Each week, after taking a couple days to digest the episode and read what the blogs are says, we’re going to have a TUIW Conversation about Lost to try and unpack the episode, bounce theories off each other, and see if we can’t figure out what’s going on with our favorite group of TV castaways (sorry Gilligan!)
Jonah: I came into work on Wednesday and my boss told me that “Sundown” single-handedly kept her from tuning out of Lost entirely, so pleased was she with the big action and Sayid-centric plot movement. Another friend of mine said more or less the same thing, but I’m honestly still not seeing it. “Sundown” had a couple killer action setpieces (the Sayid-Dogen fight was one of the most exciting in Lost history) and a dark, dark ending, but I just wasn’t as engaged by this episode, mainly because I found it lacking in any sort of an emotional spine (Sayid’s conflicted killer plotline was the same thing they’ve been doing with him forever). In a way, this kind of reminded me of “There’s No Place Like Home,” another straightforward plot and action episode that was a little rushed and overstuffed. Lost works a little better for me as a slower, more human show than “Sundown,” but it also feels weird to critique an episode that’s so necessary for moving the plot forward. Am I being too hard on what was a relatively enjoyable, if minor, episode? Or do you share some of my frustrations?
Michael: Well I think you raise a good point about it being an episode setting up what happens next, but I think there’s some bigger things going on outside of Smokey’s attack on the Temple. Most notably, we got our first flashsideways where there hasn’t been a redemption for a character. So far, Kate does good by helping Claire, Jack and his son reconcile, Hurley is lucky, and Locke has accepted his disability and is with Helen. So why was Sayid’s flashsideways so depressing? Does it have anything to do with his being claimed by Smokey? Could this be the direction we’re heading with these flashsideways? We also got to learn a bit more about the nature of Smokey and his power of persuasion and the fact that he can’t be killed once he talks. I think the most overlooked aspect of the episode though was Dogen. He revealed his backstory (he got in a drinking related accident and Jacob saved his son in return for him coming to the Island and never seeing that son again), and then he was killed, almost immediately after. Lennon too was killed, but not before revealing that Dogen was the only thing keeping Smokey out. But what about the ash line? What do you make of this? Based on what little we know, what will Dogen’s absence mean for the unclaimed Candidates?
J: I was a little puzzled by the ash line/Dogen stuff too. We’ve seen ash stop Smokey before, and we saw them drawing an ashline around the Temple so…what happened? Does Dogen give it its power? Is there something else going on here? I too was moved by Dogen’s backstory (which I thought was better handled than a similar scene from around this time last year, when Charlotte told her whole backstory before dying), which was made all the more powerful by the brief glimpse of Dogen and his son in “Lighthouse.” I’ll come back to Dogen, but I’m pretty interested in your ideas about AlternaSayid’s lack of redemption tying into him being claimed. Its an interesting idea; I also liked Doc Jensen’s suggestion that we could be seeing the results of Sayid’s deal with the proverbial devil. He gets to see Nadia again, but he’s not the one who gets to be with her. It also seemed like the flashsideways had the most direct cliffhanger of any of them so far, which gives me hope that maybe we’re going to move past the repetitive structure of those so far and get into some actual storytelling. As for Dogen, I think his story calls into further question just how benevolent Jacob is, given the nature of the choice he offered Dogen. With him gone, it seems like things are looking pretty dire for Team Jacob; of the ones left, only Ilana and Richard seem to have any idea what’s going on. So, where do you think we’re going from here? Will what’s left of Team Jacob find Jack and Hurley? And is there any Candidate who doesn’t desperately want to join up with Smokey?
M: I think Jack and Hurley are going to eventually find the rest of Team Jacob, but I don’t know if I see that happening right away. Those two seemed perhaps destined for a different take on this war than Illana, Frank, or Sun. Sun and Jin came one step closer to reuniting which will be fantastic, the question is just under what circumstances? A lot of people noted that Sawyer was no where to be seen when Claire and Sayid joined Smokey at the end, but where was Jin? When we last saw him, he was telling Crazy Claire he’d take her to the Temple. Was he claimed by Smokey too? Will Sun and Jin be on opposite sides of the war? I think that’s an unanswerable question at the moment, so instead I’m going to ask you about Kate. She told Claire about Aaron (a mistake she had no way of knowing she was making), and was seen confusedly following Team Smokey out of the Temple. What confused me was that it didn’t bother her to see the Locke (or his body rather), when she still thought he was dead. Notice however that she was wearing lighter colors than anyone else out there. But what’s going to happen to Kate? Is she the next to be claimed or is she merely trying to enter phase two of her plan to reunite Claire and Aaron? Have we lost another candidate?
J: Well, my theory about claiming is that it has to do with people who recently died. Claire started acting weird after she was inside a building that blew up, she could well have died and then been claimed. Sayid was shot and killed (Miles confirmed that Sayid was totally dead for two hours) before coming back. Presumably that’s what happened to the French team, who started acting weird after disappearing into Smokey’s lair, and maybe that’s what Christian Shepard’s deal is (remember, Claire said she had been talking to both her dad and her friend). As for Kate, she did seem slightly puzzled to see Locke, but I imagine the show is having a hard time continually dramatizing people running into Locke after thinking he had died. She seems to be in a whole lot of danger, between being near Claire (this is the second time this season a character has vowed to kill one of our leads, shades of Smokey/Jacob?) and hanging with Smokey, but we’ll see. I know she doesn’t care much about protecting the island, but she doesn’t seem like she’d be that into Smokey’s kill-everything attitude. I don’t know where Sawyer and Jin are, but I imagine Smokey figured they wouldn’t be on board with his kill-a-lot-of-people plan, especially when that plan could have potentially included killing Miles, Kate, and Sun. Do you think this episode, more than any others, has drawn the battle lines and made the sides clear? And, if so, doesn’t it look like Team Jacob is dramatically outnumbered? And I didn’t get around to addressing this earlier, so what do you make of the initial Smokey/Sayid exchange? Does Smokey have some kind of persuasive power? Is he simply able yet another master manipulator/con artist? And why does he have to be stabbed before you hear him say anything for said stabbing to work?
M: It sounds like Smokey’s persuasive powers of speech are tied to his inability to be killed. Smokey said hello to Sayid before he tried to stab him, so it seems like once he talks to you, you’re hooked. As far as Team Jacob is concerned, yes, they are vastly out numbered, but they seem to have more mystical power on their side than Team Smokey. Team Jacob has Hurley, who is talking to Dead Jacob, Miles, who can heard dead people, Richard, who will assuredly return and still can’t age, and Illana, who seems to have gotten a final set of instructions from Jacob. So while they’re smaller, they have some power. Next week, we were told in promos, would be about Ben meeting his possible demise, which intrigues me the most. Ben hasn’t been around too much past “LA X,” so I’ll be supremely interested to see what’s going on in the life of our most morally ambiguous character. Any parting thoughts for us?
J: That promo definitely made me worry for Ben’s safety (and my sanity) but I’m anxious to see more AlternaBen. Either way, it would certainly be ironic if Ben’s story ends with him dying as a manipulated pawn in a larger struggle too big for him too comprehend, not unlike his nemesis John Locke. Either way, it should be intense. Until next week!
Michael
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