606-11
Well, well. Things are really happening.

While we’re waiting for Mark Coale’s official write-up, here are a few of our own quick observations. SPOILERS BELOW THE BREAK!!

606-03

• Okay, so Sayid finally turned to the dark side — or did he? In the flash sideways we see him atoning for past crimes, respecting Nadia’s marriage and family life, and attempting yet again to avoid violence. (Yeah, like that ever works.) We don’t know exactly what Flocke offered him (although we can make a pretty good guess.) His wholesale temple slaughtering recalled Michael’s meltdown at the end of Season 2, which didn’t end well for Michael. Is Sayid’s good side is still in there?

• This episode is definitely trying to persuade us that the MIB is Bad and Jacob is Good — but Jacob’s meddling still seems pretty crappy. In most genre fiction we learn that there is good in the bad guys — in this one, we’re seeing that there’s bad in the good guys.

• The temple Others cut and run on Dogen pretty damned quick! This is one of those Lost storytelling conveniences that crops up time and again: the Others are shown as this wandering tribe without any sense of purpose except to wander through the jungle. Guess that’s what they do.

• That said, Dogen’s flashback was the clearest evidence yet that ALL the people on the Island have a similar back story of personal tragedy followed by the annunciation of Jacob.

• And speaking of Dogen, Hiroyuki Sanada has a strong background as a martial arts star and it was great to see him mix it up with Naveen Andrews’ stunt double. (The direction in this episode was particularly choppy, to my mind, and there were several shots where it was obvious it wasn’t Andrews.)

• Miles was really Exposition Man this time out.

• Crazy Claire = good times.

• Okay so now we have Hurley, Jack, Ilana, Frank, Miles, Sun and Ben(!) vs Flock, Claire, Sayid and Kate (!) with Jin and Sawyer Out There Somewhere. Desmond = ?

• The scene with Kate joining the MIB faction was the best Kate scene in a while. The look on her face told us that she knows Kate’s fate isn’t looking so rosy — she’s not a candidate, Claire wants to make a baby rattle from her skull, and she knows she has to carry an assault rifle wherever she goes.

22 COMMENTS

  1. If nothing else, we had proof once again that Sayid episodes are a bajillion times more interesting and entertaining than Kate episodes.

    Oh, and I’m officially throwing my support behind Team Smoke Monster.

  2. Kate is a candidate, Heidi. Her last name was on the lighthouse wheel (at #51, I believe) and she was distinctly touched by Jacob in “The Incident”. The question is whether the Smoke Monster/Flocke knows that.

  3. Wouldn’t it be interesting if the smoke monster knew Kate would take the baby when he recruited Claire? He knew she’d end up right back on the island and doing what she did, just like what Jacob did to the others? She wasn’t one of Jacob’s numbers, maybe she was being watched by smokey, who had his own set of numbers. I don’t know.

  4. In the flash sideways some people have BETTER lives — Hugo, Jack (despite being a stinky dad) and Locke. However, Kate’s life is just as bad — still in handcuffs, still on the run. Likewise, Sayid’s move was basically lateral. Maybe the flash sideways are our way of seeing who’s really good and who’s REALLY bad down inside, who can’t escape their karma.

    I think karma is going to have a big part to play in the ending. That and the fifth Cylon.

  5. I loved Miles’ comment that Claire was “acting weird.”

    The guy has been time-jumping across decades, seen the smoke monster, a resurrection, and regularly speaks to dead people.

    Yet when someone he barely knows shows up and says some cryptic stuff, he says she’s weird?

    Have some perspective, Miles!

  6. I’m not convinced that Kate has actively joined Unlocke’s faction so much as she realizes that going along with them — suitably armed — is the only way she’s going to survive for now. I guess we just read different things in her expression at the end of the episode.

  7. Agreed. Kate’s not with team Locke any more than Sawyer or Jin or Sayid is. I think the writers are faking viewers out by subtly suggesting that MIB/Esau may not be the bad guy. But I DO think Widmore is going to turn out to be much more of a good guy than we may have thought. (I think he’s the one Jacob says is coming.) I believe Widmore AND Ms Hawking know that if the island does not stay hidden from the world, and its full energies are unleashed, that it will be the end of everything; all of these timelines, all reality as we know it, period. Why else would Ms Hawking send her son to his certain death?

    And I will probably be completely wrong.

  8. Anyone else not having their LOST episode from last night show up in their itunes Season Pass?

    No report today, sadly.

    I’m sure Heidi’s post will serve everyone just fine. Most people probably think she writes the column anyway. :>

  9. I’m with Team Smoke Monster too. The Others have a very crappy record on trust issues. If the Japanese guy didn’t trick Sayid, he would be alive for next episode. Let’s not forget other members of The Others, like Mr. Friendly and Linus, who are as deceiving and manipulative. Jacob and now his ghost seem to be on the same track. I say Smoke Monster gives them hell.

  10. “I prefer “UnLocke” to “Flocke”.

    No, the best new name is :”The Locke Dressed Monster!””

    I’ve been going with Not_Locke and/or Esau.

  11. Dogen is probably cursing himself in the grave right now saying: “Damn, I should have killed Dark Sayid when I had the chance!”

    How come the Beat is not doing this kind of analysis for this season’s 24? After all, New York City is under the threat of nuclear annihilation this season – and only Jack Bauer can save you.

    ~

    Coat

  12. Sorta disappointed in seeing Sayid go to the MIB/Smoke Monster/UnLocke side… but I suppose in network tv
    terms, once a Iraqi Republican Guard torturer, you’re
    always on the EVIL side. Gotta have your stereotypes, right?

    Despite all previous episodes’— and this one’s Sideflash doppel’s— attempts to redeem his sins of the past…

    (Oh, and I thought Side-Keamy’s appearance as the big bad behind the brother’s beating was the WORSE case of fan-servicing cameo: does EVERYONE who was on the Island eventually end up in the sideflash LA Basin??)

  13. Is it possible Dogen couldn’t actually kill Sayid, just like UnLocke/ Esau couldn’t kill Jacob? At every turn, he wanted someone else to do the dirty deed – drowning, Jack, unLocke, & then he stopped when he had the chance…

  14. Maybe one of the rules is that Dogen couldn’t kill a candidate, but they can kill each other.

    Of course, the Smoke Monster killed (presumably) at least one candidate (Mr. Eko), so maybe those rules don’t apply to Jacob/MIB, who can’t harm them directly or each other. Maybe the same deal with Ben and Widmore.

  15. I think the real point behind that episode is that Sayid is absolutely willing to commit horrible evils if he can justify it to himself. Why torture folks? ‘Cause they deserve it/he was ordered to. Why betray his country and shoot his commanding officer to death? Because he’s in love with his girl. That’s the same reason he was an assassin for Ben, and toughguy for 815 crew, and why he killed Kemey(again). All Lockeness had to do was make it worth his while.

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