James yelled at me for not putting up spoiler alerts, so fine. SPOILER ALERT for last night’s Lost!

I thought this was another strong episode, with one amazing fight scene, a lot of bloodshed, and more of the pieces of the upcoming battle fall into place. Some quick bullet points:

• This flash-sideways seemed different from the others, because in it, Sayid slips back into the negative behavior we knew he was capable of from the original timeline.  Yeah, Kate was still on the run in her story, but she stopped to help Claire, which showed some degree of new niceness.  And yeah, Sayid got all trigger happy to help his family, but he could have let Keamy go.  Whereas Jack and Locke were able to deal with their inner struggles in their sideways stories, Sayid still acted like the man he no longer wished to be.
• Dogen was asking a lot of Sayid, without giving him much in the way of an explanation.  And FLocke was right to question why Sayid would do what Dogen said, despite the fact that he has given Sayid no reason to trust him.  If the Others really are the good guys, and they need help from the 815′ers, they really should take a minute to explain what the hell is going on.
• And Sayid stabbed FLocke pretty quick, but he did get out a quick hello – is that why stabbing him didn’t work?  Or is he invincible?  Jacob died when he was stabbed; do different rules apply to their mortality?
• And how was Dogen able to keep Smokey out of the Temple?  The ash was still there – why couldn’t Claire have just broken the circle?  The Temple needs to be protected by ash AND a samurai?
• I really enjoyed Sayid’s journey in this episode, from a guy who seemed like the Sayid we knew and loved, to a man who was very clearly “infected” or “claimed” or whatever you want to call it.  This new Sayid is most definitely not *our* Sayid.
• Where is Sawyer while all of this is going on?  And Jin?
• FLocke clearly knew that Kate hadn’t chosen to be in his posse – will she decide to leave later?  Is FLocke worried about that?  Or does he have a plan to get her to stay?
• Claire is clearly pissed at Kate, but shouldn’t she also be angry with FLocke?  He told her Aaron was in the temple, and he wasn’t.  Is she just biting her tongue, knowing how powerful he is?  Or is she confident that he will reunite her with her son one way or another?

Despite what Dogen said, I am still unconvinced that FLocke and Jacob are all good or all evil, I definitely think there is more moral ambiguity there, in a sort of “Book of Job” kind of way, where both Jacob and FLocke are using people to make their own point, and the ends completely justify the means.

Oh, and unless I missed it, Sideways Sayid did not look at his reflection in a mirror at any point, although he did see his reflection quickly as he rang the doorbell at his brother and Nadia’s house.  Does that count?  Maybe?