PREVIOUSLY ON LOST

This week’s contestant on the magical mystery ride that is Lost is Sayid. He’s won a golfing holiday and a new job.

The opening sequence sees Sayid meditating, or something like that, before getting up and walking toward Naomi’s body where he puts his hand over her eyes and closes her eyelids. Why they hadn’t already done that I’m not sure. He removes a bracelet that she was wearing, on the inside is an inscription which reads “N, I’ll always be with you. R.G.”. This begs the question who is R.G., and how are they connected.

To the first ‘flash’ of the episode, and we see Sayid playing golf when he is approached my a man. After a brief talk Sayid reveals to this man that he was the recipient of a large amount of compensation, from a plane crash, and that he is one of the Oceanic 6, instantly this guy looks worried, why? As the man goes to leave Sayid calls out to him by name, “Mr Avellino”, and as he turns around Sayid shoots him and then leaves. Seemingly Sayid has gone bad since leaving the island, but why? And who exactly was Mr Avellino and why did Sayid kill him?

Sayid, now in Germany, enters a cafe where he meets Elsa. When Elsa asks what he does, Sayid replies that he’s a “head hunter”, fair enough. Not in the corporate way that he explains, but better than saying hitman. Elsa mentions that her employer is an ‘economist’.

When Elsa asks Sayid “do I know you”, its fair to assume that she recognises him because he is one of the Oceanic 6. Whether or not that is the only reason why she recognises him is another thing altogether, since at this point neither of their motives have been fully revealed.

Back on the island Sayid shows Jack, Kate and Juliet the photo of Desmond and Penny that Naomi was carrying. Juliet sets off for the beach to get Desmond so they can find out if he knows anything more.

Meanwhile ‘Team Locke’ are still moving towards the barracks, via the cabin of course. But when they arrive where Locke believes the cabin should have been it’s…well…gone. Maybe he should have listened to Hurley when he said it was in the other direction.

It’s at this point when Hurley begins to show some resistance to Locke and his decisions, looking back this sets up what happens later on after they reach the barracks.

Miles’ reaction to the death of Naomi and his comments about Charlotte seems to point to some disunity between the people on the freighter. Interestingly Miles doesn’t seem to care that Charlotte is being held captive by Locke, but Dan seems quite relieved when she returns.

Flashing forward again, and Sayid arrives to take Elsa out. Knowing what Elsa’s motives are I wonder if she chose to leave the pager behind as a test to see how Sayid would react. I’m guessing since he insists that she takes it, that he failed the test… It’s at this point that Elsa asks if he has a boss. “Everyone has a boss”.

Back at the helicopter Dan is setting up some sort of equipment. He asks Frank if he can use the sat phone, and Frank tells him to hang up if Minkowski answers. This isn’t the first time that has been said either. In contrast Miles would only talk to Minkowski. There’s definitely some division amongst them.

So Dan is on the phone with Regina and he tells her to “fire the payload”, she counts down its distance til arrival as it gets closer, finally reaching zero. According to Regina the payload arrived, but nothing has actually arrived where(when) Dan is. Regina says that its “weird”, Dan says its “far more than weird”.

When Kate, Sayid and Miles arrive at the barracks they discover Hurley tied up in one of the houses. He tells them that Locke left him behind and that Locke’s gone nuts. Hurley asks Miles if they (the freighters) are there to kill them, to which Miles, rather creepily, replies “not yet”.

Back to the helicopter again and the payload finally arrives. Upon its arrival Dan gets out a clock and compares it to the clock that was on the payload. Theres a 31 minute difference between them, and they were both started at the same time. What the?

Kate, Sayid and Miles head over to Ben’s house, little do they know but they have been set up and are walking straight into Locke’s ‘trap’. The moment when Sawyer walks into the room where Kate is is very similar to Sawyer’s flashback scene where he is hiding under a bed and sees his father walk in.

While searching through Ben’s house Sayid discovers a secret room hidden behind a bookcase. Inside there is a whole stack of clothes, plus a pile of passports and currency from different countries. Now why would Ben need those….

Locke turns up and its revealed that Hurley helped set them up. As they are leading Sayid away, he says he’s not angry at Hurley, but Hurley choose to keep his distance because he’s seen “that break dance, neck snap thing, he does with his legs”.

When Locke brings Sayid a drink, he mentions that he had questioned Miles. What did he ask him, and more importantly what ‘answers’, if any, did Miles give him. Sayid then arranges his deal to swap Charlotte for Miles.

Back to the flash forward, and Sayid reveals to Elsa that it is her boss that he is “head hunting”, and he tells her that she should leave town, trying to protect her. She plays the victim, and Sayid tells her that the man she works for is “not an economist” (so who/what is he?), at this point she turns around and shoot Sayid.

Elsa then calls the Economist and its revealed that they are trying to find out the identity of Sayid’s employer, and that she hasn’t killed him because he hasn’t given up the name yet. Sayid spots a gun, then creates a distraction to get Elsa’a attention, and when she turns back around he shoots and kills her. After Elsa dies we see that she is wearing a bracelet that is very simliar to the bracelet that Naomi was wearing. Is this implying a link between Naomi and Elsa, perhaps the same employer(s).

Desmond confronts Frank with the photo of him and Penny, and asks him if he knows why Naomi was carrying the photo. He then asks Frank if he knows anything of Penelope Widmore. Frank doesn’t deny knowing about her, in fact he doesn’t say anything at all, which is even more interesting. Desmond decides that when the chopper leaves he’s going to be on it.

Sayid returns from the barracks with Charlotte, as promised, but without Kate and Miles. He tells Frank that he swapped Charlotte for Miles, Frank seemed ok with that. When Jack asks where Kate is, Sayid says that she decided to stay.

As they (Frank, Sayid and Des) are preparing to leave Frank offers the last seat to Charlotte she declines saying that she has a lot of work to do. Dan also stresses to Frank that he must follow the exact same bearing that they came in on. No matter what. He doesn’t elaborate, but I’m guessing it connected the those missing 31 minutes from earlier…

Now for the final twist. Sayid arrives at what looks like a vet hospital (remember he’s been shot). He enters a room, sits down and a mysterious voice tells him to “take his shirt off”. We see that someone is patching Sayid up, then the voice asks “is she dead?”. Sayid says that she wanted to know about you. Then the reveal that it is Ben who is patching Sayid up, and that Ben is who Sayid is working for. Ben says “you want to protect your friends don’t you?”, and he tells Sayid that he has another name for him. Sayid replies “but they know I’m after them”, to which Ben simple responds “good”.