Out the Window

LOST. Season Six. Episode Eleven: Happily Ever After

While every episode of LOST’s final season has (mostly) satisfied me, each one has also left me a little bit empty, with varying degrees of the feeling, “Okay, cool. So what?”

Last night, LOST turned a corner, with a Darlton-penned, Desmond-centric, mostly-straightforward window into how, exactly, the alternate reality we’ve been shown will impact and be impacted by the story we’ve spent five years digesting. Into that window flew possibilities of reconciliation and resolution. And out of that window flew everything I thought I knew about where Season Six was headed. Let’s get after it.

Up And Atom!
Every good episode starts with someone’s eye opening. This one did, as Desmond awoke from the coma induced by Team Widmore. Sadly, the first thing he saw when he woke up was Dirty Tina Fey. We learned that Widmore – perhaps tipped off by Ben’s warning phone call to him from the pier – knew Desmond would be vulnerable in the hospital, and used that moment to seize him for his master plan.

As Widmore catches Desmond up on the events of the last few days, Hume’s lip twitches with rage, eventually boiling over into a short-lived beatdown of his nemesis. Desmond demands to be returned to Penny, at which point Widmore channels his estranged wife Eloise, telling Desmond, “I can’t take you back, the Island isn’t done with you yet.” Indeed it isn’t.

Testing, 1, 2, 3.
Widmore informs Zoe to prematurely “start the test,” which takes place in the newest version of an Island mystery box. Test one failed due to a generator problem. Test two succeeded – in killing a Widmore flunky who was in the wrong electromagnetic hotbox at the wrong time. And test three? That one was for Desmond, who was dragged unwittingly into the mystery box, past the charred remains of an unlucky lab rat.

But Widmore knew – or was pretty sure – that Desmond wouldn’t suffer the same fate as that poor chap. First, he warned his new subject that after the test, he would need Desmond to make a sacrifice. When Desmond claimed Widmore knew nothing of sacrifice, Charles retorted by lamenting his estrangement from his daughter, his isolation from his grandson and his son’s death. Touche, Chuck.

So what was Widmore testing Desmond for? As he told Jin, “That man is the only person I’m aware of in the world who has survived a catastrophic electromagnetic event. I need to know that he can do it again, or we all die.” Clear as mud. And with that, Widmore flipped the switch, and Desmond’s mind was fried into another life…brutha.

If you’re one of those people who frets LOST’s “mystery box” method of storytelling – in which a giant reveal is shrouded in a metaphorical mystery box – this scene should have assuaged your fears. LOST literally opened the box, showed us what was inside and explained it to us. I get the feeling a lot more mystery boxes are going to be opened in the coming weeks.

I’m Wide Awake It’s Morning
The electromagnetic mystery box catapulted Desmond’s consciousness not forward or backward in time – the way the Swan implosion did – but sideways. He “awoke” in LAX (or LA[space]X, if you will), and Hurley wasted no time dropping a little metaphorical wink in the form of an accursed number, telling Desmond that his bags were on carousel four.

After befriending poor, helpless, pregnant Claire – and casually predicting her baby will be a boy with an eerie, confident, certainty – Desmond meets up with his driver. And lo and behold, it’s our old friend George Minkowski, the communications expert from the Kahana freighter who, in this reality, is a sleezy limo driver who can hook you up with anything from a restaurant reservation to a restaurant reservation with a happy ending.

But Desmond wants none of what George is selling. This Desmond is markedly different. The man who couldn’t beg for a job in his “other life” was now the #2 in a global corporation. He was not distracted by lovelorn exploits, or bogged down by inadequacies. This was a confident, smiling, suave Desmond Hume, making pregnant Aussies swoon and dropping some ABC (“Always Be Closin’”) in Sydney. So this Desmond had it all figured out, right? Not quite. His happiness was superficial, material, fleeting. And while he may not thought he had a problem with that, the series of events about to unfold would prove to him otherwise.

Oh, Dream Weaver. I Believe You Can Get Me Through the Night.
Widmore gives Desmond the assignment of babysitting a rock God who had OD’d en route to performing a benefit show with his son, organized by his wife. Not one to piss off the man he’s spent his whole alternate life trying to please, Desmond agrees. And to thank him, Widmore pours one out for his homie, offering him a shot of scotch from the same bottle that – in another time and place – he claimed Desmond was unworthy of sipping from. Ahh, MacCutcheon’s, you great diviner of worthiness.

Charlie and Desmond then sit down for a drink of their own. Charlie goes on to recount the long, strange trip that was his near-death experience on Oceanic 815, complete with an other-worldly vision of a woman who he knew he loved, even though he’d never seen her. Charlie challenges Desmond’s perception of his own happiness, asking if he’s ever been in “spectactular, consciousness-altering love.” (Nice choice of words, by the way). Charlie describes his dream girl as “Blond, raptuously beautiful. And I know her. We’re together. It’s like, we’ve always been and always will be. This feeling, this love.”

The vision (of Claire, no doubt) was interrupted by Jack-ass, who ruins everything for everyone in every timeline. You could see Desmond shaken a bit by this. Here was this complete stranger, exposing in him a deep insecurity about the quality of his happiness. Desmond tries to brush it off, posing an offer to Charlie to either keep drinking and end his music career or come with him and thrive. Not much of a choice, eh? “There’s always a choice, brutha.”

Seriously, between Charlie referencing “conscious-altering love,” and Desmond positing that there’s “always a choice,” it’s as if our characters are beginning to channel each other in ways they don’t even understand. In a way, this predestined quantum entanglement that brought them all together on the Island has become a part of their hard-wiring, with each character subconsciously drawing on the philosophies and personalities of each other as if it were in their DNA all along. Desmond never gave a lab rat’s time-traveling ass about the power of “choice.” And Charlie “conscious-altering love” Pace was in bed with a heroine addict and two chicks at the same time, man, before getting on Oceanic 815. But their experiences with each other have altered their modus operandi, in ways subtle and monumental. It’s even why Jack became a man of faith – he learned it from Locke, whether he likes it or not. And it’s all pretty cool to see. As we’d later find out, perhaps that bleeding of personality traits wasn’t done on an entirely subconscious level.

You All, Everyb – (Gurgle, Gurgle, Gurgle)
Desmond and Charlie hit the road, blasting some Driveshaft, when Charlie again tells Desmond he feels sorry for him. “Why?” asks Desmond, ”Is none of this real?” Another loaded question, which Charlie answered by yanking the car into the nearest harbor, in an effort to “teach” Desmond something.

Desmond swims up to catch air, then descends again to save Charlie. While Desmond looks at him through the passenger window, Charlie puts his hand up to the glass, almost knowingly. Desmond, caught momentarily between worlds, sees a flash of the words, “Not Penny’s Boat,” on Charlie’s hand – the same scene that played out just before Charlie’s death. It was a carbon copy of Charlie's death scene, as he once again tried to guide Desmond with a last-ditch, suicidal effort. Only this time, Charlie was saved.

I Don’t Wanna Die in a Hospital, You Gotta Take Me Back Outside
Desmond and Charlie are taken to the hospital, where Desmond undergoes an MRI to examine his “hallucinations.” While the MRI scans Desmond brain, Desmond himself scans his own consciousness. And he digs deep, seeing flashes of Charlie’s drowning, Penny and baby Charlie.

Freaked out, he flees, looking for Charlie – and some damned answers. Just then, Charlie runs out in a hospital gown, looking for an exit. He blows by Dr. Jack Shephard, interrupting his nicety-laden reunion with Desmond. Desmond chases him down and asks to see his hands, before demanding to know who Penny is. At that point, Charlie knows, Desmond has “crossed over.” He “felt it,” and Charlie can finally explain to Desmond what he’s been trying to tell him all along, that, “This doesn’t matter, none of this matters. All that matters is that we felt it…if I were you, I’d stop worrying about me, and start looking for Penny.” Translation: stop worrying about pleasing your boss, or making money. Go find love.

Event Planning
Desmond goes to break the Driveshaft news to Widmore’s wife, explaining that the rock gods won’t be able to attend her son’s Super Sweet Thirty-Three Party. There’s something off about that whole first meeting. Eloise seems to be playing along, but even drops the winking line, “It’s a travesty we haven’t met before. It’s about time.”

It’s not until Desmond hears the name “Penny” being read off a guest list that Eloise is forced to snap into action. She pulls Desmond aside, and breaks out of her Miss Manners demeanor. And for just a second, she stopped pretending she didn’t know more than she did. “I want you to stop. Someone has clearly affected the way you see things. This is a serious problem. It is, in fact, a violation. So whatever you’re doing, whatever it is you think you’re looking for, you need to stop looking for it.”

Whew. If you thought Eloise knew more than she was letting on at first, that line proved it. How did she know how Desmond “sees things,” and that he was being “affected.” She just met him! And what in the hell was his new way of thinking a “violation” of?

I’m not sure, but I do know that Eloise lost her cool. She is fully aware of what people like Charlie are “feeling,” and apparently sees Desmond's realization of that feeling as dangerous. He asks to see the list again, to which she coldly replies that he’s “not ready yet,” and walks away.

So what is Eloise Widmore protecting, or hiding? Why doesn’t she want Desmond to keep looking for meaning in his life? Why is she insistent on his being content with his shallow life? I’m not sure. Maggie theorized that she’s trying to keep that timeline in tact, because in it, her son is still alive. Maybe. I hope we’ll find out. I love Eloise’s cold, informed, controlling demeanor. She’s the anti-Jacob, using intimidation, fear and direct contact to lead people down fate’s path. Hey, maybe she’s working for the Man in Black! Or not.

She Ain’t Penny, She’s My Sister
Before Desmond can flee that very awkward scene, he’s interrupted by ivory-tickling prodigy, Daniel Faraday, err, Widmore. In this reality, Daniel was allowed by his mother to pursue his passion for music.. And wear stupid hats.

Daniel abruptly asks Desmond if he believes in love at first sight, then recounts a moment a few weeks earlier where he saw a red-headed woman at a museum who, “As soon as I saw her, right in that moment, it was like I already loved her. And that’s when things got weird.” Obviously, Daniel is talking about Charlotte. But what’s more interesting – okay, anything’s more interesting than Charlotte – is what happened later that night, when Faraday sleepily scrawled a complex physics equation in his moleskin notebook, one that could only be written by someone who had studied the field their entire life.

And it’s here we learn that musician Daniel is just as bright as physicist Daniel. He’s been putting two and two together, and he realizes that the only way he could channel a lifetime of physics knowledge is to have actually experienced a lifetime of physics knowledge. The more his mind wades in that pool, the more he starts recalling, including some little tidbit about a hydrogen bomb. And as he so brilliantly crystallizes it for Desmond, “What if all this wasn’t supposed to be our life? What if we had some other life, and for some reason, we changed things. I don’t want to set off a nuclear bomb, Mr. Hume. I think I already did.”

This was the scene of the night for me. It’s the first time the alternate realities have been elevated to a level of real importance, and it even drew on the lessons of “changing things,” vs. “whatever happened, happened,” that were explored in the time travel episodes. It would seem that time travel was, in a way, just a device being used to make our characters think about what they would change about their lives if they could. That’s the quandary that was posed to Desmond last night – that maybe there was a version of himself that had found true happiness with some woman named Penny. And that the choices he had made in his life – or that someone else had made in theirs regarding the use of hydrogen bombs – had altered that life path, and sent him down a non-ideal course.

Suddenly, Desmond was faced with the notion that his best life was out there, waiting to be lived. The notion was simultaneously uplifting and unsettling. But ultimately, Desmond knew that if there was a better life out there for him, it started with Penny. And luckily for him, the guy sitting next to him knew just where to find her. “She’s my half-sister,” Daniel conveniently revealed. And it was off to the (stair) races.

Desmond finds Penny running the same stairs where he met Jack, and he stops her to introduce himself. I’m pretty sure if I met Sonya Walger, I’d faint. And whaddya know, so did Desmond.

Yes Man
Desmond wakes back up in the electromagnetic mystery box, feeling happy, healthy and surprisingly compliant. “You told me you brought me here to the Island to do something very important. When do we start?” He starts with Zoe, trekking back to the Hydra Station, before being interrupted by Sayid, who knocks out his entourage and tells Desmond he needs to come with him and get away from these “dangerous” people. Desmond, still super-compliant, tells Sayid to lead the way.

If alternate-reality Desmond needed to faint in order to wake up his on-Island counterpart, he didn’t need to stay unconscious. While on-Island Desmond happily, inexplicably followed Widmore, then Zoe, then Sayid wherever they were going, alternate-Desmond woke up. Both Desmonds, operating simultaneously. How does that happen? I’d argue that on-Island Desmond was something of an empty vessel. He seemed to be floating through the whole turn of events, from waking up to following Sayid. Perhaps it was because the events of his alternate reality storyline demanded the full attention of his consciousness.

Manifest Destiny
Desmond awoke in the stadium, with Penny hovering over him. Again, this man. I want to be this man. He regains his cool, and being the cheeky bastard he is, asks her out for coffee. She obliges, and they agree to meet up in an hour.

New, happy, lovestruck Desmond ambles back to the limo, full of new, strange feelings and something resembling a purpose. And it appeared he was carrying something else – his first real, genuine understanding of his multiple existences. Like Charlie before him, Desmond wanted to spread the word. So he asked Minkowski to get him a manifest of the passengers on 815. Why? “I just need to show them something.”

And scene. So what the hell just happened?


Come Together. Right Now.
I think what just happened is Desmond learned what the hell is going on in LOST.

I think he pieced together the ramblings of Charlie and Daniel with his own flashes, and he’s finally seeing the picture on the front of the puzzle box, as he once called it.

Desmond gleaned from Daniel that there were possible alternate versions of ourselves that could be explored. And he learned from Charlie that those alternate selves were potentially enormous improvements on our current selves. And so, he’s off to find the Oceanic 815ers and free their minds – and the rest will follow. By the way, that doesn't necessarily mean that our characters have to "jump in" to an ideal version of himself. That's not what Desmond did - he's finding Penny in an entirely different way than he did originally, and eight years later, too. On the contrary, I think Desmond's message will be one of continual self-improvement, of always being on the lookout for opportunities for betterment, of not being content with shallow fulfillment.

But what does that mean for Widmore, Flocke, Jacob and the Man in Black? Yeah, did you forget about them during last night’s episode? I did. It was almost an entirely different show. How does Desmond’s quest to give all his Oceanic 815 mates their own “happily ever after” impact the “war,” the “release of evil,” and the age-old battle of free will vs. predestination being waged by Jacob and his nemesis?

Last night’s brief Island scene at the end didn’t do much to answer those questions. We saw Desmond willingly join up with Widmore, then just as willingly ditch Widmore’s crew to follow Sayid back to the Man in Black. I’d wager that the end-goal is still to contain MIB to the Island, preventing his contamination of the outside world and ensuring that everything that everybody loves doesn’t “cease to exist,” as Widmore put it. But how does Desmond’s mission impact that?

I think it might have something to do with Jacob and the MIB’s candidates. While we know little about these two and their “game,” it does seem that they require willing, able-bodied subjects to help them along their way. Jacob has a lighthouse wheel full of candidates to replace him. MIB has assumed the body of a mortal, while claiming the souls of a few others, all of which he deems necessary for his escape plan.

But Desmond’s plan seems to transcend that game. It's as if he's out to overstep that eons-old squabble between these two mystic entities. MIB and Jacob be damned, Desmond just wants people to self-actualize and find their path in life.

Here’s the catch, though. By doing that, Desmond helps Jacob win. Jacob would prove – through Desmond – that mankind, despite its corruptibility and potential for evil, is capable of doing the right thing. When presented with the potential for meaningful happiness, true love and real purpose, mankind will choose to pursue that life. They’ll do what they need to do to secure that for themselves and the people they love. Maggie and I both realized, at the end of this episode, that we haven’t really seen any of our alternate reality characters experience any kind of true love (even Jin and Sun were just dipping their pins in company ink; not quite in love yet). Maybe a world devoid of true love is the world into which the Man in Black can escape – cheesy, I know. But if Desmond can convince Jack that there’s more than being a good surgeon; or Kate that there’s some things not worth running away from; or Locke that physical limitations do not a weak spirit make; if Desmond can steer these people towards lives of meaning and substantive love, then Jacob might win his argument.

And to that unintelligible paragraph of sappy what-ifs, I’ll add this one. Maybe Widmore knows that Desmond is the only one who can consciously transcend and comprehend the alternate versions of himself. He knows that it’s up to Desmond to create a world that the Man in Black can’t escape to. So he brought him to the Island, pumped him full of electromagnetism, and let his mind wander to different times and places until he could grasp, for himself, the idea that the Man in Black’s cynical worldview could be contained by free-willed, self-actualizing optimism.

Widmore said Desmond was the x-factor that could prevent the release of MIB. Is this mission of betterment the manor in which Widmore saw that happening? Is Desmond, the insignificant speck on Widmore’s radar for all his life, actually the cork the Island needs and the fulfillment of Widmore’s eternal promise to protect the Island? I think it could be. And if you buy that, maybe you’ll buy this: Desmond’s “sacrifice” will be to stay on the Island forever, replacing Jacob as the protector of the power of free will –and the enduring spirit of optimism.

Namaste.
Charlie