Nearly twenty years after the fact, I
still believe one of the masterstrokes of Lost was the character of
Sayid Jarrah. Fatigue over the invasion of Iraq had begun to set in (it was one
of the critical issues behind the 2004 Presidential campaign which was at its
peak when the show premiered) and the writers created a character, who was not
only an Iraqi and a devout Muslim, but a former member of the Republican Guard
whose main duties had been that of a torturer.
By
this point popular culture had already gone all in to portray Islam as the
religion of evil (almost by chance Navid
Nebaghan, who plays Sayid’s commanding office in his flashback would later play
Abu Nazir, the first major villain in the first two seasons of Homeland)
and at this point 24 was in the middle of an eight season run which, for
all its attempts at nuance, would rarely pass on an opportunity to make Islamic
extremists as full villains in this war. (Within a few months, the fourth
season would go to its most elaborate extremes to do so.) In that sense, the
writers did some incredible in creating not only one of the most empathetic
characters in Sayid, but almost certainly the one whose overall storyline would
be the most tragic.
There’s an argument that Solitary is the
most revelatory episode so far in the series. We already know that there is
something strange and dangerous about this island, but in this episode we get
the first real sense that danger might be human as much as is bizarre. And the
writers choose to do so in another masterstroke when they introduce the
character of Danielle Rousseau, the Frenchwoman who left the transmission that
Sayid himself heard at the end of the Pilot.
Much of the brilliance of this episode is
essentially the two-person show we get between Sayid and Rousseau. Very quickly
the writers realize just how much electricity there is between Naveen Andrews
and Mira Furlan and wisely choose to have many of Rousseau’s interactions with
the survivors be done through the two of them. Andrews is one of the best
actors in the ensemble (he received his sole Emmy nomination this year, likely
for this episode), capable of remarkable depths. Most of them we end up seeing
in his flashbacks, but in Solitary we get just as much power from his
interactions with Rousseau. It’s clear from the start how much the two have in
common, most obviously the fact that they have met through attempts at
self-isolation. Danielle has been in her
state for sixteen years; Sayid just for a few days – but as we shall learn
throughout the series, he has spent much of his life standing apart from the
rest.
This is particularly clear in his
flashback which shows him at the full extent of his duties – and in the course
of them, meeting the woman who was the love of his life. In many ways Nadia’s
character is as sad as Sayid’s, though it is never clear how much of her
tragedy is wrapped up in what will be Sayid’s journey. We never learn what led her to go from a
woman of privilege to her position as a potential terrorist (though we never
learn how much of that is actually true) but the universal truth is her love
for Sayid. She is the only person in his entire life who believes the potential
for goodness in him. “Stop pretending to be someone I know you’re not,” she
says at one point, and the great sorrow of Sayid is that he seems to have spent
his entire life up until he got to the island more comfortable with the
illusion. Sayid is capable of compassion and love, but as we will see time and
again, he has always been just capable of turning that feelings off to do
horrible things – we never see him torture Nadia, but its implied and the fact
that he could do this to someone he loves tells you about the two sides of his
nature that will be in conflict throughout the series. He has talked about hope
more than any other character we have met to this point, and based on the
picture that we have seen Nadia is that hope.
Sayid will always be the most honest of
all the characters we meet about who he is and what he has done and he is more
than willing to tell his story to Rousseau. Because of his training, he is no
doubt doing so in order to try and find an advantage to escape, but you also
get a very clear sense that he needs to tell someone about his feelings. He could not have chosen a better person that
Danielle.
Mira Furlan’s work on Lost is one
of the great undervalued performances in the length of the show. We know from
the moment we meet her that she is disturbed, possibly even insane, yet there
will always be something infinitely sad about her that always makes us
sympathize with her. Much of this, I should say, comes from the expressions on
her face over time more than her words: there always seems to be a sense of
loss, which is understandable when we hear what actually happened to her. This
is the first time we get a version of what happened to Rousseau (the story will
fluctuate many times, mostly because of how fragmented her state of mind has
become) and it beats anything we’ve already learned about the Oceanics to
pieces. She was part of a team that crashed her, her team ‘got infected,’ she
killed them all, and her child Alex is gone. And in the midst of this come two
words that are synonymous with the series: the Others.
Our fundamental opinion at this point is
to believe Rousseau is crazy: so many of her actions both now and in the
episodes to come will give evidence of someone who has long since gone mad.
Even Sayid is inclined to dismiss this upfront: “I think you’ve been alone too
long,” he says when she asks if he thinks she’s insane. And it is telling that
Rousseau chooses not to come back to the camp with Sayid and will spend most of
her time on the island avoiding interactions with them, coming when necessary,
leaving just as quickly. For all her loneliness and isolation, the idea of
being part of a group again is just something that she can not handle. Sayid,
however, has accepted it and realizes that he must return to the camp if he is
to help and regain his sense of humanity.
It's worth noting what is going on in the
secondary storyline. Hurley, who has been subtly trying to help Jack and the
rest in the early days, now makes his first direct contribution to the
well-being of the group. When he discovers a set of golf clubs as part of the
wreckage, he decides to build a golf course on the island because he thinks
that the survivors need something fun to do to keep their minds off how
miserable the situation is. Hurley will be as responsible as anyone in the
group for keeping up everybody’s spirits when they are down, and its worth
noting that even this early in the series, no one seems to dismiss his
suggestions the same way everyone will debate anyone else’s.
And the thing is: it works. As Kate notes
when she sees Jack in the middle of this, he’s actually smiling. Jack genuinely
is surprised that trying to do something as light-hearted as holding a golf
tournament makes everyone feel safe. But he’s right. The thing about Jack’s
speech is there has to be a middle ground between living together and dying
alone. Even in the middle of a terrifying island, you have to find a way to
keep going beyond scavenging for food or building showers. When everybody hears
that Jack is playing golf, they actually come to see it not just because Jack’s
their leader, but because he’s doing something fun. One of the last scenes of
the episode basically shows the entire camp betting on whether Jack will sink
his putt. The reluctant Sawyer sees a way that he can bait Jack without seeming
like a complete dick, and when Boone and Shannon start needling each other, its
absent the usual venom. This is one of the few times in the entire series where
we see most of the cast looking genuinely happy. For the briefest of moments,
they’ve forgotten where they are.
And it’s equally telling who’s absent,
aside from Sayid. Before Walt sneaks up on him, Locke is throwing a knife into
a tree. He went hunting with Ethan earlier in the episode, but now he’s
completely alone. At one of the few moments of happiness, Locke is on his own. We
have no idea of knowing it, but this moment is as good a summation of Locke’s
character as we will see on the series.
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