Monsters of Television

“You think you know me but you don’t.”

So I was wrong: the show is quite willing to give us two crazy main cast members.

Sayid is officially on the train to Crazy Town

But the crazy is tempered by the fact that crazy Claire and Sayid are still, in some way, regular Claire and Sayid. Both still have flashes of gentle smiles and I think we can all agree that both are still rather attractive (as Miles noted about Claire). What each is going through, as their infections sink in deeper and deeper into their hearts, is that their central motivations come to the forefront, for better or for worse (mostly for worse)

When “The Substitute” aired, I argued for the flash-sideways as a lens, using an analogy I stole from a professor of mine to explain to students how genre functions: when you look at something as one particular genre, those traits come forward while the other traits recede a bit (“Think of His Girl Friday as a screwball. Now think of it as a social problem film.”), leaving you with whatever you’re looking for. With the flash-sideways, the same principle is applied, just this time with character traits and motivation.

With “Sundown,” we perhaps the clearest deployment of that idea yet.

Sayid’s always wanted to do the right thing, but he consistently finds himself in situations where the right thing often involves being a violent person. From killing a chicken to torturing Sawyer for an inhaler to attempting to kill young Ben Linus, Sayid cannot escape the violence that surrounds him, no matter how much he would like.

And this violence often comes with the goal of helping others. His brother Omar and the chicken, Shannon and the inhaler, everyone on the island and young Ben (in theory). Of course, the violence isn’t always for a greater good. Often the violence is simply for a matter of staying alive for Sayid, as it was in Iraq working as a torturer. Despite his desire to good, his claim that he is a good man, Sayid constantly resorts to violence for that good thing.

The on-Island narrative and the flash-sideway both emphasize this point by enhancing the violence and preventing the good from totally coming forward. Even from the start, with that beautifully choreographed fight scene, the episode is a violent one. Sayid fights Dogen for answers. Sayid stabs Smocke at the request of Dogen. Sayid kills Dogen and Lennon. Smocke’s rampage through the temple is perhaps the most of the Smoke Monster we’ve seen. There’s no escaping it, and one could argue that Sayid’s fall from a man striving to be good to one acting on selfish impulses, motivated a desire to somehow be with his dead lover again, could just be the situation of being on the Island.

But the flash-sideways makes clear that the Island isn’t the determining factor in a person’s trajectory. Here, Sayid is shown engaging a tour around the world to redeem himself for his past sins, arriving to see his brother and Nadia, now married and with children, in Los Angeles. Again, Sayid’s desire to step away from the violence that has defined his life during the war. Omar owes interest to a gangster (the debt has already been paid), and Omar wants Sayid to take care of the gangster, Martin Keamy (yes, that Keamy). Sayid refuses, but after Keamy’s men assault Omar and abduct Sayid on the way to pick his nephew and niece, he ends up in a situation with little recourse but to violence.

Keamy offers to forgive the debt after Sayid has handily dispatched Keamy’s men. There’s way to know if he’s lying, and Sayid, knowing he can’t take that chance, shoots Keamy. Again, this is done for a good cause, so far as Sayid is concerned (keeping his extended family safe), but he must resort violence to do so. Unlike the previous flash-sideways, this one prevents the subject from achieving some measure of peace within that narrative: Sayid’s world is still a chaotic one. Perhaps the tied up Jin in Keamy’s walk-in fridge will be that point of peace?

All of this comes into stark contrast as Ben, along with Illana, Sun, and Frank, arrive at the temple (during Smocke’s assualt). Poetically, Ben rushes off to find Sayid, only find Sayid sitting and looking over the corpses of Dogen and Lennon. Ben offers the man who shot him (I wonder if Ben remembers…?) and tortured him a chance to get away, that there’s still time. Sayid, knowing that he can no longer pretend to be a good man, says that his time is gone, and later joins Smocke and his newly recruited followers (Jacob’s people are a fickle bunch).

I’m incredibly curious about where the Island narrative goes from here. The temple represented the chance for information and answers, and instead has turned out to be a red herring (as well as Dogen and Lennon). While it has served as the jumping off point for much of the action this season, what happens now? Why does Smocke need these people? How long can he convince Sawyer to stay with him (unlike Claire and Sayid, his hold over Sawyer feels limited)? And what the hell is going to happen to Ben, who Illana just leaves behind?

FINAL THOUGHTS

• Naveen Andrews did some terrific work in this episode, as he always does. Keeping up with a skilled martial artist like Hiroyuki Sanada is no cheap trick, and then balancing that with all the right pathos and veers into insanity. Kudos.
• I’ll return to thoughts about Claire’s role in all this later on, when I feel she’s a bit more central to the episode. But I cannot tell you how happy I was that Kate got everything she’s wanted to say to Claire out in one swoop, instead of having it hanging there for an episode. Kate “Me, too!” Austen is finally on a trek she shouldn’t be on.
• Oddly, this wasn’t a Sun or Jin episode. Given the title, I was expecting one. Foiled again!
• Since I’m not Sayid, when Martin Keamy offers me eggs, I take ’em. Scrambled, please.