For six seasons, Sayid Jarrah was everybody's favorite tortured torturer turned island sweetheart turned assassin turned child murderer turned zombie. While the ultimate trajectory of Sayid's journey throughout the show can lead a discussion all its own, Naveen Andrews always managed to instantly make better any scene he was in, even during the long gaps in which Sayid had little to nothing to do after the first season. In between all the device building and breakdance neck-breaking and watching all the women he loved die, Sayid was a character audiences couldn't help but root for to find redemption and peace with himself, even as he fluctuated between being the bad man he was capable of being and the good man he was on the inside. At the start of the show's final season, Sayid died, only to come back to life shortly after, apparently "claimed" by darkness (see: The Man in Black). This new Sayid spent his last episodes slowly turning into an emotionless shell of his former self, so much so that he didn't even feel like the same character until late in the season when, after an encounter with Desmond, there's a notable spark in Andrews' performance that suggested the Sayid audiences knew and loved was battling to find his way back. Sayid would go on to sacrifice his life to buy his friends time to escape the trap the Man in Black had lead them into, creating a shocking moment that paved the way for a much deeper emotional set of deaths a few minutes later. Perhaps because the "real" Sayid viewers had gotten to know over the years had been gone for a bit too long, the impact of his death was overshadowed by the events that followed; that said, the loss of one of the show's beloved original characters still hit home and cemented Sayid as a good man willing to die for those he cared about.
Writer, film enthusiast, part-time gamer and watcher of (mostly) good television located on the fringe of Los Angeles, who now has his own website at www.highdefgeoff.com!
