Review: Lost 4.3: The Economist

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

Sayid sets off in the Helicopter.

Settling into the usual Lost routine, this episode focused on Sayid, the series' Iraqi badass. Sayid's episodes always have similar themes of love and honour, and someone usually ends up dead at the end. The Economist didn't shy away from this generalisation and instead embraced them, setting up an interesting if predictable flashforward storyline as well as advancing a few trivial character movements around the island.
     Sayid intends to go to the Freighter in Frank's helicopter, and so organises a trade-off - if he can get Charlotte back from Locke's camp, then they'll take him to the freighter. Sayid sets off with Kate and Miles, the latter of which is also going to try and find Ben, as per the freighter's mission. When they get there, Hurley tips off Locke and they are captured, leaving Sayid trapped with Ben, Kate with Sawyer and Miles on his own. Locke and Sayid make their own deal, as the ex-Republican Guard member has his suspicions about the freighter and trades Miles for Charlotte. At the end of the episode, Sayid goes off in the Helicopter, with Frank, Desmond and Naomi's corpse.
     Another interesting (if brief) subplot was Daniel's attempts to check the distance between freighter and island, revealing that there was half-an-hour's worth time difference between the two. It was a fun piece of Sci-Fi that really spices the show up for me, and it's the start of this series' more scientific tendencies.

Elsa and Sayid.

     The flashforward timeline saw Sayid as a hired assassin for Ben, killing off businessmen. One day, on a mission, he tries to infiltrate an "Economist" through their assistant, Elsa, who Sayid goes ahead and bonks. Then, he is surprised when she shoots him in the shoulder, and runs back to Ben crying. You could tell that both parties had some Genre Savvy going on, and I was surprised when the otherwise expert Sayid didn't notice. It didn't connect with anything in the present, and the motivations behind Sayid helping Ben aren't explained until 4.9.
     The themes of honour and love etc. would certainly be a lot more potent if they weren't such well-worn fascets of Sayid's entire character. It feels a little stale, something that could have been sorted out in five minutes but was stretched queasily over three-quarters of an hour. Maybe it's just my British-grown appetite for tension and fast pacing that makes me a little irritated by the slow, drawn out recesses of US shows, but Frank could have said "Ok, hop in," and the episode would acheive the same amount.

Ben "consoles" Sayid.

     Regardless of that spectre hanging over it, the episode does have some positives, however trivial they may be. I loved the fun Sci-Fi goings on with Faraday and his experiment, which itself called upon greats like Back To The Future. It's a sign of good things to come. Unfortunately, at the moment, the series is trotting along at too slow a pace for me. I want something to happen, goddamnit. That, and the episode had nothing new or expressive to say or do, and was simply shifting people around.

Thanks.