‘Lost’: Sayid causes trouble

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It’s strange, considering the time-looping subject matter ‘Lost’ deals with week after week, that each episode seems to speed by much faster than 40-some minutes plus commercials. Is it possible that ABC itself, from the hours of 9 to 10 p.m., exists in a bizarre time warp of its own? And by watching the show at a different time on my DVR, am I actually experiencing it in a parallel pocket time where I’m unable to affect the outcome of what was aired previously? This has nothing to do with tonight’s episode, I’m just thinking out loud here. ...

After many weeks of shaking up the traditional format, ‘Lost’ returned to the flashbacks this week in the Sayid-centric episode ‘He’s Our You,’ and it felt as comforting as chicken soup served by Mom. (Actually chickens were a theme tonight -- from Lil Sayid killing one back in Tikrit to Lil Ben delivering a chicken salad sandwich to older Sayid on the island.) Once upon a time, I grew very weary of the constant glimpses into the past of our main characters. But after moving away from the routine, it was refreshing to get back to basics. And the flashbacks served several good purposes tonight.

On the most basic level, they explained just how Sayid ended up on the Ajira flight back to the island after flatly walking away from Ben and his promises to help the group out. Though does anyone really believe that the bounty hunter bringing Sayid to justice for his golf course assassination in ‘The Economist’ was really working for the family of the deceased? More likely, she was an unwitting accomplice of Ben, manipulated into getting Sayid back to the island against his will.

But more interestingly, we got to see just how Sayid and Ben were essentially different in very surprising ways. Sayid, as demonstrated through the flashback, is a killer through and through. Though his young friend could not bring himself even to kill a chicken, Sayid had no problems. But young Ben was driven to his ruthless, cold-blooded ways by the environment he was brought up in -- with his father’s abuse as well as the betrayal by Sayid, whom he’d come to revere as a ‘hostile.’ Sayid no doubt shot Ben with the best of intentions, but the Ben who was shot by Sayid had not done all the awful things he was killed for. One supposes Sayid could have tried to help the boy, whom he witnessed being abused at the hand of his father, but that wasn’t Sayid. A killer kills.

That said, I doubt Ben is dead. Remember what Faraday said: You can’t change the outcome of the past. Ben must live on to enact ‘the Purge’ and not even a bullet from Sayid will stop him.

Meanwhile, it seems the Sawyer-Kate-Juliet love triangle is headed for a tragic end. Juliet can see the end coming, even if Sawyer and Kate remain in denial. We all know Sawyer and Kate will hook up and Juliet will be left out in the cold, but is there anyone watching this show still rooting for Kate to get the man? Maybe back in the first or second season, but at this point, I think Kate would do just fine on her own. Or maybe she could shack up with the polar bear. A spinoff!

This week was light on island mythology -- no smoke monster, no four-toed statue, no creepy Christian and no frozen donkey wheel. But what we missed in puzzles and clues was made up for in nice bits of character interaction. Some highlights: Sayid’s summation of his well-being to Sawyer: ‘A 12-year-old Ben Linus brought me a chicken salad sandwich. How do you think I’m doing?’ Sayid’s drugged predictions of doom to Oldham (the ‘He’ of ‘He’s Our You’) and Horace. The tearful Ben confiding in a stoic Sayid. And finally Sayid’s cold-blooded slaying (or not) of Ben.

Yes, people will be talking about that moment this week, but I doubt that version of Ben is dead, dead. No way. Not possible. We’ll be seeing Lil Ben again. And I bet you next time we see him he’ll be very, very angry.

‘Lost’ book club: The producers have been stingy with their literary plugs this season. Last week, Sawyer was calmly reading a book and contemplating the Sayid problem. Which book? They never showed us the cover. But this week, Lil Ben gave Sayid a book, and we got a good long look at the cover. ‘A Separate Reality’ by trippy metaphysical author Carlos Castaneda. This supposedly nonfiction work is an account of the author’s apprenticeship under a Yaqui Indian sorcerer, who used plants such as peyote to see the energy of the universe as it flowed through our reality. Heady stuff for a little squirt like Ben. As I think we’ve learned by now, it’s that visible energy down under the island that’s the root of our hero’s problems. Will they ever learn to harness it properly?

-- Patrick Kevin Day