Lost... In Translation pt. 9

Alrighty folks, sorry for the wait, but after two long weeks it's time for part 9 of Lost... In Translation. As Nick mentioned in his last post, the Lost bits are, indeed, going to be sleeker and sexier in the future, due mostly to my new working schedule for the summer... Because teenagers on spring break fucking need ice cream daily. I'm going to be working later on Wednesday nights, and earlier on Thursday mornings, which means less time for writing my posts... And if you're wondering why last week never even got a post... Well, I had something very important to do. Namely, wiping that smug look off of this bastard's face.
So from now on, the Lost posts are going to be brief summaries, mainly just highlighting the important things that happened, rather than everything that happened.

Also, if you're worried about last week's episode, stop it. I'm going to do TWO episodes in this post... yeah. So here we go.

He's Our You

Namaste, indeed, Sayid. As you probably know by now, having watched the episode, this was a Sayid-centric episode, and marked a return to form for Lost, re-adopting the single character flashback template from the older episodes.

This episode began strong, with a message, and a sweet scene of Sayid murdering a hen as a small child. The message obviously being that Sayid's a killer through and through, even when it's not necessarily clean or pretty... And when you see him looking through the bars of his cell at a child Ben, his intentions become pretty clear. Even witnessing the boys abuse at the hands of his father later in the episode does not seem to sway Sayid from his mission, nor do Ben's offers to actually help Sayid escape.

Through flashbacks, we learn several things about the period between Sayid's departure and his eventual return, most noteably that according to Ben, Sayid is done killing everyone who had anything to do with Nadia's death. However, once Sayid goes about his life (the relief work in Santo Domingo) Ben shows up once again, asking Sayid to kill someone. This time, he's asking Sayid to kill the man who's following them, and watching Hurley. However, Ben leaves peaceably once Sayid refuses.

The other important flashback shows us that Alanna, the girl who had Sayid 'arrested' was a bounty hunter hired by the family of someone he killed, and that she seduced him before capturing him at gunpoint, with the intention of taking him to Guam.

On the island, however, as we already know, Sayid has escaped from Alanna, but is now being held by the Dharma Initiative, and they intend to find out who he is. The bad part though is Sayid is dedicated, and will not budge, even when Sawyer offers him the chance to be part of Dharma by headbutting him really hard.
Eventually, Horace makes the decision that Sayid has to be brought out into the woods, to a very creepy fellow named Oldham, who is the guy Dharma uses to make outsider's talk, hence the name of the episode. Oldham, however, is not a torturer in Sayid's sense. He has a truth serum, which he administers to Sayid after tying him to a tree... But as it turns out, Dharma can't handle the truth. Once he starts spouting off about the future, they decide that the dosage was too high, and that Sayid's delirious... The next step is obviously to kill him. Or, at least, that's what Dharma decides to do.

However, Sayid is not an easy man to kill. Before the execution order can be carried out, Sayid tells young Ben that he has been sent to bring Ben to Alpert, and luckily that precocious little Ben has already set a van on fire and crashed it into Dharmaville to cover their escape. Sayid and li'l Ben set out into the woods to find the Hostiles, but happen to run into Jin first. Sayid knocks him out pretty quickly, and steals Jin's gun.

Then he shoots a very surprised little Ben in the chest before fleeing into the woods...

Whatever Happened Happened

...A little disappointed in this episode to be honest, guys. Maybe it's just because I'm not a woman or a parent, so I don't feel that kind of crazy parental attachment to kids that a lot of people do, but Aaron briefly disappearing in a supermarket isn't really enough to get my blood running. This one here is a Kate-centric episode, and to be honest, not a whole lot really happened in it. The big reveal is that Kate gave Aaron to Ms. Littleton, and told her that she was coming back to the island for Claire. The rest of the flashbacks reveal the promise she made to Sawyer, which was apparently finding Cassidy and Clementine and taking care of them. We also find out that Kate drops the ball on the whole 'we're keeping the island a secret!' thing A LOT, as just in this episode she tells her new girlfriend Cassidy, and Ms. Littleton.

In the current timeline, things are a tad bit more exciting. Juliet struggles to save Ben's life, as the Dharma doctor is at The Looking Glass for the next few days. As it turns out, Ben's bullet wound will apparently be fatal, and guess who refuses to help? Jack the hero, who was until rather recently my favorite character before he apparently got castrated and his balls shriveled up and fell off... I mean, I know he has to have low-points, but I thought Jack would be back to his old self by now, and this was a poor showing... tsk tsk. He even admits that he has a 'fate', and for an atheist like me, that's just depressing. I really hope Jack gets his shit back together and starts resolutely defying destiny again, or I'm gonna need a new favorite character... And it's going to be Miles. I'm telling you, the dude's underused.
Did I ever mention how much I like Miles? I mean, he's an antisocial, sarcastic asshole who can talk to ghosts, and he gets just enough play to be remembered as the guy who came to the island with Daniel and Charlotte, and proceeded to do nothing. I mean, why can't we have a Miles-centric episode instead of a boring old Kate-centric? There's no justice. At least he's still alive. More than we can say for Charlotte, I guess.

By the way, I also have a new theory that Charlotte was the little girl who supposedly drowned and came back to life in one of Mr. Eko's episodes in season two, where he was investigating this 'miracle' for the church. The girl's name was Charlotte, and she had red hair... Hrm. What do you guys think?

Anywho, after Jack refused to do surgery (like a junkie refusing heroin), Kate and Sawyer took Ben to the Hostiles, in hopes that they could save him. Turning him over to Alpert, Richard warns that he will forget the entire event, and will forever be one of them. Kate agrees, and Richard treks off into the woods, carrying the dying child...

Now back to Miles. He was, with the help of Hurley, the highlight of this episode. The writers did a really good job here, by deciding to have the two most entertaining characters have a long-lasting back and forth on time travel, and how it works. Unlike Daniel's nerdy explanations, Miles speaks english that makes sense, and Hurley counter-points with seemingly dumb, but usually correct assumptions of how time travel would work. As Miles explains it, time travel in Lost works basically like this: All time travel that will ever take place in history has already been accounted for in determining the future. i.e. because Miles and Hurley have ALREADY experienced the future, it is possible for them to die in 1977 and be fully dead, BUT Ben will survive, because since this is Ben's PAST, he will still grow up to be adult Ben, so there's no way he'll die... Hurley retorts that he's expecting to disappear like in Back To The Future, and also makes a solid point about Ben not knowing Sayid ever shot him as an adult, which does stump Miles. Luckily, Richard 'explained' this in his scene, by saying Ben would lose his memory.

The episode ends well, too, with Ben waking up in the makeshift hospital on the Hydra island, with Locke staring at him...

The next episode looks to be pretty epic too, and it's going to be Ben-Centric, so I'm obviously very excited.