“SunDown” can be summed up in a nutshell. “Smocke” sends The Bouncer to The Temple to deliver The Word and Sayid tells them all: “I don’t care where you go, but you can’t stay here.” Then people started dying. In “The Candidate”, the submarine should have come with a warning sign: “How long can you tread water?”
At what point in time during the course of events do you, as a long time Island dweller, size up the situation and realize that you are thoroughly screwed? Is there a lull in the anxiety like it was with Indiana Jones between the time he swapped out the artifact with a bag of sand and the moment the large rock started rolling down on him? Or is it more of an instantaneous comprehension, like watching that fireball hurtling through the traffic-jammed streets in “Independence Day”? Here are the top five ways to tell that you are absolutely, positively doomed.
5) You’re minding your own business on the beach, looking forward to a seafood dinner, a little coconut milk, and watching the sun set when some crazy French lady waltzes into the camp and scares the crap out of you. Not a necessarily a conventional precursor of "doom", but even Sayid seems a little wary, which kicks the alert status up a notch. But when she points out an ominous pillar of black smoke in the distance and tells you, “The Others are coming,” it just may be time to get the hell out of Dodge.
4) It’s a typical day in DharmaVille: armed school teachers, occasional attacks by Hostiles, a sonic fence to keep the Smoke Monster out and some ageless dude who just walks on in from time to time. In short, just another day in paradise. The fact that there’s toxic gas stored in the Tempest might give one pause, but after living under the constant threat of nuclear annihilation in the outside world, something like that doesn’t even show up on your radar. Then one December day, you notice a little bleeding from your nose and a few spasms. Might be bad potato salad but wait...isn’t it Ben Linus’ birthday? If that’s the first time that particular coincidence has occurred to you...doomed! See you in the mass grave!
3) You’re minding your own business, idly passing the time building a church, carving bible passages into your Jesus Stick, plus part-time work entering numbers and pushing a button. Being gainfully employed, you see no reason for alarm….until that same guy who hired you tries to stop you from doing your job. Maybe that creates a little anxiety, but it isn’t until everything explodes and you get dragged unconscious into a cave by a polar bear that you start to worry that you may be screwed. Then the guy that hired you, and later fired you, comes to your rescue. Sure, your day certainly has improved...but you're still doomed.
An apparition that resembles your dead brother appears. OK, that might not be so bad, at least you two have a chance to talk. But, when he wants you to confess your sins, run away before he lures you into the jungle, turns into a Smoke Monster and…oops, too late. At least you have satisfaction of knowing (as it slams you into trees and the ground in the shape of a cross), “I may be doomed, but I’m getting some hellacious style points”.
2) You’re hanging out in the food court at the Temple when three things occur in rapid succession: a dead guy comes back to life and gets the bum's rush out of town, a crazy, homicidal woman walks in with a message, and the dead guy himself comes back with news and an attitude. Before you even read the memo, if you’re not scurrying around looking for a secret passage out of the area, you’re doomed. If you need more proof, the “Get out of town by sundown,” message is a dead giveaway. And if you’re STILL around by the time they’re lighting the torches, you’re as screwed as an Ewok after dark in Wookietown.
1) If you’re the pilot of a plane in the pilot episode of a potentially long-running series, then slap on a red-shirt and join that away mission because you...are...doomed! And even if you are the last survivor and live long enough to figure out Colonel Mustard did everybody at Hydra Station with a Tiki torch (all on a bet with the Devil, by the way) would you even care by then? So why aren't you running yet?
Writing copyright Jack Lee© 2010.You may not copy or otherwise reproduce any of this material without prior written permission. All rights reserved.
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