Season 6, Episode 6:
Sundown
Sayid catches a taxi to a house in the suburbs, knocks on the door and is greeted by Nadia... who is the wife of Omer (Sayid's brother) and mother of his children. Sayid makes a living by translating contracts for an oil company, a job that takes him all over the world, while Omer has just opened the latest in a chain of stores. However, halfway through family dinner, Omer gets a worrying call and leaves. Nadia asks Sayid why he never replied to her letters, but they're interrupted by the children, who've found gifts for them in Sayid's bag as well as a picture of Nadia. Omer watches the scene from afar.
Sayid bursts into Dogen's private chamber, demanding to know what's going on. Dogen says the machine used to "test" Sayid was a scale that shows the balance of good and evil in a person—and Sayid's scale tipped the wrong way. He says it would be better if Sayid were dead, and then tries to do the job himself: after a brutal, knock-down-drag-out fight, Dogen gets a knife to Sayid' throat, only to be distracted when the old baseball on his desk rolls off and lands on the stone floor. After seeing the baseball fall, Dogen changes his mind and tells Sayid to leave and never come back. Outside the circle of ash surrounding the Temple, Claire asks the Man in Black why she is being sent on a particular mission. He says he can't do it himself, and reiterates the promise to return Aaron to Claire. She asks if he'll hurt them, but the Man in Black claims he'll only hurt the ones who won't listen.
Sayid, sleeping on the couch, is woken by his brother. Omer wants Sayid's help: he borrowed money from a loan shark and they're shaking him down for extra, so he wants Sayid to "convince" the loan shark to back off. Sayid doesn't want to hurt anybody, and even when Omer tries to manipulate him using his feelings for Nadia, he says no.
Sayid packs supplies, preparing the leave the Temple, and remarks to Miles on the silliness of the Others trying to kill him, considering they're the ones who saved his life.
Just then, Claire arrives with a message: the Man in Black wants to see Dogen. He refuses, knowing that he'll die if he leaves the Temple's protection, and orders that Claire be put in "the hole". He also demands that Jack and Hurley be brought to his chamber, but Lennon says they're missing. Sayid is about to leave when Dogen asks him not to, saying "things have changed." In his chamber, Dogen gives Sayid a ceremonial dagger and tells him about the Man in Black.
Sayid asks why he would do this: Dogen says it’s a chance to prove he's not evil after all.
Sayid is putting his niece and nephew on the school bus when Nadia tells him that Omer is in the hospital after supposedly being mugged. He wants to go deal with it, but Nadia convinces him to stay at the house and wait for the children instead.
Outside the Temple perimeter, Sayid finds Kate and tells her to return to the Temple and ask Miles if she wants to know what's going on. She does just that and learns that Claire is being held prisoner inside. In the jungle, Sayid stops for a moment and hears the sounds of the Monster. "John Locke" emerges from the trees and Sayid stabs him through the chest, but it has absolutely no effect. He manages to convince Sayid that the knife would never have worked, and Dogen only sent him out so that the Man in Black would kill him. Instead, the Man in Black asks Sayid to do him a favour and deliver a message to the Others.
Nadia returns home from the hospital and finds Sayid repairing a vase. She reveals her knowledge of Omer's loan but again asks Sayid not to get involved. She also asks why he didn't want to be with her and why he pushed her towards Omer instead. Sayid's response is that because of all the terrible things he's done, he feels like he doesn't deserve to be with her.
Sayid returns to the Temple and delivers the Man in Black's message to the Others: Jacob is dead, freeing them of their responsibility, and if they want to leave the Island they should join the Man in Black outside the Temple wall before sundown... but anyone who chooses to stay will die. Inside, Kate forces Lennon to take her to Claire, who has been imprisoned down a deep hole. Claire still believes the Others have Aaron, but Kate admits to taking him off the Island after Claire went missing. In a rage-fuelled haze, she ignores Kate's claims returning to rescue her and reunite Claire with Aaron, telling Kate that "I'm not the one who needs rescuing." As Lennon drags Kate away, saying her time is up, Claire calls out that "he's coming and they can't stop him!" In the courtyard, most of the Others, including Cindy the stewardess and the Tailie children in her care, are packing up and leaving to join the Man in Black rather than risk him showing up and killing them. Miles asks Sayid what they're doing: Sayid draws the dagger and tells Miles that he "has to return this".
Sayid is leaving Omer and Nadia's house when a van pulls up and Omar (of the hakysack-grenade fame) pulls up in a car and asks Sayid to come with him, threatening Nadia's children in the process. Sayid goes with Omar to a restaurant and meets the loan shark: Martin Keamy. He wants Sayid to continue making the payments on Omer's loan, but once he's made it clear that he was responsible for Omer being in the hospital, Sayid snaps into action, killing Omar and the other Mook. He holds the gun on Keamy, who offers to forget the loan, but Sayid shoots him in the chest anyway. As Keamy goes down, Sayid hears someone making noise in the walk-in refrigerator and investigates. Inside, he finds a man gagged and tied to a chair: Jin-Soo Kwon.
Sayid finds Dogen at the Spring, sitting on the steps and holding the baseball from his desk. Morose, and knowing that Sayid let the Man in Black speak to him, Dogen begins to talk.
Sayid grabs Dogen, throws him into the Spring and drowns him in the water. When Lennon sees, he freaks out.
Replying "I know," Sayid uses the dagger to slit Lennon's throat. The sun goes down, and the Others hear noises in the jungle as the Monster approaches. Kate and Miles are about to leave when the Monster bashes down the gates and starts sweeping through the Temple, slaughtering the Others wholesale. While Kate goes after Claire, Miles tries to barricade himself inside a room, only to have the door knocked down... by Ilana, who is there along with Sun, Ben and Lapidus. Miles tells them where to find Sayid, and Ben goes after him. Kate tries to convince Claire to leave, but she insists it's much safer in the hole: moments later, the Monster sweeps through the room and Kate is only saved by climbing down into the hole. Ben finds Sayid, sitting on the steps of the Spring with the bloody knife and acting oddly content. He realizes that Sayid is beyond saving and leaves. Ilana leads Miles, Sun and Lapidus to the secret passage (the same one Jacob showed Hurley) and they escape before the Monster can find them. Sayid and Claire walk unflinchingly through the carnage of the Temple, in slow-motion, as "Catch A Falling Star" plays in the background. Along with Kate, who is confused as all hell, they find the Man in Black (back in the form of Locke) waiting outside the Temple gates along with those who chose to join him, and together they leave the Temple behind.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Ambiguous Syntax: Sayid tells the Man in Black that the only thing he cared about died in his arms. It's not clear if he's referring to Nadia or Shannon.
- Bond One-Liner: Sayid replies to Lennon's angry ranting after he kills him.Lennon: Do you realize what you just did? He was the only thing keeping it out! Idiot! You just let it in!
Sayid: [cuts his throat] I know. - Cool Uncle: Sayid's niece and nephew view him as this in the Flash-sideways, in comparison to their stricter father.
- Dark Reprise: Claire sings a creepy slow version of "Catch a Falling Star", her signature favorite song, when Kate finds her at the Temple. It also plays as Claire, Sayid and Kate walk through the aftermath of the Temple massacre.
- Deal with the Devil:
- Much like any Satanic Archetype villain, the Man in Black is very good at offering people exactly what they want to manipulate them into serving him. He promises Claire that he will reunite her with Aaron, and Sayid that he can bring the love of his life Back from the Dead.
- Dogen informs Sayid that he made one of these with Jacob in his backstory, agreeing to come to the Island and serve him if Jacob saved his son's life after a car crash.
- Face–Heel Turn: Sayid kills Dogen and Lennon and becomes the Man in Black's new Dragon.
- Futureshadowing: In the Flash-sideways, Sayid finds Jin tied up in the kitchen of the restaurant. How he got there will be explained in "The Package".
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: In the Flash-sideways, Sayid has pushed Omer and Nadia together, believing that he does not deserve to be with her and wanting her to have the life she deserves.Nadia: Why didn't you want to be with me? You carry my picture around with you, Sayid. If you care about me, why did you push me toward your brother?
Sayid: For the last twelve years I've been trying to wash my hands of all the horrible things I've done. I can't be with you, because I don't deserve you. - Join or Die: The Man in Black, through Sayid, offers a deal to the Others at the Temple: join him in his mission to leave the Island by sundown, or refuse and die. Many, including Cindy, Zach and Emma, choose to join him, and the rest are massacred.
- Missed Him by That Much: Sun arrives at the Temple, only to find that Jin just left the day before.
- Mistreatment-Induced Betrayal: After Dogen tells him he is evil, banishes him and tries to have him killed three times, Sayid finally snaps and kills him.
- More than Mind Control: The Man in Black's control of Claire and Sayid is aided by both "the Sickness" and his own skillful manipulations, as he offers them their heart's deepest desires in exchange for serving him.
- No-Sell: The Man in Black reacts to being stabbed in the chest by Sayid with nothing more than mild confusion, before casually pulling the knife out of his chest.The Man in Black: Now why'd you go and do that?
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here: Ben wisely runs away when he finds Sayid and sees him holding a bloody dagger with a creepy Slasher Smile on his face.
- Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: Sayid's Face–Heel Turn is as much motivated by Dogen treating him as irredeemably evil and trying to kill him multiple times as it is by any "Sickness".
- Slasher Smile: Sayid just sits there with a very unnerving grin on his face after killing Dogen and Lennon. Ben immediately runs away when he sees him.
- Straight for the Commander: The magical protection preventing the Man in Black from entering the Temple is only active while Dogen, their leader, is alive, so he has Sayid kill him first, allowing him to enter and massacre everyone else inside.
- Then Let Me Be Evil: Just as he did when he shot Ben, Sayid decides that if everyone at the Temple is going to treat him as Beyond Redemption, he may as well embrace it, killing Dogen and Lennon and joining the Man in Black.
- Too Dumb to Live: Lennon, after discovering that Sayid killed Dogen, sticks around to yell at him and call him an idiot instead of fleeing. Unsurprisingly, Sayid kills him too.
- Uriah Gambit: Dogen attempts to have Sayid killed by sending him on an impossible mission to kill the Man in Black, in the hope that the Man in Black would kill him for trying. It doesn't work, as the Man in Black decides to turn Sayid to his side instead.
