Review: Lost (Season 4, Episode 3)

It's a beautiful morning, and a clean-cut Sayid Jarrah is enjoying his time on the links. Clearly, this is a flashforward, and we have learned the fourth member of the "Oceanic Six". It's an innocent round of golf, until a man pulls up on a cart, and suggests a club for Sayid to use. The two make a friendly wager, the other man wins, and then Sayid kills him. This was going to be a good episode.

The spotlight was on Sayid this episode, both on and off the Island. On the Island, Miles, Kate and him travel to find Locke so they can "rescue" her, as Locke is keeping the new to the Island Charlotte hostage. While doing this, they find Hurley tied up in a closet in the Others' barracks, and free him. At this point, it's easy to see how Hurley became one of the Oceanic Six. Or so we thought. Locke used Hurley to trick Sayid, Kate, and Miles, and they were now in Locke's control.

But after that, we see Sayid return to Jack and the helicopter with Charlotte. Something happened from the time Locke at Sayid at gunpoint to the time Sayid returned to the helicopter, and what that is we're not sure. Because Kate "decided" to stay at the barracks, Miles was traded in, and it would seem like Sayid made some sort of deal with Locke and Ben. Which brings us to the flashforward.

Sayid is apparently a head-hunter, and we find him roaming the streets of Germany. He mets a young girl at a coffee shop, and eventually romances her for weeks. Her life seems easy enough, she does whatever she wants, but has to carry a phone with her at all times. The phone only rings a few times a year, but when it does, she has to immediately be there for the boss. Sayid is staying with her, because when that phone does ring, he'll be able to get in contact with her boss, as he is next on "the list" of people Sayid has been ordered to kill.

Things go bad when the phone finally does ring, and Sayid is forced to shoot his German lover. It turns out she knew about Sayid the whole time, and was trying to get information out of him. We really have no idea who anyone is working for at this point, and at the very end of the episode, Sayid goes to see someone to heal his bulletwound he suffered from the girl. And that someone is Benjamin Linus.

I love this show because that scene made no sense whatsoever. Ben got off the Island? He's operating at what seems to be an animal hospital in the middle of Germany? And Sayid is working for him? What I love is that, because the writers of this show actually have mapped out the story they want to tell (wouldn't be a bad idea, 24), when I buy the season four DVD after the show has completed it's run, that scene will make perfect sense. For now though, I have no idea how that could have happened.

Also, we have no idea when this flash forward took place. We know Hurley's took place before Jack's. But this one could be anytime. Is Ben in contact with the other Oceanic Six? How did he get off the Island, something he was so dead set against doing. And why hasn't he tried to go back? I remember the days when I thought this show was about a simple plane crash, now it's one of the finest told stories I've ever seen on television.

Also in the episode, something isn't right with the way time works on the Island. Dan's experiment seems to suggest there is a 31 minute time differential between what happens on the island and what happens off of it. That should be interesting. Also, it seems like there are some more sparks between Sawyer and Kate, can't wait to see how that ends up.

So far, I'm having a blast watching this season. Jack is still my favorite character, I feel the show really centers around him. I'm now convinced Ben is one of the greatest TV villians of all time. But we haven't seen much of Sun and Jin this season yet.

I wonder now if next week we'll see another flashforward, or they will go back to a flashback with some of the new characters. We're three episodes in, and there is so much that still needs to be explored. I initially thought, once the flashforwards were introduced, I wouldn't care so much about what was happening on the Island, but the Island scenes have become as gripping as ever. And with the writers' strike now over, it looks like we'll get 13 total episodes of Lost this season, which is something I won't complain about.

One last thing, I'm voting the shot of Sayid looking at the Island from the sky, from a distance, as one of the best scenes of Lost yet.