Review: Lost Season 4 Episode 3: The Economist

This episode of Lost brings the focus back to the divisions among the main characters. Sayid is the center of the episode, establishing him as another of the Oceanic 6.

In the flash forwards, Sayid makes a bet with a man named Avalee (or something to that effect) on a golf course. Avalee blanches when Sayid mentions he is one of the Oceanic 6 and tries to avoid paying when Sayid loses the bet. Sayid insists the man collect on the wager, then shoots him dead.

Sayid next shows up in Berlin with his sights set on a woman named Ilsa who works for a man she calls an economist. Ilsa falls for the mysterious stranger and Sayid can't help falling for her as well. But when Ilsa's boss calls, it turns out the vulnerable young woman is actually an opposing agent trying to collect information from Sayid. He escapes with a bullet wound in his shoulder, but if he escapes with his life, he seems to lose a bit of his soul.

It turns out that Sayid is killing his way through a list provided by none other than Ben Linus. Ben suggests that this is somehow protecting Sayid's friends, possibly a reference to those left behind on the island.

Back on the island, Sayid takes a bracelet from Naomi's body that was given to her by someone with the initials R.G. This bracelet is identical to one that he takes from Ilsa's dead body. If there is an inscription on that one, we never get to see it.

Sayid then decides to rescue Charlotte from Locke's crew. Frank promises to take Sayid to the freighter if he can bring Charlotte back safely, so he sets off with Miles and Kate to get her back. The rescue team find the Others' village deserted except for Hurley, who tells them he was left behind. While searching Ben's quarters, Sayid finds a hidden room so full of different currencies and passports that I wondered for a second if I had popped Mission: Impossible into the DVD player. Suddenly, though, the rescuers find themselves the victim of a trap. Hurley was the bait, and they bit.

Kate is stuck in a room with Sawyer and he asks her exactly why she is so eager to return to the real world, where she is still a wanted criminal. Sayid is jailed alongside Ben in the rec room at the others' village. In one of the great lines of the episode, Ben says that he just lost a dollar because he didn't think Sayid would be stupid enough to fall for his friend as bait.

In the end, Sayid is able to make a deal. He trades Miles for Charlotte and is allowed to go free. When Sayid returns without Kate, he tells Jack that she chose to stay.

There were two bits of strangeness this week. The first was provided by an experiment performed by Daniel. He sets up a beacon and calls the freighter to have them send something to the site. We hear Regina on the other end calling in the distance between the payload and the beacon. Daniel looks around feverishly as the distance shrinks to nothing and the payload fails to appear. Some time later, however, the payload suddenly appears and smashes into the ground inches away from where Daniel stands. Daniel opens up the container and pulls out a watch, which is 31 minutes behind a watch he is holding. (The watches read 2:45:03 and 3:16:23, making the exact time difference 31 minutes and 20 seconds.) Daniel mutters that this is not good at all, and Lost theorists everywhere begin dusting off their time travel theories.

An intriguing side note to this exchange is that Frank only gives up the satellite phone to Daniel when he promises to talk only to Regina. Frank tells him to hang up immediately if Minkowski comes on the line.

The second odd occurrence involved Jacob's shack, or the lack thereof. When Locke leads his crew to the shack, he finds it missing. We know he is in the right place because the ring of white powder is still there, but only a hole in the vegetation marks where the cabin stood before. Ben gets in a dig against Locke's leadership that suggests he is not all that surprised by the missing cabin.

At the end of the episode, the helicopter takes off with Frank, Desmond, Sayid and Naomi's corpse on board. Despite an ominous warning from Daniel that Frank must return on exactly the same heading they approached from - no matter what - it appears that the helicopter flies easily away from the island.

This was a solid episode of Lost, with engaging interactions between both the familiar and new characters. The show's mythology was advanced but never overwhelmed the character stories that truly drive the show. Everything is progressing quickly, providing the kind of pacing the show has lacked for three seasons.