Lost 5.14: The Variable

It’s finally happened. Lost has forayed so far into time-travel and sci-fi that I can’t keep up. If you are finding my recap here at The Disney Blog for the first time, I promise I am not really a moron. I swear I’m really a Lostie. But for the life of me, I will not be able to give a good theory or a well-thought out conjecture on what is happening on The Island. If you need some geeky-goodness check out Popular Mechanics post or Doc Jensen’s recap. If you’re just wanting to gush, roll your eyes or use lots of exclamation points, then you’ve come to the right place.

Now.

Let’s begin with our George McFly-wannabe, Daniel Faraday…

This seems to be a Daniel flashback episode. (Have we had one of these before?) But in fact, I think it is more of an Eloise Hawking-centric episode. Daniel, merely the player to Mommy Dearest’s manipulations. We first see young Daniel playing the piano and a young-ish Eloise explaining that things like music must be put aside so Daniel can focus on his scientific gift.

These stage-mama tendencies are seen again when Daniel graduates from college (with the worst hair ever). Eloise insists that Daniel cannot have a girl friend (namely Theresa, who will soon be a vegetable thanks to his research) because his work will always come first. Daniel tries to prove his worth to his mother by explaining that he just received a grant from Charles Widmore…a man Daniel doesn’t know but we see the twinkling of recognition in Eloise’ eye at the mention of his name.

And then (my personal favorite part) is at some future/present day time we see Daniel sitting in a chair watching the news of the submerged Oceanic flight 815 and he’s sobbing. We realize Daniel has had an accident and his memory has been tampered…ok, ruined. Soon, CHARLES WIDMORE steps into the room! Faraday is unsure if they’ve met before and Charles says, “Don’t worry, we’ve never met.” Widmore goes on to offer Daniel a job—on the freighter, to go to The Island and continue his research there. Daniel is obviously wary because HIS BRAIN DOESN’T WORK RIGHT. Until Widmore suggests that The Island will heal Daniel’s mental illness. (And this, my friends, is why Daniel was such a freak-o for the first five episodes we saw him!) Daniel is also slightly impressed at the fact that Widmore confesses to faking the sunken Oceanic plane. (How weird was that? Were the writers just trying to answer a question for us?)

And now we’re back to the piano. A mixed up Daniel is trying to play the piano when approached again by his mother. This time, with tears in her eyes, she tells her son to take Widmore’s offer—so he can be healed. And once again, she will be proud of him.

So, now we know how Daniel got to…

The Island

Everything on The Island kinda reminded me of Billy’s dotted path on Family Circus. I felt like Daniel was just running around like a crazy person grabbing bits of info so we could get to our final scene where he…well, we’ll get to that.

First Stop: Jack’s house.
Daniel: HOW DID YOU GET HERE?
Jack: Yo’ mama.
Daniel: SHE WAS WRONG.
Jack: Snap!

Second Stop: The Orchid
{replay of Minute 1 of Episode 1}
Daniel: Chang! Evacuate everyone! I’m from the future!
Chang: Whatever.
Daniel: I’m serious. Miles here is your son.
Chang: Is this true, Miles?
Miles: No.
Chang: See, I knew you were crazy, Daniel.

Third Stop: Losties Anonymous (aka Sawyer & Juliet’s house)
Sawyer, Juliet, Jin, Kate, Jack and Hurley are discussing their options—commandeer the sub or head back into the jungle. Jin and Hurley vote for the jungle. Then Miles and Faraday crash the party.

Daniel: Where are The Others? My mom is an Other!
Sawyer: SO?
Daniel: She’ll get us home.
Sawyer: I am home.
Kate & Jack: We’ll lead you to The Others.
Sawyer: NO.
Juliet: YES. Here’s the code to the sonar fence thingie…
Sawyer: {incredulous}

And here they break the cardinal rule of scary movies—they split up. Jack, Kate and Daniel to The Others while Miles, Hurley, Jin, Sawyer & Juliet pack a suitcase for the jungle. (We’ll get back to this.)

Fourth Stop: Charlotte’s Swing
Daniel: Hi, little girl. I didn’t want to do this but…please don’t come back here. You’ll die.
Charlotte: I can’t have chocolate before dinner.

Fifth Stop: The Creek
Jack & Kate: What are you going to do?
Daniel: I’m going to change time. Whatever happened, happened, yes. But now, I’m going to change it anyway. I’m going to stop the hatch from being made, to stop the button from being pushed, to stop Desmond from living on The Island, to stop him from NOT pushing the button, to stop your plane from coming down, to stop THIS.
Jack & Kate: How are you going to do that?
Daniel: I’m going to detonate an atom bomb.

Final Stop: The Others
Daniel: I want Eloise!
SexyEyes: Slow down, pilgrim.
Eloise: {pulls trigger}
Daniel: {looks down at bullet hole in chest} YOU KNEW. You sent me here and you KNEW you’d cap me.
Eloise: Who are you?
Daniel: I’m your son. {dies}

And you’d think the black screen o’Lost would have shown up here. But as every good infomercial says, “WAIT! THERE’S MORE!”

First, let’s get back to our new Jungle Crew…
Sawyer and Juliet have been hiding a hog-tied Phil in their closet. Just as they are about to leave, Radzinksy (who just had a shoot out with the departing Kate/Jack/Daniel clan) enters and discovers Sawyer’s betrayal. Their final scene is with hands raised to Radzinsky’s gun.

And now for the bookend scenes…
The episode actually began with Penny and baby Charlie following a bleeding Desmond into the hospital. As they sit in the waiting room Mrs. Hawking approaches. She apologizes that her actions have hurt Desmond. She reveals she is Faraday’s mother. When Penny leaves to see Desmond in recovery, Mrs. Hawking runs into CHARLES WIDMORE in the parking lot. She snippily informs him that Penny is inside. He says he sacrificed his relationship with Penny. This angers Eloise and she yells that she sacrificed her son. And now, the best reveal of the night, “He’s my son, too, Eloise!” Yee-haw! We knew it! And here, Eloise slaps her baby daddy.

Stuff To Talk About

1. Sawyer & Juliet. You know I had to list them first. Can I just say THANK YOU to the Lost writers for absolutley NO waffling on Sawyer’s part? I am so happy they are showing a solid relationship with Juliet and Sayer. I love their hand clasp, Sawyer’s reference to home and their “have my back” conversation. Now, please please please don’t let Juliet die. (I know, I know, the “freckles” slip…but who did Sawyer stay with?! HUH?)

2. The Widmore Family. So, Eloise & Charles are the proud mama and papa to Daniel. Who is half-brother to Penny and uncle to baby Charlie. Interesting. So, did Penny just get her mom’s non-magical DNA or what? But why is Daniel’s last name Faraday?

3. Daniel’s variable. Daniel still believes whatever happened, happened. But that doesn’t mean that whatever is going to happen has happened. He is now trying to change the NEW future. Not THEIR future, mind you, but the NEW future. Because this is still THEIR present. Regardless of the fact that it is in the PAST. Makes perfect sense, right? (see above moron disclaimer)

4. Eloise’s intentions. I think Eloise only GUESSED her son MIGHT be killed if she sent him back. I think she knew when Daniel was born that she was “destined” to kill him. So, when she realized Daniel was specially gifted in science, she pushed him so he could discover how to CHANGE time and ultimately CHANGE this future event. As evil as she is, I think all the hidden twinklings and tears in her eyes were because she was hoping against hope that Daniel could change the future. Or the past. Or something.

5. Penny & Desmond. I’m so glad he’s alive. But for the second time he said, “I promised I wouldn’t leave you.” Which is another way of saying, “I am SO going back to The Island.” *sigh*

Random Theory
If my belief in Eloise’s goodness (above) is correct, she has fallen in the same trap as the rest of the Losties. Jack thought he was saving the world by NOT helping Ben…when in fact, he helped create evil Ben by not saving young Ben. Faraday thought he was going to save the world by stopping “the incident” when in fact, he will probably cause the incident because of everyone’s freaked-out-ness to his theories. Eloise thought she’d save her son’s life by sending him back to the past/future. And just as Farday pointed out whatever HAPPENED, HAPPENED. And Faraday is dead (or at least shot).

However, even though I tend to agree that whatever happened, happened–I still think SOMETHING is going to change. Otherwise what’s the point? I feel like there is going to be a Miles/Chang interaction. I think Jin and Sun are going to be reunited. I think The Others are going to have to take action against this craziness. I just think it would be silliness for the series finale to just be Season 1 Episode 1, you know?

Actually, I found a theory I kind of like on twitter today. It feels right. And sad. “They change enough to where Oceanic 815 lands in LA as planned… and they all go their separate ways not ever getting to know each other.” (via @coasterswim)

Conclusion
I have none. What say you? As usual, I’ll try to respond in the comments.

(Come check me out this week at ohamanda.com! I’ll be at a Mommy Blogger Mixer at DISNEY WORLD beginning tomorrow. I’ll be twittering it with #magicalmoms.)