[3] In the episode's narrative, Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) and Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) negotiate for John Locke's (Terry O'Quinn) hostage Charlotte Lewis (Rebecca Mader), while physicist and Kahana crew member Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) discovers that time on the island runs at an offset from the rest of the world.
At the helicopter, Desmond Hume (Henry Ian Cusick) confronts pilot Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey) about the picture Naomi had of him and his ex-fiancée Penelope Widmore (Sonya Walger).
He is hired as an assassin, and courts a German woman, Elsa (Thekla Reuten), in order to get closer to her employer (the eponymous "economist").
[5] At the end of the first scene in Berlin, the flag shown on the building across the street from where Sayid stands is actually that of the former East German GDR.
[5] In the episode's respective podcast, Lost's show runners Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof further discussed the time differential as part of an already existing theme regarding transport between the island and the rest of the world.
The Boston Red Sox won the World Series for the second time in three years after the episode was written, which prompted the question "Is it possible Lapidus is actually from 2008?"
[11] The first four episodes of the fourth season were watched beforehand by TV Guide, who called them "worth the wait" and "emotionally satisfying".
[13] Entertainment Weekly commented that "for the second straight year, Cupid was kicked in the nuts", as the episode "Flashes Before Your Eyes" also aired on St. Valentine's Day.
[14] However, Mark Madley of The National Post thought that this episode, along with the previous two, gave away too much plot detail, and compared the off-island storyline to "that awful Stallone/Banderas movie Assassins".
[15] Don Williams of BuddyTV thought that the scene where Sayid disposes of his cellphone after calling Ben "like an episode of Alias", and finished his recap by saying "consider my mind blown again".
[17] Chris Carabott of IGN stated that, in the episode "Sayid Jarrah is a badass who could give Jack Bauer, James Bond, and Jason Bourne all a run for their money", and praised Lost's nature for being able to have "a lighthearted episode featuring Hurley [one week] and the next can be an action spy thriller starring Sayid."
He praised the episode for being a perfect example of serialized television, and thought that Elsa's double cross to be "very reminiscent of Vesper Lynd and her true employer in Casino Royale".