Theories on He's Our You

It's interesting... the episode title seems to indicate that the pivotal moment this week should be when Oldham drugs Sayid, right? This Oldham guy is set up to be one scary dude, but all he does is put LSD or something onto a sugar cube and force feed it to Sayid.

I mean, sure, there's something about Oldham that creeps me out... part of it is that he lives in a teepee in the middle of the jungle. Do the Others not bother him? Are they afraid of him? Do they respect him?

But when we boil it down, the drugging scene was meaningless. Sayid told them the truth and Horace and the others didn't believe it. Sure, they (especially Radzinsky) were freaked out that he knew about the Dharma stations, especially the Swan, but other than that, no harm done. They just figured they'd given him too much of the drug and decided to kill him, just like they wanted to in the first place.

And we find out how Illana captured Sayid and who she is. My only question here is: how did the family of golfer guy find out Sayid did it?

But on to the meat of the episode. I've been saying since last week that Sayid was thinking about killing lil' Ben. There are two main points here:

1. Either the timeline is all shot to kingdom come, or lil' Ben isn't really dead. That's what it comes down to. Note that Sayid did not stop to check for a pulse or make extra sure lil' Ben was dead by shooting a few more rounds into the body, so I'm leaning towards "lil' Ben will be saved by Richard and/or healed by the Island powers" right now. It makes the most sense and we don't have to deal with the aftermath of the timeline falling apart.

2. Sayid shoots Ben because he believes lil' Ben will grow up to be a manipulating, lying, evil man, responsible for a lot of the suffering he and the other 815-ers have gone through. He probably suspects Adult Ben had Nadia killed in order to turn Sayid into his personal assassin.

Now here's where it gets fun. Adult Ben makes life hard for Sayid and the other 815-ers (including probably having Nadia killed) because Sayid shot him when he was 12.

And Sayid shot lil' Ben because Adult Ben made Sayid's life hard from 2004-2007.

The whole thing is a time-travel revenge circle.

See why I hate time travel? Ugh.

This is also the basis for the conversation Ben and Sayid have in the Dominican Republic. Ben believes Sayid to be a stone-cold killer, because Sayid shot him, an unarmed boy who had just helped him escape from Dharma, in cold blood.

This theory contradicts another theory floating around: that people don't develop memories of "altered timeline events" until they happen. For example, Desmond never met Faraday (outside the Swan during the jumping phase) until the Island disappeared and the time skipping began. This makes no sense to me in light of Faraday's "one timeline" theory, so I'm going with the idea that Adult Ben already knows Sayid, Jack, Kate, Hurley, etc. in 2004, and knows Juliet before he recruits her in 2001. He doesn't suddenly develop memories in 2008 of knowing them as a child in 1977 when this is all "happening" along some parallel timeline. Does that make sense? I need to draw a chart.

Other stuff: lil' Ben is probably responsible for the burning van. He was waiting outside the holding area and sprang into action the moment Phil was gone.

And the writers were worried we wouldn't feel bad watching lil' Ben get shot, so they included a "remember how his dad is an abusive jerk?" scene. Oh Uncle Rico, where did you go wrong?

What will Sayid do now? He's alone in the jungle in 1977. I doubt the Others will let him join them, and Dharma sure as heck want him dead now.

Good episode.