In better LA alternate reality, Desmond runs into Hurley, Claire, Minkowski (!), Widmore (whom Desmond works for, as Widmore's right-hand man), Charlie, Jack, Eloise (who is Widmore's wife), Daniel, and (of course) Penny - a veritable feast of intersecting characters, and, this time, finally, with profound, decisive significance for the unfolding story. These intersections, which I've been talking about for years, have finally moved from hit-and-runs to crucial pieces of the narrative.
Just about every intersection propels the deeper, over-all story, and starts to sew the two realities back together. The most significant: Widmore asks Desmond to get Charlie out of jail, and get him to the Drive Shaft concert which his wife (Eloise) is organizing (their son wants Drive Shaft to back him: he's a classical musician with a taste for rock). It was great to hear "You All Everybody" playing on the car radio. But Charlie reveals something even more significant: when he propels the car that Desmond is driving into the water, where Charlie almost drowns, Desmond sees "Not Penny's Boat" on Charlie's hand pressed against the glass. Thus begins the leakage and therefore what I think will be the eventual re-merging of the two realities.
Desmond doesn't know who Penny is, but feels something for her (this is a bit of a stretch - if he's working for Widmore, Desmond would likely have known the name of Widmore's daughter). Charlie tells Desmond about what Charlie felt on the plane, when he almost od'd - he caught a glimpse of Claire, and felt real love for her.
Desmond has already run briefly into Jack, in the hospital where Charlie was taken after the near drowning. Nothing more on Jack and Desmond in this episode, but bear in mind that Jack and Desmond ran into each other on the steps of the stadium in LA, at the beginning of Season 2. The stadium will play a role at the end of this episode, though.
But first, after Charlie refuses to play at the concert, and Desmond breaks the news to Widmore, Desmond's directed by Widmore to break the news to his wife. She's Eloise. Eloise Widmore (in the LA reality) = Eloise Hawking in original island reality. But in both realities they are the parents of Daniel (Widmore here, Faraday in original reality). When Desmond asks Eloise about Penny, she refuses to say anything about her, but indicates that Desmond is at the beginning of something very big and important (pretty much the same role she has in original reality).
It is left for Daniel - the musician, Widmore and Eloise's son - to tell Desmond and us what's really going on. Daniel got a glimpse of a beautiful woman with piercing blue eyes, and instantly loved her (Charlotte). That night, Daniel scribbled down some complex equations - only a quantum physicist could understand. But he's a musician in this reality, not a physicist (though the two have always been related - cf., the music of the spheres). But genius that Daniel is, he's realized that better LA reality is not the real reality, or the way it was meant to be, but was created by an H-bomb. Daniel also tells Desmond where to find Penny - Daniel's half sister.
That would be on the steps of the same stadium where Desmond ran into Jack. Now he sees Penny running up and down the steps. The two meet and (hey, wait a minute, maybe Desmond is the real reason Olivia left Mark Benford - sorry, only kidding - though, you never know). But in better LA reality, Desmond's finally with Penny - even though he's found out via Daniel that this reality was not meant to be.
Back in island reality, Desmond in Widmore's keeping is bombarded with some kind of electro-magnetic business. He's unconscious for just a few seconds, but during this time experiences the whole story above in better LA (a nice parallel to "The Constant"). He now knows why he's been brought back to the island - to help sew the two realities together, helping with the island half.
And back in LA, to help with the LA half, Desmond knows what he must do - get the word out - what Charlie and Daniel told him - to all or some of the passengers on the non-crashed 815. (I wonder if somehow that has some connection to why Desmond ran into Jack on the stadium steps in Season 2.)
So it's finally happening. And, as always, still leaving some great questions. For example, would Daniel really want to bring back the original reality, in which he and Charlotte are dead? Will Jack and Kate feel that instant already-deeply in love feeling, when they meet in better LA? Or will that be for Kate and Sawyer - or maybe Kate will feel it for both Jack and Sawyer?
Some good things would undeniably happen with the two realities collapsed back together - faux Locke might well cease to exist.
More soon...
8-min podcast review of Lost
See also Lost Season Six Double Premiere ... Three Questions Arising from the Lost Season Six Premiere: Linkage Between Two Realities, Dead Bodies Inhabited, Who/What Survived H-Blast? ... Lost 6.3: Kate and Claire, Tenacious Details, and Dr. Arzt's Arse at the Airport ... Lost 6.4: Better LA, Wilder Island, Some Partial Answers at Last ... Lost 6.5: Jack's Family and Prester John's Speculum ... Lost 6.6: Sayid the Assassin in Both Realities ... Lost 6.7: A Better Ben in Both Realities ... Lost 6.8: The Third Team ... Lost 6.9: Richard's Story ... Lost 6.10: Cloudy Sun
More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...
and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel ... 5.12: Ben v. Charles, and Locke' Slave ... 5.13: Lost Meets Star Wars and the Sixth Sense ... The Problem with Baby Aaron and the Return of the Oceanic Six ... 5.14: Eloise, Daniel, and Obsession Trumping Paradox ... 5.15: Moral Compasses in Motion ... Lost Season 5 Finale: Jacob and Locke
The Plot to Save Socrates
"a Da Vinci-esque thriller" - New York Daily News
"Sierra Waters is sexy as hell" - curled up with a good book
9 comments:
Angstrom may be an Updike reference, but it’s doubly apposite as the unit of length used in measuring the wavelength of electromagnetic radiation.
Good point - and welcome to Infinite Regress!
So my Lostie friends are worried about Desmond. I texted almost word for word what your review said. I thought he attained clarity in both worlds, and that is why he cheerfully went with Widmore. I think he is the constant, or will be the link. They however thought he looked dazed and agreed to go with Widmore in a an almost zombie (read Sayid) like fashion because he so blankly switched gears and followed Sayid. They think he is "infected"
Do you think Claire is "infected?"
Could new-reality Oceanic 815ers
meet up with their island-reality selves?
You're right, your friends are not, Karrin :)
Desmond looked dazed because his mind had traveled back and forth to LA, and back in time to Charlie in the Hydra.
I think Claire's infected.
I think the two realities will merge before of the LA people meet their island counterparts. But one or two could meet each other...
Why do you think Desmond went with Sayid? Does he recognize Sayid's altered state do you think?
Also..is it "Locke's" human-ness (along with everyone else's) that doesn't allow him to go through the magnetic field of pylons... or his smokey-ness? and is that partly why it is important that Desmond can withstand magnetic blasts?
I think, given Widmore's knowledge of the island, that the pylons he created keep Locke's smokey-ness out.
As for Desmond, my guess is he does sense something different about Sayid, but doesn't (yet) know that Sayid has gone over to the evil side. His withstanding of the electro-magnetic blasts allow him to be jolted in the mental time travel.
Or...could it be Desmond has something else in mind?
Remember, Widmore said Desmond would have to make a sacrifice...so when we say "merging" what exactly could take place?
Well, for one, there's always the principle of time travel, which should also apply to parallel/alternate realities-the same like matter can't occupy the same space and time at the same time. So if they do merge, would it not make sense that one has to be destroyed, or else both will be?
So then, could the sacrifice Desmond can now sense, I'm sure, be having to choose which reality survives? Hence the reason he needs to show all the others something, because they would have to decide as well?
This episode really made things a bit more clear. It was interesting to see that some of the Losties can sense that the Alt-LA reality has some issues. But, if you presented me with a choice of a reality where I'm stranded and constantly fixated on some island, and one where I'm a millionaire, happily married, made better decisions, which one do you think I would choose? That seems like an easy decision...until you consider one more thing...
What if this is a recycling? Let's face it, should there be an island with a man who is immortal, can grant immortality, and a man that turns into black smoke at all? So maybe UnLocke's decision to go home, to be free has nothing to do with the island. Maybe it has to do with the fact that something created all this mess, and it's time to start over? And starting over will "release" him?
I found this website to be very interesting in regards to merging realities, take a look if you like:
http://www.operationterra.com/Messages/merging6_.html
It's more a spiritual site, but still quite interesting, especially since Lost does play up a philosophical/spiritual aspect.
So what does recycling mean? Well, simply the merging of both realities will result in such a catastrophic shift that smokey ceases to exist, the island no longer exists (sunken or not), Jacob no longer exists, and the Losties never become lost in the first place...a third reality.
And Desmond is definitely the man Mark Benford's wife really wants to run off with!:) A nice "merging" of shows there Paul!
Looper,
"the same like matter can't occupy the same space and time at the same time. "
There was an episode last year where somebody saw them self....Was it Kate helping Claire have her baby? Richard or Locke led them to the moment
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