Sayid Meets Ben

Like many big moments in Lost these days, we weren't as blown away as we were supposed to be by the big reveal in "Namaste's" closing seconds that the Harry Potter look-alike who had brought Sayid a sandwich was actually young Ben. Team Darlton has taught us so well how to anticipate the amazing, how to presume the flabbergasting, that the attentive saw it coming, if not a mile away, at least a couple of yards in the distance.

If we see further these days in our navigation of the extraordinary inventiveness of contemporary television's narratology, it is because, like Sir Isaac, we are "standing on the shoulders of giants," perhaps even four-toed Egyptiany ones staring out to sea, but certainly on the narrative colossus Lost , television which has challenged us every step of the way to become smart enough to truly read it.

Many have remarked in the episode's aftermath that the encounter invites us to presume Ben must have already known the Iraqi and the other castaways when Ocean 815 came down. Watching a second time, I found Little Ben (LB) possibly not innocent--wondered indeed if he might have asked to deliver the mustardless sandwich in order to gain access to Sayid so that he might communicate to him that . . . (the episode ended in the middle of the ellipsis, denying access, for the time being at least, to future intelligence). But I must say that PotterBen was much sweeter, kinder and more considerate, than his adult self: compare LB's food presentation skills to AB's creepy dinner for Kate in Season 3.

What really struck me on 2nd viewing was how astonishing the reveal seemed to be to Sayid. We constantly forget, beseiged as we are by the medium's all-consuming dramatic irony, that the characters on Lost or Damages or Dexter or Battlestar or even Big Bang Theory simply don't follow the series in which they find themselves, which explains why they exhibit so little grasp of it).