SPOILER ALERT - do not read this if you haven't seen the episode
I thought this was another strong, fast paced effort. 4.3 opened up in a flash forward. We see Sayid on a golf course alone, contentedly hitting golf balls towards the green. He looks very....groomed. A fellow golfer drives up in a golf cart, and remarks how he hasn't seen any other golfers for hours and Sayid says that's what they are paying the high price of admission for. The interrupting guy bets Sayid 100 euros that he can get closer to the hole with his 5 iron than Sayid can with his 7 iron. Sayid agrees. The guy then asks Sayid where he recognizes him from and Sayid tells him "I am one of the Oceanic 6 (so now we know 4 of the 6 - Jack, Kate, Hurley & Sayid) and that he received a large cash settlement that allows him to live the life of luxury. This unnerves the 2nd guy, who nonetheless wins the bet. He refuses his winnings, but Sayid insists. He refers to the guy by name (I didn't catch the name, but we know now that Sayid knew who the guy was all along), and Sayid digs into his golf bag (presumably for the euros) but pulls a gun out and shoots the guy dead, very assassin like. My name is Jarrah, Sayid Jarrah. And I'll take my dirty bottle of dysentary water from the puddle on the island shaken, not stirred.
Cut back to present day on the Island. Sayid is in prayer, and then goes over to Naomi's dead body and closes her eyes. He looks at her silver bracelet that says "N, I'll always be with you - R.C." Sayid makes a deal with Frank Lapidus the scruffy helicopter pilot that if he rescues Charlotte from Locke, he gets to go back to the ship with Frank. Frank agrees. Jack, ever the controller wants to come along, but Sayid says that the last time Jack saw Locke he had a gun to Locke's head and pulled the trigger. Locke might not be so happy to see him. Jack lets Kate go in his place, and Sayid, Kate, and Miles Strom go off to find Locke and negotiate Charlotte's release. Sayid wants to know why they had a picture of Desmond and Penny, none of the rescuers has an answer. Juliet is dispatched to the beach to fetch Dez to see if he has any idea why they have that photo.
Flash forward to future Sayid. He is in Berlin (quick question: which is the better Berlin song? "Take My Breath Away" or "Riding on the Metro"?) and sees a pretty blonde lady (Elsa) sitting alone in a German cafe (Starbücks?). Sayid pretends to looks lost and makes small talk with her. He asks her on a date and she agrees. We find out she works for an economist and is his Gal Frauday (sorry) while he is in Berlin, once or twice a year. She carries around an ancient looking beeper and is at his Beck's (sorry) and call. When he steps out of the cafe he calls someone on the cell phone (the CIA? Someone higher up than the CIA -like Oprah?) and it is known that he is trying to hook up with Blondie so he can whack her boss. Or off her boss. Or whack off her boss (credit for that one goes to Family Guy).
Back to present day. Sayid, Kate, & Miles are in the Other's compound (kind of like Pleasantville in Jonestown). They are looking for traces of Locke's party. They hear muffling from one of the houses and investigate. Kate discovers Hurley tied up in a closet with a gag over his mouth. Sayid, Kate & Miles rescue him, and he tells them that Locke has gone batty, is talking to Walt's ghost, is taking Charlotte hostage against Hurley's wishes, and basically is off the reservation. He then mentions that Locke and the gang were heading over to Ben's house before taking off again. They decide to go to Chateau d'Linus and see what they find.
They split up in Ben's house, and Sayid finds a room hidden behind a bookcase in Ben's den. (Did anyone else think of Young Frankenstein during this scene? When Sayid is pushing on the fake bookcase, I kept thinking - PUT ZEE CANDLE BACK!). Sayid finds a room full of fancy suits and ties and a drawer full of dozens of fake passports with Ben's photo on them and drawers full of currency from different countries around the world. Ben definitely goes on a lot of vacations.
Back by the helicopter, nervous nellie Daniel Faraday is conducting an experiment with Regina from the ship. Daniel sets up some sort of antenna or beacon emitter or something and is expecting some sort of arrival as the voice on the ship counts down the distance remaining till whatever is supposed to happen happens... 20 kilometers away.... 10 kilometers away.... 5 kilometers away... then nothing. Daniel says this is more than weird and very unexpected. Later on, out of the blue a rocket comes in and lands on his antenna. He pulls out a stopwatch from the antenna and from the rocket that just landed... apparently they are supposed to be in sync, as they presumably were set at the same time, but the one on the island watch is behind the one sent from the ship. Time moves slower on the island, apparently... or they are in some sort of time warp.
Back at Ben's pad - Kate is looking around Ben's bedroom, full of African masks on the wall, and as she turns around Sawyer is there with his gun over his shoulder. He puts his index finger over his lips in the international symbol of "shush", but Kate hollers for Sayid. She realizes they have been duped. Sayid turns around and is met by Locke holding his gun out. Hurley apologizes to Sayid for trapping them.
Danielle also apologizes and points a gun at Sayid and walks him into the faux-prison/ping pong game room. Hurley follows them several yards back and Sayid assures him that he won't hurt the portly fellow. Hurley replies with the line of the night "that's alright, dude, I saw how you snapped that guy's neck with that breakdancing move, I'll stay back here". They put Sayid in the rec room and we see that Ben is there too, tied up.
Locke comes in with a pitcher of iced tea (what, no Kool-Aid?) in a show of good will. Sayid & Locke have a meeting of the minds, where Sayid tells Locke he agrees that these people are not here to rescue them and he can get on their ship and find out what they want if he comes back with Charlotte. Locke tells Sayid that Bug Eyed Ben has a mole already on the ship, but won't reveal who. Sayid says "the day I start trusting Ben is the day I sell my soul".
Meanwhile, back in Ben's boudoir, Kate & Sawyer are having their own moment. Kate asks Sawyer why he is doing this, why he is with Locke. Sawyer replies that he has no reason to go back to civilization, there is nothing there for him (except maybe jail, hmm James?). He asks Freckles why she is with Jack, and she says it's because she believes he can get them off the island. Sawyer asks her why does she want to go back, the only thing waiting for her is a pair of handcuffs, remember she was a prisoner en route to jail when the plane crashed. She wonders how long does Sawyer think they can live there playing house like this? He says "why don't we find out?". Cool moment.
Back at the helicopter pad, Juliet returns with Desmond. Des demands some answers from Frank the Beard, who offers none. Desmond tells Frank that he doesn't believe Frank doesn't know anything and that he is joining Frank on the helicopter flight back to the ship. Sayid comes over a hill with Charlotte, back from the Others' camp. When Jack asks where Kate is, Sayid tells him Kate decided to stay (and the look on Jack's face is pure disappointment). Sayid traded Miles to Locke for Charlotte. Frank asks Charlotte if she wants to come back with him to the ship and she declines (yeah this is not suspicious at all - who the hell would leave an island that you crash landed on and were held hostage by a group of people? Sounds like Club Med!) Daniel also declines, saying he'll stay with Charlotte and wants to do more experiments. Daniel warns Frank that he has to stay on the same exact bearing that they came in on - "whatever you do". Methinks Dan is afraid the chopper will hit a time warp. It's just a jump to the left....and then a step to the right! Jack also decides to stay on the island. They have room for 3 passengers, so it is Desmond, Sayid, and on Sayid's suggestion, Naomi's body. They take off and Sayid is pensive as he looks down at the island he has been trapped on for 100 days. How do I know it's been 100 days? Jack had one of those contrived LOST non-sequitur moments where he asks Frank if the Red Sox really won the World Series (the 2004 World Series) then remarks he can't believe he hasn't seen a game in 100 days. Is it really 100 days, or has it been like, years? If the stopwatches were I think 35 minutes apart... then does time move slowly here? Each minute on the island is 35 minutes in "real time"? Hmm
Flash forward to future Sayid again. He is with Elsa in bed, basking in that post coital glow that secret agents bask in. Elsa asks him why she doesn't know anything about his job, why he has secrets. She understands why he doesn't talk about the plane crash, but people in love (oh, she said it out loud) don't have secrets. Sayid says "it's just a job, nothing to worry about". Her beeper circa 1995 starts buzzing and she jumps out of bed and goes to the other side of the room and starts getting dressed. She has to meet her boss right away. I notice she doesn't mind meeting her boss with Sayid's love juice still on her... gross. Sayid, in a pang of remorse tells her she needs to leave Berlin right away, that something bad is going to happen to her boss, that her boss is not really an economist and she might be implicated in what is going to ensue.
Elsa replies to Sayid and asks him if he is there to kill her boss... if that he pretended to love her only to get close to this guy and kill him? (Man, she put 2+2 together really fast and this made me suspicious)... she comes out of the bathroom and immediately SHOOTS Sayid in the shoulder. She calls her boss on the cell phone - she was a secret agent too! She knew Sayid was an agent and she was sent to dupe him! She's talking in German to her boss, she left Sayid alive right now to find out who he's working for but will kill him if she didn't get the information... yadda yadda yadda.... Sayid hurls something at the mirror and breaks it into a million pieces (uh-oh, 7 years bad luck!!!). Elsa comes out and Sayid pulls his gun and shoots her twice in the chest, killing her. Call me crazy, but as Sayid was crying over her dead body I thought she had a silver braclet similar to Naomi's. But wouldn't Sayid surely have noticed that before?
We see Sayid limp into a vet's office with yelping dogs caged up. Presumably his boss is there, and is tending to his shoulder. We slowly see the camera pan to his boss....and it... is BEN! DAMN, son! We learn that Ben recruited Sayid into killing for him, and that there is a list of people to be disposed of. Ben hints that Sayid is doing this to protect his friends (which friends? The Oceanic 6? The castaways who remained on the island?).
REALLY, REALLY good.
