Lost - He's Our You

*** / ****

When Sawyer was heading for The Swan to communicate with the person [Desmond] inside, Daniel told him that doing so would accomplish nothing. Daniel’s words of attempting to interfere in time’s course as an exercise in futility wasn’t related to Sayid so when he realizes he has a chance to kill a kid Bill Linus in 1977, he goes for the chance. A friend at work, when we were discussing Lost, pondered the possibility of going back in time and altering the course of history by killing Hitler as a child. If the opportunity was there, and it was taken, would doing so make things better or would just another maniac down the road just replace him…perhaps, if it is possible, someone even worse than Hitler. Ben, at the point Sayid meets him while in a cell awaiting execution after Dharma’s leadership counsel decide what to do with him for “breaking the truce”, is an abused kid mistreated by his cruel father. We had already previously seen just how monstrous Ben’s father was. This episode just revisits just how much of a rotter he is. With all the emphasis on Sayid’s ties to Ben and what perhaps initiated such a relationship could very well find definition when Sayid shoots him after being let out of the cell by Ben. Ben wanted to join Alpert and the hostiles, tired of being a victim of his father’s. Sayid noticed this as his big chance to prevent Ben from ever reaching the adult age and massacring the Dharma community, including all the off-island activity that just reached violent new heights. Ben’s capitalizing on Sayid’s need for revenge allowed for removing those that perhaps were a nuisance to him, supposed associates of Widmore. Sayid is taken advantage of by Iliana, posing as a potential one-night-stand, planning to transport him for his murder of the victim on the golf course; Iliana, a bounty hunter, isn’t at all a tie to Ben. Sayid keeps silent when questioned by Dharma, until a pharmaceutical doc (played by none other than the elite character actor, William Sanderson) uses a drug-doused sugar cube made for getting anyone to talk, loosening the tongue and mind. This entire time, Sawyer, within the role of LaFleur, tries to get him to partake in a fake story, but Sayid isn’t interested. Sayid telling Goodspeed, Radzinsky, Phil, and Sanderson’s Oldham all about the plane, being from the future, and their own demise provides some humor because of its total, remarkable, hard-to-swallow truth. They wanted to know and Sayid told them. Sawyer remains, throughout the episode, an anxious, kvetching mess. Up until this episode, Sawyer had some plan to trick the Dharma community, but Sayid is more than a bit of a pill.

This is Sayid’s episode, for sure. It just adds a few more details, but overall the surprises for me personally are few. The opening when he was a child willing to snap the neck of a chicken when his brother is too apprehensive to, much to the father’s pleasure, is a real kickstarter. From there the episode continues to reinforce how Sayid is a killer, utilized by not only the Iraqi army but Ben. The depiction of Sayid overall does give us context of how life seemed to condition him towards a life of killing, and it correlates with 1977 in the cell on the grounds of the Dharma Initiative.He could go to Santo Domingo in the hopes of doing good for the world, but the past just seems to follow him. Ben is part of that past, clearly and definitively, so that might explain why Sayid would desperately want to take advantage of the escape in order to put an end to him before he can do any harm. I'm not buying it...Ben Linus just doesn't go away that easy. He's on an island that doesn't quite work that way.

Regarding Sawyer, Kate, and Juliet, while Hurley—after cooking Kate and Jack some waffles (he’s a cook)—questions the complexity of it all, it does appear (and, yes, appearances are often deceiving) to be a nonfactor. Clearly, Kate and Sawyer can’t even confront each other without obvious sexual tension arising, so Juliet, someone who isn’t a fool and wises up more often than not to the obvious (or potentially on the horizon), recognizes the inevitable even if he doesn’t. Sawyer tries to reassure her, though. Juliet and Kate even have an honestly cordial confrontation, laughing off the situation instead of any fireworks.

I have been such a fan of the current time travel story, giving us a real elaboration on those within the Dharma Initiative during the mid-to-late 70s after we spent so much in the early seasons seeing the stations, many brand new or on the verge of being constructed (like The Swan) in ’77, abandoned and left to ruin, many still functioning but aged rather poorly due to years of disrepair and lack of care. Radzinsky looking to shoot somebody, Phil unable to speak of the hostiles without distaste, Goodspeed trying to refrain from using violence but clearly adhering to the truce when unbroken, and Amy reluctantly agreeing (after some considerable guilt) that Sayid should die instead of risking his threat to their community; those within Dharma are receiving creative attention and development. Sawyer has successfully gained their trust and applied the fictitious persona much to his own benefit, seeing Sayid as a torpedo waiting to fracture it all. But persuading them from deciding to "take care of" (or as Radzinsky offers, "take it to the next level") Sayid, no manner of con ingenuity will work. A flaming VW van might just work, though!