Quick Take: Lost, "Happily Ever After"
"The island isn't done with you yet." – Charles Widmore to Desmond
Review: Lost, "Happily Ever After"
(S0110) At the end of "The Package," we learned that the package was a person, Desmond, and not an object. To kick things off this week, Desmond's father-in-law, bitter enemy, and chief rival (or so it seems) to Not Locke/Smoke Monster Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) tells a disoriented Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), "I've brought you back to the island."
Now that's a fine how d'you do, don't you think? Desmond attacks and, when restrained by Widmore's goons, cries, "Take me back! Take me back!"
Widmore replies, "I can't take you back. The island isn't done with you yet."
How about a fine how d'you don't? Widmore wants to see if Desmond, the only person in the world to survive a "catastrophic electromagnetic event," can survive one again. It makes you wonder if that's akin to taking someone who has survived a direct lightning strike and having lightning hit them again to see if they're special?
The ironic twists that we've come to expect from the flash sideways don’t disappoint, as Widmore is Desmond's boss and seemingly devoted friend and mentor. Desmond, now Widmore's right hand man, is sent on a "trivial" errand to babysit our old and dear and departed friend Charlie (Dominic Monagham), who has just been arrested for heroin possession and needs to be revived in time for a big deal charity event (featuring Drive Shaft, yeah!).
Desmond and Charlie share a drink, and Charlie explains that he saw the true face of love on the flight from Sydney, which may or may not have anything to do with the heroin that is stuck in his throat. Desmond goads Charlie into leaving with him, and then Desmond says one of the more interesting lines in a season full of them:
"Is any of this a choice, brother?"
That strikes to the heart of what this show is about, what role fate plays versus free will, fundamental and opposing forces that have been debated for ages, and played out here in a spooky, at times meandering, but typically thoroughly entertaining, intriguing, and suspenseful little sci fi/action/adventure/drama (how's that for a description?).
Shortly after, one of creepier sequences in Lost history goes down: Charlie forces Desmond to plunge their car into the harbor, and as Desmond is trying to save the addled Brit from drowning, Charlie puts his hand up against the glass of his passenger seat window. This hearkens to the scene in which Charlie found something of redemption in his "initial" death, but there's more: a mysterious message, "NOT PENNY'S BOAT," flashes on Charlie's hand several times.
It seems that Charlie was trying to show Desmond… something, and Desmond felt it like a wallop. The grander implication may well be that some people in the flash sideways have some sort of "connection" between the two worlds, or realities. Additionally, the flashes of light, time travel, and time/space jumps that marked a number of episodes late last season (including the season-ending nuke) are now being brought back into focus.
Which is why it makes sense (or Lost sense, if you like) that Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) shows up in the form of Eloise Widmore. Eloise has always been something of a Dungeon Master-type character, knowing far more about the interaction between the island and the world and time and place travel than all others. So it didn't feel totally out of place for her to drop a "whatever it is you think you're looking for, don't!" speech on our befuddled Desmond.
Another creepy yet somewhat revealing conversation between Desmond and Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) takes place, who is now conveniently a Widmore as well (in addition to being a musician!) in which "feeling something" is the topic du jour. The feeling that comes across with not-scientist Faraday is this: he feels that he set off a nuclear bomb that he should not have.
This fundamentally shifts the entire flash sideways debate as it looks like that instead of an alternate reality that could reflect a) a relatively happy ending for our heroes or b) the final outcome of the "main storyline," we may well be headed for another outcome entirely. And that, aside from all other things, makes sense, doesn't it?
What unbefuddles Desmond is meeting Penny in the flash sideways (Faraday, her half-brother, hooks this up). Upon waking up back in the crazy torture electromagnetic shack, he is all guns blazing to help Widmore with his mission. Of course, then the newly "dark" Sayid (Naveen Andrews) shows up with a gun and leads Desmond away, so there are more adventures in store.
Where's this all headed? Does it matter much when it's this much of a head spinning crazy rollercoaster?
More thoughts on "Happily Ever After":
Video: Lost, "Happily Ever After"
Hulu brings us the ep in full for a spell, so catch it here:
Recap: Lost, "Happily Ever After"
On the island: Hydra island:
- Widmore orders a test to be conducted on Desmond earlier than expected
- Zoe and Seamus check the equipment to see if they can create a functioning EM field; initially it doesn't work
- A member of Widmore's team is caught in the shed when the equipment starts working and is killed
- Desmond is forced inside the shed
- Widmore explains if this doesn't work, then everyone will die
- Desmond is knocked out for a few seconds but survives
- After the test, Desmond is very Zen-like and says he now understands that Widmore brought him back to the island to do something very important
Check out more on ABC.com.
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