Season 5, Episode 9: "He's Our You"

I think I am actually more confused after watching this episode. All of this time travel, alternate timelines, etc....it is making my head hurt!!!

The good thing is that we learned more about Sayid. I am glad that we finally learned how he ended up on the plane, when he clearly did not intend to return to the island. This just goes along with the whole idea of FATE and that what is meant to be, will be. He was supposed to return to the island, and even though he did not board the plane by choice - FATE intervened to bring him back to the island.

I think it's interesting that we see Sayid's past as a boy and that even at a young age, he was a killer. Ben later tells him he is a natural killer because he shows no emotion or remorse. However, I believe that he DID show remorse. After his years as a torturer in Iraq, he did seem to show remorse. When he first crashed on the island on flight 815, he was remorseful for the man that he used to be, and was given redemption. The island made him into a new person, gave him a new clean slate - washed away his sins, so to speak. But, once off the island, Ben was able to "recreate" this old version of a killer once again. Sayid went to work for Ben as an assassin, and became a man that showed no remorse for what he was doing. Of course we know that Ben was manipulating him, though. So, was Sayid killing because he truly is a "killer" - or was he just doing it to try and protect his friends? I think it was the latter. We know that Ben manipulated Sayid into believing that Widmore was behind all of this (and he lied about Widmore being involved in John's "murder" when we know that Ben did it himself.) Sayid believed he was "a bad man" when really, his whole life he has been manipulated into being a killer. When given the truth serum in 1977, he says he is there because he is a bad man. He never WANTED to be that man. As a boy, he had no choice - he knew that his father was going to make his brother kill the chicken, so he had to step up. In the Republican Guard, he had to torture the prisoners for fear of his own life...if he didn't do his "job" he would be killed. He never intentionally wanted to be a killer. But he was always made to believe that was just who he was. This is ironic because, even after Sayid was "reborn" with a clean slate on the island, once back in the real world Ben turned him into that killer again - and then ultimately that was what brought Sayid back to the island again - where he believed he was brought there for a purpose...to kill young Ben.

This is where it gets confusing. Technically, if he killed young Ben, none of the "future" events that Ben was involved in would have ever taken place. If Ben dies as a boy, he never would have joined the hostiles, never would have killed off Dharma, never would have become leader, never would have infiltrated the Survivors camp after they crashed on the island...it would effect a whole string of events that would alter the lives of all of our survivors. This is why I do NOT think Ben actually dies. Because I don't think that the future can really be "changed" as it goes along with the whole FATE theory of the show and John Locke's theory that everything is supposed to happen. Here's my theory: After Sayid shoots Ben...assuming he does NOT die, he could run off and still become a member of the Hostiles. And because he just witnessed Jin (who is a member of Dharma) having a conversation with Sayid that clearly showed he was not part of the Hostiles, this would further explain Ben's willingness to kill all of the Dharma people...now that he has "proof" that something fishy and secretive is going on there. Oncing joining Alpert and the Hostiles...the future would go on just as it was always "supposed" to, with Ben killing off Dharma and eventually becoming leader.

Although - now we have Locke who has returned from the dead, Sun and Frank Lapidus who are "stuck" on the island in what we assume is the present time - so the big question is if this present time has been effected by the past actions of our survivors back in 1977? An interesting tidbit in this episode was when young Ben gave Sayid a book to read...it was called "A Separate Reality." And this is pretty much exactly what we have going on here... a separate reality...in which there are two timelines going on simultaneously on the island...one in 1977 and the other with Sun, Frank, Locke and the new survivors of flight 316. This is the "separate reality." Now we just have to wait and see if the actions from 1977 will ultimately change this separate reality...or if everything truly is meant to be and FATE will allow things to happen as they are supposed to.