Date:	2009-03-26 12:43
Subject:	Notes about LOST (5.10)- "He's Our You" (made a quick edit 1:26 pm EST 3/26)
Security:	Public
Location:	Toledo, OH
Mood:	hungry

Hello once again everybody!!! Really great episode last night that I'm really lookin' forward to going back and rewatching this weekend.  I've always like Sayid's character as he was obviously torn about his life and was trying to make  things better. And this episode really changed the perception of his character.  Really great stuff. And as usual, many thanks to LOST Cubit, Get Lost Podcast for their many pics and also thanks to lost-media for a pic I found via a google search.  Let's do this, shall we?

THINGS I NOTICED ABOUT LOST:

- Opening in Tikrit, Iraq- The episode opened with a young Sayid killing a chicken as another young boy is unable to do it.  This was before the discussion he has with Ben later on in the episode, but this really shows how, well, ruthless Sayid was, even at a young age.

It made me think about the conversation that Kelvin had with Sayid after Sayid tortured his CO to find out the location of the dead pilot during Gulf War, Version 1.0.  He said something like "what you made me do, should never be done again" and Kelvin tells Sayid that they didn't teach him anything. In fact, Sayid was able to do this because of what he really is on the inside. Now, i'm not being word for word, but that's the basics of it.  This scene made me think back to that moment though as it's confirmed that Sayid does have the ability to be a cold hearted bastard. Which leads me to...

- Ben's speech about him- Ben stated in his speech to Sayid that he was a killer and was capable of doing things other men can't.  Ben hit the nail right on the head with this one as we've seen more and more evidence about Sayid and his ability to kill and torture.  I really liked this conversation between the two as I really think Sayid doesn't want to kill, but it's just in his nature.

- The island must have a huge library...- Ben brought the took, "A Separate Reality: further conversations with don juan" to Sayid to help pass the time.



The book, published in 1971, details the disputed "real" conversations the author, Carlos Castaneda, had with so-called indian sorcerer, Don Juan Matus.  The book talks about how the two would essentially use a large dose of psychadelic drugs and don juan trying to get Carlos to "see," which Carlos described as "perceiving energy directly as it flows through the universe."  I'm not too sure how this ties into LOST as most books mentioned on the show can have some sort of tie in with the show; with this one, i'm thinking that perhaps it's a nod to Sayid as he needs to "see" the bigger picture in what he's thinking about doing. That's my opinion on that one.

- We've seen this before! - I did like the irony here that Benjamin Linus is held captive by the LOSTies and is brought food and books.  We also saw this when Ben was being held captive at his own place by Locke. 

- I couldn't help but chuckle when Horace was threatening Sayid.  It just made me laugh that Horace, this tiny, hippie scientist is trying to scare Sayid, a war Vet and torturer.  However, his threats weren't without merit as he took Sayid to...

- Oldham- As Sawyer put it, "He's our You" (hey, that's the title of the episode!). 



I'm not exactly sure why this guy lived way out in the woods in a tent, as seen below:



but he was able to get Sayid to talk with minimal effort or problems.  I looked up his last name, but wasn't able to find much.  It's found primarily in England as it's a large town in England.  Folks with the last name of Oldham range from managers to bishops to writers to singers and so forth.  The only possible connection I found could be that there were a few geologists with that last name.  Geologists study the matter that makes up the earth and i'm willing to guess that Dharma had several of them to research the unique properties of the island. 

- More Oldham?- If you look at the backwards sign on the building that Sayid leaves after killing the guy in Moscow, you'll see some Russian words: "Олдхэм Фармасьютикалс." 



According to various sites/boards, this roughly translates to "Oldham Pharmaceuticals." (thanks to LOSTpedia for the Russian text!)  What connection is this?  Does Oldham work for Widmore eventually or something?

- One connection that i'm actually slightly embarrassed to share due to its really random nature (yes, even moreso than regular LOST trivia!) deals with the song that Oldham was listening to. 





I recognized it as "I can't give you anything but love" by Billie Holiday.  I KNEW I had heard it before and I had an idea, but I decided to confirm it.  I opened up iTunes and searched and whamo.  The song is also featured in the film, THE GREEN MILE (yes, I have the score/soundtrack; wanna make something of it??! hehehe). The film stars Tom Hanks, Michael Clarke-Duncan and Doug Hutchinson as Percy Whitmore (how do you like the random Whitmore vs. Widmore wording??!?!?) 




Hutchinson plays Horace Goodspeed, one of the majors players of the Dharma Initiative.



- "Playing house"- Juliet and Sawyer talked about how they were playing house.  We heard this expression last season when Kate and Sawyer talked about not leaving the island and living in the Dharma barracks.  Kate sarcastically suggested that they "Play house" and Sawyer was all for it. But, of course, Kate ran cos she's Kate and also because SHE DOESN'T DO TACO NIGHT! (some folks will this....most won't. hehehehe )

- Hurley- I must say that I find his new job pretty spot on.  He seems to work pretty well as a chef, suggesting dipping style and whatnot. 



You can make a rude comment about Hurley's weight if you please, but I gotta say, he does have fast food experience and this job suits him well.  It made me chuckle cos he seemed relatively content about it.  I do LOVE the Dharma symbol for it too; the chef's hat is hilariously silly and I have to agree with GetLostPodcast that the knife and fork have a distinct pirate/buccaneer feel to them. 

- While in captivity, Sayid ran into Ben's very loving and affectionate dad (end sarcasm), Roger Linus.



We've seen him before in Ben's flashback and he was also the body that was in the dharma van that Hurley found, as that's where Ben killed him during the Purge.  Roger seemed pretty displeased that Ben was bringing Sayid a sandwich; why he would be angry, I really don't know. After all, it's not like Roger has shown any sort of loving, fatherly traits to young Ben in the first place. The guy is an alcoholic, dickish and abusive ass.  I did have a laugh though as Roger got pissy and threw the food on the floor, which was a dumb move cos he has to clean it up as he's THE JANITOR. Duh!

- MacCutcheon Whiskey- Sayid was droping $120.00 A GLASS for the infamous and apparently really tasty MacCutcheon whiskey at the bar. 



We've seen this beverage before, primarily dealing with Widmore as he had some in his office (he denied it to Desmond).




Charlie found a bottle of it in Sawyer's stash, which they used to get Desmond drunk.  Anthony Cooper also had a bottle of it in his apartment before launching John out the window.

- Ann Arbor- Radzinsky said that he would call Ann Arbor to get the final say so regarding what to do with Sayid.  If you think WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back to the second season when we first found out about Dharma, we know that this is where they got their start: at the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor, MI. I guess they are also very aware of the Hostile situation on the island.

- Geronimo Jackson- If you look at the cafeteria where everybody was eating before starting their day, you can see a Geronimo Jackson poster in the background. 


This is yet ANOTHER GJ reference this season along with Charlotte and the girl who was wearing the D.I. t-shirt.  I actually didn't notice this before looking at screenshots online today; I need to invest in a huge HD TV, I guess!

- World's Worst Foreplay- Right before we thought Sayid and Llana were gonna get their groove on, Llana gave Sayid a boot to the face and ended up holding him at gunpoint.


 
We found out that Llana is not a marshall, but a bounty hunter who was ordered to hunt down Sayid.  The family that hired her was the family of Peter Avellino, the guy that Sayid killed in the season 4 episode, "The Economist" while the two were enjoying a casual golf challenge.

"His body has a pretty good lie there on the fairway..."



I tried to look up Avellino's last name, but came up empty.  There were some hits that dealt with Italian painters, an italian saint, and lastly, an italian mobster.  Could there be a relation between the italian mobster and Peter Avellino?  Maybe, highly unlikely as not much ties the two together aside from their name. 

- More Rabbits- Llana joked that she was going to get Sayid a rabbit's foot when he expressed some doubts about flying on the plane with the other Oceanic folks.  If memory serves, Hurley had a rabbit's foot in his car and we've heard about and seen many rabbits in the show ranging from Ben's pet rabbit, to Locke cooking rabbit to the Dharma initiative using rabbits and so forth.

- Why do kids like to burn stuff on this island?!?!?!?  Ben uses a flaming Dharma van, as seen below:



to create a diversion so he can sneak in and rescue Sayid.

Very Charlie-esque hoodie, don't you agree?



 If you think WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY back to season 1, Walt burned the raft as he didn't want to leave the island.



- And of course, the HUGE shocker of the evening was Sayid shooting Ben.




This was a CRAZY moment and it raises many MANY questions. First off, is Ben REALLY dead?!!?!! My guess would be no. Why, well, just a hunch.  I wanna say that the island won't let him die cos he is pretty important, but this is 1977 and maybe the island doesn't KNOW YET how important he is and thus he could die. 

And the next question is: what could happen if he does die???  Wouldn't this mess up so many things dealing with time and space?!?!?!?  I mean, here is just a brief list of things that could change if Ben doesn't exist: Juliet does not stay on the island, Goodwin and Ethan don't infiltrate the LOSTies, Ana Lucia and Libby survive, Walt and Michael have their stories changed, Rousseau keeps Alex and so on and so on. SO MUCH could happen here. And maybe that's the kicker: things are going to happen because time could change due to Ben's death. If this pans out, it could have really horrific results for the space/time continuum. Should be interesting to see how this works and pans out.
 

EDIT NEW THEORY / IDEA I FORGOT TO MENTION: One really interesting and downright AWESOME theory I saw on the LJ chat last night was that Ben is manipulating Sayid.  They suggest that Ben had a hand in killing Nadia, Sayid's wife, so that he would take out some of Widmore's people for Ben. Why would Ben do this to Sayid? Well, because Sayid SHOT HIM when he was younger and this is his revenge. I REALLY LOVE this idea.

THE NUMBERS 4 8 15 16 23 42

- The shot of Sayid leaving the building shows us a backwards view of the address and the name of the building.  The number on the building is 32, but of course, our view is reversed/backwards and 32 backwards could be 23.

- Ben told Sayid he ran away to the forest 4 years ago.

- The numbers on the license plate behind Ben in the lot in Moscow are: e 608 PC 158.

Indiana Jones called; he wants his hat back, Ben.



We have the obvious use of 8 a few times, 15, and if you add 15+8 (158) you get 23.  Lookin' at the letters, e is the 5th letter in the alphabet, so nothing there. P is the 16th letter giving us one of the Numbers and C is the 3rd letter, giving us nothing.  However, if you add up the non-numbers oriented letters, E (5) and C (3), you get 8, a number.

- Sawyer told the Dharma folks to get to building 15 as that was the one that was onfire.

- The man that Sayid shot was named Andropow.  This name ties to Russian leader Yuri Andropov who was a Russian ruler who ruled for, get this, 15 months.

- And this last one is trickier: I've had little luck trying to figure out the combination to Andropow's safe.



 
I can tell he first hits the # key and then 1, but the rest looks fuzzy.  I can tell that they are letters, but what they're spelling, I don't have the slightest clue. Maybe it spells WOPED? HOPED? LOPED?  I'm not sure. The basic letters of these ideas are OPED; O is the 15th letter of the alphabet, so number there; P is the 16th, so we have a hit there; E is the fifth letter so nothing there and D is the 4th letter, so we have a number there.  Now, consider the other possiblities: H is the 8th letter, W is the 23rd letter and L is the 12th letter.  So, i'm not sure what it is or even if i'm in the ballpark, but I find it to be funny and pretty coincidental that my possibilities do have lots of connections to the Numbers. 


And that's all I have for this week.  I'm off for now.

On a side personal note, my lady and I are celebrating our one year anniversary by going on a Ghost Hunt of the Mansfield State Reformatory (prison) in Mansfield, OH on saturday night



It takes place from 8 pm to dawn on sunday; so if you don't hear from me next week, i'm probably still wandering around the prison, lost and trying to find an exit and not get scared shitless. hahaha We're both pretty excited about this and in case you didn't know, this is where THE SHAWSHANK REDEMPTION was filmed, among other movies.

have a good weekend!

'till next time true believers.