You know how, at this point, Lost is just messing with us? I think it’s revenge for everything we’ve piled on the show over the years, but it’s kind of chicken-and-the-egg at this point. Anyway, this episode centered itself on two very different Sayids. Or maybe it was three. And there were ten significant bits, some of which were out in the open and some of which were hiding.
1. “Meter doesn’t stop until you get out, pal.” At first, we think this is just the talk of an aggrieved anonymous taxi driver, as Sayid sits in the back of his cab in what looks like tearful reflection. But as the episode progresses, it turns out to have many possible resonances. On the island, he is stuck between the Temple and the Jungle, Dogen and Anti-Locke, life and death, free will and destiny, between being himself and following the orders of someone else. He has been brought back, but hasn’t entirely made it “out” of wherever he was; his meter of karma is still running for past sins like shooting teenage Ben (maybe causing the monster he hoped to prevent) and the hells he visited upon people as a torturer. Similarly, Alternative Sayid seems to be a free man, but he is still trapped in many ways: in this reality, Nadia is still alive, but is married to his ne’er-do-well brother, and Sayid is still haunted by his Republican Guard Torturer past. So, yeah, dude’s meter is still running either way.
2. “Mommy, we found a picture of you in Uncle Sayid’s bag!” The tension between Sayid and Nadia is supposed to be unbearable and heartrending to us, because we know how much she has meant to Crash Victim Sayid in the past. Sayid does not feel worthy of her love in Alt.World, and has pushed her on his brother because he feels dirty for his past sins. I don’t really get the timeframe here, however–are we to believe that she has been writing him letters for years and that he has only recently stopped answering them? That their phantom fling has just been re-kindled? Because, in general, if you’re going to try to leave your husband for his brother who lives in Australia, you might not want to wait until you already have two children running around in America. Come on, Nadia, get your head in the game!
3. “For every man, there is a scale.” Yeah yeah yeah, okay, Dogen, we get it. You are telling us, in your heavily accented way, two things here: (a) you measured Sayid on your little torture machine and his “evil” readings were off the charts, and (b) WE ALL HAVE GOOD AND BAD IN US, ETC. Go back to your bosses and tell them we don’t need any more ham-fisted pronouncements of Manichaeism. Got that?
4. On the other hand, this scene is redeemed in five seconds by the best extended fight scene we’ve ever had on Lost, a lab-wrecking donnybrook that looks like it really hurt both guys for real. Not sure why Dogen doesn’t just go all Lord Stabbington at the end of it, or the mystic significance of his baseball, but who cares? (NB: We learn about the baseball thing later, in Dogen’s pre-slaughter monologue.)
5. “I know what kind of man you are.” Here’s the thing, Sayid’s Irresponsible Brother Who Unwisely Borrows Money From Shadowy Dude Who Turns Out To Be Same Dude Who Shot Ben’s Hot Semi-Kidnapped Semi-Adopted Daughter Alex Who Was Actually Really Rousseau’s Daughter Anyway: we don’t even know what kind of man Sayid Jarrah is, and we’ve been watching him for five and a half seasons now, so clearly you have no real idea who he is at all. The book on Sayid has always been “good man forced by awful circumstances into situations where he has to be a violent bastard,” but I would argue that the character was ill-served by the decision to have him shoot Creepy Teenage Ben, and has never really recovered. I know that act was supposed to be motivated by all the other assassinations Sayid was talked into doing by Creepy Post-Island But Not Sideways Ben. But at this point, doesn’t it seem convenient that Sayid Jarrah ends up on the killing floor more often than not? And Sayid doesn’t do himself any favors by whispering “I am not that man anymore.” SURE you’re not, buddy. Sure you’re not.
6. “Whatever brought you back…it wasn’t them.” I was really happy that Miles has made the cut to become a player here in Season 6. But I’m not so happy that all he really ever does is flip one-liners and truth bombs like this. If he’s not going to do something incredibly awesome this season, then there was no point to keeping him around. I have spoken. Hard to know if Sayid KNOWS that he’s possessed at this point or not.
7. Jack Shephard in the hospital corridor. Cute. Also cute: Nadia as stabilizing force for anti-violence. Never forget that she was a pretty kick-ass revolutionary back in the day…although maybe that never happened in this reality. Hmmm.
8. “Sawyer sent you packing, huh?” Miles with the suckerpunch. Brilliant. Extra points for subsequent near-empathy and use of the word “berating.”
9. “Now why’d you go and do that?” Anti-Locke, after being brutally stabbed in the jungle. Cold as ice. Question: if Sayid had in fact stabbed him BEFORE he said “Hello, Sayid,” like Dogen told him to, would that have killed him? Or was the whole thing a set-up? Either way, even here it does not appear that Sayid has been taken over by any kind of “dark” evil forces. Does that happen during the post-stab jungle dialogue? At any rate, pretty scary implications all the way around here. Can the Man in Black really give Sayid another glimpse of Nadia, or is Sayid getting his chain yanked yet again? Did he set up the subsequent Temple Massacre on purpose, or was there really free will involved? This whole thing is complicated and weird, and I’m not sure I like it, dramatically. It’s kind of compelling, though.
10. I’m probably supposed to say something about the “boomerang” line here, past coming around to haunt us all, et cetera, but it’s 1:30 AM, and I have to get to sleep. Also unmentioned by me: Sayid’s total action-hero blam blam in his takedown and cold-blooded 86ing of Martin Keamy; Kate’s accidental confession about Aaron to Crazy Claire in the pit, all thinking she’s being a hero when in fact she’s just setting herself up for a future ass-kicking and/or killing; Sayid’s chilling “I have to return this” right before he does up Dogen and Lennon like it ain’t no thing; the Smoke Monster-avoidance run, complete with secret passages and Kate hanging on by her fingertips in the pit; the two Jin reveals (one in Sidewaysville, one to Sun); and all the other stuff.
But can I just say here that Sayid’s line “Not for me,” with that insane grin, and his subsequent rendezvous with Anti-Locke’s new posse, are two of the most terrifyingly effective moments the show has ever put together? Who cares that Team Darlton has sacrificed our retroactive sympathy for one of the best characters they ever created?
