Official "He's Our You" Episode Preview!

So I just had a thought - why not give the Message Boarders a nice little benefit of being "hardcore fans of the Blog"? So, here's my "He's Our You" episode preview (without the pretty formatting and pictures, of course) before I post it up on the Blog this evening. It's like a sneak preview! Thanks for being such great readers!

Episode Title: "He's Our You"

Brian's Deeper Meaning Guess: This is probably one of the most fun episode titles Lost has ever produced. It's totally gibberish and twisted - yet somehow makes total sense given the numerous dichotomies we've seen on Lost this season... and is strangely exciting for me to think about. So what does it mean?

I have to assume that it's a phrase spoken in the episode... or a phrase that could be spoken in the episode to explain the scenario. So it must be one "group" talking to another "group", attempting to explain someone by comparing them to a person that the other group would understand. Let's use a simple scenario to explain:

We are a group of die-hard Lost fans who read a Blog written by Brian (me). Let's pretend that I come across a group of die-hard Chuck fans who read a Blog written by Joe. In having discussions with these Chuck fans, to explain who Joe is to me, they would say "he's our you" and it would make total sense.

As an aside, if anyone knows where I can find these die-hard Chuck fans, let me know. Chuck is the best show on TV right now that no one is watching, and it saddens me greatly. If you are not currently watching Chuck, you are saddening me. Why are you so mean?! There's a good chance that if Chuck gets cancelled, I'll stop blogging about Lost and turn this site into a "Bring Back Chuck" Blog. So... no pressure on you, but unless you start watching Chuck and get your friends to join in - ensuring that it stays on the air, you will have no one to blame but yourself when Lost... and Gone Forever becomes Chuck is Lost... and Gone Forever? Got it?

Back to the title.

The way I see it, there are a number of "groups" that could be involved in the "he's our you" discussion:

Dharma
The Others
The Survivors in 1977
The Survivors in 2008
The Ajira 316ers

None of these groups has a total understanding of the other groups, and may require a "he's our you" analogy to explain someone within them in a way they could understand. There are a number of really cool potential explanations for the episode title, mostly ones that would reveal the true nature / purpose of characters on the show. The possibilities are pretty endless - the only thing that we confirm is that it will involve a male character (sorry Kate, Juliet, Amy, and Sun) and it will involve an interaction between two of these thus-far separate groups, which can only help us understand them even more.

Or - it could be something even more mind-blowing... like a character running into himself in the past. In this scenario the "he's our you" is taken much more literally - like "this is our copy of you". But I don't know that Lost would go that far.

In the end, I'm going to settle down on "He's Our You" involving one of the following characters: Locke, Alpert, Ben, or Sayid. The first three should be pretty easy to understand, since they have all been involved in the "leadership" of the Others at some point in time. "He's our you" could easily be used to explain to Locke who the new leader of the Others is, who Christian Shephard is, or something along those lines. As for Sayid, as you'll soon see, this looks to be a Sayid-centric episode, and with his unique role on the Island as a Survivor who Dharma thinks is an Other, our Survivors know is one of them, and the Others have no idea who he is - there's a lot of potential to "explain" him using a "he's our you" phrase.

In some ways, Sayid represents Dharma's version of our Survivors' Ben - a stranger on the Island they can't explain who seemingly knows too much, so they keep him locked up until they can debate and figure out what to do with him. This might be the least geektastic explanation for "he's our you", but it's certainly the easiest.

Guest Stars: Doug Hutchison as Horace Goodspeed, Zuleikha Robinson as Ilana, Reiko Aylesworth as Amy, Sterling Beaumon as young Ben, Patrick Fischler as Phil, Eric Lange as Radzinsky, Jon Gries as Roger Linus, William Sanderson as Oldham, Sayed Bedreya as Iraqi father, Xavier Raabe-Manupule as 12-year-old Iraqi boy, Dmitri Boudrine as Ivan, Michael Hardy as Floyd, Joe Toro as bartender, Achilles Gacis as guy in car and Anthony Keyvan as young Sayid.

Guest Star Breakdown: To start things off, I don't want to read too much into things - but it's curious that Ilana is listed as a guest star for this episode without Caesar (the first time that this has happened). While it's entirely possible that this simply means there is a Ajira 316 scene involving only Ilana and Locke / Ben, the over-analytical side of me can't help but wonder if instead she appears in a scene with the Others - proving that she is one of them, even if Caesar is not - or that she appears in a flashback, explaining how or why she came to capture Sayid. Otherwise, there is the standard inclusion of the major Dharma players we've met thus far (Horace, Amy, Phil, Radzinsky) with the inclusion of Roger Linus to accompany Young Ben on the Island.

The other guest stars seem to indicate that we will be getting the first traditional Lost flashback of the season. A scene involving a 12-year-old Iraqi boy and an Iraqi father makes Sayid the most likely candidate to receive the flashback... oh, and the inclusion of "YOUNG SAYID" might also be a clue as well. Initially, reading this really disappointed me. With as much exciting stuff going on between our Survivors in 1977 and 2008 - plus the fact that we haven't seen any Desmond / Widmore stuff for weeks, the last thing I wanted to have eating up a portion of the episode is a flashback to Sayid's youth to provide parallel symbolism with his current predicament on the Island... unless we get a total flashback of all the pieces of Sayid's backstory that we haven't seen thus far.

If that's the case, sign me up. I'll take one scene with Young Sayid if it means I'll get a few scenes that show what caused the falling out between Sayid and Ben - or how he got captured by Ilana and ended up back on Ajira 316.

Although - if we receive all these flashbacks, I would start worrying about Sayid's character on the show. An episode dedicated to telling the remaining portion of his backstory certainly makes it appear as though he's not going to be surviving on the show much longer - especially given his current predicament on the Island. Don't die, Sayid!

Episode Description: Things begin to unravel when one of the survivors goes rogue and takes matters into their own hands -- risking the lives of everyone on the island.

Episode Breakdown: In my mind, there are three potential candidates to "go rogue" - Faraday, Sayid, and Jack Bauer. We all know that Jack Bauer is the most likely candidate, but since he's not on Lost, I'll rule him out. That leaves Faraday "going rogue" through his actions inside the Orchid / attempting to change the past, or Sayid "going rogue" and busting out of his jail cell and going kung fu on his Dharma captors. Since it's a Sayid-centric affair, he seems to be the more likely candidate... until you read the rest of the description - that this rogue action puts the lives of everyone on the Island in risk. That certainly sounds like a "changing the past which will bring about the end of the world" type situation, the kind of situation I envision Faraday putting us in by messing with the FDW or trying to save Charlotte's life.

Even if Sayid were to break out of his cell (somehow) after finding out who Young Ben is - and is so full of rage that he takes it upon himself to try and kill Ben - he wouldn't succeed, right? Because we all know that Ben lives until at least 2008. Whatever happened, happened, right? Only Faraday or Desmond can change the past because they're "special", right? If this is the case, it seems like the main "action" of the episode would surround Faraday - which makes no sense in a Sayid-centric episode since the two characters have totally different things going on right now on the Island.

In the end, although there are logical holes (at this point), I think Sayid is the most likely candidate to go rogue - and take matters into his own hands to carry out whatever "mission" he feels brought him back to the Island in 1977 - even if he ultimately will not (and cannot) succeed. Over the past few weeks, we've had some pretty questionable episode descriptions, so it's possible that it's inaccurate.

After all "risking the lives of everyone on the Island" sounds way more exciting than "but finds that he can't change the past so it's no big deal."

Happy Losting!