LostEpisode 514The VariableEpisode 514 marked the 100th episode of this series, and it’s ensured that we won’t forget it in a hurry. It’s taken everything they’ve made us believe about time travel and turned it upside down. I really don’t know what to think anymore.
Our story this week picks up from when Ben shoots Desmond. Desmond is now at the hospital where doctors are trying to save his life. Mrs Hawking approaches Penny and tells her that her son is responsible for Desmond being in hospital. Desmond recovers and tells Penny that he made a promise never to leave her again.
Mrs Hawkings meets Widmore outside the hospital. It comes to light that Widmore believes his relationship with his daughter was a sacrifice he was willing to make. We also learn that Widmore is Daniel’s father.
The flashback this week belonged to Daniel and we see that from a very young age, Daniel had been driven into the field of science. Mrs Hawking gifts him with a journal when he graduates, and some time later when he is suffering with memory loss, she convinces him to go on Widmore’s expedition to the island as it will make her proud of him.
On the island (in 1977), Daniel tries to convince Dr Chang to evacuate the island as an incident will occur in 4 hours time. Dr Chang isn’t buying any of Daniel’s suggestions though.
At Dharmaville, the Losties are now all having a meeting and they decide to leave Dharmaville before they are found out. But Daniel arrives and the group is split again as Kate and Jack take him to see his mother, who is still an Other at this point.
However, while getting prepared to leave, Jack, Kate and Daniel are involved in a shootout with Radzinsky and a few others. Jack and co manage to escape to the fence where they deactivate the fence and set off for the Other’s camp. When they reach it, Daniel proceeds alone.
He causes much alarm and asks Richard where the hydrogen bomb is – the one he asked Richard to bury. Daniel is shot by his mother and he dies after telling her that even though she knew she would kill him, she sent him back.
Meanwhile, a terribly enraged Radzinsky heads for Sawyer’s cabin where they find Phil, bound in the cupboard. Sawyer and Juliet are now prisoners of Radzinsky.
What an awesome episode!! And I have not even mentioned the thing that has my brain fried as yet!!! We all know that Daniel has drilled it into everyone’s heads that whatever happened, happened. Time is constant and they cannot change it. Well. It seems that he was wrong. He tells Jack that.. oh, just let me quote it here:
Daniel: … But... we can change that. I studied relativistic physics my entire life. One thing emerged over and over--can't change the past. Can't do it. Whatever happened, happened. All right? But then I finally realized... I had been spending so much time focused on the constants, I forgot about the variables. Do you know what the variables in these equations are, Jack? Jack: No.Daniel: Us. We're the variables. People. We think. We reason. We make choices. We have free will. We can change our destiny. I think I can negate that energy under the Swan. I think I can destroy it. If I can, then that hatch will never be built, and your plane... your plane will land, just like it's supposed to, in Los Angeles.And he intends doing this by detonating the hydrogen bomb that he asked Richard to bury 20-ish years earlier!
Anyway, key points are:
• The Variable vs Constant thing. Now Daniel tells us that they can change their destinies, they can change the future – and change their pasts in so doing! Can this really happen? If they destroy the hatch, they will never crash on the island. How then does the hatch get destroyed if they never travel back in time? In my opinion changing the variables creates a paradox. The only other thing I can think of is that they use both the “whatever happened happened” rule and combine it with the new variable rule.
Whatever happens happens – ie… the plane crashes, the hatch explodes, the incident happens etc etc, but the variable change – the people involved change. Our Losties don’t get on Flight 815. Sawyer never gets apprehended. Charlie doesn’t visit his brother. Claire decides to keep her baby. But then wouldn’t we get a different group of Losties? People would still crash on the island. Maybe Widmore would still send Daniel and Miles there.
My head really, really hurts.
The other option is that there are multiple time lines, or multiple universes. I’m not sure I like the idea of multiple universes. It’s all very Star Trek.
What do you think of this whole thing??
Then again, judging from the fact that Daniel is now dead, maybe they cannot change the variables… and whatever happened happened.
• Mrs Hawking pushed Daniel to quite an extent despite knowing that she would one day be the one to kill him. I’m quite sure that she knows that Daniel is her son. Somewhere along the line she believes it. And still she pushes him and pushes him and ultimately sends him to the island. Why? Is it because they cannot change anything despite what Daniel thinks??
• Daniel’s notebook is crammed full of information containing algorithms, equations and, it seems, details of things that have happened on the island. Ok, Daniel could have done some research but how does he know precisely where and when things are going to happen?
• Is Daniel really dead? I just ask because I don’t want him to be. I’ve gotten quite attached to him.
• Radzinsky has always been super jumpy and suspicious. Now that he’s taken Juliet and Sawyer prisoner, I’m sure Jin, Hurley and Miles will be apprehended soon. How are they going to talk themselves out of that one?
• Why doesn’t Richard recognize Daniel? Richard met Daniel some 20ish years earlier – Daniel told him that they have to bury the hydrogen bomb. Richard can’t have forgotten that.
• Why is Daniel so moved by the footage of the fake plane crash? Could it be that Daniel is not dead and has somehow been time traveling? Long shot, I know. But I really don’t want Daniel to be dead.
• Desmond is Daniel’s constant, and Penny is Desmond’s constant. Does this mean that Desmond and Penny are safe? Or does it mean that no matter what happens, their story will always be the same? I think that this episode contained a bit of foreshadowing on Desmond and Penny. They make a big deal of Desmond telling Penny that he will never leave her again.
Please don’t kill Desmond off!! I just get the feeling that that was just one big steaming chunk of things to come.
I know that this is a short article this week, but seriously, I just don’t know what to make of this anymore. I’m honestly at a loss for words.
What we learnt this week• Daniel says that they can change the variables (people) but not the constants.
• Eloise Hawking sent her son to the island knowing that she would be the one who would one day kill him.
• Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father. (Didn’t see that one coming, but somehow, it doesn’t surprise me)
• The incident happens very soon and it’s (according to Daniel) some sort of electromagnetical explosion.
New Questions this week
• Will the Losties be able to alter events and change their destinies?
• What is going to happen to Sawyer and the others?
• Where is Sayid??
• If Daniel is not dead, can the island heal him?
Interesting Trivia (from
this site)
• Daniel wears a jumpsuit with the name of "Joe" and job description of "Constructor".
• The music Daniel is playing on the piano, both as a child and an adult is Chopin's "Fantaisie-Impromptu", which also was used as the basis for the song "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", which was a hit both in the early and mid 1900s (1918 and 1946). The title of the adapted song may refer to the futility of what Dan's trying to do.
• Widmore moves over a copy of a WIRED Magazine to sit on Faraday's couch. JJ Abrams guest-edited a recent edition of Wired, issue 17-05.
•
Memento: Daniel saying "I have this condition..." is very similar to main character Leonard Shelby's mantra in the 2000 movie Memento.
In the movie, Leonard is unable to make new memories and doesn't remember people, places or things. He ends up telling and retelling people "I have this condition" even when he just left them minutes ago.
• Slaughterhouse-Five: Daniel crying at the television is reminiscent of Billy Pilgrim's memory loss and random tears in the book Slaughterhouse-Five. Also, Daniel uses Miles in an attempt to convince Dr. Chang he is from the future, which is similar to Billy Pilgrim using Montana Wildhack to convince his daughter he had been to the future.
•
H.G. Wells: Sawyer refers to Daniel as H.G. Wells, a famous science fiction author known for his works "The Invisible Man", "The Time Machine", and "The Shape of Things to Come"
• Daniel mentions Chernobyl.
The 1986 Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear reactor accident at the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant in Ukraine, then part of the Soviet Union. It is considered to be the worst nuclear power plant disaster in history.
• Hurley:
You guys were in 1954? Like... Fonzie times?This quotes alludes to the show Happy Days, which ironically had its original run 1974-1984.
It seems more likely though that Hurley was referring to its setting, which was that of 1950s life in America.
Screencaps (from
this site)
Early Otherville
Blowing up stuff and escaping
Daniel talking to young Charlotte
Sawyer and Juliet
Penny and Charlie