Yes, we know, it was a Desmond episode. But how to describe what happened to Desmond last night in a tease without giving anything away until after the spoilers (since people seem to be sensitive about those things)?
Instead, we’ll give the pre-jump props to Daniel Faraday, the physicist who is now a lot more important to the overall plot of the show than we all thought after his introduction a few episodes ago.
MASSIVE SPOILERS await. You were warned.
* Did you cry when Desmond called Penny? Apparently lots of people watching did. People across the net are playing up the Odysseus connection. I still have a feeling something will prevent the reunion of the time/space-crossed lovers.
* Penelope’s Father/Black Rock journal/The Hansos? There’s a lot of speculation to be garnered from this one scene. Was the boat race started so he could find the island? Did he want Desmond to find the island? How long have the Hanso Family known about the Island? What’s in the journal? Great theory I read last night: Richard Alpert and his buddies were some of the crew of the Black Rock, still living on the island.
*Eloise, we hardly knew ye. Anyone else expecting it to be a rabbit and not a mouse?
* If Desmond is Faraday’s anchor, will we see a flash-forward meeting of the two, since Faraday must be “unstuck in time” too? And Faraday with long hair was just silly.
* Did Ben’s spy on the boat sabotage the communications room? Was Ben’s spy the one who opened the door for Sayid, Desmond and Minkowski?
* So, is “the sickness” the result of people being “unstuck in time?” Is that what happened to Rousseau’s crew?
* Wasn’t it nice to have a breather from Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Ben/Locke-centered stories? Just for a week at least.
There’s plenty more to talk about, but let’s throw it open for comments/snarky responses.
Posted by Mark Coale
Okay, in this scene we need a location. Did I hear “freighter,” good! Okay so Sayid and Desmond are on a freighter except there’s something wrong with Desmond. I need an ailment. Okay, I’m hearing “amnesia,” “nosebleed,” “narcolepsy,” and “unstuck in time.” Why not? So in this scene Sayid is talking to Desmond who is a narcoleptic, amnesiac, who’s unstuck in time and his nose is bleeding. Got that guys? Okay, go!
Hey, I kinda liked Faraday’s 1996 long-hair look. Not so much what you’d expect from an Oxford prof, but he had a little sort (er, vertically challenged) Rohirrim thing going on…
A lot of great stuff in this episode, but I think my favorite moment was when Sayid said something like “When all this is over, somebody has to tell me what this is all about.” Since so many characters never seem to tell each other what’s going on, it was nice at least to see someone ask to know stuff.
(What got me riled up abput that was Juliet & Jack’s confused head-shaking “no”s to Faraday’s question as to whether Desmond had been exposed to lots of EM radiation. I mean, even if those two never got around to asking Des what happened to him when the hatch blew up, they can’t possibly forget the day everyone saw the sky turn purple, can they?)
This episode certainly puts a different spin on Desmond’s visions of the future from last season.
How can they be spoilers when the show aired yesterday? I thought spoilers were giving away information that hasn’t been revealed yet.
Anyway, what a great episode. Unlike the previous seasons this year the drama seems to be driving the mystery rather than mystery driving the drama. And YES, it was wonderful to have an episode that did not involve Jack crying or Kate pouting or Locke and Ben having a staring contest.
I had been thinking of Widmore as being the big badguy. But his line to Desmond, “I’m not the one who hates you,” now makes me wonder.
I think LOST is becoming more plot/story driven than character driven, which is somewhat dissappointing somehow.
Thank God for some plot I say.
Harold Perrineau is on the credits this season so I think it’s not a huge stretch to assume that Michael is the saboteur on the boat and Ben’s contact.
Fisher Stevens as Minkowski didn’t last long…..though people dying doesn’t mean you’ve been written out of Lost, as it might on other shows.
If the Island is adrift in time then it’s not so much WHERE are they but WHEN. The Black Rock was in awfully good shape when we last saw it. Rousseau has been on the Island for 16 years , but nobody has asked her when she arrived.
Eli Stone still blows.
This has been a HUGE topic of conversation around the office, especially all the electromagnetic stuff. It seems clear that whatever the island is, the core of its mystery is something to do with its mammoth electromagnetic signature–remembering that anyone leaving the island has to do so along a very precise compass heading, and compasses work by detecting the earth’s magnetic pole. I can’t buy any deeply metaphysical explanation for most of the show, as it is after all a prime-time blockbuster show. But with electromagnetism as the next frontier of scientific discovery, you can ascribe a lot of mysterious stuff to it safely.
I wonder if Locke would have the same problem leaving the island, were he ever to try, being as how he was pretty close to the whole hatch meltdown thing?
As to whether or not Desmond gets to smooch Penny: has anyone noticed that Desmond is pretty much the ONLY sympathetic character left? Jack’s a real jerk, half the cast have killed people, Sayid’s a hitman, etc. Hurley doesn’t count because he’s comic relief. Will Desmond become the real protagonist of the show, with its climax being his successful return to Penelope/Penny. By the way, I LOVE the Odysseus idea–it’s too perfect. I’m going to start hunting Cyclops and Circe’s. Also the Michael-as-plant idea, which is great, and creates the question of where the “real” Walt would be. Great episode! Good plot plus actual interesting writing and emotional heart. So good after the lackluster third season.
POSSIBLY jumped the shark last night.
I’m very disappointed to see they’re continuing the “strange electromagnetism that bends light and time” aspect because that is the exact same phoney explanation the give you at various roadside attractions around the country known as “mystery spots.” The best known of these is probably the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, CA and they use this “unknown source of electromagnetism that affects the way light scatters” to make objects appear to roll uphill and shit like that. This device is at least 50 years old, and probably much much older. If that’s the reason why the island is floating in time or whatever, then this show fucking blows.
I think the most important soundbite was indeed, “I’M not the one who hates you,” by Charles Widmore. He clearly is the bad guy, or at least his company is. Alvar Hanso’s great grand pappy was sailing the Black Rock, and if it turns out that Richard ends up being Magnus Hanso, I’ll be again disappointed.
I love Farady as this oddball mad scientist. He’s a really strong character.
He HAD to have long hair. He’s such a hippie weirdo that he had to have long hair at one time :)
I love Desmond. For a character who isn’t one of the main protagonists, he is so great to watch.
BTW, to A-rod: spoilers have been a lot more important not to leak with lots of people using Tivo, but also people can also just be busy with their jobs and they don’t see it the same time as everyone else.
I also was wondering on the possible Black Rock Richard connection, they mentioned it was the 1st mate’s journal, I wonder if Richard is the first mate. They are usually pretty apt to toss out names and when they don’t it’s usually for a reason, same with mystery of who saboteur/spy on the freighter is and why I lean towards Michael. Not because they didn’t mention the name, but because of the way it has been presented.
Dustin, There has been a Cyclops already – Mikhail.
I really enjoy Desmond and want to see if he can still use his visions of the future. How accurate is his vision of Claire & Aaron getting on a helicopter if Kate has Aaron in the future?
And I keep waiting for an episode to end with Michael appearing on the boat. I have no doubt that he opened the door for them. I think though that “Taller Ghost Walt” is the same as “Wet Ghost Walt” who is the same as “Jacob.” That’s my theory.
My roommate also suggested that Richard Alpert and his Hostiles could be the crew from the Black Rock. Makes sense to me.
I disagree that Desmond is the only sympathetic character left. Claire, Rose and Bernard, Sun, (and yes, Hugo) are all basicly good people who haven’t done anything unforgiveable. And even the people who’ve Done Bad Things (e.g. Jin, Sayid, Kate) are often complex enough to be sympathetic.
Jonathan, I think you’re getting way too hung up on what they call the phenomena of the Island. It’s all just a bunch of fictional quantum metaphysics, and it’s never going to make actual sense from a scientific perspective. Just because you’re pissed off that some tourist trap uses the same technobabble doesn’t mean Lost shouldn’t borrow it.
So, if Desmond is Odysseus, of course Penny is Penelope, and Mikhail is Polyphemus, then Kelvin (who trapped Desmond in the hatch) was Calypso, maybe Daniel is Tiresias.
A-rod said:
“How can they be spoilers when the show aired yesterday? I thought spoilers were giving away information that hasn’t been revealed yet.”
—
Time travel, A-rod. I just got back from the past an hour ago and haven’t had time to see the episode, which I taped while I was gone, because I can’t get my nose to stop bleeding.
Excellent show.
Can someone help out… in last weeks episode, it ended with Kate holding the baby and saying his name. I thought I heard her say the baby’s name was ‘Eric’ but my brother said the name was…
S
P
O
I
L
E
R
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… ‘Aaron’, which would make the baby, Clare’s natural son.
Is the baby’s name Eric or Aaron?
>‘Aaron’, which would make the baby, Clare’s natural son.
>
>Is the baby’s name Eric or Aaron?
It’s Aaron. Other folks heard “Eric” too, but it’s definitely “Aaron”–Clare’s kid. For one thing, I think the closed-captioning confirmed it, and for another, if the kid *wasn’t* Aaron, the episode wouldn’t have the same narrative kick, so you gotta believe that was the creators’ intent.
It didn’t jump the shark last night, it got off the skiis, went back to Arnold’s, banged the jukebox, and started the dance-off: great, great episode. Best time-travel plot since who knows when (O.T.?) All based around the simple premise we all know: he just NEEDS her number…
I never caught the King Faraday reference til now — nice — yet another comic nod? I thought it was the physics nod, some of the other new visitors have physics last names, too..blanking….where am I?….I DON’ KNOW WHO YU AR!
I understand the Tivo thing Vichus, That makes sense. I have watched Lost the day after many times myself. The thing I don’t understand is why , if you haven’t yet seen the episode, would you read a blog posting about said episode. Forest’s momma was right, stupid is as stupid does.
I still don’t want to accidentally offend someone who is not caught up on the show. So what is the rule? How many days(weeks?months?) have to pass before a plot detail moves from spoiler land into historical cannon?
Can I talk about last week’s episode? My sister has been on vacation in Chile and hasn’t seen it.
Also, Great headline Heidi, it took me at least 3 cups of coffee until I got the pun. So, I’m not the brightest tack in the box…..wait…..stupid mixed metaphors, were’d I leave that coffee……
“I disagree that Desmond is the only sympathetic character left. Claire, Rose and Bernard, Sun, (and yes, Hugo) are all basicly good people who haven’t done anything unforgiveable. And even the people who’ve Done Bad Things (e.g. Jin, Sayid, Kate) are often complex enough to be sympathetic.”
I guess I mispoke in using the word “sympathetic”, as they’re all sympathetic to the viewer, even Sawyer and Kate and (occasionally) Jack. But in terms of the story, most of the main characters are too sullied by their various sins to be truly central protagonists. Only Desmond is still largely sinless, and seems to be turning into a pole the story is revolving around, rather than a pawn of the plot. Everyone has sins in their past (Sun as adulterer, Jin as jerky mob-heavy) except Desmond, whose main sin seems to be wishy-washiness with the ladies, and his weird cowardice thing.
But redemption is a great theme to wrap all this stuff around, and I’m starting to suspect it might go that way in the long run. I certainly hope so–I like that character a lot, and I’m the kind of viewer that really needs to identify with SOMEBODY in order to enjoy a story. After last season with people killing and betraying and cast members vanishing (Mr. Echo especially, after having such a central role) because of their real-world sins, it was getting hard to care about any of these people.
Great episode. Maybe my favorite yet. It’s great they keep coming in with such great characters. I think Faraday now rivals Desmond for the most interesting on the show.
And I agree, if I could only watch LOST without the Eli Stone commercials, I would be SO much happier.
Spoilers are anything that spoils plot points for someone, regardless of whether it’s been aired or not. That’s my understanding of the term.
Jason A Quest – “Just because you’re pissed off that some tourist trap uses the same technobabble doesn’t mean Lost shouldn’t borrow it.” I contend that is EXACTLY why Lost shouldn’t borrow it. Its unoriginal. That bothers me personally. I realize the science of the show doesn’t make sense, and I’m not wanting it to. I can suspend my disbelief that a “constant” is what gives an equation balance, that speaking to someone in two timelines secures your sanity and saves your life, and that the physics of all of this is simply fabricated. What I want is for the writers to come up with something original instead of taking the mechanism for all of this from another source. Naturally though, these are MY comments, and I realize that your mileage may vary.
Jumped the shark? I loved last night’s episode! Season four is progressing nicely.
“Wasn’t it nice to have a breather from Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Ben/Locke-centered stories?”
Yes. Hell yes. And… hell yes.
Here’s a perhaps-interesting thought:
If being “unstuck in time” causes brain hemmorhages…
Does that have anything to do with the increased wave of infant-and-mother deaths on the island (which is itself “unstuck in time”)?
Something that was brought up in the EW blog about this episode of “Lost” — the date is Christmas Eve – December 24, 2004. They’re supposedly somewhere in the Pacific possibly Indian Ocean. The wreckage of Oceanic 815 was found near Indonesia.
On December 26, 2004 — the Tsunami struck that area.
Just something to consider.
Something that was brought up in the EW blog about this episode of “Lost” — the date is Christmas Eve – December 24, 2004. They’re supposedly somewhere in the Pacific possibly Indian Ocean. The wreckage of Oceanic 815 was found near Indonesia.
On December 26, 2004 — the Tsunami struck that area.
Just something to consider.
O. M. G.
“If the Island is adrift in time then it’s not so much WHERE are they but WHEN.”
Ever since last week’s episode I’ve been thinking about this time situation. This year they’ve been sure to tell us how many days they’ve been on the island (I think they’re at 93 days now) and now we have this time difference, the 31 minutes from two weeks ago.
My question is , how do the Oceanic 6 explain baby Aaron? If they claim he’s Kate’s, do they say Kate was pregnant when arrested and when the plane crashed? If so then they must have been on the island longer than nine months to the outside world.
Seeing the age that Aaron was at the time of Kate’s trial and assuming she was placed under arrest fairly soon after the Oceanic 6 returned then to the outside world it’s possible that they’ve been on the island for years! If next season reveals their rescue then they may “catch up” to our time.
For the the Oceanic 6 it’s still end of 2005 beginning of 2005, but in “real life” it’s 2008. A three years difference? But if that’s so, how can Aaron be three years old? Do people who leave the island automatically catch up to their proper age? If so, that’s a way the writers can explain Walt’s growth the next time we see him.
“Eli Stone still blows.”
That’s why I always tape Lost and watch it later, so I can fast forward through those annoying commercials.
“If the Island is adrift in time then it’s not so much WHERE are they but WHEN.”
Ever since last week’s episode I’ve been thinking about this time situation. This year they’ve been sure to tell us how many days they’ve been on the island (I think they’re at 93 days now) and now we have this time difference, the 31 minutes from two weeks ago.
My question is , how do the Oceanic 6 explain baby Aaron? If they claim he’s Kate’s, do they say Kate was pregnant when arrested and when the plane crashed? If so then they must have been on the island longer than nine months to the outside world.
Seeing the age that Aaron was at the time of Kate’s trial and assuming she was placed under arrest fairly soon after the Oceanic 6 returned then to the outside world it’s possible that they’ve been on the island for years! If next season reveals their rescue then they may “catch up” to our time.
For the the Oceanic 6 it’s still end of 2005 beginning of 2005, but in “real life” it’s 2008. A three years difference? But if that’s so, how can Aaron be three years old? Do people who leave the island automatically catch up to their proper age? If so, that’s a way the writers can explain Walt’s growth the next time we see him.
“Eli Stone still blows.”
That’s why I always tape Lost and watch it later, so I can fast forward through those annoying commercials.
“What I want is for the writers to come up with something original instead of taking the mechanism for all of this from another source.”
At first I was a little miffed that they were just using Vonnegut’s time travel scenario from “Slaughterhouse Five,” but then Desmond identified his soldier friend as “Billy” (as in Billy Pilgrim), and then Faraday used the phrase “unstuck in time” (a reference to the first line of the book), so it’s a direct allusion! The radiation stuff is all secondary.
FYI: the new Lost podcast (by Lindelof and Cuse) is now up in iTunes.
For anyone who wants to know more about the literary allusions, interconnectedness of trivial bits, clues and theories for what is going on, etc. the Lostpedia is a great resource. There are other folk out there freezing frames, figuring out all of the “Lost Experience” games for clues and generally nit-picking so that you don’t have to.
Here’s one cool piece of trivia I learned from Lostpedia: “As the helicopter approached the freighter, a sign near the landing pad indicated the name of the ship: ‘Kahana’. Kahana means the drawing of a line, cutting or turning point in the Hawaiian language [source: Pukui & Elbert, Hawaiian Dictionary.]”
I absolutely loved this episode.
I’m amused that Jonathan is annoyed that the idea of a “strange electromagnetism that bends light and time” is still central to the show. I mean, why the heck have you continued to watch since about the middle of season one? The electromagnetic distortions on the island have been a pretty central premise of the show ever since Locke’s compass didn’t work (I think it was Locke’s compass), and particularly since the Hatch blew up. Your personal “it jumped the shark” moment should have been when Desmond first started seeing the future.
That’s like being annoyed that Star Trek stuck with the same cliché of faster-than-light travel employed by every other scifi story of space exploration .
Some rambling thoughts…
So Jack’s father’s body was on the plane, but his coffin was empty…Jack “hallucinated” seeing him step out of the bushes…and when Hurley peered into the Jacob’s cabin, the man in the chair was…Jack’s father. We saw Jack’s dad employ Anna Lucia in Australia, where he tried to visit Claire…Then there was Claire’s abduction by the Others and the mysterious things they did to Aaron in utero…and now we find out about this “transfer of consciousness” thing, after learning that there’s something about baby Aaron that Jack wants nothing to do with.
So all I can come up with is that Aaron must have Jack’s father’s consciousness, or is expected to receive it at some point just like we saw happen with Desmond, but permanently…Perhaps there’s been tinkering with Claire’s pregnancy all along on the part of Dharma people; Aaron may be something very close to a CLONE of Jack’s father (to make him a better host for Shepard’s consciousness) and so was brought to the island quite deliberately, along with many of the other 815 passengers. I mean we have both of Dr. Shephard’s adult children (jack and Claire) on that plane, as well as Dr. Shepard’s supposedly dead body…If the island’s “power” could restore Locke’s legs and “cure” Rose’s cancer, what effect would it have on the recently deceased?
All this has to fit together SOMEHOW.
Yes, Faraday is a great character. I hope he’s along for the rest of the run.
So a massive 106 hours after it aired, avoiding this post like the plague, I used high powered work computer, and yes Daniel is fucking awesome. He is a great character, and its great to see yet another intelligent, educated character doing really cool things because they are after all so few and far between these days, to the great detriment of, well, everyone, but that is another rant.
The EM stuff I consider more of a plot device, instead of an actual element of the plot. It is the how, not the why, and the why is all the marbles. The track record for this show so far suggests they would not leave such a large element of the story to such a flat explanation. It’ll be as some suchness: Desmond’s crazy, Billy Pilgrim adventures are caused by the EM field from the Hatch explosion, which was a result of the celestial seed gestating beneath the island. Or The Bruce Campbell’s chin gestating beneath the island.
I have no idea why, no can I even to begin to explain my suspicions, but after watching this episode I almost want to suspect that instead of Michael, the man on the boat is Walt. Although if Walt has returned to the island, that would provide impetus for Michael to return. But didn’t Walt’s not-father in Australia say Walt was sometimes places he shouldn’t have been, and the dead “Other” woman Cyclops shot said something to that effect as well no? We know Walt has already displaced spacially, so all of this Desmond business makes lots of gooeyness to ponder.
Kate raising the reincarnation of Jack’s dead father inhabiting his grandson’s body. Ew.
I didn’t get the King Faraday reference, so I looked it up. Ok, DC Comics character.
Has anyone looked at this reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Faraday_cage
A Faraday cage or Faraday shield is an enclosure formed by conducting material, or by a mesh of such material. Such an enclosure blocks out external static electrical fields. Faraday cages are named after physicist Michael Faraday, who built one in 1836.
An external static electrical field will cause the electrical charges within the conducting material to redistribute themselves so as to cancel the field’s effects in the cage’s interior. This effect is used, for example, to protect electronic equipment from lightning strikes and other electrostatic discharges.
To a large degree, Faraday cages also shield the interior from external electromagnetic radiation if the conductor is thick enough and any holes are significantly smaller than the radiation’s wavelength. For example, certain test procedures of electronic components or systems that require an environment devoid of electromagnetic interference may be conducted within a so-called screen room. These screen rooms are essentially labs or work areas that are completely enclosed by one or more layers of fine metal mesh or perforated sheet metal. The metal layers are connected to earth ground to dissipate any electric currents generated from the external electromagnetic fields, and thus block a large amount of the electromagnetic interference. This application of Faraday cages is explained under electromagnetic shielding.
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