Lost, Season 5, Episode 10

He's Our You

Okay, first and foremost I must offer an apology. For the past couple of weeks I've been saying how it won't be long before Jack screws up everything Sawyer has been trying to establish within the Dharma Initiative (DI). Well, my apologies to Jack because it turns out it's not him who screws everything up, it's.....

Sayid: Sayid's refusal to kowtow to Sawyer's plan of having Sayid admit he's a hostile but would prefer to join the DI is a catalyst to the upcoming conflict, I now believe. Though it appears for a time that Sayid is going to take pity on child-Ben in 1977 because of his jerk of a dad, Sayid instead takes matters into his own hands and shoots child-Ben in an attempt (presumably) to stop what Sayid knows he will do in the future. Sayid is literally taking the age old question "If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you?" into his own hands by killing child-Ben. Sayid hopes to stop all of the madness that Ben will create in the future by taking this incredible step. In Flashback mode, we see that Sayid (in 2007) gets duped by Illana the bounty hunter and is caught and will be taken back to Guam to answer for one of the killings he did for Ben (killed a Russian named Andropov). Coincidentally, the trip to Guam is made on Ajira 316. It's too bad that Sayid has come to this. If Ben had stayed out of his life off-Island, Sayid probably would have gone on to a happy life with Nadia, but Ben's interference has again put Sayid into the doldrums and at that point he doesn't feel a sense of purpose. That changes when he sees child-Ben...his purpose is to kill Ben. Or so he thinks.

Ben: Ben as a child in the 1977 timeline is fragile, a condition we further learn has been exacerbated by his overbearing-blaming father. Telling Sayid that Richard told him he could become a hostile/Other but would have to be patient, child-Ben is intent on helping to get Sayid out of the cell so he can take him back to the hostiles part of the Island (despite Sayid not really being a hositle). Creating a distraction involving a flaming Dharma van crashing into a building, child-Ben gets him out of the cell only to have Sayid shoot him after he knocks out Jin to get the gun. It's doubtful, however that child-Ben is dead or if he is, will be for long. Adult Ben has been working off the Island (in 2007)to convince Sayid that he is a killer...all of the murders that Ben had Sayid commit in Nadia's name only reinforced Sayid's killer instinct. And also continued to fuel Sayid's hatred for Ben. Ben uses this hatred to his advantage in the future...er, I mean the past.

Roger Linus: Blaming Ben for all of his woes has made Roger (Workman) Linus the kind of person you could learn to quickly hate. We know that he already blames Ben for the death of his wife (Ben's mom, natch) during childbirth. As the janitor in cell where Sayid is being held, he puts down Sayid for being caught by the "dumb" people of Dharma. When Ben comes in to bring Sayid a chicken-salad sandwich, Roger freaks out and berates Ben in front of Sayid.

Sawyer: Sawyer's safe and secure standing in Dharma is turning into a house of cards thanks to the re-emergence of Kate/Jack/Hurley/Sayid, but mostly Sayid. Of all of the characters, Sawyer's seems to have gone through the most drastic change, at least regarding the Oceanic 815 people. He started the series as a cold and angry person, but has become a nice and caring dude. This is exhibited especially in his expression when he has to vote to put Sayid to death with the other Dharma Initiative group. He still believes he can get things under control, but this seems doubtful.

Oldham: "Hi I'm Larry. This is my brother Darryl and my other brother Darryl." Oldham is the Dharma Initiative's torturer in the same way that Sayid was a torturer in Iraq. As Sawyer says to Sayid when he asks who he is, Sawyer tells Sayid "He's our you." Oldham lives outside of the Dharma Village in a teepee/tent. He drugs Sayid and gets information from him about the crash of Ajira 316, which leads to his telling of the Oceanic 815 crash. When Sayid rambles on about the Stations (Flame, Swan), and the eventual death of them all, he believes he gave Sayid too much of the drug. Not sure at this point if they believe anything Sayid said, although Radzinsky's paranoia does.

Other characters:
Juliet / Horace / Amy /Jack / Kate / Phil / Hurley / Phil / Radzinsky / Jin

Double Take
--Sayid in airport before catching Ajira 316 sees Hurley, Kate and others waiting for the flight. Asks Illana if they can take another flight. Then he sees Ben and knows that things aren't good
--child-Ben gives Sayid a copy of Separate Reality by Carlos Castaneda, the story of a man who takes a drug-induced trip with an Indian (Yacqui) sorcerer. (And then Sayid ends up going on a drug-induced trip under torture.)

Funny
--"I just had a young Benjamin Linus offer me a chicken-salad sandwich...how do you think I'm doing?" Sayid to Sawyer
--"Don't forget to try the dipping sauces, they really bring out the ham" Chef Hurley to Kate & Jack when he brings them pancakes for breakfast in the mess hall
--"They live together, but not as roomates" Chef Hurley to Kate & Jack in reference to Juliet and Sawyer
--"Three years with no burning busses, you guys are back one day..." Sawyer to Jack after the burning VW Van crashes into a Dharma house

Interesting
1. The opening scene when Sayid (and not his brother) kills the chicken winning the praise of his father. This was similar in nature to the scene when Eko, instead of his brother Yemi, kills the man when forced by the gang to do so. (And Eko ended up dying on the Island...I'm just saying...)
2. Juliet again proves to be very alert when she notices that the return of Jack/Kate/Hurley/Sayid will be the end to of "all this". Sawyer tries to convince her otherwise, but she doesn't believe him and he likely doesn't believe it himself
3. For being such a smart guy, Sayid got caught pretty easily by Illana when she employed the oldest tricks in the book: wearing hot black boots and sex
4. While drugged by Oldham in 1977, Sayid gave up the information regarding both Oceanic 815 and Ajira 316 crashing on the Island to Oldham, Goodspeed, Sawyer, etc. He also gives up that he knows about the Swan Station, the Flame Station, and that they're all going to be killed. Hard to know if they believe him or not. I would expect that it's this information that somehow gets to Ben and he uses it in the future (2004) to organize the boarding of Oceanic 815 to get them all to the Island in the first place. Get it? Yeah..time travel paradoxes can be convoluted
5. The scene between Sayid and child-Ben before he lets him out of the cell: "My father was a hard man, too", Sayid says
6. When Sayid asks Illana if she's working for Ben Linus, a man responsible for genocide, she wonders aloud why she'd work for a man like that. "I did," Sayid says
7. It's very interesting that Ben told the O6 that they had to go back to the Island because the lives of everyone on the Island was in danger, when in fact nobody on the Island was in danger until the O6 did return

Questions
1. So, the big question for me is this: does child-Ben know that Sayid is coming? Again, and I've said this before, it seems that he does. Using experiments done by Daniel, is it possible that Ben (at some point in the future) was able to send his consciousness (not his body...his consciousness) back in time to when he was a boy? If so, this would then allow him (as a boy) to prepare for the arrival of Sayid on Oceanic 815, get him off the Island, then bring him back on Ajira 316, and Sayid would be full of hate towards child-Ben because the adult-Ben that Sayid knows is an evil, manipulative man who Sayid would just love to kill. This would mean that the entire time we've been watching LOST, Ben has been working towards getting Sayid to hate him and convincing him that he is indeed, Sayid The Killer. Now, if Ben, like Locke, had to make some sacrifice in his past for the Island, it could be that Ben's sacrifice comes when he's a child. But....
2. Do you really think Ben is dead? It's likely one of two things will happen: a) the Island will heal/ressurect him in the same way it healed/ressurected Locke and maybe Christian; or b) Jack will come in and do surgery to save child-Ben (just like he operated on and saved adult-Ben). But, if Jack does the surgery, it's going to give it away that he shouldn't be a janitor and that his aptitude results were probably fudged
3. Does Sayid's shooting of Ben begin the war that leads to the purge? Does it lead to the incident that Marvin Candle/Pierre Chang has referred to in the past?
4. Do you think it was Ben who hired Illana to capture Sayid?
5. What happens now to Sawyer's facade within Dharma? Can he (and Juliet/Jack/Kate/Hurley) remain undetected? And what role do they play in the upcoming war/purge/incident?

My one problem with this episode is this: when Sayid killed somone, he always pumped a couple of bullets into them just to make sure they were deader than dead. With child-Ben, he only shot him once - albeit, it was in the heart. C'mon. If he wanted child-Ben dead, he would've fired again. Of course, it's always possible that when Sayid said "I finally know why I'm here", it could mean that Sayid understood that Ben had to die in order to come back/resurrect to be the leader. That's a stretch, though, I know.

Tune in next week for Lost, Season 5 Episode 11 "Whatever Happened, Happened". Until then, be sure to use the dipping sauces!

Feel free to share your views, theories, money....