The Greater Good

Shannon tends to Boone’s body as she pre-pares it for burial.  Sayid asks if there is anything he can do for her, and she just looks at him oddly.  Boone’s body is carried to the edge of the beach.  Jack asks if Shannon wants to say anything, but she is silent.  Michael is surprised to feel Walt holding his hand.  Sayid says a few things about Boone being a hero as he mentions Boone trying to save Joanna the woman who drowned back in White Rabbit. 

Locke shows up and says it was all his fault and explains what happened about Boone’s death.  Locke agrees that Boone was a hero.  Jack attacks Locke asking him where he was and saying John lied.  Jack, still weak from exhaustion, collapses on the beach.  Pro tip to John Locke: maybe when you go back and talk about the man whose death you may have had something to do with you should probably try not to be wearing a shirt covered in the dead guys blood.  Just a thought.

This episode we look at Sayid’s past not long before the crash.  He is taken in handcuffs through Heathrow airport by the CIA and told he is going to help capture a terrorist.  The terrorist just happens to be an old roommate of Sayid’s.  Sayid’s job is to infiltrate the cell that his friend Essam is in.  The payoff for Sayid is if he is successful, they will help him reunite with Nadia.  To earn the groups trust Sayid manages to notice a surveillance “bug” in a smoke detector and disarms it.  One of Essam’s roommates, Haddad, says that fate brought Sayid to them.

While Kate is giving Jack some juice laced with sleeping pills to try and help him get some rest, Claire is also dealing with exhaustion as she is not getting much sleep dealing with her new baby.  Charlie tells Claire he will watch over “Turnip Head” while she gets some rest.  She doesn’t like the nickname, but Charlie convinces her to get some sleep.  Claire doesn’t name her baby until a few episodes from now.  Shannon infers to Sayid that she would like him to get revenge on Locke for Boone’s death.  Sayid asks Locke to take him to where the accident happened that killed Boone.  John obliges.

Sayid and Essam play soccer, and Sayid gets Essam to tell him about the plan that requires the C-4.  Sayid tells the CIA Essam won’t go through with it, but they tell Sayid he has to talk him into it.  They tell Sayid that if he can’t get Essam to go through with the plan, they will arrest Nadia.  Sayid convinces Essam to go through with the plan by telling him it will be perfect revenge for the death of Essam's wife who was also killed in a bombing.

On the beach Charlie can’t get the baby to stop crying.  Hurley tries singing some James Brown to try to calm him down, but it doesn’t work.  At the downed plane Sayid and Locke check out the plane.  They find heroin and Sayid asks why Locke is carrying a gun that nobody knows he has.  Locke gives the gun to Sayid to garner some trust.  Then in an odd move Locke tells Sayid that it was him who hit Sayid on the head and destroyed the transceiver.  Sayid asks Locke about the hatch, but Locke tries to dance around the subject even with Sayid pointing a gun at him. 

Shannon goes through Boone’s personal items and finds a picture of the two of them in his wallet.  Sayid returns and tells her that he doesn’t think Locke had anything to do with Boone dying and that his death was an accident like Locke had said.  Shannon doesn’t accept Sayid’s explanation.  While Michael is talking to Walt about the raft Charlie asks him and Jin for help with the baby, but they decline. 

 

Sawyer tells Charlie to quiet the baby, and Charlie discovers that Sawyer’s voice soothes the baby and gets him to calm down.  Jack wakes up and Kate gives him some soup.  Jack discovers that the key to the gun case is missing.  He thinks Locke is after the guns, but Sayid tells him it wasn’t him.  Next, we see Shannon taking a gun from the case.

The time has come for Essam’s group to go through with their plan, but Sayid tells Essam he is working with the CIA.  He tells Essam he has ten minutes to get away.  He tells Essam about the CIA having Nadia.  Essam holds a gun on Sayid and tells him that Sayid said the plan was for the greater good.  Sayid is on the verge of crapping his pants before Essam turns the gun on himself and tells Sayid he hopes Nadia was worth it.

In the jungle Jack, Kate, and Sayid find Shannon holding Locke at gunpoint.  As rain pours down on them Sayid tries to talk her out of shooting Locke.  Shannon reminds Jack that he told her Locke was a liar.  Sayid tackles Shannon just in time as she pulls the trigger.  The shot only grazes Locke in the head.  Jack gives Locke a look as if to say, “You deserved it.”.

Back on the beach (where it isn’t raining) Sawyer is reading an article from an auto-mobile magazine which keeps the baby from crying.  Kate tells Sayid to give Shannon some time that he did the right thing.  She tells him they couldn’t let her kill Locke.  She says they didn’t have a choice, but Sayid says there is always a choice.

The CIA take Sayid to Sydney airport and tells him where Nadia is in Los Angeles.  Sayid wants to claim Essam’s body so he can bury him, but the CIA tell him he will be on a plane by the time the body will be able to be claimed.  Sayid says they need to change his flight which they agree to do.  I’m guessing the flight they change it to is flight 815. 

Later that night Sayid goes to Locke and Locke thanks him for saving him.  Sayid says even though he doesn’t trust Locke he believes he is their best hope for survival on the island.  He tells Locke he wants him to take him to the hatch.  Once again Locke tries to dance around the subject but Sayid shuts that down and tells Locke “No more lies.”.