"He's Our You" (Season 5, Episode 10)

First off, I'm typing as fast as I can because Blogger has a scheduled outage at 7:00 p.m. Eastern Time tonight. I won't be able to re-watch the episode and blog, but for the first time ever, I really don't see the need to since I was really underwhelmed by this episode with the hard to understand title (at least when Sawyer said it) "He's Our You". (I'm reminded of the sheep in the movie "Babe" who chanted "Baa-Ram-Ewe".) Although the hour went fast, I was once again not overly thrilled with what went on. Even the shooting of young Ben at the end seemed telegraphed ahead of time since the previews last week. Since we're in the second-to-the-last season, I guess I'm expecting each episode to both wow and enlighten us and - dare I say it - provide some answers. So far, it's been off and on.

Best Line

• "Three years - no burning buses. Y'all are back one day. . ." Sawyer to Jack during the chaos of the bus attack.
  

Did You Notice?

• The book young Ben gave to Sayid was Carlos Castaneda's "A Separate Reality" with the subtitle "Further Conversations with don Juan". In what the author says is non-fiction, Castaneda resumes his apprenticeship, determined to go deeper still into the world of Don Juan, a sorcerer and shaman, to learn to see beyond the surface realities of life. He continues his dialogue with don Juan, intuitive, wise, demanding, and fierce in his struggle to see and know beyond the vision of ordinary men; and himself, a man of courage and intelligence who submits himself to don Juan's teaching, to enter into another world as a participant rather than an observer.
• So Hurley got a job in the Dharma Initiative cafeteria. Are we to assume that Juliet arranged for his position, figuring the big guy should be around food? Writers, you couldn't have been a little more creative?
• The song Oldham was listening to was "I Can't Give You Anything But Love".
• Oldham was played by William Sanderson, who was also Larry of the Larry, Darryl, and my other brother Darryl trio on the sitcom Newhart.
• I liked that Sayid's honest answers given under the control of the truth serum were met with skepticism and disbelief due to their outlandish nature.
  
• The "Ann Arbor" comment by Radzinsky refers to the Dharma Headquarters in that Michigan city.
• Is it really coincidence that Ilana had Sayid on the same flight that would take the other Oceanic 6 back to the island or were these the machinations of Ben or Ms. Hawking?
  
• Sayid's comment to Ilana about Ben being "a monster responsible for nothing short of genocide" could easily be used to describe Adolf Hitler, who is often the subject of the classic time travel query: If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you do it? In fact, this was even referenced in this season's premiere episode by the mining foreman in the excavation under the Orchid Station, to which Dr. Pierre Change responded with "Don't be absurd."
  

The Numbers - 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 15 16 23 42 108

• Young Ben said he ran away 4 years ago and first encountered Richard Alpert.
• Sawyer tells Phil to get everyone to Building 15 during the burning bus incident.
  

Previews - Next week's "Whatever Happened, Happened" is a reference to the quote from Faraday (where's he been?) about time travel impacting established events. Does this mean adult Ben will still be alive and well (other than the beat down he got from Sun) in 2007? I'm guessing Jack will need to step up and once again be expected to save Ben. Or will he? Like Sayid, will Jack take this opportunity to try and change the future by letting young Ben die? The episode in two weeks is titled "Dead is Dead" if that gives us any insight.