Lost: A Killer Ending

Wow.

That’s the only word I can think of to describe the final few minutes of “He’s Our You.” I’ll obviously get to what happened in more detail a little further down, but right now I’ll just say Sayid’s decision at the end of this episode LITERALLY made me gasp.

In the thrown-together, informal list of episode-ending shockers in “Lost” history that I just came up with, I’d say this one goes near the top along with Michael killing Ana Lucia and Libby at the end of season 2’s “Two for the Road” and Desmond dejectedly saying “No matter what I do — you’re gonna die, Charlie” at the end of season 3’s “Flashes Before Your Eyes.” (Oh yeah, SPOILER ALERT, I guess.)

“Sayid episodes” are always interesting to me because they REALLY serve as showcases for Naveen Andrews’ talent. Ever since Shannon died in season 2, Sayid has really been the one person on this show without strong ties to anyone else on the Island. So Sayid-centric episodes tend to allow the actor to do his thing on his own more so than any other character. (Season 4’s “The Economist” was basically a mini-spy adventure starring Andrews.)

His alienation from everyone else — as well as the character’s true, dark nature (the major reason for said alienation) — also happened to be a huge part of last night’s episode. I mean, how alone in the world is this guy that, when Ben (wearing a fantastic hat) told him he was done killing all the people responsibly for his family’s death, Sayid had a hopeless, “don’t leave me” look on his face?

Turns out Sayid has been a natural born killer all his life. Or at least for most of his life, as we saw when he stepped in and coolly killed a chicken so his brother wouldn’t have to (shades of Mr. Eko and his brother) and earning the approval of his father.

The episode also filled in pretty much every gap in Sayid’s off-Island life. He’d gone to Santo Domingo to try to atone for his murderous ways before Ben enticed him into coming back by making him believe Hurley’s life was in danger and by pointing out that Sayid was simply capable of doing things “most of us aren’t.” We also found out how he got to be in handcuffs. Apparently, Illana is a bounty hunter who was hired by the family of the guy Sayid killed on that golf course in “The Economist” to capture him and bring him to Guam.

I FINALLY enjoyed her character because she was operating independently from Cesar (shaking off that Nikki/Paolo 2.0 stench) and because her scene with a depressed Sayid at the bar was pretty sexy. (We knew their drinks were expensive because McCutcheon is what Charles Widmore told Desmond he’s never be worthy of drinking.) I still think it’s a bit suspicious that she just happened to be taking Sayid on that particular flight to Guam, but right now I’m still chalking it up to fate (and NOT to the fact that she may be working for Genocidal Ben after all.) Now all we need is the episode to show us how Hurley made his way on the plane.

Speaking of Hurley, I should’ve figured the laid-back dude would fit in perfectly with the hippie-ish Dharma Initiative, but I didn’t. I’ll be sure to try that dipping sauce.

Of course, Sayid was still considered a hostile in 1977, and the rest of the Dharma people tried to figure out what to do with him. Horace seemed open to hearing his side of the story, Radsinsky continued to be a major pain in the ass, and we could practically hear Sawyer think as he tried to figure out a way to save Sayid’s life. All of them also mentioned Sayid facing the ominous Oldham.

So how great was it to see big bad scary Oldham was none other than William Sanderson from “The Bob Newhart Show” and “Deadwood”? Of course, we were expecting a monstrous figure, not a guy with a hangdog face who lives in a tee pee. It kinda reminded me of the fight in “Ace Ventura: When Nature Calls.” (Where else are you going to read a column linking “Lost” to “Ace Ventura”?) Of course, Oldham’s laid back self-assurance and cruelty made me scared for Sayid all over again right after I’d relaxed a bit.

Oldham force-fed Sayid some truth-telling serum and Sayid spilled everything. He talked about the hatches that had yet to be built. He talked about everyone dying. He talked about Sawyer (phew, close one!) He talked about being a bad man. He talked about being from the future (this is where he lost everybody). He even told the truth about him not being too drugged-up at all, but they’d stopped listening by then. After a semi-casual tribal council, Dharma unanimously voted to execute Sayid.

Yes, I said unanimously as in Sawyer voted for Sayid’s execution too. I get that he wanted to keep his cover and tried to release Sayid anyway, but this is the second week in a row that “LaFleur” is exhibiting troubling, Sawyer-y, save-my-own-ass tendencies. He’s not alone since Juliet admitted she wasn’t really expecting their friends to come back (since, except for Jack, they’re not really her friends), but Sawyer seems to want to incorporate Jack and Co. into the fold, mainly to prove that he CAN. Unfortunately, it’s looking more and more like his old friends’ arrival is going to rock the entire Dharma Initiative, hence his crack about the flaming VW bus after one day with them back. (Remember when all we were worried about was Kate messing up his thing with Juliet?)

The flaming bus was a distraction (shades of Charlie setting a fire to create a distraction and try to baptize Aaron) by Ben who had decided to break Sayid out so he could join him and the rest of the hostiles. The two made it into the jungle, where Sayid knocked Jin out with a cheap shot, grabbed Jin’s gun and shot Ben right in the chest!

Yes, I said that Sayid shot Ben, thereby accomplishing what so few people in time travel stories do by putting a bullet right into the Big Bad. I’m sure a lot of people saw this coming, but I’m slower than most people. We’d seen Sayid witness Roger Linus abuse his son, so I actually thought that Sayid had developed a bit of genuine sympathy for young Ben. I figured Sayid would use him to escape, then cut him loose, since all Sayid wanted to do at the start of the episode was be set free. (“I was just served a sandwich by a 12-year-old Ben Linus, how do you think I’m doing.”) Of course, when Sawyer offered to set him free and Sayid refused, I should’ve known he was specifically waiting for Ben to come around. I'm sure that, if he REALLY wanted to kill him, a lot of us would've wanted him to go right up to him and put two more bullets in his head. Shooting him once (it was a good shot, by the way) and running away reminds me of the "Usual Suspects" line, "How do you shoot the devil in the back? What if you miss?"

Of course, Sayid shooting Ben raises an incredible amount of questions that I’ll let smarter people tackle. First off, could Ben actually be dead? (Doubtful, but how clever of the writers to not show us any 2007 Ben in this episode at all to leave that possibility open.) If this happened in Ben’s childhood, then he must remember it as an adult, which means he’s been pushing Sayid to kill knowing full well that one day Sayid would travel back in time to shoot him. (That’s a special kind of twisted.) Could Ben be a Christian Shephard-like ghost? (Doubtful, since I don’t think ghosts age.)

Most likely Sayid’s bullet was not fatal, but will still require medical attention in the next episode. If only there was an experienced surgeon somewhere in Dharmaville. Uh oh, Sawyer and Co. are going to have a hard time working around that one.

So what’d you think of this episode? Since Ben was obviously lying about the people camped outside Hurley’s mental hospital being the same people who killed Locke, who the hell WERE those people watching Hurley in the mental hospital? What do you think was in that cube Oldham gave Sayid? (Other than sugar.) How did 12-year-old Ben set up that VW bus stunt? Finally, wasn’t having Sawyer and Kate get interrupted RIGHT when she was about to reveal to him why she came back a total party foul?