Lost: A Penny for Your Thoughts

Thoughts on this week’s episode of Lost, “Happily Ever After”, which in advance of watching I’m sure will be both fantastic and disappointing, coming up after the jump:

1. Previously on Lost: I am so disappointed that we get the elimination part of Dancing With the Semi-Stars instead of the enhanced version of last week’s Lost now. So unacceptable. At least I got to see the most pathetic moment of Buzz Aldrin’s life. Okay, after that sad moment we get NO PREVIOUSLIES!
2. Straight to Desmond, who has been sedated, and who is getting woken up by Zooey. Zoe? I’ll go with Zooey. He’s asking for Penny but Charles Widmore is like, that ain’t happening. Desmond asks what happened to him. Apparently he was shot by Ben (which we saw). But how did he get here? Charles says Penny and Charlie are safe. But, uh, they’re back on the Island. Desmond is literally twitching with rage. Then he beats the crap out of Widmore with a lamp, which is awesome. Then he begs Charlie to take him back to the real world, but Widmore says “the Island isn’t done with you yet”!
3. Zooey and Jin walk over to some weird area filled with electrical gear, which apparently is the site for “the test”. Henchmen galore. Zooey tells a dweeby guy that they’re bringing Desmond over for the test. It’s pretty elaborate. I think magnets are probably involved. Also, there’s a bunny in a cage. This probably won’t end well. It’s named “Angstrom”. I think that’s a science reference. Some dude we don’t know is checking some coils with a beeping device. And then they turn something on and that guy gets obliterated!!@!#!! Which I predicted beforehand. Anyway, he’s a smoking corpse but Widmore doesn’t give a crap. But I guess now we know the stakes for poor Desmond, whom they are dragging in now. Credits.
4. Back to the site, where they carry out the corpse of the guy who probably shouldn’t have been so clumsy. Desmond is emphatically unenthused about this but they batter him a bit and then tie him to a wooden chair between the deathcoils. Widmore says he’s going to ask Desmond to make a sacrifice once it’s all over. Remember when he was Seth Cohen’s grandfather? That was awesome. Anyway, he leaves and Desmond starts freaking out trying to escape. Widmore is apparently testing whether Desmond can survive a “catastrophic electromagnetic event” — presumably Widmore’s planning on initiating one again somewhere in the vicinity of the season finale.
5. Anyway, they turn the coils on and Desmond turns into the Human Torch. Okay, not really. But lights flash and stuff and then we flash to some clouds. Acutally this appears to be more of a flash-sideways. Desmond is staring at the baggage claim thing for Oceanic 815. Hurley tells him where to pick up his bags. Desmond gets there and helps Claire with her bags and they talk about how she’s with child. He says “I’m not a big fan of surprises” which is funny because he is surprised a lot. Anyway, he offers to get her a ride but she demurs. Then he’s like, I bet it’s a boy. He knows because it’s obviously a boy! A guy picks him up to drive him to his hotel. The guy who picks him up is that crazy doctor guy who died from time sickness in Season 4 or so. But he’s not a crazy doctor guy now. He’s a creep who offers Desmond an escort. Desmond says he’s here to work. And the driver says Desmond is “the boss’s right hand man”. I wonder which boss that’ll be. Widmore?
6. He enters the boss’s office and it’s… Widmore. Aw, that was too easy. Apparently they’re BFFs here. The music indicates that we should be disturbed by this but I dunno. It’s hard to freak out about every little shocking surprise in LA X. Commercials for a variety of products that are alarmingly well-targeted at me. HOW DO THEY KNOW I WANT TO READ BOOKS ON PORTABLE ELECTRONIC DEVICES????
7. Desmond is still in the office, where Widmore is apparently dealing with getting a guy out of jail. His son’s apparently a musician. His son, of course, is FARADAY!!! Unless he means Penny’s husband who is not Hume (e.g., Jack maybe?). And now they’re talking about Charlie! Whom they need to get out of jail! Widmore notes that Desmond has no family, no commitments. What about poor Penny? Anyway, they drink up that 60 year scotch that keeps appearing near Widmore on Lost.
8. Now Desmond goes to jail to pick up Charlie. YAY CHARLIE. Charlie doesn’t seem to interested in Desmond but Desmond’s a pro so he’ll take care of him. Oh hmm, it appears Charlie doesn’t care if he lives or dies. He just wanders across the busy street to the bar, where he proceeds to drink scotch. Desmond does too. I don’t. Charlie is dickish to him, probably because Charlie is suffering from heroin withdrawal (not my favorite Charlie mood). Charlie asks Desmond if he’s happy. Charlie says Desmond’s never been in love. Then he notes that he fell in love on the flight back from Sydney. He talks about the crash, and his choking on the heroin. He says that as he’s dying he sees “her”. Blond, rapturously beautiful, and he knows her. He’s talking about Claire from the other universe, guys. Duh. Anyway, presumably Desmond should be remembering the same thing of Penny. But anyway, then Charlie says he’s annoyed that Jack saved his life. Then Desmond says the real truth is that Charlie has the choice between continuing to drink (which will result in the end of Charlie’s career) or he can come with Desmond, hang out at a hotel, and play some music for Widmore’s daughter. Then he says “there’s always a choice, Brother,” which reminds me of something he said on the show before.
9. They drive as “You All, Everybody” plays on the stereo. It sucks. I prefer Driveshaft’s earlier work. Charlie tells Desmond that he thinks he’s happy but none of his life is real. He offers Desmond a choice: he can show him what he’s talking about, or Desmond can get out of the car. Then Charlie grabs the wheel and swerves the car into the goddamn water! Charlie seems to be trying to kill himself again but Desmond’s not interested. He swims up to the surface. Apparently he then decides to go back for Charlie but, like, Charlie always drowns to death, y’all. Apparently the writers of Lost remember this, also, as Charlie reenacts the part where he puts his hand on the glass and we get a brief flash to the “NOT PENNY’S BOAT” moment from one of Lost‘s better moments. Desmond drags the unconscious Charlie out of the water where, presumably, he’ll wake up and they’ll have a powerful talk about how there are multiple timelines going on. I admit I am kind of psyched for this. ALL WE NEEDED WAS CHARLIE AND DESMOND BACK ON THE SHOW. Commercial time.
10. Desmond is being checked out at the hospital now for signs of a concussion, including hallucinations. He says he’s not sure. The doctor’s gonna send him down for an MRI. Say, aren’t MRIs… giant magnets??? We’ll see once they turn it on. The attendant tells him that he can “hit the button” which is funny. Anyway, off Desmond goes into the machine. Here comes some crazy shit, I bet.
11. The machine turns on and, yep, I was right as usual. Desmond sees Charlie’s death again. Then a shitload of flashbacks to Penny and little baby Charlie. Then he hits the panic button. He says he needs to find Charlie. HEY IT’S JACK SHEPARD. Desmond sees/recognizes him and asks him to help. Oh and here comes Charlie, running around in his hospital gown like a complete lunatic. It’s funny. Desmond chases him. He finally corners him. Charlie figures out that Desmond saw something weird. He asks Charlie who Penny is. Charlie figures out that Desmond saw something. Charlie says “none of this matters”. He recommends that Desmond start looking for Penny. I guess Desmond doesn’t know that Penny is Widmore’s daughter. Commercials.
12. Oh hey, a new episode of FlashForward is on this week. And Penny’s on that show. AND SO IS CHARLIE! I guess they were sick of being on good shows.
13. Desmond’s on the phone with Widmore. He tells him that Charlie escaped. Widmore’s upsetsville because obviously he knows that Charlie is important. Or maybe not. But either way he suggests that Desmond tell Mrs. Widmore what happened. The boss’s wife, that is. Her identity is mysterious! Oh wait, it’s just Faraday’s mom. I forget her name. Maggie? She sees Desmond and freaks out because SHE’S A TIME-SHIFTER or something. But she covers well. Oh right, and it’s “Eloise”, i.e., Ellie. Anyway, he tells her that Driveshaft is unavailable to play with her son (FARADAY!). She’s not concerned apparently. She says “what happened, happened”. Just like she did in earlier episodes of Lost!
14. Desmond overhears the guestlist. Apparently there’s a Penny on the list! He asks about it and Eloise goes nutso. She says the list is confidential and is upset. She clears the entire party tent and starts yelling at him. She says she wants him to stop acting the fool. It’s “a violation”. She knows he’s penetrated the time continuum! Anyway, she says he got what he wanted — Widmore’s approval. He insists on seeing the list, and she says he’s not ready yet. But then she stalks off before she can answer his “ready for what?”. The creepy driver doctor guy asks where he’s going. Desmond drinks and says “just drive”. But then a guy in a hat knocks on the window. DANIEL FARADAYWIDMORE! WHY THE FACE!!!!! So yeah. More commercials.
15. Okay while we wait for the commercials to end, let me just say that I am so glad to see Faraday again. I’m just sad that he doesn’t get to be Charlotte’s husband (or more plausibly, creepy friend) in LA X. But apparently he’s a musician, which makes sense (remember the flashbacks when Eloise made him stop studying piano because he had to be a time travel genius so he would go back in time and get killed by her?). Alas, he seems to be a musician well aware of a disturbance in the force. Which we learn more about now as we see him talking to Desmond…
16. Faraday asks Hume if he believes in love at first sight. He says he saw a woman eating a chocolate bar at a museum. She works at the site of the party. She has… red hair. Aw crap, maybe he will get to be Charlotte’s creepy friend after all! He pulls out a journal, which he says he woke up and wrote some crazy-ass physics stuff in the night after he saw her. Faraday says he took it to his physics pal, who assured him that the stuff was super advanced physics stuff (which of course Faraday-the-musician is not equipped to understand, let alone compose). Faraday is explaining about how his friend kind of explained it — in sum, one can set off a nuclear bomb to mess around with the universe. He says that the LA X universe “wasn’t supposed to be our life” — “for some reason, we changed things”. He suggests that they already did set off the bomb! This is sweet. Faraday asks Desmond why he asked Eloise about Penny. Desmond’s pretty well confused at this point. We all know how you feel, brotha. Anyway, Faraday asserts that Desmond felt “love” when he heard Penny’s name. Desmond says Penny’s “an idea” and Faraday is like, no, she’s actually my half-sister. Which I both already knew and completely forgot so for once a Lost shock-line actually managed to sneak up on me as intended.
17. Desmond walks up to the stairs at the empty stadium where Jack once ran into… I forget who. Desmond, I think? Anyway, Penny’s running the stairs there. Classic! Desmond approaches her and for some reason she doesn’t appear worried that he’s about to assault her. He introduces himself and they shake hands and then WHAM-O, Desmond wakes up in the electromagnetic test room on the Island. Apparently he’s okay. He asks how long he was unconscious. No more than a few seconds, it seems. That was pretty awesome. Anyway, Widmore tells Desmond that his talent is necessary for their mission. For some reason Desmond is no longer curious about the details of what Widmore wants him to do; he just asks “when do we start?” Convenient for narrative suspense, isn’t it?
18. Desmond seems pretty happy. He wanders after Zooey and assorted goons, prepared to carry out whatever plan the script conveniently has arranged for us not to hear anything about yet. Oh, but then Sayid jumps out of the jungle, pulls some assassin shit on a few luckless thugs, and runs everyone else off and kidnaps Desmond. Desmond, despite having just been on board with Widmore’s plan, also seems quite amenable to following Sayid around the jungle.
19. Desmond then wakes up back at the stadium! Penny says he fainted after shaking her hand. He asks her out. Aw, they love each other in any timeline. Kind of odd how neither of them has noted yet that they both have British accents. I’d expect that to be the first thing any ex-pats talk about in America.
20. Desmond asks the weird driver guy to drive him to the coffee place. He also asks the driver for the manifest from Oceanic 815. He says he needs it to “show them something”. THEM WHO? THEM WHO? Yeah, we’re not going to find that out this week.
21. LOST

Final thoughts: I think I need to watch this one all over again (or at least read a recap by somebody who caught all the important stuff). I enjoyed it a lot, however, and look forward to seeing how it’ll all work out so that Desmond’s actions in the LA timeline end up undoing all of his actions in the Island timeline (or something equally complicated and weird). And it was good to see Charlie again — I’m guessing that we’ve seen the last of him now that he served his role in getting Desmond all time-feverish. But more than that, it was great to see Faraday again. Unlike a lot of the wacky cameos we’re getting this season (which, don’t get me wrong, I enjoy quite a bit), Faraday was way too important not to play a meaningful part in the conclusion of the series, so I’m glad to see him in more than an ironic ancillary role. It’s late so I’m going to stop writing now. Looking forward to what I’m now confident will be an eventful, fast-paced, and somewhat satisfying run from here til the last scene of the finale.