Nothing Egyptian in this episode, which was a relief. Then again, no Ben nor Locke, so that was disappointing. Yet, given the thought provoking concepts explored this past week, it still gives us quite a bit to ponder and some welcome confirmations to things we’ve assumed for some time now; it’s nice to tie up potential loose ends.
Well, turns out despite the fact we didn’t see a bullet hit Desmond when Ben shot him, yes I rewound quite a bit a few weeks ago, he is being rushed along a hospital and into surgery. Hawking introduces herself to Penny and tells her that it was Daniel’s fault that Desmond got shot. Seems that Daniel communicating to Desmond early this season at the Swan got him to visit Oxford and eventually appear in Los Angeles. Of course, this was the first example of the crack in the dam of the Whatever Happened, Happened all encompassing time travel theory. Daniel climbs out of the submarine, and instantly I am full of questions, such as why and how he ever left the island to go to work at Dharma headquarters at Ann Arbor. Was it when the group was given an extension by Horace to stay on the island three years ago, when Sawyer, Juliet, Jin and Miles decided to stay, but possibly Daniel chose to leave to work on his time travel theories at a lab off island. Daniel has a copy of the most widely distributed photograph since Desmond and Penny cheek to cheek, which is the Dharma 1977 orientation photo. Daniel immediate rushes off the Jack’s house, which seems odd since Jack has been a non-factor on this show for so long. I guess Daniel didn’t get the message that Jack is not the Jack of old, namely, in charge. After finding out that Hawking sent the group of Jack, Hurley, and Kate into the past, Daniel is adamant that they don’t belong here, his mother was wrong, and this is not destiny. This was a brief example of Daniel no longer being sure of his past theories. He is showing yet more signs that things can be changed. Variables.
Eloise is no music lover, as she ends Daniel’s piano playing ambitions and encourages his math and science talents. His special gift needed to be nurtured; this is called responsible parenting, people. I mean, who makes a living playing a piano? Sure, Liberace did. But don’t you think Daniel can do better than a guy that never seemed to meet the right gal to settle down with and have a family? This of course opens the door to the “course correction”. It’s a term the show and I’ve been using for quite some time. Eloise is course correcting Daniel to stick with science. But, if what happened, happened, fundamentally it would not matter what Hawking does. If Daniel is meant to be on the island, he will end up there, right? But she course corrected Desmond from marrying Penny seasons ago. And I don’t buy the argument for Desmond not having any rules apply to him. He was course corrected a number of times to arrive at the island by Hawking, Widmore, the monk, Libby, etc. Why was it necessary at all, unless Happen-Happen doesn’t really apply at all. While Hawking knows what the future holds, and what needs to be happen, why does she have to actually do anything? This is a contradiction of massive proportions. Jack swings by Sawyer’s place, and is shown the kidnapped Phil. The more troubling sight is seeing Juliet in a red shirt for the second straight episode. JJ Abrams is directing this upcoming Star Trek movie, and as all Trekkers know, red shirts get killed all the time. Uh, oh. I predicted at the beginning of the season that Juliet would not survive much longer. I was wrong about how quickly it will happen. But it’s about to happen nevertheless, much to my disappointment. Daniel follows Chang into the Orchid, sees the construction and yet another dead guy on a stretcher. At the rate Dharma is going, they could fill a purge pit full of bodies by the end of next week and beat Ben to the punch. Daniel in the Orchid is a replay of the season opening scene which is interesting, as we saw a scene 14 episodes into the show’s future at that point. Makes you wonder if we have already scene the final moments of the show at some other point in the show’s past episodes. Very sneaky possibility. Daniel starts to break his rules, using the Dharma photo as the basis for his new theory that maybe you can change the present and therefore the future. He implores Change to evacuate the island due to an upcoming accident at the Swan, resulting in a catastrophic release of electro magnetism. “I’m from the future.” Well, so much for not interfering, or even trying to, with the past events. The roller coaster is pulling out of neutral.
Let’s revisit the orientation film created by Dr Chang from the end of Season 4, in the Orchid. He talks about “exotic matter”, basically negative matter on the island that makes time travel possible. Such materials would possess qualities like negative mass or being repelled rather than attracted by gravity. It is used in certain speculative theories, such as on the construction of wormholes. The closest known real representative of exotic matter is a region of pseudo-negative pressure density produced by the Casimir effect. The Casimir effect is the attractive force between two uncharged metal plates that are placed very near to each other in a vacuum. The attraction arises due to a reduction in the energy of the ground state of the electro magnetic field between the two plates. Because fluctuations in the field between the two plates can only have wavelengths equal to or smaller than the distance between the plates, the vacuum electromagnetic field has less energy between the plates than outside of them. Makes sense to you? Yeah, it’s a tough read. But I think we are starting to get a clearer picture of the Swan in general. First of all, if there is negative (exotic) matter present there, that would explain why Daniel will want to blow it up with a hydrogen bomb. Theoretically, the two forces would cancel each other out. Secondly, we can see that the Casimir effect likely had a part in the construction of containing the energy of the Swan, in trying to neutralize unstable force between two plates in a vacuum. I think. Well, we will need some more dumbing down of physics for us to get a better grasp of the concepts involved.
“Look at these equations.” “Miles is your son” Well, Daniel sure is trying. He tried to convince Chang with his journal, which Chang looked at politely and hoped that the crazy man wasn’t going to take off his pant and start to fling his own poo at people. Then, the soap opera strategy was taken, a plot twist including a family matter. Daniel might have tried to make a better argument than “He’s Chinese!!!” since we know there are about a billion Chinese on the planet around 1977 and the island is in the Pacific Ocean. I think it would be more strange to see two British people on the show, much less 100 of them. A couple of weeks ago, I speculated that Miles might make a confession to his father and put a series of events in motion to get his young self and his mother sent off the island. Turns out Daniel did it for him. Miles denies his relationship and blames drugs on Daniel’s behavior. Daniel has just graduated, and we see that his relationship with Theresa, the woman currently in a coma in a bed in England being paid for by Widmore. This was not merely a professional relationship between the two. Eloise takes Daniel to an Indian restaurant surprisingly enough not called Ajira. She keeps trying to keep him on course: Theresa is not your girlfriend, your work is very important, and “every woman in your life will get terribly hurt”. And this last line isn’t just a reference to Theresa, but a foreshadowing to Hawking herself and the end of the episode. I guess you could say Charlotte too, but it’s not like she was a woman in his life for real. Daniel is getting a bit of stake money with 5 million from Widmore.
5.03 Jughead
Could it be that Widmore was sponsoring Daniel’s work
As his mother changes gears and congratulates Daniel, and just before she gives him the gift of the all too familiar journal, if you look over at Hawking’s wine glass, you will see an image of a rabbit in that glass. No kidding. With all the time traveling, experiments on bunnies, and Alice in Wonderland Looking Glass stuff, we seem to be getting a bunny every episode. I’m going to have to pay attention and see if I can spot one each episode from here on out. The Oceanic Dharmites are having a Breakfast Club meeting, so it‘s social. Demented and sad. But social. It boils down to sub or jungle. Hurley was originally going to vote sub, until he realized it wasn’t a sandwich. Daniel interrupts to ask for a tiny favor. Abandon everything, go find the Hostiles, and help him talk to his mother. Jack is surprised by the mother Other news, as he and the Ajiras met her at the church in Los Angeles, and this never came up in conversation, but then Jack never asks the important questions. Daniel wants to gets everybody back to where they belong. Ahem. CHANGE.
We revisit a scene from near the beginning of Season 4, where Daniel is watching footage of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean and crying. He is visited by the Ghost of Christmas Past in Widmore. He picks up a magazine, which screen shots show us to be called “Wired”. That particular issue is The Super Power Issue, which includes “A User’s Guide to Time Travel”. Daniel has been a busy boy. He has memory loss along the lines of the lead character in the terrific movie Memento. He got kicked out of Oxford. He time traveled. So did Theresa, with terrible consequences. Being that Daniel is struggling to think on the same level as a scarecrow with a head full of oatmeal, Widmore for some reason decided to come clean a bit to him. The plane was fake, and our buddy Chucky Widmore set it all up. Well, we had enough obvious hints to this, from Ben and Naomi, but it’s nice to know for absolutely sure. Chucky wants him to go to a special island, with unique scientific properties. And it will heal you. If you remember during Season 4, there was a scene on the beach where Daniel and Charlotte were sitting with three cards turned face down. Daniel guessed two of them right. He still seemed discouraged, but Charlotte said that he was getting better. This is most likely what Widmore meant about the healing of scatter brained Daniel. It made Locke walk, so I guess it could, and did, make Daniel smart again. Charles continues to butter Daniel up. “You sound like my mother.” Um, close, but a little bit off, a gender off. Jack and Sawyer are now arguing over Daniel’s plan. Sadly, Sawyer’s leadership is now being challenged since he got himself into this mess, and Jack is now trying to manipulate his way into the leadership role again. Fock. So, ladies and gentlemen, let’s all welcome the return of Simple Jack Shepherd. Boooooooo!!!!! He reminds me of that kid that played Cameron Diaz’s brother in There’s Something About Mary. He was great. Franks and beans!!! Sawyer wants answers, Jack simply wants to follow Daniels plan. Just like the old days. The skeptic and doofus. And it seems both are fighting over Kate to take their side. Made me sick to my stomach. Then Sawyer did the unthinkable. He called Kate “Freckles” and Juliet stared daggers at him. Ah, to be Season 3 again, and watch Kate and Juliet fight it out in the mud in the jungle. Sigh. Those were the days. Pissed off Juliet gives up the fence code and proclaims “It’s over for us here anyway.” No sh!t. While Jack and Kate go to steal some guns in the wide open sunshine with no regard for a lookup, staying out of sight, or having any semblance of any plan whatsoever, a classic well thought out Jack production, Daniel approaches Charlotte on the swing. This scene was creepy like a horror movie. If Daniel had a van, he could have been a dopple ganger for Jame Gumb. If I was a young kid, sitting on a swing, eating a candy bar, then some wild haired creepy stranger came over to me, I would never start screaming for help. Daniel admits that he is trying to change things, but leave on the sub just in case. Oh, come on. Telling a kid with the attention span of a goldfish is going to get her off the island? While taking their time at the lockers, not a smidge of urgency or discretion on their minds, Jack, Kate, and Daniel are apparently trying to make their escape as slow as possible. Here comes Radzinsky, showing up at the worst possible moment for any of the Losties, as usual. During a shootout very reminiscent of the A Team television show, nobody dies, lots of bullets fly, big explosions happen, and the worst escape imaginable: in a jeep where protection ends at about seat level. I think the only thing worse would have been trying to escape on a skateboard. One thing to note is Radzinsky said Chang was currently with his wife and kid. Setting the stage for an escape for them on the sub, it would seem.
The second batter is up and Hawking visits Daniel to tell him to take the job with Widmore. Daniel is talked into it, as he is still craving the on the one thing he can never seem to do, and make his mother proud. He keeps trying, and feels like no matter what he does is never good enough. It’s too bad he is basically just like the other Eloise, the mouse running through the maze in his laboratory. He is being manipulated to move through the twists and turns of his life by his mother who is trying to do what is for the greater good, at the expense of the death of the test subject itself. Odd how that comparison is just so fitting. As Jack examines Daniel’s flesh wound, we get confirmation of what we knew, any of them can die and that this is their present, not their past. Daniel cites the example of not having a scar on his neck until right now, not when he first met Jack in the future. Sawyer makes a last ditch effort to repair his relationship with Juliet, complementing her on the intuition of knowing Jack and Kate coming back was going to screw things up. I guess calling Kate Freckles didn’t help either. But let’s face it, the purge was still very possible, so no matter how great it was living in Dharmaville, you didn’t have the exact day and time of the massive death, so you were living in a dangerous situation to begin with. It had to end sooner or later. The alarm sounds, Radzinsky finds Phil in Sawyer’s cabinet, and hands go up. Note, Hurley, Jin, and Miles are still outside, so if Ben can free Sayid, there is still a decent chance at seeing a rescue operation vs. Dharma. Daniel goes into his final, informative speech about why they don’t belong there. Dharma is about to release a great deal of electromagnetism, and I suspect the sky will turn purple for the first time, before they cement in the area. But the Swan hatch will have to have somebody push a button to release some energy over the next 30 years, pull the Oceanic plane on to the island, begin a chain of events, starting that afternoon. Daniel says we can’t change the past, what’s happened, happened, but they can change the present and future with variables, they are all variables. And as I’ve mentioned before
5.08 LaFleur
This reminded me of the “list” from Seasons 1+2. Why were certain people on the list? Maybe because they were seen time traveling by the Others. So far, this means Locke, Daniel. Charlotte, Miles, Sawyer. Jack, Kate, and Hurley are on the island right now too. Remember, Michael had to bring Jack, Kate, Hurley, Sawyer with him to the Others to free Walt...
These characters are part of the variables. The time travelers are the non-constants. It’s not just Desmond that can change the future. So can these folks. The Others wanted to keep an eye on them, going so far as to capture them, because they were dangerous to the future otherwise. I keep saying that Ben and Locke are in a different future right now because of what the Losties did in the past with Dharma. Speaking of Dharma, and I recently theorized that Dharma is the group with Ilana and Bram, going back to reclaim their island. Why are they all of the sudden back? Probably because the Flame blew up. Remember when Locke was playing chess with the computer, and there were options for food drops and protocol for when Hostiles invaded? When the station blew up, Dharma knew something was wrong. Mikhail could have kept up the subterfuge of Dharma not being purged but still in control of the island, even if no one could physically reach it anymore. But when the Flame went kaboom, the ruse was at a definitive end. Enter Dharma, again, to see what was wrong. They really kicked into action 3 years ago, threatening Miles, about the same time the Flame went poof. Daniel wants to change these events by detonating a hydrogen bomb, to counteract the effects of the exotic matter release. Might be crazy enough to work. At first I thought it was a stupid idea, but exotic matter is something unusual.
Hawking tells Penny that Desmond is a casualty in a long time conflict. Further, Hawking doesn’t know how he is and for the first time in a long time, she doesn’t know what will happen next. Very fascinating. I think the time travelers interacting with the Others over the years gave them some solid facts about the future, of which they tried to flesh out the details and continue to course correct until they reached a certain point of time where their knowledge ran out. Like right now. But they tried to take advantage of that knowledge as much as they could. Widmore, Hawking, Ben, they always seemed to have some type of inside knowledge. Hell, Widmore could have dumped that plane in the ocean just to convince Daniel to go back to the island as course correction. Ben built the runway, for fock’s sake. These people knew things. Now either their knowledge has run out, or everything has changed. It’s a circle. The Others work to get the Losties and Desmond in the right places over time. So they can get to the island, leave the island, and then go back to the island. Only to have the Losties become variables and change everything. It’s a contradiction, in theory. They have been puppets, only to become the puppeteers at the end, which is 30 years ago. And still, there is the Locke factor, which is still an unknown in resolving everything. Or correcting damage done by Jack and Kate and the other Losties. I think the writers have woven quite a few complicated time travel plot lines where things seem to loop back in one way or another. Ultimately, Daniel is trying to correct the Swan hatch, which would put the Oceanic 815 back on course to land in Los Angeles. And effectively end the series. The whole premise of the show is to make sure the plane never crashed on the island, and disrupting what they did. Once Daniel planted that seed in Jack’s head, he got the same bull headed attitude when the freighter swung by for a rescue. And if the Swan is such a catastrophe, and you have to keep pushing the button, why did the planet survive when Desmond turned the key? Did that failsafe trigger Jughead, and that counteracted the electro magnetism. Ah, we got a season and 3 more episodes to go, but we are starting to inch toward the big picture. Anyway, “I promised I’d nevah leave you again, Penne”. Yeah, I guess they have to throw in some emotion in with the hard core physics. I can deal with it, reluctantly. Hey, I’m not an ogre. But the fact that Ben didn’t kill Penny was disappointing. That’s all. I have no issue with Penny and Desmond, other than they total self absorbance with one another and no regard for anybody else at this point. Hawking and Widmore run into one another outside the hospital. They argue about sacrifice, and sending Daniel back to the island.
5.03 Jughead
Could this be the person that becomes Hawking? Could she be Daniel’s mother? Then, who is the father? Is it crazy to think Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father? Charles and Eloise would be about the same age off the island, both were young 50 years in the past. Maybe they left the island because Charles got Elle pregnant, and mothers were dying on the island. Widmore is funding Daniel. Hawking and Widmore are both interested in the island, but seemingly not working together, if Ben is working for Hawking. So Charles and Elle had a falling out. Let take it even further….We know that Penny is possibly Widmore’s kid. Daniel might be.
Yes, indeed, Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father, and yet another character on this show has daddy issues. Does this make Daniel and Penny half brother=-sister, or full brother and sister, depending on whether Eloise gave birth to Penny. But yet another family connection is made. Ben said Charles had a child with a woman off the island, an outsider. It’s easier to assume Penny is the offspring with another mother. Maybe Charles betrayed Eloise with an affair and was one reason he was exiled. Kate is not going to get her usual page long beating from me this week, mostly because she was not given much of a chance to do anything stupid and had very little dialogue. Other than suggest they get away in a jeep. But the writers must be trying to salvage her horrible character with a very poignant question. “Daniel is talking about erasing everything that has happened to us, that’s insane.” Now, I was suspicious. Why would Kate be so profound here. Oh, yeah. She was in handcuffs and about to go to jail. So, her concern is all about selfishness, isn’t that right, Kate? Everything is always about you. She stinks, and I don’t like her. That was our The Kate is a Wh0re Moment of the Week. You can put freckles on a cantaloupe, but it’s still going to be a cantaloupe. Unless it’s Saturday night. And you haven’t been out on a date in a really long time. And you have a few drinks. Ahem. Daniel, Jack, and Kate find the camp, and Daniel waltzes in with his gun and Michael J Fox arm. Jack grabs Kate to keep from helping their buddy Dan from facing certain death. Nice job, Jack. Jack Sucks Moment of the Week. Sure, you might be able to touch Kates boobs at some point again in the future, but Daniel has the answers you need, you big dummy. Protect him, you putz. Locke can handle himself with the Others, Sawyer is just fine. But you suck. He must have drank a few too many bottles of floor wax, thinking it was alcohol. It’s time for the Others to regain some swagger and kill Jack and Kate. There right there, in the bushes. Right THERE. I just pointed them out. There. Now, kill them. “I want to speak to Eloise“, and Richard lies, saying she is not there. Although he was correct in Daniel wasn’t going to shoot him. Eloise plugged him first, just as he was trying to explain in his clumsy way that he was the one who told them to bury the bomb. So, why didn’t Richard recognize him? This is troubling. Sure, you can’t expect to remember everybody you meet in life. But Richard is on an island with a limited number of people on it. This guy vanished. And none of the Others knew who Daniel was? Or maybe they did, and allowed it to happen. Daniel looked at his mother with a broken heart. “You always knew, but sent me here anyway.” “Who are you?”. “I’m your son.” Didn’t she look almost exactly the same again here as she did off the island, telling Daniel to stop playing the piano? She must have gotten pregnant very quickly after that.
I have to say, I typed out Danielle many times instead of Daniel today, and had to go back and keep correcting myself. Danielle now has competition for the most miserable life of a character on the show in Daniel. Pushed hard by his mother, joy taken away from him constantly, buried in this work, manipulated, women dying on him or slipping into comas, and eventually killed by his mother, who knew for 30+ years that she would pull the trigger. We are getting closer to the incident on the island, getting closer to the madness that the season finale will bring. And screw Dharma. I felt a bit bad at their fate with the purge. Not anymore. And, are we going to get a Richard flashback anytime soon? That would be nice. But, seriously, enough with Dharma already. If I see one more Dharma symbol, I’m going to scream.
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