Episode 9: Solitary

Sayid has always been one of my favorite characters and still is. Even though it may not have seemed obvious to Naveen Andrews at first, this British actor was cast as one of the best characters in a television series, maybe ever. I know it’s hard to determine these things especially when comparing one Lost character to another. There are just so many to choose from, but for my money it certainly seems like a jackpot role when you can be as intelligent, resourceful, intimidating, knowledgeable, tough, savvy, kind, understanding, heartfelt and rational as Sayid Jarrah. I am sure there are other superlatives that I am leaving out, but when I first started watching Lost, I joked a few times that the show could have easily been named ‘Everybody Loves Sayid’ – I know I do.

I was glad that they followed the last episode with a Sayid-centric episode because in case you needed it, it gave you that confirmation that Sayid was long from gone as a main character in the series, even though he had just left camp to go out on his own. I knew he wouldn’t be leaving for good, but when I saw him leave I wasn’t 100% sure when we would see him again. Luckily we didn’t have to wait long. 

His flashback scenes were interesting because it gave us a deeper look into the complexity of Sayid’s past. Sayid is an honorable man, but is faced with difficult moral dilemmas in his duties as a member of the Republican Guard. In this particular flashback we see how Sayid was assigned to torture his long time love interest, and eventually chooses his loyalty to his love, rather than to his job. As we have and will see a lot in Lost, losing a loved one tends to be a common theme among many of the main characters. 

Present day on the island, Sayid’s shame and struggle with what he had done to Sawyer not only accentuates his sentiments in his flashbacks, but his departure from the camp led us to another of the islands mysteries. In fact it led us to a few of the islands mysteries all in one, we just didn’t realize it at the time. The cable that Sayid finds partially buried on the beach leads him to get caught in a trap that was set in the jungle, little did we know at the time that if he followed this cable to the ocean instead of into the jungle, it would lead to an underwater DHARMA station called ‘The Looking Glass’.

After Sayid wakes up after being trapped and captured, we find out for certain that it is in fact the woman from the distress signal and has been on the island for all 16 years since she recorded it. Sayid came to the conclusion that she was in fact the woman from the distress call with the help of one particular promotional product that he saw hanging in her shelter. The custom printed promotional jacket that had the name ‘Rousseau’ printed on the back of it helped Sayid to safely assume it was the French woman they heard in the transmission.

We learn a little more about Danielle and how she came to be on the island. She slightly elaborates on her team being ‘sick’ and how she had to kill them all because they were infected. I think it's cool whenever the writers work the word 'Lost' into the script. Especially in this case where Rousseau says that by the time she had to kill the other members of her team, (including her lover) 'they were already Lost'. She claims ‘the others’ infected her camp and that they control the distress signal. This is the first time the ‘others’ are referred to and she is convinced that Sayid is one of them. Though despite her certainty that there are ‘others’ out there, she claims never to have seen any of them, but hears their whispers. Sayid finds this part of her story hard to believe, yet he warns her of the island’s ‘monster’ when they both hear a noise outside of her shelter. She responds by saying that ‘there is no such thing as monsters’.

This exchange of course makes Danielle a very interesting character as well, especially early on when we knew nothing. On the island surviving for 16 years by herself and hasn’t seen a single human or ‘monster’ but yet hears whispers and is certain that ‘others’ are out there.

Part of her belief that there are others out there undoubtedly comes from the fact that she is actively seeking out her child named Alex. When watching for the first time, at this point we know she has lost her child but we don’t yet know how.

But since we have now seen exactly how she loses Alex, doesn’t that make a liar out of her when she claims that she has never seen any of ‘the others’? Unless I am mistaken, I thought she was present when Ben abducted baby Alex.

Some theories suggest that Rousseau went crazy after first arriving on the island and thus her entire story is not exactly accurate. Though this is not exactly a confirmed theory, it makes sense because it also lends credence to the reasoning as to why she did not recognize Jin when she eventually meets with the survivors of flight 815 in 2004. She should recognize Jin because her and her crew found him washed up on the beach in the 80’s unbeknownst to him (and them) that he was skipping through time with the rest of the island after he was flung from the exploding freighter.

I guess you can make sense out of her losing her mind if you put yourself in her situation. Your crew mysteriously ‘comes down’ with something that makes them turn on you, but only after a giant smokey monster pulls them into an underground temple, ripping one of their arms off when all of the sudden the Korean man that was standing next to you has now disappeared. Yeah I’d say she gets a free pass for being a bit confused.

I’d of course be remiss to leave out one of the great feel-good moments of the first season, especially because it involves some of our favorite and most common promotional items! I am speaking of course about promotional golf balls! Were they Oceanic promotional golf balls or perhaps just some golf balls given to one of the passengers as a corporate gift? I’ll have to get back to you on that one, but either way Hurley built a small golf course on the island to relax everyone and take their minds off of the terrible experience they were all having and it actually worked!

Not only were people able to take their minds off of things, but even Sawyer sees and takes his opportunity to open up to the rest of the passengers in the form of a wager, betting that Jack would miss his game-winning putt. Other people start getting in on the bet and the relationship building process between Sawyer and the rest of the passengers is slowly starting to blossom.

Other notes of interest include the introduction of Ethan. I love thinking about how we never really knew that Ethan was so connected to the island until just recently.

And of course the relationship between Locke and Walt grows as Locke agrees to help Walt learn how to throw hunting knives against a tree in the jungle. This relationship has been developing right from the beginning, but it continues to become more intriguing as you realize that both Locke and Walt have a special relationship with the island. Walt may not even realize what his relationship with the island is, but Locke does seem to know or understand that Walt is different in a special way and wants Walt to be able to ‘realize his full potential’.

Michael is not very happy with Locke’s relationship with Walt, but Michael isn’t always the most attentive parent, as is seen in this episode on a few different occasions.

Love the ending, though it is definitely one of those endings that almost forces you to watch the next episode as Sayid is made into a believer about the whispers that Danielle spoke of when he hears them himself after they separated, as he heads back to camp.