5.10 He’s Our You

Well, it was an episode that somewhat clumsily moved along story lines, gave us a lot of insight into the true nature of Dharma, and a somewhat surprising ending. But let’s address a few things right off the bat. Last week, there seemed to be a hot internet rumor about a woman in the background behind Sun while she and Frank were in the darkened, abandoned cabin with Christian. I didn’t think that was important enough to mention, and this week, it was confirmed that it was a crew member that accidentally didn’t get edited out of a shot. So, no, Claire was not there with Christian. Secondly, it is fairly established now, based on the last few episodes, that the future has changed, dramatically, because of the actions happening in the past, by the time traveling folks. Whatever happened, happens is bullsh!t. Yeah, the first few episodes that Daniel preached that simplistic crap, I believed it. Not anymore. No way. We need to identify more of these game changing moments as they happen during our journey of watching this show. We know the future has changed, which is why we have some characters in the future, and some in the past; this is to gauge and observe the extremity of it. The question isn’t has it changed, but rather, can it be changed back to the way it was. Ben knew as soon as Alex died that the rules were out the window. If this is Groundhog Day, a Loop of time with these same characters, based on time travel, and the goal is the get to the point where Oceanic 815 crashes on the island again, it has to come through Desmond. He is the only one special enough to be a game changer. Ben and Locke are special in their own way, but Desmond is the cavalry. Lost will have an ending in Season 6, most likely looping back to Jack waking up in the jungle as Oceanic 815 burns on the beach. Would you be satisfied with that ending? I think I would be. At this point, I think we have seen, and are seeing two parallel alternate timelines. A branch in the road if you will. Will they join up at a later point in time is the question?

Sayid is the key character in this episode, as we see him at an early age slaughter a chicken. And not for himself, but for his brother/friend. But this scene stirred up echoes of Mr Eko and Yemi, and how Eko killed a man for Yemi, a sacrifice, when one of them had to. Now, a chicken is a popular animal in sacrifices, all around the world. The symbolism was too great to ignore. Sayid, much like Mr Eko, will be tested by the island. The island wants to know if Sayid is sorry for his sins, being a ruthless killer. All through out the episode, we see Sayid as a thoughtless killer, trying to become reformed, only to go back to being a torturer or killer again and again and again. Sayid is certainly headed for a fate much like Mr Eko. A fight against our fuzzy little smoke monster pal. Sayid just needs to see a hallucination, maybe Nadia or Shannon, and then get beaten to death. I’m not skipping ahead necessarily, but Sayid is a dead man with no soul and no apologies. So Ben brings Sayid a chicken salad sandwich, ironically enough., and a book. A Separate Reality, a supposedly non-fictional book by Carlos Casteneda. The author was an apprentice to several shamans, took great quantities of mind altering drugs such as peyote, and tried to see the universe as energy flowing throughout. I have a feeling the book title is more crucial, as a separate reality is certainly a reference to the chain reaction changes happening in the LOST universe. But certainly, a point can be made that Ben, young and old, is trying to make Sayid see a large truth about himself, and once Sayid realizes, finally realizes that he is a heartless killer, he will be at peace with his work and be malleable to be used as a mindless tool, a golem. Ben read the book twice. Hmmm. Does this mean the two realities, or that he lived through the time loop twice. Very curious. Young Ben tells Sayid about meeting Richard several years earlier, and that they both need to be patient.

Sayid politely declines a bribe by pumping several bullets into some nameless goon in Moscow. But as he meets up with Ben, he is summarily dismissed. You’re all done, Sayid. But I killed these people for you. This is where is gets really pathetic. Sayid is like some vicious animal that needs to be told to attack. When he starts to think for himself, things get really weird. While Ben was guiding him, he was a well oiled killing machine. Now, his master has whacked him with a rolled up newspaper and told him to get a life. Sayid doesn’t regret killing; he is upset that he is rejected by his master, like a pit bull living at Michael Vick‘s house. You could just see that puppy dog look as he says “What do I do now?” Well, for starters, you have a couple hundred million from the Oceanic crash settlement. Why don’t you go out and get a hooker and some heroin. Live it up a little. Nope, he goes and starts building houses in the Dominican Republic. Yawn.
Horace foreshadows torture by telling Sayid to hold out his hands before removing his cuffs. Sayid still won’t blab. Radzinsky is obsesses with the Swan model, the kind of obsession needed to push buttons over and over again, like he will in the future.
Juliet is burning bacon. With a point blank question, Juliet asks James “It’s over, isn’t it? Us? Playing house?” Sayid insists that nothing has changed. So let me break it to you, dear. Yes, it’s over. The Incompetent Oceanic 6 have returned, and they are screwing everything up. Kate will get Sawyer back. Locke stopped the time jumps on his own. Turns out the O6 didn’t have to return, as far as I can tell at this point. There better be some good reason for it in the future, because I’m tired on their little cute scenes. Sawyer tries to give Sayid a story to get himself out of trouble, but Sayid would rather be on his own. The most interesting part of that scene was Sayid’s first comment was addressing the fact that they were living with Ben, and how could they do that? Nothing about getting out, or what the plan is, or what year it is, but clearly we see evidence of Sayid being obsessed with Ben. When Sayid is laying on his bunk, and closes his eyes at night, the only thing going through his mind is…
“Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben. Ben.”
Chef Hurley serves Jack and Kate breakfast. He breaks the news to Kate about Juliet and Sawyer being together. Kate’s expression hasn’t changed since she came back to the island; her face is stuck in perpetual indifference. She might be the worst actress in modern TV history. That’s an impressive feat considering all the female characters on The Cosby Show, Shelly Long and Kirsten Alley from Cheers, and the entire cast of Sex and the City. Yuck. I want nothing more than to take a shower right now. I feel so unclean.
Ben’s father is mopping the floor, trying to trade witty barbs with Sayid. Ben walks in and tries a feeble attempt at a lie. I made you a sandwich, dad. Mr Linus got pissed, and yelled at Ben, that he never made him a god dam sandwich in his life. Yeah, we get it. We are supposed to feel bad for Ben because he has an “abusive” father. Guess what? I felt bad for Mr Linus. Imagine that your wife dies giving birth to an ugly, creepy kid. You uproot your life to move to this island to give your child a better life, and this ungrateful sack of suck won’t even make you a sandwich after a hard day of being a custodian. Are you kidding? If I were Ben’s father, I would not hesitate in giving him a beating. And how does this colostomy bag of a kid repay me for all that I did for him? He gasses me to death years later. Whaaaaaa, whaaaaa, whaaaaa, daddy forget me birthday again. You douchey sissy. Daddy didn’t love me. Well, maybe was an alcoholic because he had such a creepy kid. Do you think Mrs Cartman has issues as well being the mother to Eric Cartman? I so badly wanted to reach through the screen and punch Ben myself. Good for you Mr Linus, and in tossing the sandwich on the floor that you just mopped. That’ll teach somebody a lesson. Who, I have no idea. What kind of monster doesn’t make a meal for his parent?
Ben visits Sayid in Santo Domingo. I was expecting him to have a hoagie to give to Sayid. I believe Locke was murdered. No kidding? I wonder who did it? I guess Locke must have asked for a Monte Cristo and somebody needed to teach him a lesson. Ben plants a bunch of seeds in Sayid’s head. Ben is a very skilled killer, as he certainly showed by knocking off Abaddon. But he asks Sayid to kill the guy outside Hurley’s mental institution. He needs Sayid on that plane, and he knows that Sayid is very protective of Hurley. This is the only way he can get Sayid to continue to do what Ben wants and to come back to Los Angeles. So, Sayid did exactly that. Of course, then Ben turns around, and hires Ilana to capture Sayid, and take him on the Ajira flight. It’s the typical Ben move, like how he hired those lawyers to position Kate into returning. “It’s what you are. You’re a killer.” Always planting seeds.
Sawyer tasers Sayid, bringing up memories of how the Others used most likely these same tasers to subdue the Losties during the first couple of seasons. We head out to the outskirts of Dharma nation to meet Oldham, a recluse living in a tent. Hey, it’s Larry, without Darryl and Darryl. He’s our you, giving us the reason for the title of this episode. It seemed odd that Sayid didn’t attempt to break away from Phil and Radzinsky as they were securing him to the tree. I believe that Sayid did not want to escape until he fulfilled his perceived upcoming destiny. Sayid is drugged so that he can tell the truth. He positions himself inches away from Oldham in a classic stare down. Meh. I’ve seen meaner scowls from Bobby Flay on his Throwdown shows.

Back at the pier near Los Angeles, Sayid swears unpleasantness upon Ben if he ever meets him again. He proceeds to a bar and is pounding down McCutcheons by the snootful. We remember this liquor as what Charles Widmore was drinking when he told a proposing Desmond that he wasn’t worth a sip of that drink. Years later, Hurley and Charlie got Desmond drunk on the beat on McCutcheons in order to get Desmond to confess what was wrong - that Charlie was going to die. Ilana shows up, sweet talks Sayid, obviously looking to pick him up for some sinister reason. ‘Ole Sayid’s spidey sense wasn’t tingling, I suppose.
The confessions of Sayid come pouring out
I am a bad man
I am not a Hostile.
I came on a plane.
I returned to this island.
I was previously here 100 days then left
I arrived originally on Oceanic 815
Ask Sawyer, but Radzinsky interrupted that nugget with his Swan obsession.
The Pearl, Flame, and Swan identities
I’m from the future
then the giggling starts by Sayid. Horace at times seemed to look like he believed some of what Sayid was saying. The others were morons, that didn’t believe what they were hearing. Why would you doubt Sayid’s story without investigating it? And the first thing out of Sayid’s mouth was I am a bad man. Talk about no self esteem. The guy is so ready to die.
We see an awkward conversation between Juliet and Kate, where the essence is that Juliet wants Kate to stay away from Sawyer. Unfortunately, we know that won’t happen.
The Dharma elders debate the fate of Sayid, and these so called hippies are demanding blood. These people sicken me. They aren’t harmless scientists, preaching Namaste. They want to kill Sayid in cold blood for no apparent crime other than trespassing. And it’s unanimous. Wow. These people suck. I don’t feel any pity at all for the purge. I hope it still happens. You are building hatches on a special island where you feel time travel is possible. You have a man in your presence that claims he is from the future. So you decide to kill him, like a dimwitted villager with torches and pitchforks chasing Frankenstein’s monster. Even Amy twists Horace’s gonads and with her best Rev Lovejoy’s wife “What about the children? Won’t someone please think of the children?” Amy is pretty much useless.

Sayid gets jumped by Ilana in a hotel room. Turns out she is a bounty hunter, and not as careless and stupid as the broad in The Economist that let Sayid get the best of her. She declares Sayid will answer for what he has done. True, but not by you, the people who hired you (most likely Ben), or the law. Nope. The island will be the judge and jury and executioner. Sawyer yet again tries to talk sense into Sayid, but nothing doing. Sayid is at peace with himself, talking about destiny, and now knowing why he is back on the island. Huffy Sawyer, watching his world crumble, his iron grip control being shaken, marches over to Kate’s house to demand answers. Why did you come back? Kate gives a roundabout response, but before she give an answer along the lines of “I came back to make sure you weren’t having a happy life, but if you were I would take the time to ruin it….” a flaming bus crashed down a hill and plows into a house, which is the equivalent of having Kate in your life. It’s too bad Frank wasn’t steering it as it would have glided to a stop in the flowerbed instead. LaFleur is barking orders, getting his Abott and Costello fire brigade up and running. This was memorable because Jack actually had a second line in this episode “What do you want me to do?” or something like that. Oh, Jack, how far you have fallen. Good times, good times. Ben sneaks back into the holding cells. Ah, the little creep was the one that caused the fire. Clearly, it couldn’t have been Kate or Saywer, who were talking to each other, and Jack was close by. The only suspects at that point had to be Hurley or Little Ben. I wonder how the cameras will reveal this in upcoming episodes. Clearly Ben is caught on camera, hoodie or not, as the person who released Sayid. It had to be a child, based on Ben’s height. But do the camera’s record? I don’t know, but you would think so. The upcoming scandal will be why did Ben release the prisoner? Ah, that poor Mr Linus. He will catch grief for that as well. Sure, Ben showed up to free Sayid with broken glasses. But look at how Ben is behaving. Setting a van on fire to drive into an occupied house to release a dangerous prisoner. Parents, do you think a timeout would have resolved Ben’s issues. If you think so, please go suffocate your children with a pillow right now. If you are unfamiliar with the technique, just fast forward to the end of One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. I’ll wait. …….All done. Good. Because I don’t want any more Bens running around this planet. And don’t give me that medication crap. It stiffles creativity. Drugs and kids don’t mix. Just like Hurley and Atkins, it just doesn‘t mix. Stupid Ben says “I hate it here”. Notice, he didn’t say I hate HIM. He hates it HERE. So, even Ben realizes what a rotten son he has been and doesn’t blame his father for trying to straighten him out. I hate it HERE. And what’s to like about living in a paradise location? Hell, he could be living it up in Portland Oregon, or Salt Lake City, or some other God forsaken place. At this point, throw the whole Linus family into a wood chipper and let’s be done with it. They suck in 1977, every last one of them. Sayid tells Ben he will take him to the Hostiles. It is his destiny. Um, NO. How is it your destiny to walk this kid to a group of people that have never met you, years before Ben was supposed to lead the purge? Sayid is going to fock up the Other’s plans just like that. I wasn’t buying it for a second. I figured that Sayid would make it out into the jungle, then run away from Ben, leaving him behind.

Sayid notices all the Oceanic 6 in the airport and doesn’t want to get on the plane. No dice. Ilana insists. Sayid asks Ilana if she is working for Ben. She says don’t be silly. Um, reality check is that she is. Little Ben and Sayid are running through the jungle. As they get off the road, a van stops, and Jin emerges. Sayid tells Jin that Sawyer let him out, a crucial bit of dialogue, no doubt, for future reference. As Jin calls in to Lafleur, Sayid knocks him out and pulls out his gun. “You were right, I am a killer.” Little Ben is completely baffled, since he has never told this to Sayid, yet. Nevertheless, Sayid shoots Little Ben through the heart. THE HEART. Ben is dead. And make no mistake, BEN IS DEAD. If you are thinking that the island will heal him, you are ignoring the spinal tumor that he got, how he is laying in a cot in the present, beaten into a bloody mess. No, the island stopped healing Ben a long time ago. The only way, only way Ben lives is if the island needs him in the future. But the island had the Jungle folks and Losties time jumping for a reason, to fix the past. This was it, a game changer. The island could have left Sayid in the present. But it sent him to the past to kill Ben. Christian told Locke that listening to Ben never got him anywhere. Ben is out. But can Ben still be alive in the future? Depends on which time line you look at. The one where he lived until he purged Dharma, and is on Hydra island. Or the alternate reality, where he is now dead. I get the feeling Desmond can unite the two alternate timelines. When Locke was shot, it was through the spot were his kidney was surgically removed. Even he said he would have died if that kidney was still there. Naomi recovered from a punctured lung, but she still was breathing. A direct shot into the heart is life ending. Ben is dead. In THIS timeline.

The writers set out to make the viewer feel certain ways during this episode.
Ben more sympathetic as an abused child.
Ben’s father is an abusive assh0le.
Sayid is an unemotional killer.

I consider those agenda items as mixed results. Obviously, I felt zero sympathy to Ben’s “abuse”. Give me a break. I got roughed up by my parents, teachers, other kids quite a bit. That’s called learning life lessons. Makes you a better person. The fact is that Ben didn’t learn anything but how to act like a crybaby that vowed revenge for nobody taking his whining seriously. Ben’s father had a shitty son. What can you do but drink? How would you feel if your kid is cooking meals for a prisoner, while not doing chores around the house? While I think Ben’s father is an assh0le, part of that is caused by Ben. Mr Linus is a dink, but not a monster. Just a drunk, missing his wife. More importantly, the writers spent a lot of time making Sayid’s character into what it needed to be in order to shoot in cold blood an unarmed child on prime time TV. That’s really bold right there. I suspect the island will judge Sayid for this very soon. Mr Eko style. It’s certainly possible that Ben was pulling the strings to get Sayid to shoot him as a child for God knows what reason to benefit Ben in the long run. But the bottom line is that I was supposed to feel like Ben was some kind of victim, and Sayid was a ruthless barbarian. I’m sorry, but I didn’t feel that at all. I just expressed surprise at the shooting. But it’s time to move on, hopefully to more interesting episodes. This one wasn’t particularly good.