A Christmas Constant

First, a confession: time travel and epic romance are possibly two of my favourite plots. So, for “The Constant” to combine the two, and to do so in such a beautiful, touching, and original way was absolute genius. I like to think of this episode, in which Desmond got a Christmas Eve miracle worthy of his favourite author Charles Dickens, as something of a late Christmas present. So, thank you very much Damon & Carlton.

I feel an episode like this is Lost really living up to its potential, by taking concepts that could easily be cheesy or cliché-ridden, and spinning them into a wholly original tale. It fully engaged both the head & the heart without being either coyly frustrating or cheaply sentimental. The time-travel romance has been done to death in many forms, but the idea here of a constant is, I believe, a true original. After last week’s Jack-Kate-Sawyer soap opera hijinx, I was starting to grow weary of love on the Island – but then along came the desperately & unabashedly romantic Desmond Hume & Penelope Widmore to restore my faith. Much like Des needing a constant in both past & future to which he was emotionally attached in order to stabilise him in time, their love story gave this episode the emotional grounding it needed not to get bogged down in time-travel confusion.

The journey from the Island reactivates Desmond’s time-travel ability, only this time it’s his past self who’s brought forward, & he keeps switching back & forth between the two times. As far as the timeline goes, we seem to be not much after the events of “Flashes Before Your Eyes” – less than a year, I’d say. Desmond is searching for honour & courage in the army, while Penny wants nothing to do with him after the break up. At first I thought that the strange behaviour brought about by Desmond’s consciousness shifts would lead him to unwittingly do whatever it was that landed him in prison, but that didn’t seem to be the case. I do hope we see that eventually, as it seems fairly pivotal. Something else that could do with an explanation is how Penny goes from (justifiably) never wanting to see Desmond again to spending three years of her life searching for him.

Ah, but I came to praise Lost this week, not criticise it. These weren’t flashbacks after all, but time shifts, & as such their primary focus was not to enlighten us on Desmond’s personal history, but rather to display a glorious mixture of character development intertwined with mythological goodness. And I do believe there were a few answers sprinkled somewhere in there too.

“Rats in a maze with no cheese” was Locke’s response when he found out the button in the Swan hatch was nothing more than a psychological experiment. So he stopped pressing it  – and as a result, the hatch ex/imploded, turned the sky purple, & sent Desmond back in time. Turns out there was a purpose after all. Here there is a literal rat in a maze – with no cheese. Dan’s time machine turns the sky purple, and Eloise the rat gets sent forward in time. When she returns she has the answers. Fantastic! Shortly afterwards, she dies. Not so fantastic. So, what does this tell us – besides that the writers love metaphors involving games & rodents (the game Mousetrap has also cropped up several times)? Maybe that all the Losties are lab rats being experimented on, or pieces in a game much larger than they can imagine. I found Mr Widmore’s behaviour very interesting: whereas in the past he has gone to great lengths to keep Penny & Desmond apart, here he willingly gave up Penny’s address. Between that & leaving the tap running it was almost like he knew what was happening to Desmond. Could he be conspiring, along with Mrs Hawking & Brother Campbell, to make sure Desmond fulfills some higher purpose on the Island? Since “Flashes”, I’ve felt that Widmore could be behind Dharma/Hanso. And then there was his interest in the Black Rock ledger at the auction…

Speaking of the sky turning purple, seeing as that seems to be a trigger for the time travel, could that be the answer behind the mystery of why only 6 Lostaways get rescued? Jack, Kate, Hurley & Sayid were all on the other side of the Island when the Hatch blew, and we know they all get rescued. Perhaps those at the beach got a high enough dosage of electromagnetism to cause the time travel, & as such, opt not to chance the trip?