Friday, March 27, 2009

Lost Season Five: Episode 10

I've had an incredibly busy few days and its only going to get worse over the next week, so let's quickly go over the high points of yesterday's episode, 'He's Our You'.

- Last week I speculated that Sayid would try to kill Little Ben but that he wouldn't be successful. It feels good to be at least half right but boy did Ben look like he was killed by that shot to his heart. But next week we're going to find out he survived, aren't we? Maybe the Island won't let him die. Or maybe Ben is dead and our favourite character has been a ghost all along, ala Christian Shepherd.

- If we assume that Ben is alive then this is a real game-changer. It would mean that he knew all along who would come back to the Island, thatr Sayid would try and to kill him, what time period the Oceanic 6 would come back to and that Jin is still alive. Ironically, being shot gave Ben a big advantage. But also consider this possibility. The Ben we see is at a cross roads. He is leaning in the direction of the Hostiles but he hasn't fully committed yet. What is being shot by Sayid was the catalyst that finally drove him to the other side and made him the heartless Machivellean schemer we love so much? Alternately, consider how Ben being dead would be an even bigger game-changer. Actually, don't. It will just make your head spin. I'm going to have to brush up on my time travel this week by rereading Kurt Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five and rewatching Twelve Monkeys.

- This episode was old-school Lost, with glimpses of a character's past revealing more about his motivations in the present (or the present-past as the case may be). This is actually a lot of fun when it is used sparingly. And we really got to know a lot of explanations for Sayid's conflicting views on his violent nature. Anyone who has criticized Naveen Andrews' acting will surely have to eat their words now.

- The opening scene of Little Sayid killing the chicken so that the other kid wouldn't have do reminded me of Mr Eko shooting the kid to protect his brother. I just love the parallels on this show.

- Ben telling Sayid that he thinks Locke has been murdered. Finally we know more about what's going on than the characters themselves.

- When the Dharma guys find Ben shot (or dead), Jin unconscious and Sayid gone, they are going to smell a rat. LaFleur's life of peace and harmony is about to come to an end.

10 comments:

Nabil said...

Maybe Alpert will come and save Ben?

supe said...

''you were right about me. I am a killer.'' BANG!
waah, that was brilliant acting by naveen andrews there, but i won't eat my words as in the run up to this he's been doing a relatively easy job of just making himself look bored, sleepy.

you know the episode before when we first see little ben, the thought did flicker across my mind that maybe he'd wring little ben's neck from within the confines of his prison cell, but then i soon brushed it off, so it was a massive shock when he gets him in the woods to shoot him dead.

i loved how we learned a little more of linus. and too, wonder what sort of repercussions his death(?) will have on the future in general and that of the losties.

loving the parallels, especially with ben and sayid.
never really thought of mr eko till you mentioned it here but you're right, the childhood scenes were very similar.

with regards to lefleur we finally got to see him strained under the pressures of being loyal to two seperate parties. being a diplomat is a pretty tough job.

next episode: locke or desmond please. i miss both of them terribly.

Anonymous said...

Nabil: More likely Ben will be saved by the surgical talents of one Dr Shepherd. Which will raise lots of eyebrows in the Dharma camp.

Supe: The next episode is called 'Whatever Happened, Happened', a reference to what Daniel Faraday said regarding changing the future. So I'm guessing we'll be dealing with the repercussions of Sayid shooting Ben. Hence, I think, no Desmond and probably no Locke either.

If you need any convincing what a great actor Sayid is just rewatch the season four episode 'The Economist'.

Anonymous said...

Dudes, enough already with the "Lost" crystal-gazing!

Kalsoom said...

Loved the episode, but work has been so busy of late to leave a more in-depth comment on it. I will say that if what Farraday said is true, then history is fixed - so Ben cannot die as a child. So was he made into a psychopath by that event, or was he born destined to walk that path? Depends on your views of whether killers are born or made. I think in Ben's case, his environment molded him into what we see in the future. In Sayyid's case, which was why the flashbacks were key, was killing part of his nature?

What I'm interested to know is whether the older Ben always knew that Sayyid tried to shoot him, and that's why he became so fixated on the Losties in general.

supe said...

hey Kalsoom, I was begining to wonder where you'd disappeared off to.

yup, this episode just added to the theory; ''the abused becomes the abuser'', psycho dads equal psycho sons. and we thought we women were complex.

bubs, i do love sayid the character and tbh hold nothing against the actor who has given us some pretty awesome, memorable performances in lost. but come on you have to admit that for a few episodes lately he has been a complete bore.
meh, ignore me, i just like to pick out characters to love and hate and after certain intervals i rotate this selection.

will check out that episode, and truly love sayid's old flashback episodes from previous seasons.

oh i think we will see locke next episode as him and ben are together - in present time in the same place - at the plane crash site. and with the two newbies. eenteresting eh?

guys, another thing i keep forgetting to ask you guys; how the heck did kate, jack, hurley and sayid end up in 1977?
yet locke, old ben, sun, lapidus end up in present time?
is this something we're meant to have discovered already and that i missed or is it something we find out at a later time?

Kalsoom said...

Supe-

I think the reasoning is that if Kate, Jack, Hurley and Sayyid were never supposed to leave the island - then when they returned they'd be in the same time/space point as the rest of the Losties. The reason Sun isn't there seemed implied in episode before last - when Christian Shepherd said she had a longer journey to reach that point. My guess is there is something she has to do (maybe to do with Ben now that we know about him being shot in the past) before she'll also be time warped back to the 1970s.

Lapidus wouldn't have traveled back because he was never part of the Lost gang, and from what we saw with Charlotte, you can't exist at the same time/place your younger self existed - hence why Ben also didn't travel back to the 1970s. As for Locke, I'm not sure, but it probably has something to do with him coming back to life.

Nadir Hassan said...

Kalsoom and Supe: I think Sun isn't in 1977 while the other are is because Locke didn't want her to be there (because of Jin). And you can exist at the same time as your younger self because Sawyer went back to when Claire was giving birth and Locke saw the light from when he was banging on the hatch.

And I do think Ben knew that Sayid shot him. Given that Richard and Widmore remember Locke from the 1950s there's no reason Ben shouldn't remember Sayid and the rest. But this could cause problems. While I trust the writers, I don't know if they'll be able to give a plausible explanation for why Ben allowed Juliet to come to the Island and why he fell in love with her when he knew she would betray him.

supe said...

knew it, just knew it, juliet is a spy for ben!
ok ok, maybe i'm getting a bit ahead of myself there but it is a possibility.

i can also recall locke highlighting the possibility of them seeing their younger selves as a result of the time travel.

faraday's musings about fate confuse me, here's hoping if the focus of the next episode is on him/this topic it'll help clear some of this confusion of what is and isn't meant to be.

Kalsoom said...

Yeah but when they were in the same presence as themselves, many of them did get nosebleeds - it's not like they weren't affected. With Charlotte, when they finally stopped traveling, they were in the same place as her as a child, and she died. I think you can pass through the same time as your former self - but when time stops moving? Probably not.

I am still confused about the rules regarding the characters' memories of each other after they saw them in time travel, so I'm going to wait until this week's episode to comment further.