Category Archives: Sayid (Naveen Andrews)

Eye candy

Pin-up worthy pictures of the women and men of LOST.

Mini recap of 5×15 ‘Follow the Leader’

Miles and Jin watching the people get on the submarine

Miles and Jin watching the people get on the submarine

Although the episode title refers to a “leader” in the singular, there are actually two leaders in this episode who set out on parallel treks in different times — Jack in 1977 and Locke in 2007. Each is convinced that he is finally acting out his destiny. And each has Richard Alpert tagging along, as fresh and dewy-looking as ever.

Jack wants to carry out Faraday’s plan to explode the bomb, in order to put things back the way they were. Kate’s not interested. If everything is undone, she will just become a fugitive again, and will never have met Jack. Besides, she thinks, not unreasonably, that it’s irresponsible to go around detonating hydrogen bombs.

Ellie, though, is glad to show Jack where the bomb is. She knows she has just shot her future son and of course would want to see that undone. Not to mention that the bomb is right under the village of her enemies, the Dharma Initiative.

Sayid pops up (I had forgotten about him!) and rescues Kate from being shot by a Hostile. Kate takes the opportunity to head back to Dharmaville, where she is captured and put on the submarine in the impromptu prisoner’s quarters already occupied by Sawyer and Juliet. They were gazing into each other’s eyes and reveling in their sweet Suliet-ness until being rudely interrupted by Kate’s arrival.

Jack, Sayid, and Ellie, accompanied, for some reason, by Alpert, enter some very cool-looking underground tunnels and find the bomb, which apparently was not encased in concrete after all.

Meanwhile, Hurley, Miles, and Jin are in the hills above Dharmaville. Poor guys! Sawyer, who was supposed to lead them to the beach, is on the sub, apparently not caring that he was leaving them behind.

Miles, though, learns something important about his past. He watches his father, Dr. Chang, yelling at his mother, who has baby Miles in her arms, telling her she has to leave. Grown-up Miles understands that his father is yelling not because he is cruel, nor because he wants to get rid of his wife and infant son, but because he knows that yelling is the only way he will get his wife to leave — and save herself and baby Miles. And so the Island, once again, seems to have healed one of its character’s painful lifelong Daddy issues!

Thirty years later, in the Hostile’s camp, John Locke is glowing with alpha male energy. Alpert (who John aptly describes as a kind of adviser who has had that job “for a very, very long time”) and Ben appear submissive, but seem to harbor mutiny in their hearts, as they follow John on a trek to find Jacob, who no one has ever seen before.

Alpert had told Sun that he had seen all the 1977 Losties die. Locke told her that Jacob can bring them back. But Locke told Ben that he really wanted to find Jacob in order to kill him.

There’s a mind-bending scene where Locke tells Alpert that his time-tripping self is going to appear in the jungle with a bullet in his leg (just as we saw him earlier this season). Locke tells Alpert to tell the other Locke that he has to bring everyone back to the Island, and that in order to do that he will have to die.

So Locke’s instructions came from …. future Locke. So it’s all a big circle? Excuse me while my head explodes.

Screencap from Lost-Media, (c) ABC

Is Sayid a Jesus figure?

LOST is filled with Christian symbolism. Locke, for example, appears to be the show’s Jesus figure. Told that he would have to sacrifice himself in order to save his people, Locke died, only to rise again.

In the Sayid-centric episode, 5×10 He’s Our You, Sayid also appears to be a Jesus figure, though the signs may be more subtle than they were with Locke.

"Better put him in restraints"

"Better put him in restraints"

Arms outstretched

Arms outstretched

Twelve people vote to execute Sayid:

Amy and the other Dharma-ites vote to kill Sayid

Amy and the other Dharma-ites vote to execute Sayid

Sawyer is a Judas figure (albeit only temporarily), when he appears to join in on the vote to execute Sayid. Then, when Sawyer offers to help Sayid escape, Sayid turns him down, saying that he has finally found his purpose. Sayid, who had spent much of the episode regretting the killing he had done, seems at that moment to want to die for his sins.

Then, of course, the plot takes a twist, and Sayid reverts back to his old killer self. Or does he? At the time I wrote this post, we don’t yet know if Ben is really dead.

Either way, Sayid’s tenure as a Jesus figure appears to have been temporary. But we shall see.

Credit for many of the ideas in this post, especially the observation that there were 12 people who voted to condemn Sayid, goes to epiclogin’s comment on a reddit discussion thread.

Images (c) ABC, via YouTube and Lostpedia.

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