LOST: The Constant

Love is a desire for that lost half of ourselves.
-Milan Kundera

Well, merry Christmas Eve, Losties! You're three years late. Okay, I am loving every second of LOST this season, but it is just moving so fast and I am trying to keep it all together! There are so many time gaps that don't seem to correlate. There was the whole 31 minute time gap that Daniel discovered, and now there is like a half a day time gap from the island to the boat during the chopper ride- Sayid: 'how is it that we left at nearly dusk and arrived at mid-day?' (so did they lose or gain time?) And now Desmond has lost eight years of his life as he jumps from 1996 to 2004. Why then? It would have made sense if he like, didn't remember anything from the moment he got trapped in the magnetism of the island, but why this? Super creative way to do flashbacks!

Conscious vs physical time travel, hmmmm... Why does it only happen to some people, this whole 'mind' travel thing? How can it be controlled?
Poor George McKowski and his brain aneurysm. I wonder where (and when, for that matter) the Ferris wheel was that he was riding on. Sigh. Question though: Right before he died in luscious-locked Desmond's arms, he said 'I can't get back!' So he was trapped in between? Was he talking to someone on the 'other side' about trying to get back to the boat? Is there a skill of controlling or at least understanding it that Desmond will learn with time? Also, the guys on the boat asked if Des had been affected by radiation, magnetism.. and Sayid kind of stared at them blankly, but I seem to recall a button pushing incident that brought down a plane and also a big explosion that knocked Desmond's clothes off and caused him to start having visions... so then what is George's reason... ( If anyone was trying to place where they know "George" from, by the way, hisname is Fisher Stevens and the only things I know him from are that 90's TV show Early Addition and the movie Only You with Robert Downey Jr and Marissa Tomei. Also, that guy who played the Doctor showed up on that Eli Stone show after LOST. Weird. )

So if Penny didn't send these people and therefore didn't give Naomi that picture of Desmond and Penny, did Daniel then give it to them? Is Desmond visiting him in the past what drew him to the island? Is the reason he was so emotional when he saw the news sequence of the plane wreckage - because he knew finally that it was all true and that his past was finally catching up to his future?

Oh, sweetness, Penny is Desmond's constant. Like a phantom limb. :) Is Desmond in the clear now and safe from dying because he made the link to his constant? And Daniel's planned for Des to be his constant. How much does he know? I think he should have had Eloise stuffed and brought her to be his constant. 'I know about Eloise' is my new catch phrase.

Okay, I admit that I got emotional and thought it was such a beautiful scene with Desmond and Penny talking swiftly back and forth to each other at the end of their phone conversation. I really thought in that moment after the phone call when he said to Sayid, 'it was enough,' I really thought they might have Des die right there and then. Except for Libby whose character had way too many loose ends, it seems like there has been a kind of correlation of people coming to a certain degree of peace before they die. When Boone died he had finally gotten over his sad obsession with Shannon and when Jack was trying to kill save him he was at peace and told Jack it was okay and to let him go. When Shannon died she finally had someone who truly loved her and believed her. When Echo died he had sort of come to a peace with his guilt over his brother, yelling at Smoky that he didn't regret shooting that man as a kid because it saved his brother. Charlie knew his death was coming and made his list and got to be the hero. Even Anna Lucia kind of gave in after all her anger and toughness and handed the gun over to Michael and said, 'I'm done.' I don't know if these things mean anything or if the writers just want to give their characters strong and emotional sendoffs, but still interesting. Anyway, enough tangent - I really hope Penny and Des get a happily ever after.

Equipment sabotage two days ago - so Michael! I wonder how Michael and Ben are communicating. Also, how is Michael hiding on the boat, and Walt with him? Don't you love how I am talking with such confidence that the inside man is Michael? Just watch, its somebody we haven't even seen before. Blah, I just hope its not Patchy. In the words of Miss Jordan Lynn, woof.

How did Desmond find Daniel so quickly when he doesn't remember meeting him? Did he really have time to describe himself that well over the futuristic yet somehow oh so 80's phones that they were on? Just me being picky again :)

Now some favorite insights of others, but not The Others, thought I would love to get that! :)

Why did Penelope's dad put the stopper in the sink, leave the water running, and then walk off? Did he want it to overflow? Does he know something about Desmond, time travel, and the future? Since he's buying the journal that a Hanso owned about the Black Rock, it's obvious he knows more that's going on. (I totally didn't catch this Hanso connection in this ep!)
So...Mr. Widmore buys the diary that likely talks about the island and that is how Penny "knows about the island"!
Black Rock Painting and journal. Jovard Hansel…was that the name of the Black Rock Captain? Couldn't catch the first name but Hansel was definitely the last name. Is Hansel a Hansel and Gretel reference maybe… bread crumbs anyone?
This whole episode reminded me of Desmond's first flash. Remember the lady who knew something Desmond needed to know. . does this mean she was once in the island, since she was able to have experienced the time jumps as well? It seems like if that's the case, then Desmond has a ray of hope – because she seemed ok, and thus it may be possible for some people to control their consciousness travel experiences. Since he got his anchor, does that mean he's saved from the jumping back and forth? For good? What will happen if/when he has to pass the island barrier again? (Good thought about the lady. I didn't really ever take her seriously because I thought it was just a plow to get him to the island for some reason since we saw a photo of her and the head priest or whatever at the monastery where Desmond went when he met Penny the first time)
This is the first time since watching this show I've had a tiny tiny feeling that they're going to go in a direction I don't want them to. I know many of you are big time travel fans- I'm just not one of them. The episode was done well, and I am really enjoying daniel faraday's character and the fact that the desmond/penny love story continues to play a central role in all this. I just feel that the writers are opening this up to a place where they can do anything and get away with it, including unresolved plot lines and inconsistencies...maybe I'm wrong. (Hmmm, I find the time travel interesting and not surprising, but this is a valid concern)
Did Penny say the Desmond's friend Charlie told her that he wasn't crazy? Desmond approached Charlie when he was playing his guitar on the street in his alternate past last season and told him they were on an island together. Desmond was able to change the future (Penny remembering, Daniel writing a note in his journal). The time traveling wasn't just a state of mind like Daniel theorized when he first met Desmond in 1996.
And given the Pandora's Box of time travel opened up tonight (flash-sideways?), I went back to some of the books referenced on the island (mostly read by Sawyer). One of them was "A Wrinkle in Time." I know most of us had this book on our sixth-grade required reading list, and I just reread it a couple of years ago. Here are some plot elements that might prove significant in decoding this newest "Lost" riddle:"Meg's missing father was working on a secret government project to achieve faster-than-light travel through a tesseract and accidentally wound up on Camazotz, an alien planet inside the 'Black Thing.' …"The children travel to Camazotz and rescue Meg's father, who has been imprisoned by an evil disembodied brain with powerful telepathic abilities, which the inhabitants of Camazotz call 'IT.'" (IT... Jacob...)More info on this book can be found at Madeleine L'Engle's site or on Wiki.
Numbers, numbers everywhere!The setting: 2.342 (23/42)Penny's address: 423
Does anyone else thing that what is happening to Desmond and Fischer Stevens may be what Danielle Rousseau considers "the sickness"? They all went crazy.
last week's ep: Is it just me or did Faraday call Charlotte 'Charlie' during the card/memory scene??
Anyone notice tank top guy's (I think his name started w/ a K) tattoos? The one on his right shoulder looked like a serpent (as in Ms. Hawking's prominent pin in one of the past Desmond-centric eps) or swan (as in, the swan station) to me… but I didn't get that good of a look at it. The one on his left shoulder looks tribal-esque and perhaps is a bird. Could be some sort of symbolism or could be me just reading into it too much.
- Why doesn't island Faraday recognize Desmond?- Are the flashbacks random or set off by something? - Why is time so splintered (days, years, etc.) with the 'side effect' that some people suffer going to/from the island?- What did Ray inject into Minkowski?- Is this how Charlie appears to future Hurley ("I'm here, but not here.")
The time difference is obviously different depending on the route taken to or from the island. (31 minutes with the rocket, 2 days for the helicopter) Maybe the real CONSTANT goes back to the words of ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus - "the only thing constant is change"?

I do seem to remember the producers saying something about the overall theme of this show not being time travel...I'm thinking that time travel/wormhole is just one of the many many special features of the island (duh, right?) so that it's true that it isn't the main theme...one more thing i remember them saying way back in season two...they said that it's really just a love story about two lovers trying to be reunited...interesting.... (so maybe the Adam and Eve skeletons aren't Kate and Jack like I have often heard, but Desmond and Penelope? Aaahhh)