LOST - SUNDOWN

Loved:

• Sayid and Nadia.  Throughout the series, Sayid is portrayed as a man who has done incredible evil in his entire life.  He was interrogator for the Republican Guard, he became an assassin for Ben.  He wants to be a good man, but like Locke and Jack, he’s a man trapped by his flaws and his past.  Sayid knows who he is, and realizes he can’t change.  Of all the characters, he may be the most tragic.  His desperate attempts to become a better person, to find happiness in his life, are always ruined by circumstances that turn him back into the man he’s always been.  Even in the Alternate Universe, where Sayid stays in constant touch with Nadia, but she’s married to his brother Omar who has horrible business sense and needs Sayid to clean up his mess.
• Sayid becomes himself.  In the beginning of the episode, Dogen tells him they put him in the torture device because it is a scale that measures good and evil, and Sayid fell on the wrong side.  But Sayid may have never been on the right side.  Every one of his friends seems freaked out that he’s come back from the dead, but unlike Claire, there isn’t any discernable change to his character.  When he kills Dogen and his glasses wearing lackey, it’s no different from when he killed Keamy (Widmore’s mercenary in season 4 who ends up being the gangster shaking down Omar).  When Sayid is threatened, he reacts the same way each time.  By the end of the episode, he’s the same broken man who can never find the other end of the scale, in either reality.
• Smoke Locke conquers.  If the workings of the Island is a game between the Smoke Monster and Jacob, then right now Smokey is running up the score.  The Temple Massacre was the Lost equivalent of Lance Armstrong drinking champagne while riding the final lap at the Tour de France.  Smoke Monster has taken over Locke’s body, boasts an All-Star lineup of Con Artist Sawyer and Crazy Badass Claire on his side, and he manages to convince the LeBron James of Island-killing, Sayid, into joining him.  Meanwhile, Jacob has Fat Comic Relief Hurley and Douchebag Jack on his team.  Good luck Jacob.
• The Temple Massacre.  Although the only important characters who died were people who have only been in the cast this season, while the Smoke Monster was on his rampage, it felt like every character was in danger.  Lost is finally at the place where it has always worked.  In any show that has the Survivor-mentality, where much of the action surrounds people dying, the drama becomes greater when it feels like anyone could get killed.  Now that the show is seeing its end, every character could meet their end.
• Kate’s reaction.  Kate’s stories aren’t always great, but she is a vital character because when she’s not trying to rope Jack and Sawyer into an Island-three way.  The look on her face as she watched Sayid and Claire join Smoke Locke was priceless.
• R.I.P. Dogen.  Maybe the next Others leader will realize it’s best to answer questions as completely as possible instead of speaking in half-truths in order to manipulate their captives.
• Catch a Falling Star.  Claire singing her lullabye to Aaron while showcasing the Temple destroyed in the wake of the Smoke Monster was the best end-of-show montage ever.  It wouldn’t have made any sense, but I was hoping to see a shot of Hurley sitting on the beach and listening to his headphones, just like old times.

Hated:

• Not much Ben.  He will inevitably get his own showcase episode, but it seems wrong that the best character over the past four seasons isn’t getting a lot of screen time in the final one.  That may just be the product of realizing the number of episodes left can be counted on two hands.
• Jin locked up.  It’s nitpicking and wouldn’t have made sense within the context of Sayid’s story, but as soon Sayid rescued Jin from Keamy’s refrigerator, I immediately wanted to find out what happened next and why he was in there.  We need to get an episode of the Kwons soon.