Lost Recap: Did Sayid Kill "Hitler"?

On last night’s episode, while sitting on Ajira 316, Sayid told Ilana that Ben was responsible for “nothing short of genocide.” So could he stop such a genocide by killing kiddie Ben?

Finally, a Sayid-centric episode! It seems like it’s been forever. The Jack and Kate shit and their love rectangle with Sawyer and Juliet is so tired already.

Anyway, last’s night’s episode showed us that our favorite torturer is, himself, tortured…by his past, by being from the future, and whether or not he’s a good person, given the fact that he’s able to kill so easily and so well. The opening scene, in which a young Sayid kills a chicken after his brother wusses out, was totally reminiscent of Mr. Eko‘s flashback in which he kills a man so that his brother doesn’t have to.

While most viewers saw Sayid killing the chicken as representative of one of his many strong qualities—he always does what needs to be done, when no one else is willing to do it, even if it’s unpleasant—Sayid looks back on it and wonders if he’s always been nothing more than a killer, and if that makes him a shitbag.

Ben approached him in Santo Domingo—in a last ditch effort to get him back to L.A. so he can board the Ajira flight 316—and said, “You’re a killer, Sayid.” It would seem that this was the moment that Ben finally got inside Sayid’s head.

Back in 1977, Young Ben continues to visit Sayid in his Dharma cell. At one point, Sayid witnesses an abusive interaction between Ben and his father. Ben’s dad screams at him, “Go home, and i’ll tell you what to think!”

Sayid realizes that Ben has major daddy issues, and that telling people what to think is the learned behavior he thinks will put him in control of situations.

On one of his visits, Ben brought Sayid a book, A Separate Reality, which Ben said he’s read twice.

It was written by anthropologist/author Carlos Castaneda in 1971. In his work, Castaneda talked a lot about different realities, saying that the world is incomprehensible and a giant mystery. Kinda like Lost!

A Separate Reality is supposed to be a non-fiction account of Castaneda’s experiences with hallucinogens while apprenticing under Yaqui Indian Sorcerer, Don Juan Matus. Don Juan gave him peyote and some other shit in order to get Castaneda to “See,” which, in the book, is described as “perceiving energy directly as it flows through the universe.”

(Side note: Although he’s sold millions of books, critics and scholars viewed Castaneda as a hack. While Castaneda claimed that his books were non-fiction works of anthropology, one guy compared the experiences in Castaneda’s books with Castenada’s library stack requests at the University of California. The stack requests “documented that he was sitting in the library when his journal said he was squatting in don Juan’s hut. One of the most memorable discoveries…was that when Castaneda said he was participating in the traditional peyote ceremony, he was not only sitting in the library, but he was reading someone else’s description of his experience of the peyote ceremony.”)

Anyway, the drugs and “Seeing” brings us to Oldham, whom Sawyer described as a psychopath. He also told Sayid, “He’s our you,” which also happens to be the name of this episode.

He lives in a teepee, apart from the Dharma compound.

He gives Sayid some kind of drug, that’s supposed to serve as a truth serum of some sort. (Despite the fact that he listens to a Victrola, this guy is so ’70s.)

Thanks to fellow Lost geeks at Lostpedia for discovering this little Easter egg: “In Moscow when Sayid exits outside mirrored writing “Олдхэм Фармасьютикалс” can be seen above the door which is “Oldham Pharmaceuticals” transliterated into Russian.”

Interestingly, Locke also used hallucinogens in a teepee-ish “sweat hut” in order to “speak to the Island” in past seasons, to find out his purpose, and what he should do next.

So, Sayid got crazy high, and indeed told the Dharma folks the truth.

He totally spilled the beans about how he’s not really a Hostile, how he arrived on the Island by plane twice, and that he’s from the future. His story is so insane that Oldham thinks he gave him too much of the drug. Sayid laughs and says, “You used exactly enough.”

Sayid has “Seen.” He believes he’s realized his purpose. More on that in a second.

First, let’s talk about Ilana.

So we found out that she’s a bounty hunter, hired by the family of Peter Avellino—the guy that Sayid killed on the golf course, per Ben’s orders—who wanted Ilana to bring Sayid to Guam, which landed him on Ajira 316. Also, seduction is a tool she utilizes to trap her targets.

Initially, I thought that Ilana was working for Ben, who knew that the only way he’d get Sayid on that plane was by force. However, her knowledge of the fancy whiskey ($120 per shot!) Sayid was drinking at the bar gave me a new idea.

He was drinking MacCutcheon, which repeatedly pops up on Lost.

It’s Widmore’s drink of choice. He drank it when Desmond asked Widmore if he could marry his daughter Penny, and told Desmond that one swallow of the whiskey is worth more than Desmond could make in month. He also keeps a bottle next to his bed (which we saw when Ben creepily came into his room to inform Widmore that he would kill Penny in retribution for Alex’s murder).

Anyway, Ilana’s knowledge of the whiskey led me to believe that she’s actually working for Widmore, as a way to get Sayid back to the Island. After all, Widmore was the one who told Locke to contact Mrs. Hawking. Being in touch with her, he would’ve known which flight to get on for “the event.” Ben did look perturbed to see Ilana and Sayid sitting on that plane.

Perhaps Widmore wanted Sayid on the Island in 1977 so that he could kill Ben.

Another factoid: “MacCutcheon” is also the name of an opening defense move in chess. Lost seems to be a giant game of chess between Widmore and Ben, with everyone else in the cast serving as pawns in their game.

Coincidentally (or not), after his drug trip, Sayid believes that his purpose is to kill lil’ Ben. Sawyer goes to visit Sayid and tells him that the Dharma peeps intend to kill him, saying, “Even a new mom wants you dead.”

Sayid refuses to leave, because he’s waiting for Ben to come get him, and help him escape, so they can join the Hostiles. Ben creates a diversion by setting a van on fire.

He and Sayid flee, but they are discovered by Jin. Sayid knocks him out, grabs Jin’s gun, and shoots kiddie Ben.

Could he really be dead!?

Why is Ben allowed to die, if Michael wasn’t able to die, when he repeatedly tried to kill himself? Tom told Michael that no matter how hard he tried, he wouldn’t be able to kill himself because the Island wouldn’t allow it, since he had work that needed to be done. This would all play into Daniel Faraday’s theory of what can and can’t happen by changing the past. Although Sawyer did mention last week that Daniel had “interesting” theories on what can and can’t happen, so maybe there are loopholes? Is the Island its own course-corrector?

Or had all of this already happened? Did Ben always remember the castaways? Did he call Sayid a killer because he had a beef with him from when he tried to kill him as a child?

Lastly, this isn’t at all about this episode, but last week’s. This HD still of Sun in the Dharma orientation lodge has been brought to my attention. There’s a woman standing behind her. Intentional ghost, or production fuck up, like Charlotte’s real age?