Lost: The Constant . . . Season 4, Episdode 5

If you weren't a fan of Lost before this episode, well, you're probably still not a fan now.

 

Not that it wasn’t a fine episode, but it wasn’t the best way to introduce the series to a new viewer, especially if the newbie had an aversion to science-fiction. Without question "The Constant" was the most Star Trek-yof any episode I've seen to date.

 

The events on the island are so secondary as to be extraneous, and largely act as a plot device for the off-shore action. So with your kind permission, I think we'll start on the freighter.

 

While en route to the ship Desmond experiences a dramatic out of body experience. For the rest of the episode his consciousness is bounced back and forth between 1996 and 2004; keep in mind that at no point is the ‘Desmond’ we know present except at the start and end of the show. From the moment the trouble starts his body is inhabited by the 1996 version of himself.

 

 

 

There are a dozen different time travel stories that have used a similar idea, so it’s certainly not very original: Somewhere in Time, Slaughterhouse Five, Quantum Leap, 12 Monkeys, etc. I think it was crafted well and did what it needed to do, but really, why bother? I have to assume, based almost soley on the note in Daniel’s journal at the end, that the time-travel issue will arise again, perhaps as a major plot point.

 

 

 

If it doesn’t, then the whole episode was really just filler.

 

Not that we didn’t learn some things. There is a legitimate time discrepancy between the island and the ‘world’. Daniel acknowledged it, Sayid mentioned they left at dusk for a 20 minute flight and arrived at midday, and there was of course the whole rocket experiment in a previous episode.

 

{anyone else find the Oxford bit a straight rip-off of the Back to The Future scenes where Marty convinces the 1955 Doc Brown he's legit?}

 

 

 

But how much of a variance is there? The freighter is shown to exist on Christmas Eve of 2004, yet the Losties on the island are somewhere near their 100th day (I forget the exact number) so they too are nearing Christmas. What gives? Is this just a continuity error or is the time variance nothing more than a perception issue, rather than a real time lag? If the latter, how the hell does that make sense?

 

Minkowski was kind of a wasted character, no? He’s introduced as the voice on the radio early in the season, presumably for no other reason than to validate Desmond’s experiences here, then drops dead. Whatever.

 

 

 

Why would ‘Ben’s man’ on the boat both release the hostages and destroy the radio room? With Sayid and Desmond looking for a way off the island, wouldn’t it have made more sense to keep them locked up?

 

[Love Sayid’s ‘give me a minute’ when asked if he could repair the mangled radio room. And could someone please tell me where the heck Penny was on Christmas Eve? I get the whole dramatic endless ringing of the phone, but if you’ve been expecting a call on that date for 8 years wouldn’tyou take the dang phone with you wherever you went, even to the loo?]

 

 

 

Penny might have waited eight years for the call, but she’s seen him in the years between ’96-’04, at the very least at the track stadium, no?

Note that at the auction, when the log of the Black Rock was sold, they gave the sailing date as March 22nd 1845. Dynamite, of which there was plenty in her hold, wasn’t invented until 1866. 

Could a blatant error like that be intentional? And the seller was Tovard Hanso, presumably of the Hanso foundation, an (evil?) organization that’s popped up before in the Lost mythology.

 

Anyone else catch the Charles Dicken’s item up for sale after that? A pretty non-subtle nod to Desmond’s obsession, I thought. And note that Keamy, the guy on the freighter, states that they are in the Pacific, laying waste to some thought I saw online that they might be in the Indian Ocean.

 

One thing that really irked me throughout the episode was the use of The Numbers. They seemed to be popping up everywhere, as if the writers were beating us over the head with them. Desmond told Daniel to set the machine for 2.342. The auction lot was number 2342. Penny’s address was 423, etc. I’m sure were more that I’m forgetting,(Or at least I hope so, lest this be a b.s. paragraph) 

 

In the end, I loved the Penelope-Desmond phone call that served as the climax of the episode. At it’s heart Lost is about two things: mystery, and love, albeit not very trouble-free love.

 

Doubt the last part? Think I’m a melodramatic fool?  Ok then – love of family (Kate/her Mom – Jack/His Dad – Charlie/his brother – Locke/his Dad - Walt/Michael - Shannon/Boone). Romantic love (Sayid/Shannon – Kate/Jack/Sawyer – Sun/Jin – Desmond/Penny – Hurley and his crazy, now deceased gal).

 

So the ending was romantic, and sweet, and over the top in its foolish idealistic notion of love reunited, but you know what?

 

I had a wee bit of a tear in me eye watching it, so I’m not about to complain.

 

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Tags: blogplugs, Lost, Sayid, Desmond