Ian Rogers, The "Lost" Boy — Smoke If You Got ‘Em

This final season of “Lost” is fast become the season of the Smoke Monster. He reared his smoggy head again last night in what was, for me, one of the most unsettling endings of any episode so far. It had a definite horror movie vibe as we watched Sayid, fresh from killing Dogen and Lennon, walking across the body-strewn Temple to meet up with Claire and then join the Locke/the Man in Black and the Others who have now sided with him.

At first I thought those Others reacted a bit too quickly in joining him, but then again, if the reason they came to the island in the first place was Jacob, and Jacob is now dead, then they really have no reason to stick around. The ambience is nice, but if the Man in Black is going to kill everyone, then that beachfront property isn’t going to be worth much. Why the Others would trust the Man in Black to deliver good on his word to take them off the island is anyone’s guess, but maybe they’re just confused and desperate.

That in turn leads to the question of why the Man in Black wants to kill everyone anyway. In “LA X” we found out what the Man in Black/Smoke Monster actually wants: to go home. In order to do this, it seems he had to kill Jacob. Why? We don’t know yet. But now that Jacob is gone, what is stopping him from leaving? Does he have to get rid of everyone else on the island, too? Including the Candidates? I think this may be so. And while I think he has no problem with killing the Others, the “rules” seem to preclude him from harming the Candidates. His strategy for dealing with them seems to be getting them to forfeit their Candidacy and join him in leaving the island. Sawyer’s already on board, and it seems like Sayid is on his side now, as well.

“Sundown” was Sayid’s episode, and in his flash-sideways we got to see what his life would have been like if he hadn’t ended up on the island. For one, he’s not with Nadia, but instead has pushed her into the arms of his brother, because, in his own words, he doesn’t deserve her. Sayid has been spending the last twelve years doing two things: trying to make up for the things he did as a soldier in the Republican Guard and… working as a translator for an oil company. Sorry, Sayid, I’m not buying it. I think we’re going to find out pretty soon that he’s doing something a bit more interesting. You know, something with guns.

I can’t help but wonder if Sayid’s dying and coming back to life, with no help from the Temple’s magic hot tub, hasn’t negated his role as a Candidate. When Jacob appeared to Hurley in the season premiere, he seemed pretty adamant that Sayid be saved, and I think the Losties were too late. Maybe the “sickness” with which Sayid is allegedly infected is merely the Man in Black’s growing influence over him. In much the same way Rousseau’s science team was infected when they went chasing after the Smoke Monster beneath the Temple wall. All I know for certain is that my wife is going to be very upset if Sayid ends up turning into a full-on baddie. On the plus side, maybe I’ll stop having to listen to how dreamy he is. Yeah, dreamy and EVIL!