the blast door map

yeah, i cried.

written by: damon and carlton

directed by: jack

this was a perfect episode of lost. i don't think it beats 'through the looking glass' as best overall episode, but it does stand as the epitome of everything the show is about - genre bending sci-fi suspense/mystery with a rock solid emotional core.

the constants:

1. time
2. love
3. dad
4. freighties
   
5. preboomer
6. minor gripe

1. wow was i surprised to see that calendar on the boat. i had been awfully irritated that no one bothered to ask naomi "what's the date??" just so that we could have some confirmation of on/off island time differential. in this week's jeff jensen interview, it looks like there is no "constant" deviation for these time differentials - the island is in flux - so the time difference here (island time is one day faster than freighter time) may not be fixed.

this may account for aaron looking 2 years old in kate's future. the only way kate could pass off aaron as her own, is if the survivors were reasonably on the island long enough for her to have had the baby there - it's only been about three months, so it's still impossible - unless they return to the mainland and find that they've gained 6 months or even a year.



i'm gonna guess that the correlation between the color of that mouse-light, and the failsafe key ignited sky are not coincidental.

this was also the first episode of lost that did not have any wooshing flashbacks. in fact, it had no flashbacks at all, since even though we were bouncing around in time with desmond, the timeline of the storytelling (and of desmond's consciousness) remained unbroken.

so what exactly are the rules of this time shifting? farraday had no memory of desmond, though it's unclear if after his meeting with des in the past, he suddenly acquired memories of the encounter (which brings us to the pre-boomer, later).

in 'flashes before your eyes' i was uncertain as to whether we were supposed to understand that desmond was was merely having a lucid memory, or if he did, in fact, travel to that point, and have the ability to affect outcome.

also in 'flashed before your eyes,' desmond goes to visit a physicist friend of his. he tells this friend all about the island - and i speculated at the time that this meeting would be the proverbial 'butterfly under the boot' (that's a 'sound of thunder' reference) from which desmond's future destiny would spring from. the physicist friend would tell penny everything desmond had said about the island, and this would be how penny would know to look for an island, and specifically, an electromagnetic anomaly.



but instead we have daniel farraday! who, like desmond's friend, is also a physicist who teaches in england. it makes me wonder if the daniel character was initially intended to be desmond's friend, donovan.

2. ahh love. i'm posting this late, which means i've already discussed it with many of my friends, read the talkbacks, etc, and there is a lotta love for this episode. the final phone call scene was a cathartic payoff over two years in the making. many have commented on how interesting it is that there seems to be more investment in desmond/penny than in jack/kate/sawyer. and while i agree that there is a lot to root for in penny/desmond, i think we're feeling this way because their story is so simple, uncluttered, told in 4 episodes, rather than, say 74. it's really a testament to these two actors - just one episode of bernard/rose flashback is enough to make me never want to see the socks suck face again.

a fantastic timeline tidbit is that at the beginning of the season 2 finale, 'live together, die alone,' we see desmond released from military prison. stamped on his paperwork is the reason: desertion. and now we know that it's because he left to find farrady. fan-fucking-tastic.

3. dad.



in 1996 charles widmore is buying the journal from the black rock, previously owned by magnus hanso. the hanso foundation was established as a part of the dharma initiative, so we can assume that whatever secrets previously known only to magnus hanso (and by extension, dharma) are now in the hands of charles widmore. this is where i think the boat, naomi, and penny come into the picture. widmore knows something about the island. maybe we'll get a flashback in which we'll see widmore specifically direct desmond toward the island - if widmore needs an expendable, dedicated pawn to be the first to break the island, desmond is a pretty good choice. then he sends naomi after him, though we never find out to what end. we'd better find out what the hell naomi actually wanted from desmond.

4. there are a lot of new questions to ask about these people on the boat. like, what made fisher stevens vulnerable to the timeshifting? why wasn't farraday, who had been exposing himself to electromagnetic radiation for years, affected? who is ben's man on the boat? and - is ben's man the person who destroyed the communications room? is ben's man the same person who unlocked the door, or are there multiple agendas going on?

here's my theory: ben's man on the boat is someone new that we haven't met yet. an insider at widmore, who has been a mole for many many years now. if ben can operate through mittelos bioscience, or herarat aviation, it's easy enough for him to plant someone on that boat.

the person who unlocked the door, though, is michael, who may have been intercepted by any of the others on the trawler. what happened to walt though, i have no idea. i still think we'll only see him in flashforwards, and visions.

5. preboomer.



ah, there are many different kinds of episodes of lost. one of the many beauties of the show is the great variety of storytelling styles we get, depending on whose flashback it is. and every once in awhile we have a preboomer that is not built entirely on inevitability and surprise, but on intrigue. sometimes it will underscore an emotional moment (as at the end of 'the other 48 days,' which concludes with the two camps becoming one, and jack and ana lucia facing each other for the first time since their drink at the airport bar).

we could easily have been given a preboomer from any of the people on the boat, or hell, juliet could say something like "that whole thing about pregnancy was a lie." (speaking of.. can't wait to get a little more juliet in the show.. )

but the point is that with such a strong emotional climax, a shock and awe preboomer would only serve to diminish the very carefully constructed moments we'd just experienced. so instead, daniel's discovery in his journal sets the stage for farraday's season 4 journey, one in which something horrible will surely go wrong, and where he probably won't be able to find his constant, desmond.

i do wonder though about that expression on his face as he reads it. is he remembering that he wrote it? or is he discovering that it's magically been written in his journal? which is it?

if farraday had no memory of desmond visiting him, why was he crying when he saw the crash had been discovered? desmond's on-island first meeting with farraday needs to rewatched for clues. it makes sense to me that farraday has been waiting years for desmond to return, and upon seeing the crash discovered, knows that his future meeting with desmond is imminent.

6. minor gripe. this is about as minor as it gets. but.

the location used for 'oxford:'



is the same location used for desmond's monastary:



i'm sure it's a case of the only place in hawaii with old, vaguely english-looking archetecture, but it stuck out as conspicuous mostly because the same locale is being played as two places within the same character's story. it would have closed off the establishing shots a bit, but i would have just cut to the action on the pathway where he meets farraday. there must have been no other option. i'm sure there's a location scout in hawaii who tore their hair out over this one.