Few episodes of "Lost" are as dull and inconsequential as "He's Our You", and coming from writers as accomplished as Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz it's quite shocking how mediocre this script is. There is none of their usual humor or their knack for great character-driven drama here. Their last episode before this was "This Place is Death". If you compare both scripts and think this is even in the same league you need to correct your taste and get checked for mental health issues. Even the ending to this episode isn't all it's cracked up to be. Sure it'll keep us chattering for a week but we know they'll solve it easily. If they don't I'll edit this out but until then I find nothing special about this ending, aside from an initial moment of surprise.
The episode is character-centric, but all "Lost" episodes are. It has become a common defense for some "Lost" fans to use when describing mediocre episodes with no action, regardless of whether or not the characters are interesting in the episode or not.. "He's Our You" will be defended by some as a great character episode, or a good character episode. It is not. It is a dumb, simplistic rehash of themes which have been present in Sayid episodes since season one's "Solitary". It adds nothing new to the mix and where it could have done so, in the relationship between Sayid and Ben, it didn't. At least not until near the end of the episode.
All the other character interactions are boring and pointless. The conclusion of Sayid's hit-man missions for Ben is perfunctory and uninteresting, same goes for Ilana's background and how her and Sayid ended up on the plane. When did "Lost" turn into "24"? The truth-telling drug was probably one of the silliest bits "Lost" has ever done. Poorly-written, poorly-conceived, extremely convenient, and a total disaster when it comes to the handling of tone in a scene. I blame director Greg Yaitanes for that bit. (edit: after seeing the episode again, I must disagree with myself on that point, but I don't like the episode much as a whole).
This episode is as close to 'filler' as we've gotten on "Lost" since the abominable Hydra island storyline.
