This episode is about making choices and sacrifices for the greater good. In this case, Sayid must decide (both on the island and in his past flashback) whether or not someone has to die to save many others.

Sayid makes a deal with the CIA
In the flashback, Sayid is being taken to interrogation in Heathrow airport. Apparently the CIA has been monitoring his movements for some time and has figured out his is looking for Nadia who he let escape from her Iraqi captures. The CIA informs him she is alive and will let him her whereabouts if he infiltrates a suspected terrorist cell in Australia. Sayid agrees, goes to Sydney and finds a old college friend named Essam who is part of the terrorist cell and has been recruited to be their martyr. Sayid quickly gets their confidence by pretending to find a listening bug in a smoke detector. Essam, whose wife was killed in a bombing, has second thoughts about the suicide attack, given his Islamic faith. Sayid goes back to his handlers to try and save Essam from his fate, but the CIA is more interested in finding the hidden C4 explosive that will be used. They remind Sayid that if he wants to find Nadia he must cooperate. So Sayid devises a plan.
When he meets Essam again the cell members take them to the C4 warehouse where a truck is waiting for the two men to transport the bomb. Essam is given a gun and points it at Sayid when he confesses he is working with the CIA, but he wants to allow Essam to escape. Essam accuses Sayid of being motivated by a woman and not thinking about helping others. Essam points the gun at himself and takes his own life. This CIA holds up their part of the deal and allows Sayid to travel to Nadia, but instead Sayid is concerned that Essam will not get a traditional burial, so he delays his trip a day, which leads him to be on the fateful flight 815.

Sayid's Got a Gun
On the island Sayid is put in a similar situation. Shannon wants to kill Locke for his part in Boone’s death. Jack has accused Locke of lying which led Jack to prescribe the wrong surgical treatment. Sayid confronts lock by the Beachcraft drug plane, Locke confesses that he led Boone there and made him climb into the plane searching for something that would get them rescued. But when asked about the hatch, Locke lies and says the plane has two hatches and is not sure why Boone would be talking about them. Sayid doesn’t trust Locke because he secretly has been carrying a gun. Locke also admits he was the one who knocked Sayid out when he was searching for the radio tower, saying going to place where Daniel said “it killed them all” wasn’t a good idea. Sayid goes back to tell Shannon the circumstances of Boone’s death. But Shannon merely steals the key Jack has to the gun case. She confronts Locke and nearly kills him except that Sayid intervenes and the bullet grazes Locke’s head instead. Sayid says he may have made a mistake but right now Locke is there best chance for survival.
Thoughts:
According to Lostpedia, Shannon was not supposed to have known about the gun case. I picked up on this too, seemingly only Jack, Kate and Locke knew about it. However the writers seemed to have resolved this by writing a scene in the season 3 Expose‘ episode where Kate accidently lets this information out to Shannon.
Kate drugs Jack with sleeping pills in his juice, just as she did to her flashback husband, and later told Sun how to do this as well. However Michael accidently swallowed the drugs that Jin was supposed to receive.
Sayid is very swayed be woman, Nadia of course, and in this episode Shannon, and later he falls for Elsa (a spy). Each one gets him somewhat involved in something dangerous. But Nadia really tried to help Sayid.
Walt says something funny when he says while on the raft they might encounter a shark, which is exactly what happens next season.
What do you think? Was Sayid acting for the greater good or was he just interested in finding Nadia, or both?
We find hidden C4 explosive on the island as well. It’s in the Flame (communications hatch) where Mikhail lives. Coincidence, on Lost? I don’t think so. But Sayid was pretty miffed when Locke used it to blow up that station.
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