Lost 6.06 "Sundown"

First, thanks to humanebean for sending me the above picture that he screen-capped from last week... I always knew I was a candidate! And my name hasn't been crossed out yet!! Is this a good or a bad thing? Does this give me access to more than one universe?

Welcome to the earliest Lost post ever, thanks to CTV running Lost at 7pm tonight (woohoo!). I've post-dated this to go live at 10:05 so it doesn't go up too soon and everyone will have seen it on the East Coast already.

“You said that there was still good in your soul. Then prove it.”
I was totally expecting this week’s episode to be about Sun, with that title (and it would have been consistent with the sixth episode of season 1). And I also have that Gordon Lightfoot song in my head now…

Poor Sayid. No matter which reality he’s in, he’ll always be the remorseful man trying to be different, but somehow always getting sucked right back into the violence. Most of his story throughout the series has been him trying to escape his past as a torturer and embrace the lover side of himself, but instead he’s always drawn back in, whether it’s to torture Sawyer or to become Ben’s hitman. Now, just as he’s denying himself the one thing that would make him happy, he becomes his brother’s avenger… and by the way, taking care of his brother ALSO seems to be something he’ll be stuck doing in every reality.

I loved this episode. Loved loved loved it. And where the other sideways reality worlds all seemed to have a pat happy ending, this one is the first to end in a cliffhanger and tie Sayid's story to Jin's. While I had some trouble actually listing any answers that were given, I do feel like we actually DID have things illuminated for us. Sayid's completely gone over to the Dark Side, we know Jacob brought Dogen to the island and seems to have imprisoned him there, Dogen and Lennon are gone, the Temple's been destroyed, and Unlocke has an army of followers. Ilana and her group have caught up to everyone, and now the action will REALLY begin.

Highlights:
• Uncle Sayid?! Whoa.
• Was it just me or was Sayid particularly hot in this episode?
• The Sayid/Dogen ninja fight. That was AWESOME.
• Miles saying Jungle Hair Claire™ (thanks for that one, humanebean!) was acting all weird, but “still hot, though.” HAHAHAHA!!
• Sayid not even hesitating before driving the knife into Unlocke’s chest. You know, the fact that Smokey looks exactly like John Locke probably helped Sayid’s resolve, since he detested John.
• KEAMY!! ACK!
• Sideways world Jin!!
• I’m happy that Ilana’s team is finally joined back with Miles.
• Sayid, Kate, and Jungle Hair Claire™ walking through the bodies with that creepy “Catch a Falling Star” song playing in the background is one of the most amazing, bone-chilling uses of music EVER on this show. Was it Emilie de Ravin singing or was it another artist?

Answers:
• Sayid to Dogen: “I want some answers.” Dogen to Sayid: “Dude, get in LINE.”
• If Dogen is to be believed, the Man in Black is free because Jacob died, and he is evil incarnate.
• Dogen was brought to the island by Jacob, who was preying on his vulnerability and mourning. He wants to be there as much as Juliet wanted to be there.
• Yes, I know I’m reaching for answers here. Sigh.

Did You Notice?:
• The cab driver’s voice sounded familiar, but they never showed him. Maybe he just has one of those voices.
• So is this the brother who, in the other reality, refused to kill the (ultimately) deflated ghost chicken?
• Dogen talks about the scale of good and evil (which makes us think of Unlocke when he went to the cave and found the scale with the white stone and black stone) and it reminded me of Anubis once again, with his scales of judgment as he leads people to the land of the dead, weighing their hearts to see if they were good or evil.
• Sayid tells Dogen that he thinks he knows him but he doesn’t, and there’s a look on Dogen’s face as if he’s thinking, “No, I actually DO know you better than you think… but you don’t know yourself.”
• Miles is convinced that Sayid was dead… back in “LA X” we commented that Miles was staring at his body funny, and that maybe he was never dead, but now I’m thinking Miles was staring at it funny just as it was coming back to life, as if he could sense it was no longer a dead body.
• Poor Sayid, “You want me to go, you want me to stay, you want me to go… sheesh, Dogen, you change your mind more times than Kate.”
• With Dogen handing Sayid the knife, Sayid becomes the hero on a quest to kill the baddie.
• Sayid’s going to Toronto?! Well, right THERE is proof that he’s evil incarnate!! (And that would explain redeem147 emailing me partway through the episode saying, “I hope I’m living in Sayid’s sideways world!” LOL!)
• I love how Jack just wanders past Sayid, and at first I thought there was no recognition, but he does look at him with a little more than a passing glance.
• Dogen told Sayid not to let Smokey talk at all, and later Sayid says he didn’t, but Unlocke actually says, “Hello Sayid” before Sayid plunges the knife into him, so technically it’s too late.
• Unlocke asking Sayid, “What if I told you that you could have anything you want?” sounds a LOT like Ben asking Locke what he would do if Ben would tell him there’s a box on the island that could contain anything Locke ever wanted inside. Is that a suggestion that Unlocke is just manipulating him? He reminded me of the snake in the Garden of Eden.
• Do you notice how Lennon and Dogen refer to everyone by their last names? They referred to Shephard, Reyes, Ford, and Kwon… the same way they’re logged on the cave ceiling and in the lighthouse. Ilana does the same thing when she shows up, and only refers to everyone (including "Linus") by their surnames.
• Jungle Hair Claire™ is singing “Catch a Falling Star,” the song that her father sang to her, and the one Kate would sing to Aaron.
• Lennon gives Kate two minutes… that’s one less than the Others gave Walt and Michael.
• When Kate says, “I raised him,” it makes us think of “Raised by Another,” where Jungle Hair Claire™ had been told no one else can raise him. Is that what runs through her mind as she glares at Kate?
• When the van pulls up to Nadia’s house, the goon who steps out is Omar, one of Keamy’s men from the island. He’s one of the ones killed in the big ambush by the helicopter at the end of S4.
• Did anyone else think Keamy’s men were walking Sayid into Satriale’s?!
• Poor Keamy… in the original timeline, he was a Navy Seal and a killing machine mercenary. In this one, he’s just a small-time gangster modeling himself after other gangster movies and wearing a flashy pimp suit.
• Keamy frying the egg reminded me of Locke frying the egg for Ben’s breakfast.
• Sayid always shoots people in the chest (didn’t work so well on little Ben Linus). It’s like he wants to shoot them in the place where he feels the most pain.
• In the sideways world Dogen’s son is close to him and is a pianist, and Dogen is very involved in his life. In this one Dogen is mourning him and blaming himself for his son’s death.
• I don’t want to be rude here, but when Smokey first comes into the camp, shooting straight out and then retreating with the guy, it looked particularly… phallic.
• Notice Ben says, “There’s still time.” And Sayid says, “Not for me.” The use of the word “time” here is significant.
• Unlocke standing there with his “followers” was reminiscent of the beginning of season 4, when Locke and Jack split forces and the people formed two camps. Interestingly, Claire was with Locke back then, too, but Kate and Sayid were with Jack.

The Numbers:
Dogen’s son was 12 when he died (8 + 4).

So Many Questions...
• Dogen stops short of killing Sayid when he sees the baseball hit the ground. We find out that he’s on the island because of his son, who was a baseball player. Is that why he stops? Or has he been told by Jacob that if he kills anyone on the island, his son dies? What sort of chains is he in on the island? (In my original notes, I jotted, “If the baseball falls, will the Red Sox never have won the Series?”)
• Where’s Jin? I’m a little annoyed that two episodes ago Sawyer and the Man in Black were joined at the hip and then Sawyer just disappeared, and now Jin is just gone. Where is he?
• Why does Dogen immediately want Shephard and Reyes in his room?
• Why did Keamy’s men capture Jin? Where is Sun? Did she somehow ditch Jin at the airport?
• A couple of weeks ago we all talked about how it’s possible Jacob has taken over Sayid’s body. After Dogen’s anti-Jacob story, could that be why Sayid goes apeshit on him?
• If Dogen drowned in the water the same way Sayid was, does that mean he could come back to life, too?
• Where did Ilana and Co. come from?
• When the smoke thundered past Kate’s head, did you see anything in it? She was staring at it with her mouth agape, and I slowed it right down and watched it frame by frame, but I haven’t watched the HD feed yet so I didn’t see anything in it. I swear something looked like a Dementor at the very end of Smokey’s tail as they went past.
• When Sayid says, “Not for me,” Ben stares at him as if he sees something else in his eyes.
• What is the significance of Dogen's dagger? He pulled it out of the ceremonial box like it was a very important knife. How has it been used in the past?
• Ilana pushes on that same omega symbol on the wall that Hurley was staring at last week… clearly it’s associated with Jacob in some way, but why? Where did they go?
• Unlocke gives a strange glare to Kate, and doesn't look at all happy that she's there... is it because you couldn't see her on the cave ceiling (which, despite what he said appears to be Smokey's domain) but she was still an uncrossed-out candidate (#51) in the lighthouse? What about her doesn't he trust?
• What’s Ben going to do? He’s not with Kate and everyone, and he’s not with Ilana and her group anymore because their door closed behind them with him out.

Reminder: Tomorrow listen in to Marshall and Forbes on The Ocean 98.5 in Victoria, BC at 6 a.m. local time, 9 a.m. EST. Go here and click on the Listen Now button if you’re out of the listening area.
And tomorrow at noon I will once again be participating in the Globe and Mail Lost chat from noon to 1pm EST. Go here to ask questions and comment. See you there!