?”
Master manipulator Not-Locke gives Sayid his “Join me on the Dark Side” speech. If Sayid delivers a message to Dogen, he will give Sayid anything he wants, anything in the entire world, much akin to Ben’s magic box of Season Three lore (“It was a metephor, John.”). The only thing Sayid ever wanted died in his arms, and he will never see Nadia again. But what if you could, Locke asks. “What if you could?”
One more step towards the flash-sideways being relevant. Does Smokey know of a way to cross the universes? Was Smokey from another universe where the Island never existed, and that universe, the LAverse, is his home?
Sayid returns to the Temple, announcing that bad stuff is going down at sundown, and the only way you will live is if you join Smokey, who is leaving the Island. Apparently, the Templees were obligated to inhabit the Temple by Jacob as well. Innnnteresting. Meanwhile, Kate finds Claire and her creepy imaginary baybay who hearts “Catch A Falling Star.” In this awaited encounter, Emilie de Ravin perfectly delivers probably the creepiest line of the episode, punctuated by sinister smile:
“He’s coming, Kate. He’s coming and you can’t stop him.”
de Ravin’s performance in this episode, as well as the rest of the season, has been just great. Never have I loved her character more than these past few episodes, and perhaps it’s because Claire just really isn’t Claire, not complaining about her baybay and how she doesn’t want Aaron around Charlay. Instead of whining in a high-pitched wail, she addresses her problems with axe swings and horrifyingly sung lullabies. Clousseau = amazing.
Later in the pool room, we gain some insight into the character of Dogen, accompanied by some epic cues of the Temple theme and Jacob’s theme. He had been a banker in Osaka with a twelve-year-old son who loved playing baseball (ANSWER ALERT!). He learned the hard way to never drink and drive, getting in a serious car accident with his son on board after celebrating his promotion with some co-workers. His son in the hospital, Dogen was approached by a man who struck a bargain: Dogen’s son could be saved, but only if Dogen came to the Island and worked there, never to see his son again. Jacob drives a hard bargain. After reciting his sorrowful tale, sundown hits, and Sayid chooses to stay. Stay to kill Dogen by exacting revenge and drowning him in the Temple pool! BAMF!
Lennon walks in to the sight of Dogen floating in the pool, and he’s a bit appalled at this sight. Apparently, Dogen was the only thing keeping Smokey out of the Temple (and the ash wasn’t? I’m confused…), and now that he’s dead, the Smoke Monster is free to wreak all the havoc he wants. Sayid knows. Lennon’s throat is slit, and he falls in the pool alongside his pretentious Asian former leader. BAMF!
Smoke Monster proceeds to charge through the Temple, killing Others left and right, sending Miles and Kate fleeing for cover. BAMF!
As if with most epic episodes, parties converge. While Kate joins Claire in her prison hole to escape from the Smokey train, Ilana and the rest of the Statue Crew bust into the Temple, finally almost reunited with the true primary characters. 
Much to my amusement, Sun’s only lines of the episode are questions (something along the lines of “My husband is alive? Where is he?”). And Ilana proves her status as an important character, knowing all the secret vaults of the Temple better than any and all of the Others. And she’s been on the Island for not even a week! Ben splits off from the groups and finds Sayid sitting near the pool. Ben tells Sayid it’s time to escape, to which Sayid eerily replies, “Not for me.” The Sayid we’ve known and loved for the last five seasons of the show is dead, as far as I’m concerned. Because that glimpse of complete bewilderment, confusion, and terror in Ben’s eyes – it was because the man he was looking at was no longer Sayid. He’s been infected. He’s been claimed.
And thus commences one of the most impactful, artfully brilliant, and most exciting cliff-hangers of an episode of Lost ever. I need not comment on the exhilaration and disturbing sensations associated with my viewing of it. You can experience the haunting, ethereal brilliance again for yourself.
As I said at the beginning of this post, “Sundown” didn’t deliver a ton of mythos, nor did it deliver a ton of character development. But if I were to describe the episode in one word, it would be eventful. It was an entirely different beast compared to the rest of the season, and I loved it all the same. And the while some parts were quite epic, the amazingness of the episode lies in sensing the epicness that is to come. “Sundown” was like last season’s “Follow the Leader” – not tons of epic transpired. But tons of epic will.
And think about it, we have 18 hours this season, which places us at only a third of the way through the season. These past six episodes have been the calm before the storm, the build before the levels of epic only the final season of a show could pull off. I have no doubt the next twelve episodes will be the most consistently extraordinary run of television ever (with maybe one fluke somewhere in the middle). “Sundown” was the penultimate episode to a twelve-part series finale.
They’re coming.
“Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, never let it fade away…
Catch a falling star and put it in your pocket, save it for a rainy day…”
EPISODE RATING: (4.3/5)
