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LOST
Season 4 Episode 5
“The Constant”
Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
Directed by Jack Bender
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
Meanwhile, on the helicopter, in taking the exact coordinates Daniel gave him, Frank flies directly into a thunderhead. But the turbulence makes them veer just slightly off course, and suddenly, Desmond is 8 years in the past, during his army stint, and he believes he’s just had a particularly vivid dream involving a lunatic Island and a helicopter.
He’s doing some military exercises in the rain when suddenly, he’s back in the helicopter, and he can’t remember Sayid, and doesn’t understand why he’s on a helicopter…
While Sayid keeps a panicked, struggling Des away from the controls, Frank clears the thunderhead and lands the helicopter on the freighter, where the other Boat People seem none too happy to see them.
Des is taken to the infirmary, where he’s locked in, and he meets Minkowski (Fisher Stevens), who’s in four point restraints. Des is freaking, not knowing why he’s here, or who these people are, and Minkowski says, It’s happening to you too.
Back on the beach, Jack and Juliet are having a discussion with Daniel and Charlotte, wondering why it’s been a day and they haven’t heard word from Sayid when the trip to the freighter should have taken all of 20 minutes.
Daniel starts to talk about perception of time, and Charlotte says, We don’t want to confuse anyone.
Juliet says, Well, talk really slowly and maybe we’ll understand. (Yeah! Score!! You go, Ju-ju, take that snotty Brit b!tch down…)
Daniel says, So long as Frank follows the exact coordinates I gave him, everything should be fine.
Jack asks, And what if he doesn’t?
Daniel: Then there could be some side effects…
Thus does the episode shuttle back and forth between 2004 Island (or in this case, Freighter) Des and 1996 Army Des, as we tag along with Des’ 1996 consciousness as it ping pongs back and forth across the time continuum.
Poor Des gets a break though, when Sayid trades his gun for Frank’s NaomiPhone. Sayid rings the Beach, and talks to Jack, telling him about Des’ wonky condition.
Armed with his journal, Daniel jumps in and things really get interesting.
Daniel talks to Des and quickly determines that Des believes it’s 1996, so Daniel says, looking through his journal, All right. When you get back to where you believe you should be, go to Oxford and look for me. Tell me this (numbers, oscillate, 11 hertz, mumble mutter), and if I don’t believe you, tell me you know about Eloise.
So Des jots this down on the palm of his hand, but when he finds himself in 1996 again, his palm is of course, devoid of any writing.
Luckily, he’s got a good memory, as he tracks down a long-haired Daniel, who initially thinks it’s a lame prank (“Time paradox,” he scoffs), but when Des lays down the numbers and the Eloise bit, Daniel takes him seriously.
Daniel shows Des Eloise, who as it turns out, is a lab rat. Daniel uses the figures to irradiate Eloise, to make her “unstuck in time.”
After the radiation bath, Daniel lets Eloise into a maze, which she travels through to the other end, unerringly.
Daniel is jubilant, and Des doesn’t get it. Daniel says, I just finished this maze. I’m going to train her to run through it an hour from now.
Des then spends about 5 minutes back on the freighter, and when he finds himself back in 1996 (where much more than 5 minutes have passed), Eloise is dead.
Bastards!
It seems Eloise had an aneurysm since the poor rat’s consciousness was shuttling back and forth between the future and the present, and as the condition progresses, it gets harder and harder to return, especially if there is no anchor, no constant, something (or someone) important who exists in both time periods.
And of course, we all know who Des’ constant is.
So Des needs to make contact with Penny in 1996 and 2004, or he’ll wind up just like poor Eloise.
Des calls Pen in 1996, but her phone’s been disconnected, so he meets Pen’s da (Alan Dale, who plays bastardly patriarchs like nobody’s business), and asks for her phone number. (Incidentally, Da Widmore’s at an auction for a log of the Black Rock!)
In a swanky bathroom, Da Widmore gives Des Pen’s address (and wastes a whole lot of water, the d!ck).
In 2004, they find they’re in sort of a pickle, as the communications were trashed by some mystery someone, so they can’t call Pen.
Given a paper clip and spit, Sayid can, of course, fix anything, but they’re locked in the infirmary! Suddenly though, the door isn’t locked anymore, is in fact, open, so they get crazy Minkowski to bring them to the communications room (where Des sees a calendar that indicates it’s almost Christmas).
All the while, Minkowski’s nose is bleeding, and he winds up very dead, just like poor Eloise. (And I thought, That’s the extent of Fisher Stevens’ role? Oh well…)
Sayid does his best to fix the comm stuff, but they still need that phone number.
In 1996, Des goes to Penny’s, and though it’s painfully clear she doesn’t want anything to do with him, Des all but pleads, just give me your phone number, and I’ll call you 8 years from now, on Christmas Eve, 2004.
Pen says, If I give you my number, will you leave me alone?
Des says, Aye.
So Pen gives him her number (…; if I was Des, I’d be so screwed), and as he memorizes it, she asks, If it’s so important, why don’t you write it down?
To which Des replies, It wouldn’t matter.
And Pen kicks his arse out.
In 2004, Sayid fixes the comm line, just in time for Des to return with the number in his noggin. Sayid warns him the battery may go belly up at any moment, so be ready for that.
And Des makes the call.
And the phone rings for what seems a brutally long time.
And Pen answers!
And they talk and cry (and I’m beginning to bawl too), and Des can’t quite believe she’s at the other end of the line, and Pen says, I’ve been looking for you for the past 3 years, and Des says, I’ve been on an Island, and Pen says, I know all about the Island, I’ve been doing research, and when I got to talk to your friend Charlie, I knew it was all true, and they profess their love for each other, and the battery goes belly up.
Sayid apologizes, but Des says it’s all right, and he seems to remember his 2004 self now.
And back in 1996, as Des walks away from Pen’s, he smiles, as if instinctively knowing that everything’s all right, no imminent aneurysm, for now…
Back on the beach, Daniel’s looking through his journal, and he sees this: If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant.
Okay, brilliant episode, once again getting into the nature of time in the Lost-verse (as with Season 3’s “Flashes Before Your Eyes”), while cranking up the waterworks with the whole “must search for my constant” thing, as if to say love really can save your life, if only you let it.
The question that will occur to the time police though, is evident: why don’t either Des or Daniel remember the 1996 meeting (which gave Daniel the key to unlocking the secrets of time travel)?
Well, let me get it straight first.
When the helicopter veers off Daniel’s coordinates, the consciousness of 1996 Des is suddenly downloaded into 2004 Des. It’s this consciousness that gets shunted back and forth between the two time periods for the rest of the episode.
By the episode’s end, Des apparently remembers Sayid, but is this still the 1996 Des consciousness (which technically would have no memories of the 8-year gap) or did the 1996 consciousness somehow fuse with the 2004 consciousness when Des contacted his constant?
Or (and this seems the most likely), did the veering off-course jog the consciousness of 2004 Des back to its 1996 condition, which then caused it to take the place of the original 1996 consciousness, back in 1996?
So technically, the consciousness we were tagging along with was 2004-thinking-it-was-1996. Thus, when everything is set to rights, the 2004 consciousness gets toggled back to its proper setting.
Which would mean that it took Des over for that period of time in 1996, which, for his original 1996 consciousness (which was evicted to God-knows-where for the interim), would seem like a blank, a hole in his memory, as if he’d experienced a blackout of, what was it, a weekend?
Thus, no memories, other than, Gee, you know I lost a couple of days back in 1996?
And as for Daniel, when we see him in the episode 2 flashback, he did strike me as someone who may have had some sort of nervous breakdown in the recent past.
So maybe something happened to Daniel that caused him to have a breakdown, thus eradicating his memories of that encounter. (And maybe that also has something to do with that memory test Charlotte was giving Daniel with the cards in a previous episode; I think I may have neglected to mention that before.)
Checking out the official podcast and some interviews, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have indicated that in the Lost-verse, the universe “course corrects” itself to avoid and eradicate any potential paradoxes caused by futzing around with time, either through time travel, or attempts to avoid inevitable futures. (If memory serves me right, this is also what Mrs. Hawking explained in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”)
So maybe the breakdown (if Daniel indeed had one) was the universe’s way of course correcting, obliterating memories that Daniel should never have had in the first place.
Ah, but then Daniel wrote that note to himself in the journal…
Smart.
Whatever the case with that theory though, I do sincerely hope we see more Daniel flashbacks in the (heh) future.
I also hope the whole “aneurysm threatening to go pop” thing is safely over now. I mean, I wouldn’t want Des to just drop stone dead the moment he hooks up with Pen. My friend Karen will so not like that.
(Honestly, after his phone call to Pen got cut off, I kept on thinking, Okay, he’s gonna keel over right now, isn’t he? But he shakes Sayid’s hand, and seems fine. So let’s let it be that way, huh? Des should get his happy ending with Pen, shouldn’t he?)
What also just struck me now (and really should’ve long ago, given that Alan Dale has played that sort of shady father figure in other shows before) is that maybe, Da Widmore is a major player in all of this.
I mean, it can’t be mere coincidence that he’s interested in the Black Rock log. Could he be trying to find some indication of the Island’s whereabouts in the log?
And is the Boat Person who smashed the comm stuff Ben’s spy? Could it be—as all indications seem to point to—Michael?
And if so, was it Michael who unlocked the infirmary door? Or was that Frank, who did claim to Sayid that he wanted to help?
Oooh, questions, questions…
COUNTDOWN: 43.
(Images courtesy of abc, sparklies.org, abc.go.com and aol.com.)
Season 4 Episode 5
“The Constant”
Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
Directed by Jack Bender
(WARNING: SPOILERS)
Meanwhile, on the helicopter, in taking the exact coordinates Daniel gave him, Frank flies directly into a thunderhead. But the turbulence makes them veer just slightly off course, and suddenly, Desmond is 8 years in the past, during his army stint, and he believes he’s just had a particularly vivid dream involving a lunatic Island and a helicopter.
He’s doing some military exercises in the rain when suddenly, he’s back in the helicopter, and he can’t remember Sayid, and doesn’t understand why he’s on a helicopter…
While Sayid keeps a panicked, struggling Des away from the controls, Frank clears the thunderhead and lands the helicopter on the freighter, where the other Boat People seem none too happy to see them.
Des is taken to the infirmary, where he’s locked in, and he meets Minkowski (Fisher Stevens), who’s in four point restraints. Des is freaking, not knowing why he’s here, or who these people are, and Minkowski says, It’s happening to you too.
Back on the beach, Jack and Juliet are having a discussion with Daniel and Charlotte, wondering why it’s been a day and they haven’t heard word from Sayid when the trip to the freighter should have taken all of 20 minutes.
Daniel starts to talk about perception of time, and Charlotte says, We don’t want to confuse anyone.
Juliet says, Well, talk really slowly and maybe we’ll understand. (Yeah! Score!! You go, Ju-ju, take that snotty Brit b!tch down…)
Daniel says, So long as Frank follows the exact coordinates I gave him, everything should be fine.
Jack asks, And what if he doesn’t?
Daniel: Then there could be some side effects…
Thus does the episode shuttle back and forth between 2004 Island (or in this case, Freighter) Des and 1996 Army Des, as we tag along with Des’ 1996 consciousness as it ping pongs back and forth across the time continuum.
Poor Des gets a break though, when Sayid trades his gun for Frank’s NaomiPhone. Sayid rings the Beach, and talks to Jack, telling him about Des’ wonky condition.
Armed with his journal, Daniel jumps in and things really get interesting.
Daniel talks to Des and quickly determines that Des believes it’s 1996, so Daniel says, looking through his journal, All right. When you get back to where you believe you should be, go to Oxford and look for me. Tell me this (numbers, oscillate, 11 hertz, mumble mutter), and if I don’t believe you, tell me you know about Eloise.
So Des jots this down on the palm of his hand, but when he finds himself in 1996 again, his palm is of course, devoid of any writing.
Luckily, he’s got a good memory, as he tracks down a long-haired Daniel, who initially thinks it’s a lame prank (“Time paradox,” he scoffs), but when Des lays down the numbers and the Eloise bit, Daniel takes him seriously.
Daniel shows Des Eloise, who as it turns out, is a lab rat. Daniel uses the figures to irradiate Eloise, to make her “unstuck in time.”
After the radiation bath, Daniel lets Eloise into a maze, which she travels through to the other end, unerringly.
Daniel is jubilant, and Des doesn’t get it. Daniel says, I just finished this maze. I’m going to train her to run through it an hour from now.
Des then spends about 5 minutes back on the freighter, and when he finds himself back in 1996 (where much more than 5 minutes have passed), Eloise is dead.
Bastards!
It seems Eloise had an aneurysm since the poor rat’s consciousness was shuttling back and forth between the future and the present, and as the condition progresses, it gets harder and harder to return, especially if there is no anchor, no constant, something (or someone) important who exists in both time periods.
And of course, we all know who Des’ constant is.
So Des needs to make contact with Penny in 1996 and 2004, or he’ll wind up just like poor Eloise.
Des calls Pen in 1996, but her phone’s been disconnected, so he meets Pen’s da (Alan Dale, who plays bastardly patriarchs like nobody’s business), and asks for her phone number. (Incidentally, Da Widmore’s at an auction for a log of the Black Rock!)
In a swanky bathroom, Da Widmore gives Des Pen’s address (and wastes a whole lot of water, the d!ck).
In 2004, they find they’re in sort of a pickle, as the communications were trashed by some mystery someone, so they can’t call Pen.
Given a paper clip and spit, Sayid can, of course, fix anything, but they’re locked in the infirmary! Suddenly though, the door isn’t locked anymore, is in fact, open, so they get crazy Minkowski to bring them to the communications room (where Des sees a calendar that indicates it’s almost Christmas).
All the while, Minkowski’s nose is bleeding, and he winds up very dead, just like poor Eloise. (And I thought, That’s the extent of Fisher Stevens’ role? Oh well…)
Sayid does his best to fix the comm stuff, but they still need that phone number.
In 1996, Des goes to Penny’s, and though it’s painfully clear she doesn’t want anything to do with him, Des all but pleads, just give me your phone number, and I’ll call you 8 years from now, on Christmas Eve, 2004.
Pen says, If I give you my number, will you leave me alone?
Des says, Aye.
So Pen gives him her number (…; if I was Des, I’d be so screwed), and as he memorizes it, she asks, If it’s so important, why don’t you write it down?
To which Des replies, It wouldn’t matter.
And Pen kicks his arse out.
In 2004, Sayid fixes the comm line, just in time for Des to return with the number in his noggin. Sayid warns him the battery may go belly up at any moment, so be ready for that.
And Des makes the call.
And the phone rings for what seems a brutally long time.
And Pen answers!
And they talk and cry (and I’m beginning to bawl too), and Des can’t quite believe she’s at the other end of the line, and Pen says, I’ve been looking for you for the past 3 years, and Des says, I’ve been on an Island, and Pen says, I know all about the Island, I’ve been doing research, and when I got to talk to your friend Charlie, I knew it was all true, and they profess their love for each other, and the battery goes belly up.
Sayid apologizes, but Des says it’s all right, and he seems to remember his 2004 self now.
And back in 1996, as Des walks away from Pen’s, he smiles, as if instinctively knowing that everything’s all right, no imminent aneurysm, for now…
Back on the beach, Daniel’s looking through his journal, and he sees this: If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant.
Okay, brilliant episode, once again getting into the nature of time in the Lost-verse (as with Season 3’s “Flashes Before Your Eyes”), while cranking up the waterworks with the whole “must search for my constant” thing, as if to say love really can save your life, if only you let it.
The question that will occur to the time police though, is evident: why don’t either Des or Daniel remember the 1996 meeting (which gave Daniel the key to unlocking the secrets of time travel)?
Well, let me get it straight first.
When the helicopter veers off Daniel’s coordinates, the consciousness of 1996 Des is suddenly downloaded into 2004 Des. It’s this consciousness that gets shunted back and forth between the two time periods for the rest of the episode.
By the episode’s end, Des apparently remembers Sayid, but is this still the 1996 Des consciousness (which technically would have no memories of the 8-year gap) or did the 1996 consciousness somehow fuse with the 2004 consciousness when Des contacted his constant?
Or (and this seems the most likely), did the veering off-course jog the consciousness of 2004 Des back to its 1996 condition, which then caused it to take the place of the original 1996 consciousness, back in 1996?
So technically, the consciousness we were tagging along with was 2004-thinking-it-was-1996. Thus, when everything is set to rights, the 2004 consciousness gets toggled back to its proper setting.
Which would mean that it took Des over for that period of time in 1996, which, for his original 1996 consciousness (which was evicted to God-knows-where for the interim), would seem like a blank, a hole in his memory, as if he’d experienced a blackout of, what was it, a weekend?
Thus, no memories, other than, Gee, you know I lost a couple of days back in 1996?
And as for Daniel, when we see him in the episode 2 flashback, he did strike me as someone who may have had some sort of nervous breakdown in the recent past.
So maybe something happened to Daniel that caused him to have a breakdown, thus eradicating his memories of that encounter. (And maybe that also has something to do with that memory test Charlotte was giving Daniel with the cards in a previous episode; I think I may have neglected to mention that before.)
Checking out the official podcast and some interviews, Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have indicated that in the Lost-verse, the universe “course corrects” itself to avoid and eradicate any potential paradoxes caused by futzing around with time, either through time travel, or attempts to avoid inevitable futures. (If memory serves me right, this is also what Mrs. Hawking explained in “Flashes Before Your Eyes.”)
So maybe the breakdown (if Daniel indeed had one) was the universe’s way of course correcting, obliterating memories that Daniel should never have had in the first place.
Ah, but then Daniel wrote that note to himself in the journal…
Smart.
Whatever the case with that theory though, I do sincerely hope we see more Daniel flashbacks in the (heh) future.
I also hope the whole “aneurysm threatening to go pop” thing is safely over now. I mean, I wouldn’t want Des to just drop stone dead the moment he hooks up with Pen. My friend Karen will so not like that.
(Honestly, after his phone call to Pen got cut off, I kept on thinking, Okay, he’s gonna keel over right now, isn’t he? But he shakes Sayid’s hand, and seems fine. So let’s let it be that way, huh? Des should get his happy ending with Pen, shouldn’t he?)
What also just struck me now (and really should’ve long ago, given that Alan Dale has played that sort of shady father figure in other shows before) is that maybe, Da Widmore is a major player in all of this.
I mean, it can’t be mere coincidence that he’s interested in the Black Rock log. Could he be trying to find some indication of the Island’s whereabouts in the log?
And is the Boat Person who smashed the comm stuff Ben’s spy? Could it be—as all indications seem to point to—Michael?
And if so, was it Michael who unlocked the infirmary door? Or was that Frank, who did claim to Sayid that he wanted to help?
Oooh, questions, questions…
COUNTDOWN: 43.
(Images courtesy of abc, sparklies.org, abc.go.com and aol.com.)
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