I Am DB

Last week, I mentioned that the current season was following a pattern from Season One in terms of the order of the character-centric episodes, suggesting that the sixth hour of the season would focus on Sun. Even the title invoked her name, but they fooled us by shining the spotlight on Sayid.

FAMILY GUY
Sayid arrives at a house in L.A. where he shares a warm greeting with Nadia, but when two little kids come running down the hall cheering “Uncle Sayid,” we know things between these two have gone differently in Sideways Land. Still, I thought I saw some sexual tension between the two, despite her being married to Sayid’s brother Omer. Later, at the dinner table, Sayid refers to his job as “translating gas contracts for oil companies” around the world. So…what kind of lethal, violent, highly dangerous work do you think that’s a euphemism for?

When Omer steps away, Nadia asks Sayid if he got the letters she sent him. He says yes, just as his niece runs in saying she found a picture of Nadia in Sayid’s bag. (I did! I did see some sexual tension!)

The way Sayid grabs Omer’s arm when the latter wakes him up in the middle of the night suggests that he’s accustomed to doing more than translating contracts, though maybe he really is a legit businessman now, with only his past experiences in the war to haunt him. Omer explains that he’s in trouble with some people he borrowed money from, claiming that despite having paid them back they are demanding ongoing payments. He asks Sayid to get these people off his back. Sayid knows what his brother is asking and says he will not commit violence because of Omer’s bad business decision. When Omer tells him it’s to protect Nadia and the family, Sayid says, “I’m sorry. I’m not that man anymore.” The scene reminded me of a flashback to Sayid’s childhood, when his father demanded that Omer kill a chicken, which he couldn’t bring himself to do. Sayid walked up and did it without blinking. It seems they’re still playing out a similar behavioral pattern – Omer the weak looking to Sayid the strong to do help him with what he can’t do for himself. Enabler…

The next day, Omer is hospitalized in an apparent mugging. As Sayid and Nadia walk down the hospital corridor to find him, we see Jack walking their way and briefly noticing them. It’s probably too quick for either to recognize that they interacted on Flight 815 to save Charlie’s life, but I did wonder if Jack had a flicker of recognition. When Omer’s doctor mentions the possibility of a mugging, Sayid knows better. He starts to leave, but Nadia knows what his intentions are and begs him not to do whatever he’s thinking. Sayid agrees; he makes a choice and stays true to his word. That night, she asks why he didn’t want to be with her and pushed her toward his brother despite his obvious feelings for her. “For the last 12 years I’ve been trying to wash my hands of all the horrible things I’ve done,” he tells her. “I can’t be with you. Because I don’t deserve you.” Trying to wash his hands for the last 12 years? Maybe he really does translate gas contracts now. How incredibly boring.

The following afternoon, Sayid leaves to pick the kids up from school when a dark minivan pulls up. Out steps a familiar face: Omar, Keamy’s right hand lackey from the freighter, and another nameless goon. Omar suggests Sayid get in, lest they all go pick up the kids together. Sayid complies, and they bring him to a restaurant kitchen. What is it about Sayid and bad luck involving restaurant kitchens? We already saw him held captive in one by the husband of a woman who believed he had tortured her during the war. Now he’s brought here and introduced to Keamy himself.

Keamy, while enjoying a plate of eggs, says that Omer (not to be confused with Omar) owes him money and that somebody is going to pay him. But before he knows it, Sayid has Omar’s gun, Omar and the other goon are dead and Keamy’s on the defensive. He tells Sayid that Omer’s debt is forgiven and they can just forget about this, but Sayid says he can’t. He reverts to old habits and shoots Keamy. Then he hears a noise coming from a nearby room – a muffled voice and a banging. He goes to investigate and finds…Jin(!?) sitting with his hands tied behind his back and a cut above his eye. How the hell did he get here? Last we saw of Jin in Sideways Land, he was stuck in customs at the airport. (According to Lostpedia, his Korean exclamations to Sayid translate as, “Don’t kill me! Please! Let me live!”)

Seeing Jin here – tied up in Keamy’s kitchen – got me thinking. In the original timeline, Keamy was onboard the freighter in the employ of Charles Widmore. His dealings with Omer Jarrah might be his own thing, but the fact that he is holding Jin prisoner? Back during Season Four, I brought up the idea that Charles Widmore and Sun’s father, Mr. Paik, were probably business associates to some degree, and likely traveled in the same circles. That idea was confirmed later when Sun introduced herself to Widmore as Paik’s daughter and Widmore inquired after him, even remarking that he still owed Paik a dinner from their last golf game. So knowing that Jin is still in Los Angeles to deliver a watch as a business gift from Mr. Paik, I wonder if being in Keamy’s hands means he’s really in Widmore’s hands. And if so, why? And where is Sun?

By the way, great to see Keamy again. He’s a true son of a bitch, played to hilt by Kevin Durand.

FIGHT CLUB
On the island, in the wake of Jack’s revelation that he almost inadvertently poisoned him, Sayid storms into Dogen’s study and demands answers, starting with an explanation of the machine they hooked him up to for his torture.

D: 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. Yours tipped the wrong way.
S: That’s why you tried to poison me?
D: Yes. I think it would be best if you were dead.
S: You think you know me but you don’t. I’m a good man. So if you’re trying to kill me…

And then Dogen springs, launching the two into a knockaround that finds them crashing all over the room. They’re throwing plant pots, using clubs and brooms, and just as Dogen has Sayid pinned on the desk with a knife to his throat, that baseball we’ve seen him play with rolls off the table and hits the floor. This stops him in his tracks. My theory (debunked later in the show, of course) was that the baseball featured an original Babe Ruth autograph, and Dogen was afraid of getting blood on it. Why not?

“Go,” he tells Sayid. “Leave this place. Never come back.” He lets Sayid up, and Sayid looks frightened at how close he came to dying. Not a look we see on his face too often. To no one’s surprise, Dogen doesn’t tell us how that machine works, or why Sayid has become the way he’s become…and of course Sayid doesn’t ask. Why? Because characters on Lost don’t ask the obvious questions.

Just across the pond, at the ash line that surrounds The Temple, we find the Man in Locke and Claire. She seems reluctant to do what he’s asking, wondering why it can’t be Sawyer (where is he?) or Jin (where is he?) or even him. “If I could do it myself, I wouldn’t be asking you, Claire.” She says that if she goes in there, he has to do what he said he would; she wants her son back. “I always do what I say,” he says. And curiously, at least to me, Claire expresses unease with the fact that he’s going to hurt The Temple’s inhabitants. “Only the ones who won’t listen,” he says.

THE MESSENGERS
Sayid prepares to leave, telling Miles he finds it odd that these people want him dead even though they’re the ones who saved his life. Miles replies that in fact, they didn’t. He says they tried to save him, but it didn’t work and he was dead for two hours. “Whatever brought you back, it wasn’t them.”

So how did this work? If Sayid’s resurrection had nothing to do with the spring, and if there is a Man in Black-related darkness growing in him, how did that happen? How was Sayid “claimed?” Does it mean Claire died too? If so, when? Was it when her house exploded in New Otherton? She came back around from that a lot sooner than Sayid came back after “dying.” Why can’t the Man in Black take control of anyone who dies on the island? (I’m assuming he can’t, given how many people have died that we haven’t seen running around alive again, doing his bidding.) What is it that allowed him access to Sayid, and possibly Claire and Christian Shephard, who was already a few days dead before he got to the island?

As Miles and Sayid are talking, Claire suddenly enters the courtyard, surprising Dogen and Lennon…and Sayid and Miles, though not nearly to the extent that it should. Claire approaches Dogen.

C: He wants to see you
D: [Starts to say something in Japanese.]
C: Speak English.
D: Who wants to see me?
C: You know who.
D: If he wants to see me, then tell him to come him.
C: No, he wants you to go to him. He’s waiting outside beyond the outer wall.
D: I’m not a fool. If I step outside this temple, he’ll kill me.
C: Then maybe you should send somebody he won’t kill.

She turns to go.

D: Stop her! [In Japanese] Put the girl into the hole until this is resolved. Then bring Shephard and Reyes to my room immediately.
L: That’s gonna be a little difficult. We can’t find them.
D: [In Japanese] Look. Harder!

He looks at Sayid.

D: Come with me.
S: I thought you wanted me to leave.
D: Things have changed.

Why does Dogen want Jack and Hurley? Had they been there, what would he have said to them? Sayid follows Dogen back into his study, where he asks what Claire was talking about.

D: She’s a confused girl, under the influence of an angry man.
S: What man?
D: For years, he has been trapped. But now Jacob’s gone. He’s free. This man will not stop until he has destroyed every living thing on this island. He is evil incarnate.
S: And you want me to speak with him?
D: No. I want you to kill him. He will come to you as someone you know. Someone who has died. As soon as you see him, plunge this deep into his chest. If you allow him to speak it is already too late.
S: Since I’ve been here I’ve been drowned, beaten and tortured at your hands. Why would I ever do anything for you?
D: You said that there is still good in your soul. Then prove it.

We’ve heard this line before, about someone wanting to kill every living thing on the island. It’s what Ben and Locke kept saying about the freighter crew. Is the re-introduction of that phrase supposed to tie the Man in Black to Charles Widmore? Also, is there some special significance to the dagger that Dogen tells Sayid to use? He pulls it from a well-concealed hiding place, so something tells me it’s not just some ornate knife he ordered off TV at 2:00 in the morning because it could cut through tin cans. Also, the idea of evil incarnate certainly furthers many fans’ theories about the religious nature of the Jacob/Man in Black dynamic – i.e. God and Satan, a parallel which reader Nic A. commented on in the previous write-up. This will come up again shortly.

On his way out of The Temple, Sayid encounters Kate returning. I guess she’s coming back to ask about Claire, based on her conversation with Jack. She walks over to Miles, who smiles at her and says, as only Miles can, “Sawyer sent you packing, huh?” Then he tells her about Claire’s return. Sayid continues away from The Temple…

(I love Sayid’s look, as Man in Locke pulls the knife out of his chest, that goes from uncertainty to “Oh shit, now what?”)

So is Man in Locke’s offer a lie – the temptation of the devil – or can he really deliver on that promise? Does it have something to with the sideways reality? Is Sayid walking into a Pet Sematary scenario? Sometimes dead is better, Sayid…

Whatever occurs next between them we don’t see. Sayid returns to The Temple, and just outside the door Dogen asks him what happened. Sayid strides past him and makes an announcement to all those in earshot. “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.”

Cindy the stewar…sorry, flight attendant…asks, “What happens at sundown if we stay?”

“You die,” Said replies. Dogen doesn’t look happy.

So first of all, did Sayid strike some kind of official deal with the dev…I mean with the Man in Locke, or is he going on faith? He claimed to be a good man, yet the message he will soon deliver to Dogen is not one of words, but of violence. Also, I ask again, who are these people at The Temple? They look like a bunch of peasants and shirpas. Are all the Others who had been with Man in Locke at Jacob’s statue here too now? Have these people all felt like they had to stay at The Temple, or even on the island itself, all this time? What has kept them here? What were they doing for Jacob? Cindy would be the ideal vessel to explore this, since we saw her as a survivor of Flight 815 who was then taken by The Others and apparently threw her lot in with them. But something tells me we may never know.

ENEMY AT THE GATES
As The Temple is gripped in panic, Lennon sees Kate and wants to know when she got back and where Jack and Hurley are. But she demands to see Claire first, so he takes her to a wide pit in the ground, where Claire sits in a corner singing “Catch a Falling Star” (Aaron’s theme song apparently, based on its ongoing use in the show). Last week, I wrote that Claire’s animal-skull baby was very Buffalo Bill/Silence of the Lambs. Well now Claire looks like one of Bill’s victims, sitting down at the bottom of a dirty hole in the ground. When Kate leans in to talk to her, I was waiting for her to lower a basket and say…

Claire is happy to see Kate, and tells her that the Others have Aaron. Kate thinks she’s putting Claire at ease when she smiles, almost cries, and tells her the truth. “Claire, they don’t have Aaron. I took him. I took him off the island. You were gone and we couldn’t find you so I raised him. And he is the most beautiful, amazing little boy. But I came back here to rescue you so that you could be with him, so that you guys could be together again.”

The expression on Claire’s face when Kate says she took him is pretty sinister, and the words “I raised him” really send her to a bad place. That phrase has been of particular significance around Aaron, going back to Season One when psychic Richard Malkin used it repeatedly, telling Claire that she had to raise Aaron herself. Is that why Claire feels what she does toward Kate? Why she told Jin she would kill Kate if she’d taken Aaron off the island? Has she gained some insight into why raising Aaron herself is so crucial? Or is there another reason…beyond a mother’s obvious desire to be with her child?

“I’m not the one that needs to be rescued, Kate,” Claire says, suddenly smiling. What does that smile hide? How does the Man in Locke intend to keep his promise of reuniting her with Aaron anyway? And what does that plan mean for Kate? The conversation is cut short when Lennon tells Kate her time is up and drags her off, leaving Claire calling up, “He’s coming, Kate. He’s coming and they can’t stop him.”

Is there any chance Kate can convince her that she had no choice but to take Aaron off the island? Claire disappeared, she left Aaron behind, the island vanished, the chopper crashed…surely she can make the case! And will we ever find out what exactly happened when Christian Shephard came to Claire in the jungle and lured her away from Sawyer and Miles…and Aaron? When Locke found the two of them in the cabin and asked where the baby was, Christian said that Aaron was exactly where he was supposed to be. And Claire looked super chill, like she’d just smoked some primo island grass. I really want to hear her version of what happened since that time.

As people flee The Temple, Lennon tries to assure them all that their enemy can not get in and that they’re safe. Cindy says that with Jacob dead, she can’t take that chance. She goes, with the kids. Miles asks Sayid if they’re leaving, but Sayid says he has to return the knife first. He finds Dogen sitting on the steps of the spring. “You let him talk to you,” Dogen says.

“I stabbed him in the chest like you told me to. Then I let him talk to me.” He drops the knife on the ground. “That’s twice you’ve tried to have someone kill me. You had the opportunity to do it yourself. Why didn’t you?”

Dogen tells Sayid he was once a successful businessman at a bank in Osaka. One Friday night after receiving a promotion, his associates took him out to celebrate and he had too much to drink. Afterwards he went to pick up his 12 year-old son from baseball practice and they got into a car accident which his son did not survive. “And then in the hospital,” he says, “a man came to me. A man I had never met. He told me that he could save my son’s life but I would have to come here, to this island, where I would have a new job. And I could never see my boy again.”

S: Who was this man?
D: His name was Jacob.
S: Jacob drives a hard bargain.
D: The man outside, I take it he offered you a similar bargain.
S: Yes.
D: It is sundown. Will you choose to stay or go?
S: I’d like to stay.

Sayid suddenly grabs Dogen and leaps into the water with him, holding him down the way Dogen’s men held him down in their effort to revive him. But this isn’t about revival. Sayonara, Dogen. Sayid walks out of the spring as Lennon comes in and sees what he’s done. He runs into the water hoping to save Dogen, but it’s too late. “Do you realize what you just did? He was the only thing keeping it out! Idiot! You just let it in!” Then we hear the howl of Smokey, just as Sayid grabs the knife, slices Lennon’s throat and tosses him in the water. “I know,” he replies.

I wonder if Dogen knew for sure that his son was saved, or if he had to take Jacob’s word. Why would Jacob do this? It’s an act that again seems to handily reinforce the idea of Jacob representing that Judeo-Christian God, both benevolent and punishing. Yet the Man in Locke has made a similar offer to Sayid, so what’s to say that Jacob isn’t just as much the tempter that his nemesis is? And we aren’t sure exactly what Dogen’s job on the island was. Why/how was he the only thing keeping the Man in Black out? Why doesn’t the ash matter all of a sudden? What power did he have? How long has he been there? How long has Lennon been there? Does the fact that they’re both dead mean I’m never going to get answers to any of these damn questions?

With Dogen doing the dead man’s float, the Smoke Monster gains admittance to The Temple. He makes the most of it, blowing here, there and everywhere, grabbing people and doing his pissed off Smokey thing. Kate and Miles run for it, but get separated when Kate goes for Claire. Miles runs down a hallway and through an open door which he tries to hold closed as something pushes at it. It bursts open and in comes Ilana, immediately asking where Shephard, Reyes and Ford are. Does she know who Miles is? How? He says he’s the only one left, and that Kate went to get Claire. Lapidus, Sun and Ben follow her in and Ilana asks about Jarrah. Miles says he was at the spring, so Ben goes to get him despite Ilana calling for him to stay. As they run, Miles asks Sun where her husband is. She is relieved to know Jin was there and alive, but distressed that once again she’s missed him. Where is Jin? He wants to get back to The Temple…or he did when there was something there to get back to. Is the Man in Locke keeping him from that goal?

Ilana goes down the hall Hurley used to get outside and finds the familiar symbol on the wall. She pushes it and a door slides open. They all step through and it closes behind them just as Smokey turns the corner and comes blowing past. At the spring, Ben finds Sayid sitting on the steps in eerie calm. Ben says he knows a way out and that there’s still time. Sayid looks at him, a creepy smile of contentment and amusement on his face and says, “Not for me.” Ben observes the floating bodies and the knife, still dripping blood, and backs away almost comically slowly.

I think the “infection” Dogen spoke of to Jack has finally reached Sayid’s heart, cause the dude on steps ain’t the Sayid I know. Is redemption still possible for the tortured torturer, or has he made a final, fateful choice? Why has he embraced his dark side so easily? Ben once told Sayid that like it or not, he’s a killer; it’s in his nature. Sayid always wants to believe that’s not true of himself, but he admitted it when he picked up Jin’s gun and shot Young Ben in the chest. In the sideways timeline, he initially respected Nadia’s wishes to not exact revenge for Omer’s attack, but when Keamy draws him in, Sayid strikes. And now he’s done it again. Or has he? Was the choice to give in to the Man in Locke’s temptation and murder Dogen really a choice, or was he overpowered by a force stronger than he could contend with? Does this turn mean that like Locke of old, Sayid as we know him is dead?

But wait, there’s more! Kate finds the pit and kicks a rope ladder down so Claire can climb up, but she won’t go. Claire says they’re safer there. Just then, Smokey turns into the room. Kate flings herself onto the dangling ladder just in time and watches as Smokey flies by above her. Then in an unsettling final sequence that plays out in slow motion, Sayid walks into the courtyard, strewn with dead bodies. Claire follows, then Kate, who is now kind of stuck with them. She stops and picks up a rifle from one of the bodies. The darkness and carnage is juxtaposed with Claire (I think it’s Claire) singing “Catch a Falling Star” on the soundtrack, like that ominous, “One, two, Freddy’s coming for you” nursery rhyme from A Nightmare on Elm Street. Outside the Temple door, the Man in Locke and those who accepted his offer wait to receive Sayid and Claire, who walk out looking satisfied, each smiling as if reporting to their master after a job well done. They look like The Keymaster and The Gatekeeper returning to Gozer for duty.

Kate emerges and looks confused to see Locke. He doesn’t say anything; just looks at her for a moment before turning and leading everyone away. It’s pretty much the same look he gave Jin when he found him in Claire’s hut.

And with that, we leave The Temple behind for what is shaping up as the final island showdown between the disciples of dark and light.

LOOSE ENDS/FOOD FOR THOUGHT
-I know some people were annoyed about new characters being introduced so late in the game, but I liked Dogen and Lennon and am sorry to see them go. On the other hand, it is sort of nice to have the Temple business over with. Despite the adventures outside its walls – Kate’s search for Sawyer, Jack and Hurley’s trip to the lighthouse, Jin’s run-in with Crazy Cat Lady – the location was still starting to feel like a hindrance. We need to get things moving. Will we see Dogen and Lennon again in the sideways reality? Can we at least add them to the list of Lost characters who deserve a spin-off sitcom? (Hurley and Sayid, Hurley and Miles, Locke and Ben, Smokey and the polar bear…)

-I was just thinking that I still don’t know who Jacob meant when he said to the Man in Locke with his dying breath, ‘They’re coming.” We haven’t seen any obvious payoff of that yet…

-As you probably know, the Oscars were Sunday night, and it happened to be a great year for the Lost family. The show’s excellent composer Michael Giacchino took home the Best Original Score award for Up (in Lighthouse I was admiring anew his excellent theme for Jacob. His contributions are such an underrated part of the show.) In addition, The Hurt Locker, which features Evangeline Lilly in a small role, took six awards including Best Picture; and Best Documentary went to The Cove, earning an Oscar for its producer Fisher Stevens, the actor who played (and from what I’ve heard will be seen again as) the freighter’s communications officer George Minkowski. Further proof that Lost is everywhere….in case anyone was trying to disprove it.

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“She just strolled in here a couple hours ago, acting all weird. Still hot, though.” – Miles

Tonight’s Episode: Dr. Linus