Broken Frontier

Lost episode 606 “Sundown” is all about Sayid, and his inability to escape the dark path. Sayid has been through all sorts of horrendous stuff this season: nearly dying of a gunshot wound, being drowned to death, miraculously resurrecting, and failing torturous tests. This week your favorite Iraqi interrogator confronts Locke-in-black and he is tempted by the growing darkness inside of him. After watching this episode it becomes clear that Sayid has picked black over white and has joined up with “Team Locke” (as opposed to “Team Jacob”). But Sayid gets major pluses in my book for being the traitorous hand responsible for the destruction of the Temple of bore.

In the flash-parallel, Saiyd is entangled in a romantic triangle. His older brother Omer is married to Nadia, Sayid’s one true love. Even the kids pick up on the tension as mom and “uncle Sayid’s” cast wistful glances at each other. Omer tries to enlist Sayid’s help since he owes money to some nasty bad guys. Big Bro gets skewered, and Sayid is captured by said nasty baddies who are led by Martin Keamy (Widmore’s heartless Merc from season four). Sayid effortlessly vanquishes the loan shark and his gang, and then he finds Jin tied up in a produce fridge.

Back in the Island-timeline Sayid demands answers from Dogen and gets a knife in return. Sayid stabs Locke-in-black, and Locke-in-black tempts him with offers of whatever he wants. Sayid delivers an ultimatum to the Temple’s inhabitants and scares them out of the Temple. And then, having truly gone over to the dark side, Sayid drowns Dogen in the spring and assassinates Lennon soon thereafter. Ben shows up and offers to lead Sayid to saftey, but Sayid is consumed by evil and takes a raincheck. “Team Jacob” (Ilana, Sun, The Lawnmower Man, and now Miles) escape through the secret passageway that Hurley and Jack took earlier in the day, and Sun finds out through Miles that Jin is still alive.

Overall this was a pretty satisfying episode, especially the part where the smoke monster ransacks the Temple. Not much in the way of revealed secrets this episode, but Sayid’s role becomes clearer as he continues his decent into darkness. It will be quite a time seeing how the aftermath of Sayid’s treachery plays out, as the bad guys do seem to be in ascendancy on the Island.