RECAP: Lost (Warning - Spoilers Ahead)

"Uhhh..."

The above statement was my official reaction to this week's Lost. You can quote me on it.

I honestly don't know what to think about this show anymore. It's been through more ups and downs than a pair of saggy jeans, it's had entire seasons that were god-awful and it's followed them up with seasons that were so good my pants got a little tighter every Wednesday night. Or Thursday night, I guess; I'm too poor for cable so I have to catch the episodes online the next day. I want to like this show again, I really do, but I'm afraid it's too late for that. At this point I really just want it to end. I know there's no way in hell they're going to be able to wrap up all of the loose ends they've created in this monstrosity; in fact, they've basically guaranteed they aren't going to, which is pretty infuriating, given the hours of my life that I've sacrificed to this show. Damn you, Lindelof and Cuse!

Anyway, to the recap.

This week's episode was Sayid-centric, which is always a good thing. Sayid has consistently been one of the best characters on the train wreck that this show has become, but although they've been doing a lot with him lately, they haven't really given us anything from his point of view.

In the side-flashes (flash-sideways? Flash-alternate universes? I don't know what to call these things now) we see Sayid arriving at Nadia's house. Nadia is married to Sayid's brother, which made us all look back at the fact that we always thought Sayid was travelling to LA to hook up with Nadia and say "Wait, what?" Sayid's brother, Omar, has borrowed money from a loan shark who is now demanding more money. The loan shark beats up Omar, and his associates bring Sayid to see him...Surprise! It's Martin Keamy, the mercenary from the freighter ship who came to the island looking for Ben! Keamy eats some eggs while trying to act like a badass, until Sayid gets sick of it and kills everyone. He then hears a noise coming from the freezer, and surprise again! It's Jin, tied to a chair and rambling in Korean!

In the present (well, in 2007--Lost's present), we finally see some reaction from Sayid about the shit the Others have been putting him through, as the episode begins with him bursting into Dogen's office. Their meeting quickly becomes one of the more awesome fights we've seen in the last few seasons (although what Sayid fight isn't awesome? Come on, he snapped a dude's neck with his feet! His FEET!!!). The fight doesn't really solve anything, however, as looking at a baseball makes Dogen sad, and he tells Sayid to leave, then quickly changes his mind when Claire shows up. They're really playing up the Claire-is-Rousseau angle, as her hair gets gnarlier every episode. Evil Locke has sent her to get Dogen out to talk to him (read: bring him to be killed), and Dogen decides to send Sayid instead, with instructions to kill Evil Locke before he can get a word out. Surprisingly, Sayid follows Dogen's instructions, stabbing Evil Locke in the chest, with no effect.

Evil Locke explains that Dogen know the dagger wouldn't kill him, and in fact expected Sayid to be killed in the assassination attempt. He then implies that he would be able to reunite Sayid with Nadia, who if you remember was killed by a speeding car when Jacob prevented Sayid from crossing the street with her. Sayid returns to the temple with an ultimatum: any of the Others that do not leave the temple and join Evil Locke by sundown will be killed. Some boring Kate stuff happens that has very little effect on anything, other than revealing to Claire that Kate in fact did take Aaron from the island (I'm really hoping that Claire kills Kate like she said she would, thus ending the 6-season-long borefest that Kate has brought to the island--yes, I know it's unlikely to happen, but a guy can dream, can't he?).

Sayid confronts Dogen again, and Dogen reveals a backstory that no one really asked for: several years ago he killed his son in a drunk-driving accident, and Jacob brought him back to life in exchange for Dogen coming to the island and never returning. The emotional baseball that Dogen keeps fondling apparently belonged to his son, or reminds him of his son, or something; it's never really made clear. In any case, Sayid waits for Dogen to finish his story, then throws him into the pool and drowns him. He kills Lennon (Dogen's translator--yeah, I had to look up his name too) for good measure, but only after Lennon explains that Dogen was the only thing keeping Evil Locke out of the temple. Sayid then sits down to wait, or sulk, or something.

Evil Locke bursts into the temple as the smoke monster and kills everyone who's not a main character. At the same time, Sun, Lapidus, Ilana and Ben show up out of nowhere with no explanation as to how they got there, and rescue Miles. They escape through the same secret passage that Hurley and Jack took last week. Kate, Claire and Sayid are left with Evil Locke and the remaining Others, and Evil Locke leads them dramatically towards the camera as the episode ends.

Overall, I think this has been my favourite episode of the season so far. As I said, Sayid is one of my favourite characters, and I'm interested to see what they're going to do with him now that he's apparently a bad guy. It definitely seems like the writers are dividing the characters into camps of Good and Evil, and it feels like some sort of epic battle is coming.

One final note: I love what they've done with Locke. In my opinion, John Locke has been the absolute worst character on this show since Day One. For five seasons, he didn't do a single thing (other than dying) that didn't piss me off. However, Terry O'Quinn does evil really well, and the writers have finally given him a story arc in which he can shine. He's just as effective as a bad guy as Ben Linus ever was; perhaps even more so, because Evil Locke is a whole lot creepier than Ben ever was. It just remains to be seen whether or not Evil Locke can be as cold and diabolical as Ben has proven himself to be.