Namaste (Lost)

Plot

The episode begins with the crash of Ajira Airways Flight 316, a transpacific flight piloted by Frank Lapidus (Jeff Fahey), on the small island off the coast of the main island, where the Dharma Initiative Hydra Station is located. Lapidus crash lands the plane on a runway that was built by the native population of the island, known as the Others, and the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815 (as seen in "The Glass Ballerina"). While the passengers begin to debate what to do next, crash survivor and former leader of the Others Ben Linus (Michael Emerson) begins to travel to the main island. He is followed by Frank and survivor Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), who believes her husband Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) is on the main island. After reaching a group of canoes, Sun knocks Ben out with an oar (Ben reappearing still unconscious in the Hydra station, as seen in "The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham") and travels with Frank to the abandoned barracks of the Dharma Initiative. Waiting there is Christian Shephard (John Terry), who shows Sun and Frank a picture of new recruits to the Dharma Initiative from 1977, including Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox), Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) and Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (Jorge Garcia). He also tells her that Jin is with them in 1977.

In 1977, following the events of the previous episode "LaFleur", James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway) explains to Jack, Kate and Hurley the situation regarding Dharma and the shift in time. Sawyer arranges for the three of them to join the Dharma Initiative as new recruits (Jack is assigned janitorial work and Hurley is a chef and Kate works in the motor pool) with help from Juliet Burke (Elizabeth Mitchell), who forges the necessary documentation. Juliet also learns that Amy (Reiko Aylesworth) has named her baby Ethan, who will eventually join the Others. Meanwhile, Jin travels to the Dharma Initiative Flame Station because he believes that its occupant, Radzinsky (Eric Lange), will know if Flight 316 crashed on the island. There is no evidence of a plane crashing on the island as the plane is in 2007. Soon, an alarm is set off and Jin finds Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) wandering in the jungle. After a brief moment of reunion, Jin is forced to act as if Sayid were a Hostile to placate Radzinsky, who would not understand where Sayid really came from. Sawyer is summoned to the Flame and moves Sayid to a jail cell at the Barracks while he decides what to do.

Later in the evening, Jack visits Sawyer and Juliet's house to discuss the situation. James tells Jack that he is in charge and has a different approach to leadership than Jack had with the survivors of Oceanic 815: Sawyer prefers to carefully plan out his actions, as opposed to Jack's more impulsive style of command. Meanwhile, at the jail, an adolescent brings Sayid a sandwich and introduces himself as Ben (Sterling Beaumon).

Production

The episode was written by supervising producer Paul Zbyszewski and producer Brian K. Vaughan and directed by executive producer Jack Bender. Eric Lange made his first out of seven scheduled guest appearances on the show in this episode as Stuart Radzinsky. Radzinsky had originally been mentioned once in the season 2 finale, making "Namaste" his first full appearance. Lange said that a couple days after his audition, he got a call telling him that he had gotten the role of Radzinsky. In November 2008, he traveled to the set in Hawaii. Lange had been a fan of the show since it started and had always wanted to be a part of it. He said: "To be able to work on something in a capacity like this, it's a dream job. It's one of the most exciting things I've done."

Reception

In Australia, the episode brought in 389,000 viewers, ranking 35th for the night.