I Am DB

As if the creators of this show hadn’t realized by now that I’m a sure thing, they went and threw a whole lotta time travel into the mix. I’m a sucker for a good – even a not-so-good – time travel storyline, so I really couldn’t be diggin’ this any more. The show has been playing time games for a while, but this episode blew it all open like Locke blew open the door to the hatch. If you were confused by anything about Desmond’s trip through time, I recommend reading this week’s column at Entertainment Weekly, where Damon Lindelof helps explain what exactly Desmond experienced. There are some particularly cool theories the writer poses here as well. Whether they turn out to be true or not, the ideas are pretty great.  As for my far less enthralling take on last week’s events…

FUTURAMA
The initial question: what’s the deal with the way time exists around this island? More to the point, why did Desmond experience a time-warp when Frank veered slightly off Faraday’s bearing? We learn from Faraday’s questions that Desmond’s exposure to electromagnetism is to blame…but why?

While we puzzle over that one, let’s think about Desmond’s visit to Faraday at Oxford circa 1996. There’s some quality fat to chew on in these scenes. When Desmond says that Island-Faraday does not remember the 1996 meeting with Desmond, Oxford-Faraday seems momentarily surprised, but then quietly says something I couldn’t make out  – something about understanding why he will not recall the meeting, or perhaps not understanding why he won’t recall the meeting…I’m not sure, but there was something in that moment. And when Desmond questions why Faraday isn’t protecting his head from the radiation exposure, Faraday merely gives a knowing look as if to say, “That would have been a good idea…but it’s too late now.” We gather that as a result of his experiments with rat Eloise, Faraday has exposed himself to a high amount of radiation. Could this be the source of some of his…issues? Has he been leaping through time as well? Is that why he has a note saying, “If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant”?

WHEN DESMOND MET PENNY…
Lest we think this episode was just the stuff of sci-fi geekdom, it proved to also be one of the most emotionally powerful episodes in the series’ history, reaffirming the Desmond/Penny relationship as one of the central threads of the entire show.  I was reminded of Buttercup’s words to Prince Humperdinck: “Westley and I are joined by the bonds of true love. And you can not track that, not with a thousand bloodhounds. And you can not break it, not with a thousand swords.” But you can communicate across oceans and decades as long as there’s enough battery power in the phone. And there was indeed enough power for Island-Desmond to contact Penny, who has been looking for him for three years and knows about the island – or an island – thanks to her brief communication with Charlie. So she knows there’s an island, and she is determined to keep looking for Desmond. But what else does she know? Did she speak to Minkowski at some point (more on that below), and if she did, what did she learn? I still want to know what’s going on with the boat Penny actually hired – the one we saw at the very end of season 2.

And we still don’t know why Naomi had the picture of Penny and Desmond. Could Naomi have gotten it from her boss, Matthew Abbadon? Is Abbadon somehow in league with Penny’s father, Charles Widmore? (More on him further below.) That would be interesting, since both Abbadon and Widmore will likely factor into the Lost mythology at a pretty high level. I thought that maybe after Desmond’s Oxford meeting, he might have made copies of the photograph and given them to Faraday, telling him that someday when he goes on a mission to an island, to distribute the pictures to his team…thereby triggering all of this when Naomi parachutes onto the island. Does that make sense? Well, it doesn’t have to, since that’s not what happened. Man, I LOVE time travel!

FAREWELL GEORGE, WE HARDLY KNEW THEE
Let’s talk about the freighter. First of all, I don’t like that bastard in the wife-beater one friggin’ bit. What was his name? Keme, or something?  I hope Sayid eventually knocks that asshole overboard with a big piece of loose pipe. But I’ll put my emotions aside for a moment and cede to my curiosity:

• Who is this guy?

• In fact, who are all of these people on the freighter?

• What is their connection to Faraday, Naomi, etc.?

• Were they too hired by Abbadon, and if so, were they hired specifically to transport Naomi’s team, or do they have their own agenda?

• Why are they so angry that Frank brought Sayid and Desmond back?

• Why don’t they want Faraday talking to Desmond?

• When Frank says he thought that Faraday could help the clearly disturbed Desmond, the ship’s “doctor” shouts that Faraday can’t even help himself. What can’t Faraday help himself from?

Wife-beater dude tells Frank that the captain (who is this captain?) wants to see him, and soon Sayid and Desmond are locked in the sick bay…but not alone. Also in the room, strapped down to a bed, is George Minkowski – the ship’s communications officer, who answered Jack’s call for rescue and has been mysteriously unresponsive to recent calls on the satellite phone. Now we know why. Although we don’t have a timeline for the following events, here’s what we learned: Minkowski and another crew member (Brand?) went out in a dinghy because they were bored and wanted to get a glimpse of the island. While out there, Brand started going crazy (they must have strayed off Faraday’s bearing?). Now Brand is dead and Minkowski is experiencing jumps in time just like Desmond (or as it turns out, NOT just like Desmond – read the EW article in the link at the top). Two days before Sayid and Desmond arrive, someone sabotaged all the equipment in the communications room and before Minkowski could fix any of it, he was strapped down by his fellow crew members because of his episodes. So what happened to him, and to this Brand person? Has Minkowski been exposed to radiation or electromagnetism, thus triggering the jumps? Why do his fellow crew members seem to react to his situation with hostility?

Georgie Boy also knows a little something about Desmond. He describes a flashing red light that would sometimes go off in the communications room, signaling an incoming call. He explains that he was under strict instructions never to answer it…but apparently he did one day, because he tells Desmond that the calls were from Penelope Widmore (The link I provided last week to an interview with Damon and Carlton includes a bit – if I recall correctly – where they talk about these calls from Penny, like the one Minkowski got, and the one Charlie got too). To what extent Penny and Minkowski have talked, we don’t know. But Minkowski offers to take Desmond and Sayid to the communications room, so they unstrap him…and conveniently find the locked door has been opened. “You guys must have a friend on this boat,” he tells them (more on that to below too).

Alas, poor George Minkowski…his increasingly frequent time-jumps seem to fry his synapses, and he dies in Desmond’s arms after leading him and Sayid to the communications room. I bow my head for Minkowski. I liked him and had hoped to see more of him, as played by the fine character actor Fisher Stevens. But Desmond may not have to face the same fate, because when Sayid fixes the ship’s phone, Desmond places a call. Faraday had told him in their Oxford meeting that in order to keep his brain from freaking out over the time-jumps, he needed to find a constant – something that existed for him in both his island life of 2004 and the year of his time-jumps, 1996. So Desmond calls his constant – Penny. In one of the most genuinely touching scenes in Lost history, Desmond and Penny speak for the first time in years – years that she has spent searching for him. And that brings us back to what I talked about a few paragraphs above, so we’ll move on.

PIRATED MERCHANDISE
In an unexpected but compelling flashback scene, we visit an auction, where the object on the block comes from the Black Rock – the dynamite-packed pirate ship (or as Rousseau calls it, the convenience store) that is washed up in the jungle on the island. We learn that seven years after the Black Rock disappeared on its journey from England to Siam, the first mate’s ledger was found in a pirate’s trove on Madagascar. The auctioneer reveals that the contents of the ledger have never been made public, and are known only to the owner and seller…Tovard Hanso.

Does that name ring a bell? Hanso. As in Alvar Hanso. As in The Hanso Foundation – a key funder of The Dharma Initiative. And who is the rich white man that wins the auction to buy this piece of Black Rock history? Penny’s father, Charles Widmore. I’m tellin’ ya…this guy’s dirty.

FINAL THOUGHTS
So the way I understood it, Desmond’s life is no longer in danger from his time-jumping because unlike Minkowski and Eloise, he was able to connect with a constant. I guess that’s why, after he hangs up the phone with Penny, he recognizes Sayid again. He now knows where he is.

On a side note, this episode reminded us that we still don’t know why Desmond landed in a military prison and why he was dishonorably discharged from service. Those details are sure to come up eventually.

As for all the funky time travel stuff, I can’t wait to see where it goes. I wonder – does the island’s nonconformity to the rules of time explain why Richard Alpert seems not to have aged since Ben was a kid?

Lastly, ever since Ben said he had a “man on their boat,” the widespread speculation online has been that Michael is that man. I wasn’t buying it at first, but I think that was just because I had my own theory about how Michael would be reintroduced…and I realize now that my way ain’t the way it’s gonna go. And Minkowski’s telling line about Desmond and Sayid having a friend on the boat, well…when I combine that with a few other things that are out there in the ether…it seems more and more probable that Michael is indeed somewhere on the freighter. But where, and why? Did he sabotage the communications room? And where the hell is Walt??

Tonight’s Episode: The Other Woman