6.11 - Happily Ever After

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#1

6.11 – Happily Ever After
Desmond-centric

On-island:
Widmore is coming off as less and less of a baddie, and more of someone trying to keep MIB from getting off the island. This is probably the kindest we’ve seen him towards Desmond and his words regarding his own sacrifices ring honest (dead son, estranged daughter, never met grandson). Desmond, post-EMP experience tells Widmore he’s ready to assist Widmore with the important task. When Sayid ambushes Desmond et al. and asks Desmond to come with him, he follows Sayid.

Question: was there any more elucidated to Desmond during the EMP experience that we are not yet privy to? He was motivated enough to help Widmore, yet follows Sayid. I suspect that he somehow knows what he is doing in following Sayid, but who knows.

Widmore’s plan?: use the EM pockets (recall Zoe questioning Jin) to not only set off a pulse (Desmond will do it – sacrifice), but also to contain MIB.

Flash-sideways:
I get why Charlie seems like a man possessed, but there is also a subtle wiseness to Minkowski. Possibly from his freighter-2004 experience and time shifting? Eloise is definitely aware of both realities, as is her son, Dan. Musician or no, the man understood that he’d already set off a bomb and their current reality was possibly the result of it.

I don’t know what to make of this following exchange between Desmond/Eloise:
[Note: next blurb directly from Lostpedia] “…Desmond hears the name “Penny” read from a list of guests but when he tries to see the list Eloise intervenes sternly, and takes the list from him. She takes him aside and tells him to stop, that whatever it is that he thinks he is looking for he should stop looking for it. She says that he should not need to look for anything as he has the perfect life and has attained the thing he wanted more than anything, the approval of Charles Widmore. She adds that it is, in fact a violation. When he presses her about the list she says that he can’t see the list because he is not ready yet…”

Loved this scene, but even more so, what is a violation? Eloise seems to know more about Teh Rules than any others, sans Jacob/MIB.

Add that Desmond wants Minkowski to get him the passenger list from 815 – will he be gathering our peeps together in sideways world? At least, finally, Desmond is back and integral to our story’s end time. Welcome back, Brotha!

Random comments:
Penny – (1) Widmore’s daughter, but uses her mother’s name; (2) Jack’s ex and David’s mother. Why? Her running the stadium steps echoes the Jack/Desmond scenes.

LOVE – is that what the island is?

We got two explicit tales of Love.At.First.Sight via Charlie and Dan – both moments spurring the two characters into an action. For Charlie, it’s introducing Desmond into the “reality”. For Dan (it had nothing to do with flight 815 but after seeing Charlotte at a museum) dreams and transcribes advanced physics – something he has no knowledge of. And this experience leads Dan to believe that his present reality is the result of something he did in another reality.

Since they are “the couple” for LOST, Desmond was immediately smitten with Penny when meeting her at the stadium. And they’re going to get coffee. Wonder if we’ll see Det. Ford meet a lovely blonde woman at the same coffee shop? Will they go dutch?

#2

You also had Charlie seeing a “blond woman” (presumably Claire) while unconscious from choking on the heroin bag.

It certainly seems that several people are aware of the timeline split now. Charlie tells Desmond that “none of this matters” before telling him to find Penny; the implication (to me anyway) is that Charlie somehow knows that he is in the “wrong” timeline, maybe because he was dead at the time of the split?

(Hmmm… Charlie was “dead” when they flew over the site of the Island. Is it maybe not really Charlie?)

It does seem that Charlie expected Desmond to see something when he forced the car into the water.

Daniel sees Charlotte and somehow remembers enough of his equations from the other timeline to write them down. And somehow knows that implementing them would require setting of an atomic bomb and that somehow he did. Of course, he was dead when the bomb went off too.

As for Desmond, I think his getting hit by the flux (or whatever) happened at exactly the same “time” as his meeting Penny and passing out. I think both Desmonds now have both of their memories from both timelines. I think that is what he meant by “a lot can happen in 20 minutes” and why he is suddenly being driven in both timelines. He knows what needs to be done and he needs to do something in both timelines to do it.

And he is the only one (because of his earlier exposure to the blast when he turned the failsafe in the Swan station and his later time hopping) who can have his consciousness in both timelines. That is why he is so key to what is about to happen.

#3

Here are my two cents:

Why was Desmond wearing a ring in LA X? HIC forget taking of his ring or is there more to it?

I totally oversaw Daniel playing the piano the first time around. Must have been his hat. :smiley:

While Penny was running, I expected her to hurt her ankle when she looked up and saw Desmond, just like he hurt his in the Season 2 Premiere.

And the biggest question of all: Why doesn’t Sayid shoot frakkin Zoe?

#4

Maybe Desmond’s left-handed?

And the biggest question of all: Why doesn’t Sayid shoot frakkin Zoe?

I’ve got a theory. What if despite being “claimed” and loosing all feeling whatsoever, he still wants to see Zoe do a Sarah Palin impression? :slight_smile:

#5

I’m always a happy Lostie after a Desmond-centric episode, and this was no exception. I still don’t know why the Island needs him, or the importance of his surviving a catastrophic electromagnetic event, but I just remind myself that I’m along for the ride.

I bet we were all panicking along with Des, going “Where’s Penny? Where’s li’l Charlie?” so I hope they are safe. Widmore is a bastard but I would at least count on him to protect his daughter and grandson. He did have that beatdown with an IV stand coming, though. And what an amazing flash-sideways! So many familiar faces – Minkowski, Charlie, Eloise, Daniel, Penny. It just made me so happy to see them all, even though the scene with Widmore and Des hugging and drinking together was just odd. I don’t get why Eloise Widmore nee Hawking was so adamant about Des not meeting Penny, that it’s a violation of “the rules” and he’s “not ready.” And why was post-test Des happy to go along with Sayid?

I can’t believe there are only 6 more episodes. It’s not enough time, brotha!

Why was Desmond wearing a ring in LA X? HIC forget taking of his ring or is there more to it?

I wondered about that, too. I could have sworn he was wearing something different than that suit when Jack saw him. I guess I could check the screencaps but I’m too lazy.

#6

I think it was Jack who hurt his ankle, and Desmond fixed it right?

#7

Just put up my full recap/analysis of the episode

http://www.14kofginafpd.com/details.php?id=275

#8

The series is going to end with everyone holding hands and singing we are the world.

#9

Ok, Theory Time. Eliowise Hawking is special in that she is aware of herself in all timelines. This is how she knows so much.

#10

I’m not going to bet against this theory.

And regarding what Des wore:

LAX

Happily Ever After

#11

Ah, okay. He was wearing the same suit. Nevermind.

Eloise is a very interesting character, ever since we first saw her in the antique shop denying Desmond an engagement ring. I wish we could get flashbacks for her but I don’t think there’s time for that. I wonder how she got to the Island in the first place. How long was she leader of the Others? Was she okay with Charles being banished by Ben? Did she leave while pregnant or was Daniel born on the Island?

Questions, questions, questions…

#12

This week’s episode kinda blows my theory that the show is about how we can only affect our NOW (present). Seeing how the timelines are converging, I’m forced to believe that the show is about destiny and that it is set, regardless of how we believe we actually make choices. I still think the island is a portal between planes of existence, beyond that my mind is fried.

#13

After this episode my impression of the flash sideways is that they’re not (phew! for me anyway, because I was never a fan of this particular theory) the destinies of the characters, but a false reality that bred out of them detonating Jughead. That’s why Charlie kept insisting it was ‘wrong’ - and that it seemed for most of them, the sideways were more or less good (like Jack reconnecting with his son, Ben getting to ‘save’ Alex, Desmond getting Widmore’s approval, Sawyer being a cop with best bud Miles instead of being a loner con man, etc) - enough to distract them from the fact that it’s actually not the ‘right’ one. So the rest of the season would be Desmond trying to convince the sideways gang to reject their ‘happy endings’ and ‘break’ free from their false reality? Who knows. But I’m finally more excited than I’ve been all season for the next episode.

I love Desmond, so I’m just glad that with him (and Daniel and Eloise), we’re finally back to getting some science/science fiction logic rather than the religious crap (with the Jacob/Smockey good vs evil thing) logic we’ve been getting all season long. I hope this episode marked the beginning of a complete 180 from this season thus far - at least where the sciencey stuff is concerned. The characters are and will always be the number one thing (and love was it? I don’t think I heard that word enough times in the episode :D) in LOST, but I need for them to have some kind of explanation (even if it turns out to be something they won’t explain) that is a little more scientific and logical than the ‘follow Jacob, who’s the good god, or follow Locke, who’s the devil’ non logic.

Thank god for Desmond. He had such a knowing smile at the end I feel encouraged that if we never find out what’s happening, at least he knows what he’s going to do (and what’s going on).

And this episode totally confirmed my feelings about Jin. He has THE worst luck EVER out of anybody else on the island. thHe’s always getting taken for usually no reason that concerns him at all (and usually alone), and always amidst people (The Tailies, young Danielle, Claire/Locke, now Widmore) who never explains anything to him. So why did Widmore take Jin again? He doesn’t seem to care less if Jin hung around anyway.

#14

So I really like the extra layer of complexity we’re getting with the Jacob/MIB rivalry and I’m not as opposed to religion, good/bad, and other less logical themes in the show as you are. But I do agree that they have pretty much dominated the first half of season six at the expense of the scientific mysteries of the show. It feels to me like there must be something coming up in the ending of the show that somehow ties together the scientific themes of the show to the broader mythology. Specifically:

  1. We’ve seen “The Numbers” in both a Dharma context (The Swan, the radio tower) and a Jacob/MIB context (The Lighthouse and the cave) but what is the connection between them?

  2. What exactly are “The Rules” Jacob and MIB are playing by and how do they relate to laws of physics/time travel/alternate dimensions as we know them in the Lost universe.

  3. Both MIB and Jacob seem to have obtained powers beyond the explanation of science such as making people immortal, taking the form of the deceased, manipulating time (how MIB duped Alpert, Locke, and Ben into killing Jacob). How did this happen?

I know time is running out and we won’t get all the answers we want. But I for one would be very disappointed if we didn’t at least get some scientific (or at least science-fictiony) explanation for these connections. And I really really hope it will be more satisfying than RDM’s explanation of Starbuck 2.0 and the head characters in BSG.

#15

I think Jacob/MIB are not of this world and therefore their abilities needn’t be explained by science at all. Think about it- even wizards and genies can’t bring people back from the dead, only God (pick one) can. Jacob/MIB are agents of God, I believe, and HIS rules bind them. Remember, with great power comes great responsibility(and limits).

I do want to see a connection with the numbers as well.