Lost just blew my mind. And the minds of one of my favorite characters: Desmond. Why Henry Ian Cusick hasn’t won an Emmy for his work on this show, I don’t know. I was moved and thrilled, elated and, at one point, completely distraught at the thought of Desmond dying. But he lives on in the world of Lost - at least for another week.

I won’t be able to recap this episode in detail just because of how complex it was, but here’s the gist of what my meager brain thinks is going on, and one of my theories on Desmond’s flashes.

You've Been Nuked, D 

The mass exposure to radiation, aka the hatch imploding, had an effect on Desmond which made itself prominent upon Desmond’s flight off the Island. When he got past the “border” territory, he immediately forgot where he was, what time it was or who he was with. It wasn’t until he and Sayid made it onto the freighter that we found out what was going on.

Faraday's Future Relative Friend (oh wait, it's the past.)

Through Sayid’s help, Desmond got on the phone with Daniel Faraday on the Island and Faraday told Desmond to meet him in the past. Yes, Mr. Hume’s mind had been traveling between time - precisely 1996 and 2004 (8 years). Through Faraday’s help in the past as well as the future, Desmond was able to find out what the heck was going on. 1996 Faraday explained to him that the key to not losing your mind and dying from an aneurism of the brain was to have “a constant.” I think this has something to do with the theory of relativity, but I’m not smart enough to actually talk about it. Just something along the lines of you have to have a single point of reference.

Penny Wise 

Desmond had to find this point of reference in both the past and the present/future in order for him to survive his mental lapses (or flashes, or time travels - whatever you want to call them). I’ll let you guess who or what that point of reference was. You got it: Penny. This episode just about explained everything surrounding the Penny search for Desmond.

It turns out that Desmond left Penny in 1996 and joined the military. What happened between then and 2004 is a blur, but it involved him being on the Island for three years (or 8 years?). In 1996, Desmond got a number from Penny to call and he told her that he would call that number on December 24, 2004. To us and Desmond, all of those events took place in the matter of minutes, but to Penny, it was 8 years. He made the call and they were once again reunited, if only briefly on the phone. That was a fantastic, real moment of the episode and probably the best yet of the fourth season.

So Many Questions, Just One Theory 

Everything else is still quite complex and I’ll need some sleep and time to figure it out. Things like what is the time differential? Still 30 minutes or is it 5 years (because Penny has said something about Desmond being gone for 3 years, when he was in fact gone for 8)? And Faraday - apparently he is traveling between time too, and his Constant is Desmond! And oh those numbers! 2.342? 11Hz? 423 Cheyne Walk? What to make of the communications captain of the freighter? He was also able to time travel, but he ended up dying because he didn’t have a Constant. Who is the “friend on the boat?” Is that also Ben’s spy? And finally, a question we do have an answer to (or at least a theory): Now we know how Desmond was able to tell the future. Because he had already lived it, mentally. That’s how he knew Charlie was going to die. That’s how he knew about the helicopter. And that how he knew he would one day return to Penny. Brilliant. Absolutely brilliant.

-bobbysketch