I Am DB

The “abridged” notation in my subject line is probably inaccurate, seeing as something must exist in a lengthy, original form in order to spawn an abridged version. In this case, no such lengthy original exists. I was out of town for a family event Thursday-Monday, and so was unable to undertake my usual obsessive dissection. I thought this would be pretty short, but it still wound up kind of long…if not as long as usual. The news of this abbreviated write-up will fill you with feelings of either disappointment, elation or indifference. I never intended these to just recap the episodes’ events, so we’ll see if I can use this piece as a model going forward….

SEEDS OF…SOMETHING LIKE PSYCHOPATHY…BUT NOT QUITE
Some of the things I brought up in last week’s write-up were dealt with in this episode, beginning with the timing of Sayid’s return to the island relative to young Ben Linus’ jungle meeting with Richard Alpert. Ben himself informs us, upon bringing another sandwich to an imprisoned Sayid, that it’s been four years since he asked Richard to take him away. He offers to help Sayid escape if he can go with him to the Hostiles.  We see in these opening scenes that Ben has already developed an ability to lie, manipulate and convince people of his harmlessness and innocence even while harboring devious intentions. The way he smooth talks Phil the security guard is an early display of his skills…and his ease with using them. When did he start to develop these traits? He seemed like a pretty normal kid when he first arrived on the island. Was it just life with his bitter father (more on him later) that set him on the road to being…I was going to say psychopath, but I don’t think that’s an accurate description, as much as I like using the word. And I hesitate to invoke the word “evil,” because Ben’s motivations are still completely unknown to us. I’ll refrain from choosing a word right now. You know what I’m trying to say.

I also want to note that Ben refers to Richard both by name and as the leader of the Hostiles. In the scene where that jungle encounter took place, neither of those tidbits entered into the conversation. We can assume that we just didn’t see that portion of their meeting. I only bring it up because I’ve questioned whether or not Richard was still with the Hostiles/Others at that time, or if he had perhaps been ousted from their ranks or even voluntarily left. In most of Richard’s appearances on the island – including his 1950’s days with young Widmore and his 70’s days when Sawyer spoke to him in Dharmaville, he has been neatly dressed and cleanly groomed. His long-haired, shabby look in the jungle when he met young Ben remains an anomaly, and I’ve long wondered why.

When Sawyer first goes into Sayid’s cell to talk, Sayid brings up Ben. “Sweet kid, huh?” Sawyer smirks. This confirms another of my comments from last week, which is that Sawyer and his merry men (and woman) have indeed encountered young Ben. Although things don’t look too good for the kid when the episode ends, I hope that future episodes will give us flashbacks into the three years between 1974 and 1977 so that we can see Sawyer, Juliet and Miles interact with him. I especially want to see Juliet’s reaction to him. They have a pretty loaded relationship after all, which has been ignored ever since Juliet officially left The Others and joined the Oceanic 815 survivors. In Season Four’s premiere episode, when everyone met in the jungle and broke off into two camps – those who would go with Locke and avoid the rescue freighter and those who would go with Jack and try to leave the island – we didn’t get so much as a glance between Ben and Juliet…and that was the first time they’d seen each other since she defected. I’d be more than a little interested to watch her deal with the boy who will eventually recruit her, fall in love with her and basically imprison her. And thinking about young Ben knowing Juliet reminds me of a comment that Harper made in last season’s episode, The Other Woman. Harper was The Others’ therapist, who met with Juliet when she first came to the island. She was snarky and catty from the start, and mumbled something under her breath about Ben being so good to Juliet because she “looks just like her.” Harper thought that Juliet looked like someone from Ben’s past…but who? His mother? His childhood friend Annie, who we are bound to revisit sooner or later? Or maybe the woman Juliet reminds Ben of is Juliet herself. If they knew each other in Ben’s childhood, and if Ben had a pubescent boy’s infatuation with her…it’s unlikely, but I’m just sayin.’

ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENT
We know from previous episodes that Sayid went from killing indiscriminately for Ben – out of a belief that by doing so he was protecting his friends – to not trusting Ben at all and telling Locke in The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham, “For two years I was manipulated into thinking I was protecting everyone on the island.” We’ve been waiting to see what happened that turned Sayid away from being Ben’s trigger-happy, go-to assassin. We got our answer in this episode.

Or did we? After committing a murder in Moscow, Sayid meets Ben outside the victim’s building and is told that their arrangement has come to an end; that this fresh kill is the last member of Widmore’s organization who poses a threat to them. Their work is done. Sayid is not happy to hear this, and we can infer from their exchange that since Nadia was killed, working for Ben to eliminate those responsible for her death (or those who Ben claim are responsible for her death) has given Sayid a sense of purpose…not to mention personal satisfaction. But he has no life to go back to, so Ben’s abrupt news does not sit well. Still, to me this doesn’t explain Sayid’s current state of mind – that is, the belief that Ben manipulated him into all of those murders. How does being upset that he has run out of people to kill transform into a conviction that those killings were based on lies? It seems like we’re still missing a piece of the puzzle, but maybe this is as much as we’re going to get on the subject. Seems like it might be time to move on to other mysteries; this episode would have been the logical place to deal with Sayid’s feelings toward Ben. If this is all we got, maybe it’s all there is.

KILLER INSTINCT
Later in the episode, Ben goes to the Build Our World site in Santo Domingo where Locke/Bentham had visited Sayid, and informs his former hitman that Locke is dead and that a man has been parked outside Hurley’s mental hospital for two weeks, keeping watch. He tells Sayid that Locke’s murder may be retribution for the killings Sayid did, but of course we know that Ben killed Locke. It would seem then, that this is his way of trying to lure Sayid back to the island. All of which makes me wonder who the guy in the parked car that Sayid killed really was. Did he actually have anything to do with Widmore? And what about the men in the safehouse who attacked Sayid when he tried to being Hurley there? Or the guy who posed as a hospital orderly when Sayid was recovering from that attack? Were these men all working for Ben? They used tranquilizers, not bullets, so clearly they wanted Sayid alive.

When Ben visits Sayid in Santo Domingo, he tells him, “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.” His words cut deep, and Sayid replies, “I’m not what you think I am. I don’t like killing.” But Ben is right; he does have a flair for it.

This episode gave us the reappearance of Ben’s bitter father, Roger Linus. He talks to Sayid while mopping the floor outside his cell, and is none too happy when his son shows up with yet another sandwich for the prisoner. When Roger grabs Ben and yells at him, Sayid jumps up as if to defend the boy from his abusive father…a natural reaction which Sayid must reconcile with who Ben grows up to become. Does he wonder if this mistreatment is responsible for paving Ben’s eventual path? And even if he can trace it back to the abuse, does that matter? Can Ben be forgiven his future misdeeds because of the way he was treated as a child?

Apparently not, based on how the episode ends. Young Ben comes to bust Sayid out his cell, asking if Sayid will take him back to the Hostiles. “Yes Ben, I will,” Sayid answers. “That’s why I’m here.” After having no choice but to knock Jin unconscious in the jungle, Sayid takes his friend’s gun as Ben stands nearby waiting for him. Hunched over Jin’s body and collecting himself for what he’s about to do, he says, half to Ben and half to himself, “You were right about me. I am a killer.” Then he shoots Ben square in the chest.

I don’t think a lot of TV shows would have the balls to show a young kid take a bullet. It was harsh, powerful and completely necessary. But c’mon Sayid, you’ve been doing this long enough to know that you don’t fire one bullet at a victim and then walk away. You gotta fire two or three to be safe. That’s how I roll. I know your feelings are mixed because you’ve just murdered a teenager, but you did what you had to do. So how can you run off without making sure he’s dead? You know what this kid will grow up to do. Sorry to be the cold voice of reason, but you should have put one in his head.

So was one shot enough? Is Ben dead? He can’t be, right? I mean, if he were wouldn’t the whole island kind of implode like the house at the end of Poltergeist? At the very least his adult self, who is currently on the Hydra island thirty years in the future, would disappear, right? “Erased from existence,” as Doc Brown would say?

Or is he still alive because…well, see below for the name of tonight’s episode to complete the sentence.

THE TRUTH WILL SET YOU FREE
When Sayid refuses to cooperate, Horace, Radzinsky, Phil and a reluctant Sawyer bring Sayid to The Dharma Initiative’s hippie shaman, a guy named Oldham, who operates out of a tent. They tie Sayid to a tree and Oldham administers some kind of truth serum. I wondered at first if Sayid could resist the effects of the truth serum – sort of the way Westley had built up immunity to iocane powder in The Princess Bride. But the serum works it magic, and soon a tripping Sayid is spilling details about Ajira 316, Oceanic 815 and the purpose of various Dharma stations – including The Swan, which hasn’t been built yet and about which Radzinsky is particularly edgy. He concludes with a warning. “You’re all going to die, you know. You’re going to be killed.” When Horace asks how he knows this, Sayid tells them he’s from the future. They assume the truth serum was too strong and that Sayid is loopy…but a spy nonetheless. Sawyer’s secret is safe.

He was nervous about this whole thing, of course, because he didn’t want Sayid to blow his story. Entertainment Weekly’s Doc Jensen had a thought about this which I liked. He wrote, “He’s Our You offered us another, more relatable example of free will and the factors and circumstances that infringe upon it: Sawyer. The born-again James LaFleur — scrambling not just to save Sayid’s ass but preserve the good thing he’s got going for himself and Juliet in Dharmaville — tried to convince his old castaway friend to lie and say he was a Hostile trying to defect. But Sayid refused, saying — correctly — that the right thing to do was to grant him his freedom and let him go. Sawyer flipped. No way could he allow Sayid to escape on his watch. ”These people trust me,” he said. ”I’ve built a life here, and a pretty good one, too.” Sawyer stands for any of us who put comfort and security over doing what’s right and standing up to what’s wrong. Funny: Three weeks ago, we were thrilled for Sawyer as we watched him blaze to heroic, happy life as a member of The Dharma Initiative. Now he’s an alarming cautionary tale for moral compromise.”

BEWARE BEAUTIFUL WOMEN DINING ALONE
Another gap that this episode fills in is how Sayid wound up on Ajira 316. After leaving Ben, Sun and Jack at the pier in Long Beach, Sayid goes to a bar to have a drink or ten.

Oh, hold up. Since I’m in the habit of complaining about bad continuity, I have to point something out here. When we first saw this dock scene in The Little Prince, Sayid walks off and says to Jack and Ben, “And if I see you, or him again, it will be extremely unpleasant for all of us.” But when we revisit the scene in this episode, the dialogue is different. Sayid no longer includes Jack in his warning, and instead says just to Ben, “If I see you again, it will be extremely unpleasant for us both.” C’mon guys…that’s just lazy.

Anyway, back to the bar. Sayid meets a stranger who we recognize as Ilana. A couple of things about their interaction, leading up to her bringing him to Ajira 316. First, she uses an accent which she has not used when on the island talking to Caesar, Locke and Sun. So either her accent with Sayid is an act, or the lack of an accent on the island is the act. Second, I don’t believe for a moment that she’s just a bounty hunter bringing him to justice for the family of one of the men he killed for Ben. She’s neck deep in all of the island/Widmore/Ben/Dharma intrigue, and she and Caesar are definitely in league.

By the time he boards the plane, Sayid has seen Jack, Hurley and Kate in the airport and knows things are not what they seem. When Ben walks into the cabin, Sayid leans in to Ilana.

Sayid: Are you working for Benjamin Linus? Are you working for him?

Ilana: Who’s Benjamin Linus?

Sayid: He’s a liar, a manipulator, a man who allowed his own daughter to be murdered to save himself, a monster responsible for nothing short of genocide.

Ilana: Why would I work for someone like that?

Sayid: I did.

As for Sayid uncharacteristically letting his guard down in the first place, I’ll blame the expensive scotch for his not being astute enough to ask himself why a beautiful woman is all dressed up to eat alone at a bar. (Fun Fact: The scotch he’s drinking is McCutcheon, which is Charles Widmore’s favorite. He once poured a glass for Desmond, explaining as he did so about how valuable the bottle was. He proceeded to drink it himself, telling Desmond that he wasn’t worthy of such an expensive drink. Or something like that. I didn’t have time to look it up exactly, and it’s not important anyway.)

SENSE OF PURPOSE
After Sayid’s visit to Oldham and after a Dharma leadership council votes to kill him, Sawyer gives him a last opportunity to escape. Sayid turns it down, saying that the truth serum brought him clarity and a (renewed) sense of purpose. He knows why he’s back on the island. After leaving him to his fate, Sawyer knocks on Kate’s door and asks her point blank why they all came back. She says she doesn’t know why the others are there, only why she is. But before she can say more, a flaming bus rolls into camp and crashes into a house – Ben’s diversion so he can help Sayid escape.

By the way, when the house caught fire and Jack came on the scene, which house did he come from? Are he and Kate living together? Juliet watched them walk out together that morning, but maybe they had just met up. Yet when Sawyer comes knocking, she closes the door and steps out on the porch as if to avoid disturbing someone inside. So are Jack and Kate on again?

LINE OF THE NIGHT
“A twelve year-old Benjamin Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I’m doing?” – Sayid

Tonight’s Episode: Whatever Happened, Happened