LAST EDITED ON 03-29-07 AT 12:57 PM (EST)

I thought last night's episode was a good, solid, cleverly written episode. Was it "The Man from Tallahassee"? No. But this is actually a good point in the season to take a breath before the run up to the end.

It may not have moved the plot along, but it did serve some purpose outside of the Nikki/Paolo story.

1) Sawyer managed to put himself back in the Lostie camp's doghouse by a) being exposed as the one who was behind Sun's fake kidnapping, and b) lying about several things regarding Nikki and the diamonds. Thus is the ebb and flow of Sawyer.

2) Charlie got to fess up to Sun, clearing his conscience before he shuffles off this mortal coil (as I believe he will by season's end).

3) (My personal fave) Turns out I was on to something about Ben's list being totally fabricated to get Jack to do the surgery. However, I was off on the timing. It seems this plan was hatched (no pun intended) before the whole "Henry Gale" incident. I wonder now if Ben got captured on purpose (since the offer to Michael could have been as simple as the 4 on the list for Walt), and if so, to what end? Perhaps more importantly, is this subversion of their normal "list" procedures what started the rift in the Others camp? Ben as the selfish mastermind rather than the communitarian leader?

4) We got to see Ethan as trusted camp member. Paolo certainly trusted him more than Mr. Arzt. I'm not sure why, though, because he just gets creepier every time I see him on the show.

5) The walkie-talkie. It's probably a day late and a dollar short for that thing to be of use, but who knows?

I found the writing to be very clever this week. There were a TON of references to themselves (Hurley's fanboy excitement over "Expose" and his finding out that Mr. LaShade was the Cobra...a big bad guy whose identity had been a mystery for 4 seasons), to the fan community (all the "who the hell are these people?" lines), and even to Charlotte's Web (hello Mr. Zuckerman). My personal favorite was Nikki saying "promise me we won't turn out like them", alluding to Boone and Shannon. Of course they DID wind up exactly like them...buried on Boone Hill. Paolo is supposedly the Wolfgang Puck of Brazil, just like Rodrigo Santoro (the actor who plays him) has been referred to as the Tom Cruise of Brazil. Paolo tells Nikki that he'd be crazy to climb up to the plane because it would fall. Mr. Zuckerman asks Nikki if she'd like to return for the next season, and Nikki responds that we all know what happens to guest stars. All very meta. I personally love that stuff. It was almost like the Arrested Development episode.

ETA: There was also a heavy geek salute in the casting of Billy Dee Williams (the guy who was universally hated by the Star Wars community as Lando) to have a cameo in the episode where the universally hated Nikki and Paolo have their 5 minutes in the sun.