LOST Rewatch: The Greater Good

In flashbacks, we see Sayid being walked through Heathrow Airport in handcuffs. The CIA wants Sayid to infiltrate a terrorist cell in Sydney, in exchange for being told where Nadia is. We later see him in a mosque engaged in prayer, where he is reunited with someone he knew, Essam. He says he is working as a treecutter – and adds “so much for my philosophy degree.” When Sayid spots a bug in a smoke detector at Assam’s house, and then the leader of the group, Hadad, suggests that perhaps it wasn’t happenstance that brought him there, but fate. So once again we have talk of “fate” where the powerful are in fact arranging things behind the scenes. Then we learn that Essam is going to be the “martyr” in an operation. Sayid wants to help him, but the CIA operatives want the operation to proceed so that they can recover the explosives. Essam is concerned about the innocent lives, saying that the Imam preaches peace. When Sayid helps to persuade him to go through with it, Essam also talks of fate, and asks Sayid to help him by doing this with him. When the day comes, they get in the truck, and Essam prays. Sayid tries to let him leave, telling him that he has been working for the CIA, but Essam accuses Sayid of having used him (having told him that what they were doing was for “the greater good”) and them kills himself. Sayid gets the chance to go to Los Angeles to look for Nadia, but learning that Essam will be cremated if no one claims the body, and insisting that a Muslim man must be buried, he has them change his flight. This storyline explores both the manipulation of people by terrorist organizations, using their pain and loss to get them to engage in terrorism, and also by counter-terrorism forces. But it also ties in to the broader story arc of other, even more powerful forces being at work and manipulating people. Is it ever justified? The episode asks that question explicitly, in its very title: does the “greater good” ever justify acts that, considered on their own, would be considered evil?

On the island in the present day, Jack is angry because Locke lied, and Jack had based his medical treatment of Boone on that lie. Kate brings Jack back to the camp, and they hold a little memorial for Boone. Locke comes back during it and says it was his fault. Jack tackles him, shouting “Where were you?” Boone had mentioned about the hatch to Jack, and so Jack is sure that Locke is hiding something. Sayid goes with Locke to see if he can salvage the radio from the plane. While they are at the plane, Locke tells Sayid that it was him that hit him from behind and took the transceiver when they had tried to triangulate the source of Danielle’s distress signal. Shannon steals a gun and wants to kill John Locke. Sayid tackles her, but she fires and the bullet grazes his head. At the end of the episode, Sayid tells Locke to take him to the hatch.