LOST 010 | He's Our You

LOST 010 | He's Our You
**Attention! This post does contain spoilers! If you have not yet watched the episode and are planning on it, pay no attention to the man behind the curtain, or this post!**

This episode was not one of my favorite LOST episodes. Please don't think I am complaining since I count every new LOST episode as a blessing, but compared to the last too episodes (LaFleur and Namaste) it was boring.

The Boring Sayid Story

It is a character episode that is driven by the story of Sayid since he originally left the island. We see Sayid as a child and get a taste of where he developed his killing tendencies. We see when he is working for Ben as an assassin and when Ben tries to re-recruit Sayid after Locke's death. Flash forward to Sayid feeling depressed for some reason and drinking heavely at the bar. Sidenote, he's drinking MacCutcheon whisky, the ridiculously expensive fictional brand of whisky that Charles Widmore is known to drink. Admiral MaCutcheon is also the name of a character in the television remake of the classic story 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. In this story the protagonists are taken aboard an underwater submarine, the Nautilus, which takes them to see many wonders of the ocean including the submerged island of Atlantis. One of the theories of the show is that the island is indeed Atlantis. Anyways...Sayid gets seduced by Ilana who turns out to be a bounty hunter and that's how he ends up back on the plane in custody.

Back On The Island

Sayid is in custody, still locked up in the jail cell. We see young Ben Linus come back into the picture and he brings Sayid another sandwich and a book this time. After a little searching around i was able to find a screen shot of the book with a little information on it. We know that previously we have seen books in the show that have some hidden meaning (most recently The Little Prince). The book is titled A Seperate Reality by Carlos Castaneda. It is a book about his apprenticeship with a man he refers to as Don Juan. The Don's philosophy was that to get Carlos to experience this seperate reality and to perceive energy in the universe through the task of "seeing." To fully be capable of "seeing" he told Carlos that you have to be under the influence of psychotropic plants, most notable mushrooms and peyote. Now we have seen Locke exhibit the power of seeing before on himself and on Boone I believe in Season 2. We also go on to see the Dharma interogist, Oldham, use some sort of drug on Sayid to get him to talk. Sayid proceeds to spill the beans about being from the future. But rather than see it as truth, the Dharma folks assume that Oldham has used too big a dose of the drugs. The Dharma people then vote to kill Sayid and Sawyer stomps off to his house straining over the situation. He stops by Kate's pad and they see a flaming van that is driving through the camp. The van hits a house and starts a fire. While all the Dharma folks are fighting the fire, little Ben Linus frees Sayid from his jail cell and they run off into the jungle.

Still on the run, Sayid and Ben run into Jin who is out on patrol. After Jin radios LaFleur, Sayid knocks him out and steals his gun. To end the episode in suspense, Sayid proceeds to shoot the 12 year old Benjamin Linus, and the boring episode just hit hyperspeed! I can't say that I didn't see that coming, since Sayid earlier told Sawyer that he now knew what his purpose for coming back was, but it was still shocking to see him shoot a 12 year old kid. No hears the thing, there is no way that young Ben Linus stays dead. We've seen too many times where "the island" has kept people alive because it wasn't their time or they weren't done with their job yet. Ben still has to perform "the purge" and we see him in the future in seasons 2-5. My thoughts are that like when Ben shot Locke into the Dharma grave pit, Ben will miraculously be healed by the island and this is the event that will turn him into the little heartless piece of crap that he is today.

Theories:

One theory that I am looking into and beginning to see potential in is that Hurley, Jack, Kate, and Sayid were sent back to 1977 by the island because they have some things to do to "course correct" some of the things that have to happen. Maybe this is why Ben couldn't go back to 1977 because had he run into little Ben it could have been chatastrophic. I'm still trying to figure out why Sun didn't go back to 1977, but maybe once all the people in '77 fulfill their "duties" they will be able to somehow meet back up in present time with everybody else. Another though here is that by Sayid killing young Ben it could mess something up that he has already done. What is one monumental thing that Ben does in his younger life...the purge! I think that "the purge" did not happen the way it was originally planned by Ben. We are told (and showed in The Man Behind the Curtain) that "the purge" took place when Ben gased the Dharma people. Yet Locke and Hurley noticed in the mass grave that one of the dead bodies had a bullet wound to the head. I think that at the time this was a little glimpse into the future or past regarding the time travel aspect. The gas didn't work and the others and Ben had to start capping Dharmaville. Just a thought!

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