4.3: The Economist

I didn't get to watch this eppy until last night. I was told by friends it was a shocker, and they were damn right! In addition to a short recap (I'm assuming ya'll have seen it), let's talk about what we know so far and what new questions this episode raised.

In this episode's opening it looks like Sayid maybe got lucky in his fate, as we see him well dressed and playing at an exclusive golf club. We soon learn that he's not there for fun, but to murder a fellow player, a man somehow associated w/ the Oceanic crash. He's become some sort of hitman and we have no idea why or who he's working for.

Back on the island, part of Jack's crew goes to the Others' Barracks to get back Charlotte. Among other things, Sayid finds a hidden room in Ben's house with a bunch of passports and clothes. He and Kate are tricked into becoming hostages of Locke, though Sayid convinces Locke to let him and Charlotte go by giving him Miles for questioning. All the while Dan performs some strange experiment with the offshore freighter people, who launch a torpedo-looking thing right to their location. On the ship they read that it reaches them way before they receive it, and when they finally do the clock inside is a half hour ahead of the one Dan has. When Sayid returns w/ Charlotte, the pilot agrees to fly him, Desmond and Naomi's body back to the freighter. In the flash forward we see Sayid, who was shot by his lover while using her to get to her boss, stumble into an operating room. We hear the doctor's voice who's taking care of him, and eventually shockingly recognize him as Ben. Sayid says "they know I'm coming after them now" to which Ben replies "good."

OK, now for the questions/theories, etc! We now know 4 (or maybe 5?) identities of the rescued, and ill fated, "Oceanic 6."
1. Jack
2. Kate
3. Hurley
4. Sayid
5. Ben?
I question whether Ben is part of the 6 because he technically was not on the Oceanic flight. My theory is that he somehow gets off the island secretly and we still have two more 815 survivors that will also make it off. The odd thing is that Ben now comes off as some sort of a "good guy" and Sayid is killing these people to protect "them" who I'm assuming is the rest of the Oceanic 6. I also wonder how the bracelets come into play that both Naomi and Elsa were wearing...they somehow associate them w/ whoever Sayid/Ben are killing off.

On another note, it looks like the island is in some strange time dimension according to Dan's experiment. Why did the launch show up a half hour after it was recorded as landed? What other questions did you guys come up w/?