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I knew going into this episode that it was a Sayid centric episode. Not something that really thrilled me, because although i think he’s an excellent character (played by a capable actor) – i also feel that his story ended at the end of the previous series. But this was an excellent episode.

The beginning of the episode plays with us a little. We see Sayid nervously approaching a house, we see Nadia answer the door, we think about The Substitute, Locke going home to his loving wife. But no, Sayid isn’t visiting his wife, or his fiancee, or his girlfriend. He’s visiting his brother and Nadia – husband and wife. It’s not even his brothers emergence that causes this realisation, it’s their children calling Sayid “Uncle”. They’ve been together long enough to have two kids, and clearly Sayid still has feelings for her. Painful.

At this moment I was wondering why Sayid was in Australia, and still feeling like he was possibly a hitman. We joked at the time that he and his brother might both be hitmen given the shady almost cruel vibes that his brother gives off (and the “dry-cleaning” mention, cleaning is a sinister profession). But i think we have a clear picture of Sayid’s brother from the childhood chicken killing scene from some time ago. The rest of this episode makes it clear that Sayid and his brother are two different kinds of men.

The most important part of this episode, in my opinion, is Dogan talking about the scale. This is fascinating. He’s suggesting that every person sits somewhere on this scale between good and evil. Now obviously everyone is inclined towards some kind of moral behaviour (just as everyone is either slightly more optimistic, or slightly more pessimistic), but the idea that there’s some kind of discernible, definitive way of measuring this (with a red hot piece of metal, electric shocks and some dust, no less) boggles the mind. It makes me think of alignments in Dungeons and Dragons. I think it’s key to understanding a lot of the mysteries in Lost.

We have two powerful men in this storyline, Jacob and the Man In Black. We’ve seen them portrayed as light and dark, and we’ve had the MIB referred to as pure evil. We’ve also seen both of them manipulate people. We now know that there’s some kind of alignment scale that is pivotal, and we know that Jacob has been manipulating people’s lives for his own purpose.

I’ve spoken previously about the Night Watch tetralogy by Sergei Lukyanenko. To quote wikipedia:

“The story revolves around a confrontation between two opposing supernatural groups (known as “Others”): the Night Watch, an organisation dedicated to policing the actions of the Dark Others—and the Day Watch, which polices the actions of the Light Others.”

In these stories a “truce” exists between the two factions, keeping balance. If one side acts outside the truce (i.e uses their powers for their own purposes) they effectively give permission to the other side to commit an act with the same kind of magnitude. An early example in the stories is one character influencing a drug dealer to give up his “dark” ways. If caught, he risks allowing the other side to influence someone to find their dark path.

When humans become “others”, the two factions aren’t allowed to directly recruit them, they must find their own path, but a situation that arises in the story is the notion that one side can influence a person subtly, by changing other things.

This notion doesn’t seem too dissimilar to occurrences in Lost. The Man In Black finds a loophole to kill Jacob. He influences another character, and causes that character to murder Jacob. It’s made entirely clear to us during the scene that Ben is killing Jacob out of his own free will. Jacob even makes sure that it’s Ben’s choice. Something that can’t be said of Sayid’s attempt to stab Fake-Locke in this episode. But we’ll get to that later.

Free will is the key, getting humans (and especially the candidates) to deviate and pick one side or the other.

Anyway, continuing with the episode.

Dogan realised that Sayid, a candidate, was straying towards the negative (because of some kind of influence, but more probably because of his obscure resurrection). He decides that Sayid should be eliminated instead of risking… something, something he might do? Something he might not do?

This is the second time Dogan tries to kill Sayid, but this time it’s a bit more direct. He doesn’t go through with it because he has a moment of clarity. He sees the baseball and decides to spare Sayid. Now, we have to wonder if this is because he remembers what the baseball means to him, or because he knows what will happen if he (directly) kills Sayid. We’ll touch on that some more later.

This next scene is also fascinating. Fake-Locke and Claire are standing at the edge of the ash ring (which we know keeps smokey at bay), he’s telling her to go inside. She asks why he can’t do it and he explains that he can’t. Why not? Why not ask Claire to kick the ashes away? There’s more to it than that. She says “If i go in there, i need to know that you’ll do what you said, i want my son back”. He replies “i always do what i say”, and i believe him. I believe he intends to get Aaron (wonder why she didn’t refer to him by name…) back to her. Perhaps Aaron IS this “Wallace” that’s coming to the island? The fathers name could well be Wallace.

I really got the feeling from Fake-Locke here that he doesn’t particularly want to go in there and hurt people, he just accepts that it has to happen. I think his intention is to collect followers, not punish innocents.

I love Sayid’s utter confusion at being exiled, then finding out that he wasn’t even resurrected by the temple others. He has no idea what’s going on. Nor do we Sayid, nor do we.

Dogan and Claires exchange reveals that Dogan would be killed if he left the temple. Claire suggests that he sends someone that “you know who” won’t kill. Dogan immediately wants to send Hurley or Jack, but upon discovering they’re no longer in the temple – decides to send Sayid. I don’t think this is primarily an attempt to get Sayid killed. Why give him the old dagger? Which, by the way, looks to be a Roman Pugio (so we’re talking 1st Centure AD). Trust me, this dagger is relevant. I think he’s sending Sayid because, resurrected or not, Sayid is a candidate. He knows that Fake-Locke can’t kill candidates.

Thing is, it’s not Sayid’s free choice to kill him. Dogan has convinced him to do it. I don’t think this is going to do it.

Having difficulty finding anything to comment on in the Sayid flash-sideways. It’s interesting, and entertaining, but so far they’re not adding anything to the plot.

Back on the island Sayid bumps into Kate, who appears to be going back into the temple. Didn’t she say that she wasn’t going to the temple? I loved Miles explaining that he wanted to go after Sawyer. Reminding us that they were close. Spent three years together and apparently did become good friends. I enjoyed their dynamic even though we didn’t see much of it – he probably ended up being closer to Sawyer than any of our original Losties did, even Kate.

So, Sayid does as instructed and stabs Fake-Locke (after he’s spoken, which according to Dogan is too late). Love, love, love Terry O’Quinn as Fake-Locke. He’s so convincing.

Fake-Locke is a manipulator. I don’t believe him when he says that Dogan sent Sayid to his death. But i said that already. I believe that because Sayid is already inclined towards the evil side of things, he’s very easy for Fake-Locke to manipulate. It’s not that i believe Fake-Locke is actually especially evil (which is where things get complicated), but for the simple reason that someone who is off balance, is always easier to push over. If you get my meaning.

Sayid is no fool. He knows Fake-Locke is trying to talk him into something, but what he wasn’t prepared for is the offer. Anything he wanted. A go at the magic box that gives you whatever you want. Fake-Locke offers him the chance to see Nadia again, and it’s pretty obvious that Sayid is going to take him up on that. What does he have to lose? He already believes that he’s evil, he told us that at the end of season five! Dogan just pushed him over the edge.

So, Fake-Locke is saying that he can give Sayid the thing he wishes for most – Nadia, and of course we cut straight to the flash-sideways where he does indeed see Nadia. It’s almost like the flash-sideways were created by one of those evil movie genies, giving you what you asked for, but not in the way you wanted. You can see Nadia again, but she’s married to your brother. Oooh, nasty.

Sayid tells the temple others that there’s a man in the jungle. Again they’re telling us that Fake-Locke IS a man. He also says something very interesting. Jacob is dead now, and the temple others don’t have to stay there any more. He said the same thing to Bram etc in the statue foot. Is he just suggesting that their responsibilities have ended, or is it more sinister – like they were being held “captive” in the temple. Enthralled, indentured, whatever. He tells them that if they leave the temple they can join “the man” and leave the island, but if they don’t leave they’ll be killed. Dogan looks like he’s fairly sure things are not going to go his way.

Kate and Claire, we were sitting watching this scene going “nooooo”, Emilie de Ravin does a VERY good job of being evil. That facial expression is terrifying. Kate refers to “raising” Aaron. Reminding us of Claire being told that no one else could “raise” Aaron, “raised by another” etc. Sounds bad. We know that Claire said she’d kill Kate if this was true.

Loved seeing Omar and Keamey in the flash-sideways. But i love seeing Kevin Durand in things, seemed like a really decent guy when i was doing Robin Hood, huge in real life too – and i’m 6’2. But back to Lost. Interesting to see them back in the flash-sideways. Don’t know if this is just fan service, or if there’s a decent reason for it. No idea why they’re doing organised crime now instead of being mercenaries. Just another Lost co-incidence. But as much of a co-incidence as finding Jin. Whaaaat? Did Jin deliver the watch to them? Did they ambush him? Were they working for one of Jin’s company’s competitors who didn’t want Jin “sealing the deal” with the gift?

Okay, so, i’m eating humble pie. I would’ve bet a lot of money that Dogan was a WWII officer. But he worked in a bank. Could i have been more wrong? He explains that he drank too much, and got into an accident (another car accident?) with his son – who was very badly injured. Someone comes to him and offers him a deal – i’ll save your son, but you can never see him again, in exchange you’ll come to the island and get a new job. This is a very selfless act, perhaps something that would tip your “scale” over into the positive. We find out in a few moments that it was Dogan keeping Fake-Locke out, perhaps Dogan being very far over on the positive side of things kept Fake-Locke at bay, perhaps this is why he didn’t kill Sayid when he had the chance. Perhaps seeing the baseball reminded him of the sacrifice he made, and that he couldn’t risk his alignment by killing Sayid.

Dogan realises that Sayid has made a similar deal with Fake-Locke. It’s worth noting that although he says that the man who visited him with his son was Jacob, we don’t know for sure that it was the Jacob we know. It could have been the man in black. Infact, the man in black could even be called Jacob, he could be Jacobs servant (remember the image we saw on a wall? the smoke and the egyptian god?) – or perhaps the man in black could even BE Jacob, a la Fight Club.

I have to wonder why Sayid throws Dogan in the water. He’s fought Dogan before and lost, why risk a physical struggle with him when you’ve got a big knife? Perhaps he was told to kill Dogan with the water. Perhaps Dogan will come back to life because of it, and the dark water will bring him back wrong, a la Sayid? There’s MUCH more to be revealed about that water, and water in general.

I was sure that Miles would die, i’m glad he didn’t, i like Miles. I also like Frank and Ben, and they’re both acting like they know a lot more now about what’s going on. Maybe Illana filled them in a little during the walk over? Interesting that Illana referred to Ben as Linus. They love surnames. She knows about candidates. She knows his name is crossed off.

Love this scene with Ben and Sayid. I’ve been a big fan of Ben since we first met him – i used to enthuse “he’s the good guy, you’ll see” and i still think we’ll see him do something amazing before the end of the series. I like that he’s genuinely trying to save Sayid here, and it makes me more sure that Illana must have explained what’s going on. He’s really trying to help Sayid, but then when he sees Sayid’s reaction he backs off in fear. He knows Sayid has shifted, gone wrong. But i’m not sure if this is some kind of “claiming” like Dogan said, or if Sayid has just accepted his fate.

Hated the eerie “catch a falling star” playing while Sayid, Clair and Kate walked through the temple. Why is it playing? Is it Claire’s voice? Why did Smokey let Kate survive it?

My real question is why did all the temple others decide to follow Locke? Is it fear? Respect? Or does this go back to what i said before about the non-candidates being easily swayed? I talked before about whats-her-name the air hostess acting like she was never really a normal off-island person.

Fake-Locke’s staring at Kate when she walks out is interesting. Like he’s trying to gauge what she’ll do. Whether she’s one of “them” or not. Remember, her name WAS on the wheel.

Couldn’t help wondering where Sawyer was in this scene. With Jin?

Good episode.