What's Alan Watching?: Lost, "He's Our You": The prisoner:
"Because, Sayid, to put it simply: you're capable of things that most other men aren't. Every choice you've made in your life -- whether it was to murder or to torture -- it hasn't really been a choice at all, has it? It's in your nature. It's what you are. You're a killer, Sayid." -Ben
'He's Our You' was, in many ways, our first old-school 'Lost' episode of the season. Where most other episodes have either featured lots of time travel, or two distinct storylines involving characters on the island versus those in the real world, this reverts to the original model of a story on the island where one character's struggle (in this case, Sayid's) is illuminated by flashbacks from their life on the mainland. yes. and it was better than the other episodes, really, wasn't it? as something to watch more than once? bcs it told a story about a character.
This was structured similarly to a first season episode, down to the potentially stunning moment at the end, when Sayid calmly put a bullet in the chest of 12-year-old Ben Linus and staggered off through the jungle.
How stunning that moment was, and how impressed I was by "He's Our You," well I was impressed in any case and stunned for the moment, which was worth it, even though confident Ben is not dead will depend on a couple of things that we won't know for another week at the earliest. First, and most obvious, is whether Sayid was able to disprove Faraday's closed-loop theory of time travel by killing someone we know to be alive 30 years in the future. no.The second is whether there's anything more to tell about Ben and Sayid's falling-out on the mainland. ah ha. yes. the Nadia manipulation (and murder). we're missing the answer to why Sayid turned so completely against Ben. the rest of the episode distracted from this questn. and it did remain unanswered didn't it?
We have plenty of past evidence (Locke and Christian's resurrections, Michael's failed suicide attempts) that the island has the power to raise the dead and/or prevent the deaths of people it has a use for. I wouldn't be the least bit surprised to see, early next week, young Ben getting up in amazement, then reveling in the realization that he was "special" and chosen by the island for some great purpose.
And if the closed loop then keeps spinning, then the Ben who "meets" Sayid in season two remembers him well as the man who tried to kill him, and when he calls Sayid a killer in Santo Domingo, he's only throwing Sayid's own 30-year-old words to Ben. to Ben the words are 30 yrs ago. for Sayid he at that moment has not said them back in his face. so that they both are quoting the other.
Sayid's scenes with Hurley bridging the end of last season with the start of this one implied that Sayid discovered Ben had significantly betrayed him, or tricked him, or in some other way so thoroughly violated his trust that Sayid would warn Hurley to always do the opposite of what Ben says. yes yes yes.From what we know of Ben, that's sound advice under any circumstances right, but Sayid acted as if Ben had gone beyond even his usual evil machinations, or that Sayid had uncovered yes incontrovertible proof that Ben had played him. exactly. thank you.
But all we saw here was Ben discarding rightSayid after he killed all of the men allegedly loyal to Widmore --not that we yet know who they really were and whether they posed any kind of threat to the Oceanic Six-- followed by Sayid trying to ease his killer's guilt by building houses in Santo Domingo. That doesn't seem to track with what the previous episodes implied, and if that's all there is, I feel let down. aah. thank you. after the shock of the ending, Sayid shooting Ben seemingly to kill (and, as I keep noting, Sayid does not miss his aims), after that, this question came back to life for me and I was afraid it was supposed to be answered, and felt as if I had missed something, but nobody else noticing that we got no sufficient answer. on twop, I saw nothing about this! overshadowed by the shooting of young Ben. so am very glad to read this articulated. thank you.
Yes, Ben has screwed the Lostaways over six ways from Sunday, but for Sayid to feel such hate for him -- to feel the need to kill him as a boy, before he's ever done anything to anyone -- he has to feel a bone-deep hatred for adult Ben, and being turned into a hired gun without some additional newly uncovered trickery treachery in the using of him as a hired gun [Nadia!]doesn't seem like remotely enough motivation to me.
Maybe there are other pieces to the puzzle, but but if so, we're not going the episode should have more strongly implied that they were missing. the word Nadia d n appear in Sepinwall's rvw here, or any of the current first 23 comments. so I take it I did *not* miss a reveal about this. but it must be coming. and I'm confident some of the next 100+ comments will suggest so also. and the concern for me is not necess th episode shld have implied what remained missing, but that the later reveal will have to fit with Sayid not greeting Ben at Santo Domingo with absolute and , one would expect, murderous hatred. so: he finds out that Ben played him by & probably himself caused Nadia's death only after that scene? I'm betting on that.
I doubt there's going to be an opportunity to loop back to Sayid's backstory anytime soon. no there could be. someone asks, why did you try to kill Ben? and he says, He killed Nadia! with a lot of angst.

Still, it's fun to watch Sayid be suave, and to suffer torture if need be, particularly with the introduction of Oldham, the Dharma bunch's own interrogation expert, and the "he" of the episode's title. William Sanderson is at least the fourth "Deadwood" alum to turn up on "Lost" (after Kim Dickens as Sawyer's baby mama Cassidy, Robin Weigert who appears in the latest epsd of USofTara also and I had to search mind to recall her as the Lieutenant in Life, and who I know also played Calamity Jane in Deadwood as Juliet's sister Rachel and Paula Malcomson as murdered Other Colleen Pickett), and he made a quick and memorable impression. I suspected that Sayid would wind up simply telling Horace the truth and being disbelieved, but it was still a great sequence, alternately disturbing and funny (just as Sayid found it).
Some other thoughts on "He's Our You":
• The more I see of Radzinsky, the more I begin to wonder if he actually committed suicide in the Swan, or if Inman blew his partner's brains out just to shut him up.
• Am I the only one who briefly wondered if the much-talked-about Oldham would turn out to be Faraday? nice. I didn't think that, but I would have enjoyed thinking it. imagining Faraday emerging from that teepee in the woods.
• Have we ever seen the adult Ben use the move he was so impressed to see Sayid use to take down Jin?


COMMENTS
-Didn't Ben use Sayid's move that time fighting those goons in Tunisia?
-I really hope they stick with the 12 monkey's formula, because it is a much more clever and difficult manner of storytelling. Every piece has to fit, and there is little room for cheating.
-Sawyer now has a choice between Juliet, who has dedicated herself to bringing life and paid a huge price for it, and Kate, who burned her own father alive and got away with it.
-Kate doesn't deserve either Jack or Sawyer. Juliet is too good for either of them.
-Now DHARMA is going to blame the Hostiles for shooting Ben. Truce over. The shiznit is about to go down.
-I admittedly didn't get to any of the concerns about the simplicity of Ben&Sayid's troubles in my own review, and looking back you're right: we're missing something, and I think you're right that it just might not be out there to find.no no no. not just bcs I hope they'll fill it in, but at this point I am convinced that there is a big reveal of a deception re Nadia's death.
-I was at first also saying "that's it?" regarding the falling out between Ben and Sayid but the more I thought about it, the more I appreciate the subtly of it.All his life, Sayid has been convinced he's a good man who's been pushed to torture and kill in order to get things done. He was going along with Ben's plan to be hitman extraordinaire because he thought it was for a good reason. But then, when it's over, and Ben tells him he's good at murder, Sayid is faced with a hollowness. The fact that his mission is over, but also that maybe he just ends up in situations that require torture and murder because he *likes* it. This staring into the abyss, obviously, upsets Sayid so much that he wants to atone by building houses in the Dominican Republic. And much like how we hate the person who points out all that we're ignoring about ourselves, he comes to realize that Ben knew all along that Sayid enjoyed the murder and the torture and exploited it. yes. but there was a turn. there was a turn! there's more. I buy it, but if they fill in more, I won't be opposed.
-I agree that there is still a piece missing between the habitat for humanity Sayid and when he breaks Hurley out. I share the hope that we get to see it.
-I had the same reaction to Ben v. Sayid. I like the idea of Sayid recognizing his hollow shell of a life, but to adamantly tell Hurley not to trust Ben doesn't seem to have any basis in what Ben did to Sayid. right. Ben helped Sayid get revenge for Nadia's death, and Sayid offered to go on a killing spree. Crappy way to live? Yes. Ben's fault? No.
-rj: The Ben & Sayid flashbacks omitted references to Nadia, the reason Sayid started working for Ben in the first place. The clear implication once Sayid turned on Ben was that Ben had lied about Nadia's murderer and was likely himself Nadia's murderer (or so I've always thought). there we go.

-Chaddogg said... A couple thoughts on this episode (which I will probably also post over at Poniewozik's Tuned In site later.....but which I have to post here because his Time overlords put Idol in front of Lost in terms of importance right I saw that TunedIn announcement post. my loyalty also is first to the Tuned In LDG ~best signal:noise ratio. top-notch comments from chaddogg, tom shaw, dave, matt, antilles13, others.. and more of a discussion, with back & forth responses. but, Sepinwall comes through with very good recaps very quickly, and a fair number of good comments amid more comments overall than any of the few other tv blogs I check. ok chaddogg take it away!:
From a pure shock value assessment, I think this episode's ending is only surpassed by the Season 3 finale with Jack saying "We have to go back!" yes. agreed. there may have been some pretty good dramatic episode endings in S1 too ~ but I suppose not with the game-changer feeling. (even if Ben is not dead, and he's not, it still had that feeling Honestly, is anything MORE of a game changer in this show's shocking history than the possibility that Sayid just irrevocably altered the future? nay obliterated the Lostiverse as a comment on twop said (no Ben, probably no 815 crash, and certainly evth else very very different) Other than, of course, the idea that Jack and Kate and some of the Oceanic 815ers *left the island* but left some others behind? right. have to remember how unexpected it was that anyone would actually get off the island before the end of the series.

-m: I'm with rj that "The clear implication once Sayid turned on Ben was that Ben had lied about Nadia's murderer and was likely himself Nadia's murderer." I can't see Sayid greeting Ben as calmly he did in Santo Domingo if he already knew or suspected that Ben played him by means of & probably caused Nadia's death. So I am betting that he discovers something to that effect between then and showing up to get Hurley. A reveal about Nadia answers exactly to my sense of what was missing in this episode to cause Sayid's distinct turn against Ben. And, thank you Alan for articulating the question of "whether there's anything more to tell about Ben and Sayid's falling-out on the mainland." This question got a bit lost for me in the dramatic ending, then resurfaced as I started reading reactions to the episode -- but no one was talking about it! so it was great to find you highlighting it.
Also totally agree with Chaddogg about this episode ending's shock value. I'm pretty committed to the close loop time theory, and trusting that the show takes place in such a world, and so while I think Ben cannot die as a boy, that just made the event all the more of shock. That can't happen! But it just did! Sure, a person might survive getting shot -- but by Sayid? If anyone is accurate (in everything he does, including killing), it's Sayid, right? Now that I'm a few hours out, I've imagined & seen the speculation of others about how Ben could still be alive, but nonetheless the moment was terribly dramatic. As were each of the youngBen-Sayid scenes.
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