User Reviews

'Sundown' was truly an awesome ride from start to finish and an insanely cool turning point in the season.

Everything within this episode was handled so well - the pacing, the plot, the dialogue, the camera work, the music - it all came together, even the flash sideways was very satisfying this week, and opens new doors for future flash sideways.

A lot of the time good pacing is just felt rather than being too obvious. This episode's pacing was a leap up from everything else so far this season; in essence, the creative team cuts right to the chase with each scene rather than wandering off as other episodes have proved to do. A sense of dreaded urgency is present throughout the episode, particularly after Sayid meets 'evil incarnate' and learns of his mission. That scene is positively brilliant, from the sounds of the smoke monster and the image of John Locke appearing before Sayid, to both of their reactions after the stabbing, to the idea that Nadia could be brought back. It's fantastic acting by these two this whole episode.

I also have to add that the fight scene between Sayid and Dogan was damn cool. It was great to see Sayid go up against an even better fighter than he, and I was nearly shouting at the screen to egg him on.

The flash sideways was very good I thought, showing us an alternate relationship with Nadia. Sayid's reasoning that he doesn't deserve Nadia makes perfect sense and only emphasises the tragic nature of his character. In terms of random characters showing up, I'm so glad they chose Keamy, as it completely came from left field and it was great to see him still being the evil type. Jin appearing at the end was interesting more than the usual response I give to other characters cropping up which is, 'Ugh'. I'm keen to see what he's been up to.

Naveen Andrews was fantastic all around this episode. His character is going through two very different arcs on the island and in LA X, and is fun to see. One can only imagine the road he will take after this episode, in particular after killing both Dogan and Lennon in cold blood. Quite the shock.

Lastly, the final sequence of the episode. While Lost usually gives us intrigue, mystery, tension and adventure, this sequence was pure 100% entertainment and I welcomed it with outstretched arms. Although Ilanna & co. appearing out of nowhere was a little weird, it didn't spoil the Man in Black's all-out assault on the Temple, something I'd been anxiously awaiting since the beginning of the season. And if it wasn't enough, the very last scene where Kate, Claire and Sayid are walking through the devastated Temple grounds and outside in slo-mo, with Claire's eerie song over the top was so...I can only say amazing, the whole scene was, even the final shot.

While previous episodes have made me think, "Hm, that was interesting," this episode filled me with genuine awe and reminded me how great Lost can be. I cannot wait until next week!

"Now why did you go and do that?"

In season 4 Sayid had arguably the best flash-forwards, in "The Economist" (I suppose you could also make a case for Ben's in "The Shape Of Things To Come", but those were partly Sayid's as well). Now in season 6, he has arguably the best (so far) "flash-sideways". Why? Because they are the most relevant (or should I say least irrelevant?) to the on-island story: in both periods he faces the dilemma of killing or not, in both periods he has to struggle with the good and the evil parts of his nature (also nice to have Kevin Durand / Keamy, still as smarmy as ever, and Andrea Gabriel / Nadia, more gorgeous than ever, back for a visit). On the island, the action certainly progresses faster than it did in "Lighthouse"; Sayid's encounter with Flocke is one of the highlights of the season so far, and this is another episode where Jacob's nemesis, supposedly "evil incarnate", makes more sense than the ultra-cryptic Jacob, and although he attacks the Temple with intent to kill, he does give a chance to the people inside to come out first (the very same people that Jacob apparently didn't give a damn about, as he demonstrated in "Lighthouse"). Kate finally finds Claire, but she's a lot different than she expected, and by the time Ilana and her group also arrive at the Temple, only Miles is there available for rescue. It's a pretty good episode, but mostly functions as a set-up for what is about to follow. P.S: Kate and Ilana look great in this. *** out of 4.

So, finally we see something significant in 6th season and it is declaration of war of anti-Jacob(we don't know this guy's name, so I can call him anti-Jacob, I guess). Writers still keep us a little bit ignorant of historical events of island, but it's OK, it's fine. To see anti-Jacob recruiting the "templars" is definitely worth it. But Kate's future is still unpredictable, we don't know which side she will choose.

There is one another factor: We don't know who is good, who is bad. Anti-Jacob looks bad, Jacob looks good, but we don't know. This is consistent with Lost, because we are never forced to choose sides, there were always conflicts in earlier seasons: Locke vs Jack, Benjamin vs Jack, castaways vs the others, etc. Writers imply who is good but not mention. For example, Jack always seemed to be a part of good guys but in 5th season, he refused to treat a child. Sawyer seemed to be a little bit smartass and on his own, but he jumped off from the helicopter. So, characterization is still perfect.

I hope, all of my questions will be answered till season finale, because I guess, in the season finale, we are going to choose our sides just like castaways do.

Well I think the episode was entertaining and add an extra pace to the plot which has been slow from episode 2. Personally I liked the slow episodes too.

A lot of complains have been focusing on the so called "alternative reality" flashes and why are they there. Are we sure that these are alternative reality, or should we see it as what happens after the events of season 6. The changes that we are seeing in the stories of the characters are significant from what you would expect if the plane had landed safely in LAX in 2004. And if that's the case I believe that this looks more like a flashfoward of season 6 than a flashsideway.

Just a though

As fans ponder & enjoy the final 15 episodes of LOST, I am annoyed by the writer/creators' cavalier attitude, in the form of the so-called "flash sideways" material (plural to this awkward, made-up term must be "flashes sideways"?). It's a fake, anything goes ploy.

The cumulative power of this series rested with its back stories, presented in copious flashbacks each week. In a feature film the use of flashbacks, or worse yet, narration (and I'm including documentaries here) is always a potential pitfall. In film school you learn to keep this material to an absolute minimum -it's an obvious narrative crutch. An analogy would be Silent Era film-making: the fewer the inter-titles the better (Murnau's THE LAST LAUGH proving the point).

Cuse & co. Got away with this trick for five years, creating a virtually Pavlovian response from the fans, who love watching how their dear protagonists behaved before the plane crash. It kept the show from becoming (as I had jokingly thought just prior to its launch) a dark re-imagining of GILLIGAN'S ISLAND, the way so many childish pleasures (BATMAN, anyone) have been "reimagined" with a currently hip emphasis on the "dark side".

But for Final Season 6, they have substituted this "what if" material: What would happen to our dear characters in 2004 upon safe arrival of Flight 815 in L. A.? This is familiar science fiction territory: the "Worlds of If" approach to parallel worlds and alternate realities. But the writers immediately violate all sci-fi standards of conduct by (in hack fashion, reminiscent of those oh-so-campy later seasons of Irwin Allen's VOYAGE TO THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA series in the '60s, when each cast member would be taken over by some alien force and turned into a monstrous villain each week) foolishly positing an "anything goes" history for the cast. As revealed in the "pop up" annotation captions for week-later repeats, Jack did not have a son, yet we see him getting to know the estranged kid. Ben grew up on the island and was NOT a resident of L. A., yet here he is a stereotypical tight-ass school teacher cutely meeting John Locke in the faculty lounge. More compelling is Sayid's film noir-style family story with bro and lost love sister-in-law in L. A., but it doesn't jibe with his past life either.

The problem is that the "sideways" story of L. A. in 2004 has to follow from what we know about the characters' previous life experience. No series of "meet cute" footage can compensate for invention of NEW past lives for these actors. They might as well turn Jack into Hamlet, Kate into Lady Macbeth and John Locke into King Lear -what's the point of botching up the past just to create an arbitrary, convenient 2004 future? The lamest sci-fi author would not be permitted to change the prior lives, though I'm assuming the LOST hacks are going to use circa 1977 events including Juliet's successful detonating of the bomb to sort of explain to the logic-impaired viewer how EVERYTHING has changed (but how that gets Ben to L. A. to become a teacher makes no sense to me).

Rather, good science fiction is way more subtle and logical, but applies proper limits -you have certain degrees of freedom in characterization & plotting, but you have to keep contrivances to a roar. Best example would be the familiar sci-fi story structure of presenting a normal, current world in which a few things are "off". The reader follows along with great anticipation, and gradually comes to the realization that we are dealing with a parallel universe where the Civil War never happened, causing many changes over the decades leading to now. That is how it is done, and the frisson of discovery is what makes it a fun read. In LOST, the contrivances, interconnections between the characters and completely arbitrary twists & turns are way overdone. Sure, like that old Control Voice on the original THE OUTER LIMITS series used to say "We are in control of everything you see and hear", but the LOST auteurs are out of control.

In the island footage, the gimmick of Smokey (that's what I call him) being trapped in Locke's body except when he goes on a killing rampage in his alter ego as the smoke monster, is nonsensical -just a lame excuse for keeping fan favorite Terry O'Quinn on the payroll. It's just another example of how these "tv gods" in charge of LOST take advantage of the fan's unearned slavish adoration of their product.