6.6 Sundown

Perhaps it's the knowledge that the end is in sight, or perhaps it's a desire to make the final season have some extra import, but it feels like the cast members of Lost have really upped their game this season. With normally tedious characters like Jack and Kate actually sustaining an entire episode's worth of material in an engaging and entertaining way, when the better characters get an episode, it's almost better than ever.

This episode, it was Naveen Andrews' turn to shine as Sayid, a man who has been through the wringer. Arriving at the island with a history as an Iraqi torturer, Sayid has been betrayed, shot, beaten, killed, brought back to life and had no less than two of his girlfriends die on him. It's no wonder he appears to have ended up turning to the dark side. And Andrews' steely-eyed, increasingly soul-less glare made that all the more believable, with the final scene coming across as almost chilling as the audience realises that Kate might be in a lot more trouble than she realises, despite the company of three people she might have once thought friends.

Emilie de Raven, too, also gave another brilliantly sinister turn as the nutcase version of Claire, made all the more terrifying by the way she failed to react when Kate told her the truth about Aaron, despite her earlier, "If you were telling the truth, I'd kill her," claim to Jin.

Still, brilliant acting does not a good story make, and this episode actually turned out to be one of the more eye-popping ones. Usually, we see events this extreme happening once a season, and consider it a rare treat. But five episodes in, we've already scene Smokey get all riled up several times. Add to that the (possible) ‘death' of Sayid as we know him, and the probable death of at least two new characters (although quite how dead you can be when your corpse comes to rest into a magic resurrection pool is debatable) and it's hard to believe things will get even better than this episode - and yet, how could they not at this pace?

One particularly excellent moment occurred mid-massacre, when Ilana and the rest of the 316ies turned up. Aside from the general awesome timing of their arrival, nothing could have better illustrated Sayid's conversion like Ben, a man who spent years manipulating and twisting him, backing slowly away, scared to even turn his back.

Even in the sideways-verse, Sayid proved that maybe he really is destined to go all dark, whatever timeline he's in. As soon as we saw Sayid refuse to ‘sort out' the heavies who were extorting his brother, I think we all knew it was only a matter of time until he went all badass on them. The resultant gunfight easily made up for the rather suburban tone of the rest of the flash-sideways. The silent cameo by Jack was yet another fantastic moment of harking back to the show's early days, and the appearance of Jin was both unexpected and intriguing.

Interestingly, Sayid's timeline is the first that might not be seen as a potential ‘happy ending' for the character. After all, the love of his life is married, not entirely happily, to his brother. But on the other hand, at least she's not dead.

Of course, Smokey promising to give Sayid whatever he desires suggests that Jacob might be able to make a similar intervention, which supports the idea of a ‘happy ending' timeline if the good guys can bring him back. and Sayid's insistence that he doesn't deserve Nadia might suggest why his isn't all that happy. Convoluted? Perhaps. But what good Lost theory isn't?

In any case, another excellent episode in a season composed almost entirely of excellent episodes. I can't wait for more.

Check out our review of episode 5 here.