Thursday, February 15. 2007
LOST: "Flashes Before Your Eyes" [SPOILERS]
Wow. Again.
This was a particularly curious episode, for a few reasons. 1) Nearly all of the show took place inside Desmond's "flashback." This somewhat deviates from the "standard format" of the show. 2) It wasn't exactly a "flashback" now, was it? and 3) It was just odd. GREAT, but odd.
There's no other way to approach this one, except to do it in the order it happened. Normally I try to break each "story" out individually, but since there really is only one today....
This was a particularly curious episode, for a few reasons. 1) Nearly all of the show took place inside Desmond's "flashback." This somewhat deviates from the "standard format" of the show. 2) It wasn't exactly a "flashback" now, was it? and 3) It was just odd. GREAT, but odd.
There's no other way to approach this one, except to do it in the order it happened. Normally I try to break each "story" out individually, but since there really is only one today....
"He Sees The Future, Dude!"
We start with Hurley and Charlie going through Sawyer's stuff. (Boy is he gonna be pissed!) Locke and Sayid have returned, so Hurley, Charlie and Desmond go to find out what happened to Mr. Eko. Of course we know that "the island" killed him, but Locke informs the three of this.
Suddenly Desmond starts looking very confused. Is it because of Locke's "island" comment? No! Suddenly he takes off running toward the beach, and dives headlong into the water.
Claire has drifted out a considerable distance, and he swims out to pull the now-unconscious mommy from the ocean. As he brings her back to shore, Charlie is acting awfully possessive, isn't he?
Desmond makes sure she's alright, then just takes off. They wonder what is up with him, and Hurley gets a look...."He sees the future, dude!"
Later, he's sitting pensively on the beach with a photo of his lost love, Penelope Whidmore. Claire approaches and proceeds to thank him. Of course Charlie comes by and starts acting all jealous and wants to know how he knew.
Later still, Charlie and Hurley come up with a scheme to get Desmond drunk in order to get him to talk. They steal a bottle of McCutcheon's whiskey from Sawyer's stash, and head off to find Desmond.
Desmond is on the beach building a fire pit. (Why? Did he know Charlie and Hurley were coming? Did he know he'd be drinking with them here?) He claims to have been drunk far too often as of late and declines...
...until he sees the label on the bottle of whiskey. He starts laughing and says, "alright! lets drink!" and proceeds to start downing the bottle John-Belushi-in-Animal-House style.
So they're all knackered. Charlie starts quizzing Des on how he knew about Claire, and the lightning. Desmond starts coming up with excuses like "he could hear her cries" and so on. Once the lightning gets mentioned, things get a little tense and Desmond storms off. Charlie cries out "you're no hero! You know you're a coward!"
(Did anyone else get "Back to the Future" deja-vu just then? "Nobody calls me chicken! Subtle time-travelling reference there?
)
And Desmond turns around and tackles Charlie. As he's giving it to him, he's yelling, "You don't want to know what happened to me! You don't want to know!"
See You In Another Life, Brother
Then we go back to Desmond and Locke in the hatch. Of course you all remember this part, he yells to Locke "see you in another life" and heads behind the wall to the failsafe key. He says "I love you Penny" (I don't remember this part originally...was it there?) and turns the key.
And the real fun begins.
A bunch of images "flash before his eyes" (I need to go back and isolate them, see what they were) and he wakes up on some floor in a pool of blood.
Oh, wait, no, its just a spilled bucket of red paint! He's with Penny in an apartment they've just moved into, and are getting it painted. He's fallen off the ladder and into the paint.... and then we go to break.
We come back to Desmond, still obviously confused at his current situation. He's staring at the alarm clock in the bedroom. The time? 1:08. (Ha!) And what is that picture on the wall? It looks vaguely like the hatch mural?
They talk briefly about her dad not respecting him (or something, notes got vague there) and then something starts beeping. Exactly like the hatch countdown timer. Of course its just the microwave. Silly!
Skip forward a bit, and he's heading to Daddy Whidmore's office. In reception, he meets up with a delivery man with a package for room 815. He recognizes that, too.
He goes in to see Mr. Whidmore. On his wall is another painting reminiscent of the hatch mural, with the word "namaste" written backwards. (Remember the orientation films?)
They talk about the sailboat Whidmore has a large model of, which is of course the same one that Desmond uses to wind up on the island. (Although I thought the boat was white? This model was dark brown? Maybe its a different boat? Am I confused or not remembering correctly?)
Mr. Whidmore offers to give Des a job in the administrative deparment. Desmond tells him that he's not there for a job, but to ask for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Whidmore is impressed. He recognizes this as a "noble gesture" and heads toward the cabinet, where he grabs a bottle of McCutcheon whiskey and two glasses. Desmond seems to recognize this? (Which seems odd given what he should and shouldn't know at this point.)
He pours some into one glass, says "this swallow is worth more than you'll make in a month" and drinks it down. Then he proceeds to totally rail on our Scottish hero. "You'll never be a great man." And something about "Not what you are, but what you're not." (Sound familiar? From the Jack story?)
Singin In The Rain
He leaves the building in an obviously down mood, and comes across a street-corner singer. It is none other than our Charlie. Des recognizes him and asks him a bunch of questions. Of course for this Charlie nothing has happened yet, and doesn't know what's going on.
Desmond recognizes this moment, and starts running it down, "I took off my tie, and it started to rain..." At which point, as if on cue, it starts raining. Nice.
He rushes off to (what looks like) a university somewhere, to a "Donovan" who is a physics professor there. (Is this one of the arctic station guys? I can't help but think he looks familiar for some reason.)
He takes him down to the pub for a pint, and tells him about his experiences and asks about the possibility of time travel. Of course the prof tells him he's nuts. Desmond thinks he recognizes this moment as well, and runs down what should happen.
But for some reason it doesn't. Donovan tells Des that "true love is just as unlikely" as time travel, and that he should stop messing about and just marry her already.
The One Ring
Meanwhile, back at their flat (hey I had to try!) Des and Penelope are talking about how her father doesn't respect him. She loves him because he's a good man, and they're hard to come by.
He's made the decision to ask her to marry him, and heads off to find a ring. In one shop he asks the older lady behind the counter for one. He finds one, and says "I'll take it."
To which she replies, "No, you won't."
And at this point things go straight down the f-ing rabbit hole, my dear Alice.
So Give it Back
She tells him that she knows him, he'll give the ring back, he'll continue on with his life as he should, wind up on the island pushing the button, and if he doesn't, we are all going to die. If that isn't one of the biggest "WTF" LOST moments of all time I don't know what is.
They walk outside, and she points out a guy wearing a pair of red sneakers, "it's a bold choice, don't you think?" Desmond says something like "this is not really happening then?" or something. (of course I had got distracted at one of the most important points, so I may be unclear!! kids!
)
At that point, Mr. Red Shoes is buried and killed by a collapsing construction scaffold nearby. She knew? Why didn't she stop him? It wouldn't have mattered, he was going to die anyway.
Things have a way of "course correcting" as she put it. He had to die, it was his path. Desmond says "I can choose my path." And she refutes him. (Another aside, were here eyes just a little strange? Little tiny pupils and huge blue irises? And what's up with the coiled snake brooch she was wearing?)
Now, lets stop the recap for a moment and delve into this a bit. Who exactly is this woman? Is any of this actually happening? Is this just Desmond going on a little journey into his mind or did he actually get tossed back in time?
More interesting, though is the discussion of free will vs. destiny. It would seem that our lady might be a representation of fate? Or is she something outside reality, an angel perhaps? Bound by fate without the possibility of free will? If that's so, maybe Desmond is as well? And by casting destiny aside and embracing free will, what does that make him? Ooooh, can't go there without getting a little too "out there" now, can we?
The Royal Scots
So it turns out he made the choice to take the ring. He passes a recruitment poster for the "Royal Scots" and stops to take it in, knowing what happened to him before. He meets up with Penny and they get their photo taken (the same one he had on the beach.)
For whatever reason, Desmond seems to do a 180 and accept his fate. He tells Penny that he can't do this. That its "not supposed to be." And with that he takes the ring and chucks it into the river. (I wonder if we'll see that again my precious?)
Duck, Brother!
So he's back at the bar. The barkeep asks what he'll have, and he glances up at the bottle of McCutcheons. Instead he asks for "a pint of your cheapest" and proceeds to sulk. "I've made the biggest mistake of my life, and I think I've made it before."
He recognizes this moment as the one he thought about from the other night. It dawns on him that maybe he's not mad after all, and as he's leaving to tell the barkeep to duck! And in doing so takes the cricket bat right in the face, instead of the bartender.
So in doing that, did he actually change things? Or was that what was supposed to have happened? Makes you wonder.
I'll Change It This Time
He wakes up this time, back in the jungle in his birthday suit, where we found him before. He takes survey of the damage around him, and mumbles to himself, "You've killed them."
He picks up the photo of him and Penelope from before. He asks for another chance, just one more chance. That he can change things this time. Only trouble is, brother, you've already had two chances. Which is one more than most of us get. I don't know that you'll be getting another.
You're Going To Die
So we return to Charlie carting off a stumbling Desmond, both of them making their apologies for acting like idiots by the fire. How did you know!?
When he turned the key, his whole life flashed before his eyes, only the flashes didn't stop.*
Turns out that he wasn't actually saving Claire. By saving Claire he kept Charlie out of the water. Ditto with the lightning, if he hadn't, Charlie would have been electrocuted....
"You can't stop it forever, You're going to die."
*BONK (this is my representation the "LOST sound", what do you think?)
Conclusions
Holy 88 miles-per-hour, Batman! What the heck is going on here!? We got answered tonight:
I think I'll just let what I've said above speak for itself, and just pose the following questions
Technorati Tags: LOST, tv, television, flashes before your eyes, reviews, opinion, theories, characters, desmond, penelope whidmore, charlie, hurley, claire
We start with Hurley and Charlie going through Sawyer's stuff. (Boy is he gonna be pissed!) Locke and Sayid have returned, so Hurley, Charlie and Desmond go to find out what happened to Mr. Eko. Of course we know that "the island" killed him, but Locke informs the three of this.
Suddenly Desmond starts looking very confused. Is it because of Locke's "island" comment? No! Suddenly he takes off running toward the beach, and dives headlong into the water.
Claire has drifted out a considerable distance, and he swims out to pull the now-unconscious mommy from the ocean. As he brings her back to shore, Charlie is acting awfully possessive, isn't he?
Desmond makes sure she's alright, then just takes off. They wonder what is up with him, and Hurley gets a look...."He sees the future, dude!"
Later, he's sitting pensively on the beach with a photo of his lost love, Penelope Whidmore. Claire approaches and proceeds to thank him. Of course Charlie comes by and starts acting all jealous and wants to know how he knew.
Later still, Charlie and Hurley come up with a scheme to get Desmond drunk in order to get him to talk. They steal a bottle of McCutcheon's whiskey from Sawyer's stash, and head off to find Desmond.
Desmond is on the beach building a fire pit. (Why? Did he know Charlie and Hurley were coming? Did he know he'd be drinking with them here?) He claims to have been drunk far too often as of late and declines...
...until he sees the label on the bottle of whiskey. He starts laughing and says, "alright! lets drink!" and proceeds to start downing the bottle John-Belushi-in-Animal-House style.
So they're all knackered. Charlie starts quizzing Des on how he knew about Claire, and the lightning. Desmond starts coming up with excuses like "he could hear her cries" and so on. Once the lightning gets mentioned, things get a little tense and Desmond storms off. Charlie cries out "you're no hero! You know you're a coward!"
(Did anyone else get "Back to the Future" deja-vu just then? "Nobody calls me chicken! Subtle time-travelling reference there?
)And Desmond turns around and tackles Charlie. As he's giving it to him, he's yelling, "You don't want to know what happened to me! You don't want to know!"
See You In Another Life, Brother
Then we go back to Desmond and Locke in the hatch. Of course you all remember this part, he yells to Locke "see you in another life" and heads behind the wall to the failsafe key. He says "I love you Penny" (I don't remember this part originally...was it there?) and turns the key.
And the real fun begins.
A bunch of images "flash before his eyes" (I need to go back and isolate them, see what they were) and he wakes up on some floor in a pool of blood.
Oh, wait, no, its just a spilled bucket of red paint! He's with Penny in an apartment they've just moved into, and are getting it painted. He's fallen off the ladder and into the paint.... and then we go to break.
We come back to Desmond, still obviously confused at his current situation. He's staring at the alarm clock in the bedroom. The time? 1:08. (Ha!) And what is that picture on the wall? It looks vaguely like the hatch mural?
They talk briefly about her dad not respecting him (or something, notes got vague there) and then something starts beeping. Exactly like the hatch countdown timer. Of course its just the microwave. Silly!
Skip forward a bit, and he's heading to Daddy Whidmore's office. In reception, he meets up with a delivery man with a package for room 815. He recognizes that, too.
He goes in to see Mr. Whidmore. On his wall is another painting reminiscent of the hatch mural, with the word "namaste" written backwards. (Remember the orientation films?)
They talk about the sailboat Whidmore has a large model of, which is of course the same one that Desmond uses to wind up on the island. (Although I thought the boat was white? This model was dark brown? Maybe its a different boat? Am I confused or not remembering correctly?)
Mr. Whidmore offers to give Des a job in the administrative deparment. Desmond tells him that he's not there for a job, but to ask for Penelope's hand in marriage.
Whidmore is impressed. He recognizes this as a "noble gesture" and heads toward the cabinet, where he grabs a bottle of McCutcheon whiskey and two glasses. Desmond seems to recognize this? (Which seems odd given what he should and shouldn't know at this point.)
He pours some into one glass, says "this swallow is worth more than you'll make in a month" and drinks it down. Then he proceeds to totally rail on our Scottish hero. "You'll never be a great man." And something about "Not what you are, but what you're not." (Sound familiar? From the Jack story?)
Singin In The Rain
He leaves the building in an obviously down mood, and comes across a street-corner singer. It is none other than our Charlie. Des recognizes him and asks him a bunch of questions. Of course for this Charlie nothing has happened yet, and doesn't know what's going on.
Desmond recognizes this moment, and starts running it down, "I took off my tie, and it started to rain..." At which point, as if on cue, it starts raining. Nice.
He rushes off to (what looks like) a university somewhere, to a "Donovan" who is a physics professor there. (Is this one of the arctic station guys? I can't help but think he looks familiar for some reason.)
He takes him down to the pub for a pint, and tells him about his experiences and asks about the possibility of time travel. Of course the prof tells him he's nuts. Desmond thinks he recognizes this moment as well, and runs down what should happen.
But for some reason it doesn't. Donovan tells Des that "true love is just as unlikely" as time travel, and that he should stop messing about and just marry her already.
The One Ring
Meanwhile, back at their flat (hey I had to try!) Des and Penelope are talking about how her father doesn't respect him. She loves him because he's a good man, and they're hard to come by.
He's made the decision to ask her to marry him, and heads off to find a ring. In one shop he asks the older lady behind the counter for one. He finds one, and says "I'll take it."
To which she replies, "No, you won't."
And at this point things go straight down the f-ing rabbit hole, my dear Alice.
So Give it Back
She tells him that she knows him, he'll give the ring back, he'll continue on with his life as he should, wind up on the island pushing the button, and if he doesn't, we are all going to die. If that isn't one of the biggest "WTF" LOST moments of all time I don't know what is.
They walk outside, and she points out a guy wearing a pair of red sneakers, "it's a bold choice, don't you think?" Desmond says something like "this is not really happening then?" or something. (of course I had got distracted at one of the most important points, so I may be unclear!! kids!
)At that point, Mr. Red Shoes is buried and killed by a collapsing construction scaffold nearby. She knew? Why didn't she stop him? It wouldn't have mattered, he was going to die anyway.
Things have a way of "course correcting" as she put it. He had to die, it was his path. Desmond says "I can choose my path." And she refutes him. (Another aside, were here eyes just a little strange? Little tiny pupils and huge blue irises? And what's up with the coiled snake brooch she was wearing?)
Now, lets stop the recap for a moment and delve into this a bit. Who exactly is this woman? Is any of this actually happening? Is this just Desmond going on a little journey into his mind or did he actually get tossed back in time?
More interesting, though is the discussion of free will vs. destiny. It would seem that our lady might be a representation of fate? Or is she something outside reality, an angel perhaps? Bound by fate without the possibility of free will? If that's so, maybe Desmond is as well? And by casting destiny aside and embracing free will, what does that make him? Ooooh, can't go there without getting a little too "out there" now, can we?
The Royal Scots
So it turns out he made the choice to take the ring. He passes a recruitment poster for the "Royal Scots" and stops to take it in, knowing what happened to him before. He meets up with Penny and they get their photo taken (the same one he had on the beach.)
For whatever reason, Desmond seems to do a 180 and accept his fate. He tells Penny that he can't do this. That its "not supposed to be." And with that he takes the ring and chucks it into the river. (I wonder if we'll see that again my precious?)
Duck, Brother!
So he's back at the bar. The barkeep asks what he'll have, and he glances up at the bottle of McCutcheons. Instead he asks for "a pint of your cheapest" and proceeds to sulk. "I've made the biggest mistake of my life, and I think I've made it before."
He recognizes this moment as the one he thought about from the other night. It dawns on him that maybe he's not mad after all, and as he's leaving to tell the barkeep to duck! And in doing so takes the cricket bat right in the face, instead of the bartender.
So in doing that, did he actually change things? Or was that what was supposed to have happened? Makes you wonder.
I'll Change It This Time
He wakes up this time, back in the jungle in his birthday suit, where we found him before. He takes survey of the damage around him, and mumbles to himself, "You've killed them."
He picks up the photo of him and Penelope from before. He asks for another chance, just one more chance. That he can change things this time. Only trouble is, brother, you've already had two chances. Which is one more than most of us get. I don't know that you'll be getting another.
You're Going To Die
So we return to Charlie carting off a stumbling Desmond, both of them making their apologies for acting like idiots by the fire. How did you know!?
When he turned the key, his whole life flashed before his eyes, only the flashes didn't stop.*
Turns out that he wasn't actually saving Claire. By saving Claire he kept Charlie out of the water. Ditto with the lightning, if he hadn't, Charlie would have been electrocuted....
"You can't stop it forever, You're going to die."
*BONK (this is my representation the "LOST sound", what do you think?)
Conclusions
Holy 88 miles-per-hour, Batman! What the heck is going on here!? We got answered tonight:
- What happened to Desmond during his "down time" after the hatch implosion
- "Sort of" why he seems to know what's going on. Sort of. Kind of. Maybe. OK, not really.
I think I'll just let what I've said above speak for itself, and just pose the following questions
- Still, WHY does he know what's going to happen? When he says the flashes "didn't stop" does that mean that he got to see the rest of his life after that moment as well? And in great detail?
- What is the connection between Charlie and Desmond? I think I have a theory, but its strange and in the conception phase. Has to do with guardian angels and the like. Hey I said it was strange. Why does Desmond seem bound to protect him now?
- WHO WAS THE WOMAN?! If we've learned anything at all from this show, its that there are very few coincidences. Did any of that "flashback" happen at all? Was it all in his head? Was he just "remembering" things with the benefit of 20/20 hindsight, and this woman was his common sense speaking to him? ARGH! Thanks Damon and Carlton! I'm hoping she was just some sort of metaphorical device, if not things are going to get really, really weird.
- Who is/was Donovan?
- Does Desmond (or any of our castaways) have any sort of free will in any of this at all? Or are they all bound by destiny?
Technorati Tags: LOST, tv, television, flashes before your eyes, reviews, opinion, theories, characters, desmond, penelope whidmore, charlie, hurley, claire
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The PlanetLOST Season Three Recaps
Now that the fun is over (for a while it seems!) Here's a quick reference to the season three recaps and analysis threads.... Man, some of these feel like soooo long ago!A Tale of Two CitiesThe Glass BallerinaFurther InstructionsEvery Man for Himsel
Now that the fun is over (for a while it seems!) Here's a quick reference to the season three recaps and analysis threads.... Man, some of these feel like soooo long ago!A Tale of Two CitiesThe Glass BallerinaFurther InstructionsEvery Man for Himsel
Weblog: Planet LOST
Tracked: May 30, 20:10
Tracked: May 30, 20:10
Thanks for your insights... makes the show all the more entertaining!
Thanks
PS. Did you notice the name on the red Paint can... Looks like the beginning of futu(re)