Miles has revealed the main purpose for the fab four coming to the island: To find Ben Linus. Why? We don’t know, but it doesn’t seem like it’s to pat him on the back for a job well done. As Jack and Miles argue over Ben and how to get him, Sayid makes a deal with Frank to bring Charlotte back safe and sound. If he does so, Frank will take him to the freighter.
Flash forward: Sayid is playing golf when a man drives up in a golf cart and offers to play a few rounds with Sayid on a wager. The man asks Sayid what he does for a living. Sayid replies he doesn’t do anything because he is one of the Oceanic Six and got a bunch of money in a payoff. Cha-ching! And when the guy gets a little nervous after Sayid says he was one of the Oceanic Six, Sayid calls him by name, pulls out a gun and shoots him, execution style. So, Sayid is an assassin now. Interesting.
Later, we see him at a trendy cafe in Berlin. He sits down at a table with a lovely German woman and come to find out her name is Elsa. Her employer is an economist who is rarely in town, but when he is, she shops for him. Nice job if you can get it. Sayid seems smitten, as he asks her out for dinner to which she accepts. We’re just wondering if he has to kill her, too. Or maybe he’s using her to get to the employer. After Sayid leaves the café, he calls and says, “I made contact.” The other person on the line says “Good.” And then Sayid throws the cell phone in the trash.
Some time has passed and Sayid and Elsa have definitely taken it to the next step. But now it’s obvious he IS trying to get to her boss but so far the man hasn’t called. She wonders why he is still in Berlin, and he says the job is proving to be more difficult than he first thought. As they lounge in bed, she wants to find out more about him; he confesses he is in love with her and doesn’t want to have any secrets.
Suddenly, her beeper goes off: Her boss is requesting her presence. Sayid quickly tells Elsa she has to leave Berlin because whatever happens to her employer, they’ll ask her questions. Now she figures it out, that Sayid has been using her. He admits the man’s name is on HIS employer’s list–and that he must kill him for the wrong he has done. She seems to balk at the idea, but suddenly grabs a gun out of nowhere and shoots Sayid, wounding him. Whoa. Little Elsa isn’t who she says she was, I guess. He falls back on the bed and hears her in the bathroom calling the boss man, whoever he is, to say she’s got him, didn’t kill him but hasn’t gotten the name of Sayid’s employer yet. She says she’ll bring Sayid to him. But Sayid is one step ahead of Elsa. When she comes back in the room, Sayid shoots and kills her. As she dies, tears pour down Sayid’s face. Poor Sayid. He just can’t catch a break with the women he falls in love with.
Back on the island, Sayid is getting ready to go get Charlotte. He tells Jack he can’t come along because 1) he wants to take her from Locke without any bloodshed and 2) the last time Jack saw Locke he tried to kill him. OK, OK, Jack acquiesces, walking over to Kate. “Now you know how it is to be me,” she jokes. “Should I wait 20 minutes and go anyway?” Jack shoots back. Seriously, Jack tells Kate she should go because he wants her to tell him what happens. Of course, Miles is going, too. As they walk away, Frank asks Jack who Sayid is and Jack tells it to him straight, “He’s from Iraq … he was a torturer.” Hell, yes, he was. Sayid kicks ass!
Meanwhile, with Locke and crew, Locke can’t find Jacob’s cabin, the place where he thought it was. I’m thinking now it wasn’t Locke in the cabin with Jacob when Hurley looked through the window. And it’s obvious the cabin moves around because Hurley saw it in a few different places. So strange. No matter. Locke decides to move on to the Barracks. Hurley wants to let Charlotte go but Locke wants to use her as a hostage. Hurley grumbles he didn’t sign up for this.
Jumping back to Sayid and gang, Miles wants to know about this Locke guy and why he splintered their happy little family. “There was fundamental debate on whether you were here to rescue us or kill us,” Sayid calmly replies. “And which side did you land on?” Miles asks. “I’ll tell you when I make my decision.” They get to the Barracks, but it doesn’t look like Locke and crew have shown up yet. They hear something in one of the house and run in. In a closet is Hurley, tied and gagged. “They left me.”
“Locke has gone off the reservation,” Hurley gushes. “Where did they go, Tubby?” Miles snarls. Oh great, Hurely says, another Sawyer. Hurley doesn’t know where they are, but they all think the boat people are here to kill them. Hurley turns to Miles, “Are you?” “Not yet,” Miles says ominously. Sayid and Kate go looking to see if there are any more hiding or tied up in Ben’s house. Sayid finds a secret passageway off of Ben’s library. It’s filled with clothes and drawers full of different kinds of currency. Kate, in another part of the house, sees Sawyer come in, with his finger to his mouth. She yells for Sayid, who comes running out to see Locke pointing a gun at him. It was a trap, Hurley being tied up, everything. “Sorry, dude,” Hurley says sheepishly.
Rousseau takes Sayid and puts him in a shelter with Ben, who immediately starts wielding his manipulative mind games about trusting your friends, blah, blah. It doesn’t work on Sayid. Meanwhile, Kate is being held in Ben’s bedroom by Sawyer. But Sawyer is really happy to see her. He doesn’t want to leave the island, because he doesn’t have anything to go back to. He asks her point blank, “Why do you want to go back, Kate? You’ve got handcuffs waiting for you back home.” He’s got a point. He feels like this place–with the food, little houses and showers–is better than anything else. But Kate says, “How long can we play house?” He looks at her, “Why don’t we find out.” He to be domestic with Kate. How sweet.
Locke comes in to see Sayid, apologizing for all the theatrics. But he simply is not going to allow these boat people to come in and destroy what they have. Sayid says to give him Charlotte, so he can get to the freighter and find out once and for all who these people really are. Locke looks over at Ben and says he already has a spy on the boat, but, of course, the bug-eyed Ben is not talking. Sayid doesn’t expect Locke to give him Charlotte for nothing. There has to be a trade. Miles. Good, keep that hair trigger with the Locke crew.
Back at the helicopter, Daniel is setting up some kind of experiment, with an electronic device on a tripod. Jack is trying to figure out what he’s doing, but Frank tells him not to even try. “Most of the time, he goes way over my head, but when he talks, he goes way, WAY over my head.” Daniel calls the freighter and asks for a beacon to be sent. She does it, but it doesn’t show up like it’s supposed to. That’s weird, Daniel thinks out loud. But then, here it comes–a rocket with something in it, some kind of timing device. Daniel checks another timing device against the one from the rocket and gets agitated. OK, I’m thoroughly confused. Thankfully, Juliet shows up with Desmond to take my mind off of it.
Desmond wants to know why Naomi was carrying a picture of him and Penny. Frank says he doesn’t know but of course, he does. Suddenly, Sayid returns with Charlotte–and no Kate or Miles. Sayid has traded Charlotte for Miles, which doesn’t bother Frank in the least bit. Jack asks about Kate, and Sayid says she decided to stay with them. This hits Jack a little hard.
So, they are ready to take off, but Charlotte doesn’t want to go back just yet. She has work to do, so she stays. Jack decides to stay behind as well, since he figures Sayid can handle things just fine. Des wants to go to the freighter; he’s dying to know how they hell they know him. They have room for one more person–Sayid says they should bring back Naomi’s body. Before liftoff, Daniel warns Frank to stay on the exact same course they were on when they came in.
As they fly away, Sayid looks longingly at the island. Will he ever be going back?
In the final moments of Sayid’s flash forward, he walks into a vet’s office, sits down and is told by someone we can’t see to take off his shirt. Someone is stitching Sayid’s wound and as the camera pulls back, we see it’s Ben. Oh, this is too good. Sayid is still sad he had to kill Elsa. “These people don’t deserve our sympathies. Do you want to protect your friends or not, Sayid?” Ben asks calmly. Protect them? So, Sayid is obviously doing Ben’s dirty work under some kind of duress. “Now, they know I’m after them,” Sayid says. “Good,” Ben replies.
Dammit, Ben survives–at least up to this point. I have a feeling one the Losties is going to put a bullet in that guy’s head before we are through, and it’s going to be beautiful. Hope it’s Jack.
