I have been heinously behind on blogging/homework/life, but this is no matter, as I have recently caught up on Lost and am subsequently shell-shocked by the insanity that was this past episode. Seriously -- it's turned one of the central tenets of the show upside down, and I have no idea where it's going next, but good god am I excited to see what happens.
Spoiler alert: anyone who hasn't seen last week's episode yet, stop reading now.
Our episode opens in Tikrit, Iraq, which is apparently the hometown of Sayid, who earned a place on my "generally awesome people" list very early on. A father is urging his pathetically obese son, ostensibly a young Sayid, to kill a chicken for dinner; pathetically obese kid refuses, tears spilling down his pudgy cheeks; I begin to worry that all of Sayid's credibility has been destroyed forever; and then ACTUAL YOUNG SAYID, who is much cuter, appears on screen and casually snaps a chicken's neck while his fat brother looks on, shocked.
My relief that Sayid was not the playground loser in his youth is boundless.
And we're back to the present (or, in this case, 1977), where a captured Sayid is lounging in his Dharma cell, refusing to eat or speak. Although I kind of understand (Dharma-brand beer has to be terrible), this will not last long, and it doesn't, because 12-year-old Ben Linus shows up with a sandwich and a book and a terrified-but-hopeful look in his eyes.
Tiny Ben is awesome and sad; he's just desperate for a friend, and it's pretty much the most adorable thing ever. If he'd been born in Britain, he might have grown up to be Harry Potter. Instead he just gets to be one of the best villains ever (Ben totally beats out Voldemort in my book).
Horace, the leader of the Others, shows up and tries to force Sayid to talk while waving a pair of grass clippers. Sayid shows no emotion, and rightfully so, because aging hippie men with dumb hair and lame grass clippers are quite possibly the least threatening things in the world.
Meanwhile, back in Dharmaville proper, Sawyer and Juliet share a sweet little moment in which Juliet laments the fact that Jack and company have returned to the island and pretty much ruined everything. Sawyer is adorable and reassures her and DAMN IT I WANT SAWYER AND JULIET TO BE TOGETHER FOREVER, the end.
In an effort to keep this life intact, Sawyer storms into the cell where Sayid's being held and tries to formulate a plan to get him to join the Dharmaites. Sayid refuses; Sawyer warns him that he could jeopardize everything he's worked for.
"I've built a life here, and a pretty good one," he says. I melt.
The flashback for this episode, by the way, is Sayid-centric, focusing mainly on what happened to Sayid after he stopped killing people for Ben. At one point, Ben finds Sayid in some third-world country, where he is building Habitat for Humanity-esque houses to atone for his various Ben-fueled sins or whatever, and tries to convince him to kill one more person for him.
There is only one significant line in this scene, and it's this:
Ben: "You're capable of things that most other men aren't." SAYID/BEN 4EVAAAAA
The rest of the episode (except for the end -- wait for it) does not require too much commentary, but there are a few choice moments, including:
- Everyone tells Sayid he's going to be tortured for information, but the Dharmaites' version of a torture man turns out to be an aging hippie (surprise!) who feeds Sayid some drug that makes him tell the truth. Coupled with tiny Ben's striking resemblance to a certain boy wizard, the truth serum has convinced me that Lost is pretty much Harry Potter in the South Pacific.
- Sayid slurs to everyone that he's from the future, and torture-man utters one of the best lines of the episode: "Maybe I should have used half a dropper? Oops?"
- Horace spends the entire episode trying to make scary faces but usually ends up looking like a grouchy old woman, which is what he is. I really, really hate him.
- Hurley has apparently been assigned to kitchen duty and, predictably, looks adorable in an apron.
- Tiny Ben gets slapped around by his loser dad and ends up with a giant bruise and taped glasses. I just want to give him a hug.
The rest of the episode is pretty uneventful, until the end, which is honestly one of the most shocking developments I've ever seen on Lost.
The Dharmaites, against Sawyer's advice, take a vote to kill Sayid because they think he's a Hostile; in response, tiny Ben pulls his first badass move of the episode and SETS A VAN ON FIRE, sending it careening through Dharmaville. While everyone is fighting the flames, he breaks Sayid out of jail and the two go running through the forest, trying to find Richard "Permanent Eyeliner" Alpert and the actual Hostiles. Jin finds them, tries to convince Sayid to come back, and a desperate Sayid knocks him out and takes his gun.
Adorable tiny Ben, impressed with Sayid's moves, says something adorable and chipper about how awesome Sayid is. Sayid looks up, agonized.
"You were right about me," he whispers. "I am a killer."
And he whips out Jin's gun and SHOOTS TINY BEN.
And that's it.
I can't even begin to imagine what this means for the show -- does Ben not exist anymore? Has Sayid changed history entirely? Has a hole been ripped in the space-time continuum?
I get where Sayid is coming from -- if you had the chance to kill random evil masterminds before they could actually become evil masterminds, wouldn't you? -- but it's still one of the show's most mind-blowing conclusions.
Actually, I think Ben will survive and grow up to be the skeevy little creeper we all know and love, and that his preternatural knowledge of the Losties likely stems from the fact that he knew them all when he was 12 and figured out who he was supposed to become. I have no idea if I'm right. But I can't wait to find out.
Excellent review, Aubrey. Hurley cooking was indeed, hilarious.
ReplyDeleteAs for Ben, I don't think he's dead. That, or somehow Faraday is going to show up and make everything right with the world. That whole thing with Faraday "no longer being with us" worries me though. He is not allowed to die.
I'm really looking forward to this weeks episode. At first, I thought the producers were going to avoid the events that just occurred in 1977 and stick to 2007 this episode. But then I realized, Ben is dead, so the 2007 timeline has to be kinda skewed. We already know that the losties in 1977 are affecting the ones in 2007, since we saw Christian showing Sun and Frank that picture of them.
I don't have much else to offer. That episode really left us with little that we can predict on our own. That said, I hope you're doing well, I miss you, and we'll hopefully see each other sometime in the near future.
- Cippy
P.S. - Yes, I am procrastinating now. :P
If tiny Benry dies, I might stop watching. As if my obsession wasn't raging enough already, they introduce Bitty Ben. I can't take it anymore! He is too awesome at every stage of his life!
ReplyDelete~Terry