LOST: Dnomsed

I love me a Desmond episode.

Hume, Milton, Widmore, Faraday, Hawking, what do they all have in common? Gotta be something big because my theory just about got blown up with last week’s episode.

This whole time I have been assuming that there are two universes, and I kind of had the rules and regulations set (thanks, Fringe). JJ Abrams had lead to me believe that we were dealing with two universes here: Universe X, and Universe 815. Universe X is the new one, the alternate universe, the flash sideways. Universe X is what could have been if the Universe 815 people somehow cause the island to be submerged under water since the 1970s thanks to some handy universe and/or time travel.

Now that’s what I have been going off of. I don’t even know why it has been so important to me to try and keep some record of rules or what’s going on. I should just be enjoying the last few hours of LOST, right? Well, thanks Des for reminding me that A)I will never know what the hell is going on and B)it doesn’t matter. What matters with LOST, what has always mattered with LOST, is the characters. Who are these people? Where did they come from? Where are they going? Why are they intertwined? We will never figure out the Universe but at least we have a shot at each other, right?

This little existential breakthrough didn’t happen until a week after my first two viewings, so this was more what my brain has been doing lately: Are there several alternate timelines? Like Universes X, Y and Z running around, happening? Like when Desmond first met Eloise Hawking after turning the key in the hatch, and that guy with the red shoes died and Eloise told Des that he had to go to the island and push the button. Or when Desmond’s brain started short circuiting on the freighter and he had to find Penny, his constant, and vaguely recognized everything going on around him. But was this the same timeline as the red shoes timeline? His consciousness was allegedly jumping through time, but was it also skipping universes? How did Penny cross over to be able to call him in Universe “?” and Universe 815? Is that the whole point of a constant and I totally missed that? He had his constant, Penny, that connected him to “his real life” but he kept feeling like he wasn’t supposed to be on the island and that it was 1996. So was it his past 1996 or a different version of 1996? How was Penny able to answer the phone on Xmas eve if that parallel world hasn’t caught up to island time yet?? If Desmond has a unique ability to split his consciousness between two universes, is he always asleep/unconscious/exposed to loads of electromagnetism in one universe? Why is Desmond’s conscious so bad ass?  WHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT

Well I just don’t know anymore. But here is what we do know: We know that Desmond is somehow special when it comes to electromagnetism survival. We know Charles Widmore knows this and needs Des to make a sacrifice. We know Des can somehow access multiple Universes. We know in Universe X that Desmond is a successful businessman who is besties with Widmore and doesn’t know Penny. We know that Daniel Faraday is Daniel Widmore in Universe X and his half-sister Penny is Penelope Widmore. We know Eloise Hawking is Eloise Widmore in Universe X and she is kind of a ball buster. We know that Daniel knows something weird is going on with the whole soul mates/deja vu situation going on in his life. We know Charlie didn’t try to kill himself on the plane, but now kind of wants to have near death experiences because it is somehow connecting him to the Other side. We know that “not penny’s boat” links us to Desmond’s constant, Penny, which was supposed to reorient Desmond with time travel. We know that Des and Penny are M.F.E.O.

Questionable information: Eloise. She knows what’s up. She was all “the universe has a way of course correcting…push the damn button…don’t marry Penny,” she totally manipulated Daniel in Universe 815 to be a scientist, she manipulated all the Oceanic 6 people in that Universe to go back to the island, and she was the leader of the Others. In Universe 815, she told Penny at the hospital that for the first time in a long time she didn’t know what was going to happen. Was she part of orchestrating Desmond’s kidnapping to the island? I think so because she said the same thing that Charles said later: the island isn’t done with you yet. She also knew what was happening to Desmond in Universe X when she was a big ol bitch about Penny being on the guest list and Des not being ready to see it. Sounds a little anti free will to me, Miss Hawking/Widmore/crazy.

This episode was way too loaded with theory for me to even try and unravel. We left Desmond’s consciousness on the island, having survived the electromagnetism fiasco for twenty minutes. Why was he so calm and cooperative at the end of that ordeal? Is he of one mind with several bodies or something? Even if he didn’t need the explanation from Widmore, I would have liked to have heard about what was going on. Then, when stupid annoying Zoe was leading him somewhere, Sayid came and kicked some ass (and was surprisingly more animated than when we last saw him), and then Desmond just went with Sayid. WTF? It reminded me of the scene in Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince when Harry had the felix felicis and was just kind of in a haze of confidence. Does he just know what to do now? Have I asked enough rhetorical questions this week? Does Des just trust himself now, has he made a communication station out of his brain to connect with his other self? Universe X Desmond was just as freaky in Universe X in the limo, knowing that he had to show something to all the people that were on Oceanic 815.

Well this is the end of the line for me. This week marked the end of me trying to figure out the universal structure that is LOST. Seriously, do they have a quantum physicist on staff at ABC? Another important thing that happened this week: I fell more in love with Des than with Richard. The scales could shift again, who knows where they will stand at the end of this, but for now, Desmond has reminded me just how much I love this show, and I don’t need to understand it for it to be my constant source of entertainment.

For another opinion about this episode, read See You In Another Life Brotha by Bilal Mian.

Season 6, Episode 11: Happily Ever After (Originally Aired April 6, 2010)

For more on Lost, click here.

Tuesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC and Mario Perez.