Lost: The Constant
March 8th 2008 01:24
Desmond, Sayid, and Lapidus head out on the helicopter, Desmond clutching a picture of Penny and expecting to find answers on the freighter, Sayid wondering why Lapidus needs a handwritten cheat sheet to fly the helicopter…
Lapidus insists that he knows where he’s going, that Faraday just told him to make sure he took the exact same route getting to and from The Island as they did before. They start to fly into a storm, things get turbulent, and then suddenly BAM! A loud noise and a blast of light hit them full force and..
A much shorter-haired Desmond wakes up in basic training with his sergeant yelling at him to get up. Desmond looks around, completely confused, but manages to get to his feet.
Outside, the sergeant orders double time thanks to Desmond, and between sit ups, Desmond tries to explain to his friend that he just had an extremely vivid dream about being in a helicopter. His sergeant catches him talking and slacking off and starts to yell at him, when—BAM
Desmond suddenly finds himself back in the helicopter! Confused and panicked, he tries to undo his seatbelt. The storm continues to swirl outside, and concerned Sayid turns and asks him if he’s okay. Desmond just looks at him, wide-eyed and asks, “Who are you? How do you know my name?”
Back at the beach, Jack is still trying to figure out why they haven’t heard from Sayid and Desmond yet if they left a day ago. Charlotte simply replies, “How should we know?” She points out that she’s on The Island, not the freighter. Faraday, however, is more sympathetic. After a while he looks at Charlotte and says, “Maybe we should just tell them…”
Much to Charlotte’s disgust, Faraday tells Jack and Juliet that their perception of time may not be how much time has actually passed…(Remember that experiment he did before? Hmmm…) He reassures them that as long as Lapidus flew on the exact bearings Faraday gave him, Sayid and Desmond should be fine. Otherwise…well, there might be some…side effects…
Sayid and Desmond finally make it to the ship, but Desmond is freaking out. He keeps telling everyone that he doesn’t know anyone! Two guys, Omar and Keamy, come out to see what’s going on, and ask Lapidus why he brought them back. He tells them that Desmond was fine before they hit the bad weather…Before he can continue, Keamy cuts him off. They’ll take Desmond to see the doctor. Desmond keeps insisting that he doesn’t know these guys (as in Sayid and Lapidus). “I’m supposed to be—”
The sergeant is still yelling at him in the military base. It’s as if no time has passed at all. Desmond is at a complete loss! The sergeant orders everyone to run. Desmond’s squad is not happy with him.
As Desmond and his friend load a truck in the rain, Desmond once again tries to tell him what was happening. He insists that this morning while they were doing sit-ups he was suddenly transported to a boat with an Arab man who seemed to know him. When his friend asks him who else was on the boat, if there was anyone he knew, Desmond stops short. He remembers there was a picture of Penny. He runs off to find a pay phone when—BAM
He’s back on the boat, being led by Keamy and Omar to the sick bay. They introduce themselves and say that the only thing they know is that they last set port in Fiji, so they’re still in the Pacific. Other than that, who knows?
They lock him in the sick bay and suddenly someone starts shouting. Desmond swings around to find another man strapped to a hospital bed. The man stares at him almost amused and says, “So it’s happening to you to huh?” Before Desmond can ask him what he means, the man goes catatonic. Desmond starts yelling at him to get him back and almost instantly the guy looks at him and says that he was just on a Ferris wheel.
Out on the boat deck, Sayid asks Lapidus what’s wrong with Desmond. Lapidus says he doesn’t know. They stare off into the ocean, wondering how they managed to land on the ship during the day?
Sayid asks to use the phone to call Jack, but Lapidus tells him the phone only call each other, so he shouldn’t bother to try and cal Baghdad. Sayid lets this one go and calls Jack. Jack is relieved to hear he and Desmond made it to the ship, then concerned when Sayid tells him something happened to Desmond on the way over.
Jack turns to Faraday for an explanation. Daniel tells him that sometimes going to and from the island makes people…a little confused if they don’t do it right. He then asks Jack if Desmond’s been exposed to high levels of radiation or electromagnetism. Jack and Juliet look at each other (can we say The Hatch anyone?) Juliet asks Daniel if it’s amnesia. He says it’s not.
Back on the boat, the doctor, Ray, enters and the man in the bed tells him “it” is happening to Desmond too; that it’s going to happen to everyone if they start going back towards The Island again. Dr. Ray doesn’t seem to be bothered by this, and merely gives the man a sedative to make him go to sleep. He then pulls out a penlight to check Desmond’s eyes. He asks Desmond, “What’s the last thing you reme—”
Desmond is sill in the military base, still in the phone booth. He calls Penny and desperately tries to get her to listen to him. He’s confused and needs to talk to her. Penny is confused as well, mostly because she wonders why he’s bothering to call to see her after they broke up? She tells him not to bother coming over, as she’s moved. Right in the middle of trying to figure out where she’s moved—BAM
Desmond finishes his sentence not to Penny but the freighter doctor. Ray merely looks at him and asks if he’s just experienced something. Lapidus and Sayid enter, telling Ray that Faraday wants to talk to Desmond. Ray clearly doesn’t think that’s a good idea, but Sayid slams him against the wall and tells Lapidus to give Desmond the phone!
Ray hits an alarm and Sayid once again orders Lapidus to give Desmond the phone! Now! When he finally does, Faraday comes on the line and asks Desmond what year he thinks it is. Desmond stares at the phone like this is a ridiculous question, answering “1996.” The others just look at each other. Faraday then asks Desmond carefully where he is in 1996. Desmond tries to explain that he’s on a boat but he doesn’t know how—Faraday interrupts and asks him where he thinks he’s supposed to be in 1996.
Desmond tells him he’s supposed to be in Camp Millar, a Royal Scots regiment north of Glasgow. Jack is definitely concerned. As the alarm continues to sound, Faraday tries to think, then finally tells Desmond that when it happens again, when he finds himself back in Camp Millar, he needs to go to Oxford University to the Queen’s College physics department. When Desmond wonders why, Faraday tells him, “I need you to find me.”
Back on the beach, Jack is trying to get Faraday to tell him why Desmond thinks it’s 1996, but Faraday is too busy frantically searching for his journal. He hastily tells Jack it’s just a random unpredictable event, that the displacement sometimes takes hours, other times years. He finally finds his journal and tells Desmond that when he finds him, tell him to “set the device to 2.342 oscillating at 11 hertz.” He then says that if he needs convincing, Desmond is to tell him that he “knows about Eloise and--” BAM
It’s happened again. Desmond hangs up the pay phone and heads for Oxford. When he finally finds Faraday, who is an instructor there, Faraday doesn’t believe him. Why would his future self want to send Desmond back to him? Desmond gives him the numbers and Faraday stares at him, then asks him who gave him those numbers. Desmond tells him that he did. When Faraday still thinks this is just a bad joke on himself, Desmond uses his last resort, calling after him, “I know about Eloise.” This gets Faraday’s attention.
Faraday takes Desmond to his lab, where he shows him Eloise: a large white rat. He tells Desmond that if he’s really telling the truth, if he puts in the numbers that Desmond gave him it should unstuck Eloise in time. He sets Eloise into a large maze he has set up, which is connected to a strange device. He puts on something to protect him from the radiation (insisting that Desmond doesn’t need one too) and flips the switch on the device. Whooosh! The rat is blasted with a wash of purple-white light.
Eloise just sits there.
When Desmond starts to ask what just happened, Faraday stops him and tells him she’s not back yet…Suddenly Eloise looks up and takes off. She runs the maze perfectly, much to Faraday’s excitement. When Desmond doesn’t exactly look that impressed, Faraday explains that he just built the maze that morning. He won’t teach Eloise how to run it for another hour!
When Desmond asks if he sent the rat to the future, Faraday explains that it was just her consciousness he sent. When Desmond asks how that’s supposed to help him, Faraday looks at him confused? Isn’t Desmond there to help him? Desmond tells him that all he knows is that eight years from now Desmond will end up on an island. BAM
Back on the boat, Keamy grabs the phone from Desmond and Lapidus is ordered to go see the captain. They all leave, locking Desmond and Sayid inside with the crazy man. Desmond tells them that he has to get back! Faraday was just about to tell him how he could help him! Suddenly the man in the bed hears Sayid call Desmond by his name, and sits up. “You’re Desmond?” He then tells him he’s George Minkowski. He used to be the communications officer. Before he went crazy all calls went through him in the radio room. He tells them every once in a while he’d get some calls that he wasn’t supposed to answer…calls from a girl named Penelope Widmore.
BAM!
Desmond wakes up in Faraday’s lab, where Daniel tells him he was out 75 minutes. When he asks Desmond how long he was in the future, he says only about five minutes. Faraday decides the progression is exponential, that every time his consciousness jumps it gets harder and harder to get back. Not good. Even worse when Desmond gets up to find Eloise is dead. Faraday thinks it was a brain aneurism. He thinks Eloise couldn’t tell the difference between the present and the future and that eventually it just got too much for her brain and it short-circuited. The problem was that she couldn’t find a constant, something familiar from both times to provide stability.
Desmond worries that this could happen to him. He doesn’t have anything in the future to be his constant. When Faraday asks him if there’s a person he can use, someone he could make contact with both now and in the future, Desmond suddenly runs out—
And ends up on the freighter. Frantically looking around, he tells George that he needs to call Penny now. George tells him that, unfortunately, someone sabotaged all the equipment two days ago. “I could have fixed the radio, but then I went nuts.” Convenient coincidence? Desmond asks him if there’s any other way out of there, and George simply points behind him. Desmond and Sayid turn to find the door, unlocked and open. George tells them that they obviously have a friend on the boat. Desmond then notices that George’s nose is bleeding. Sayid checks that the corridors and clear and--BAM
Desmond comes to in a stairwell, gets up, and runs to an auction house in London. There he finds Penny’s dad, Charles bidding on a ship journal from the Black Rock. After Widmore wins the journal, Desmond catches him and asks if he can talk to him a second. He follows Widmore to the bathroom, where Desmond tells him he needs to talk to Penny. Widmore seems amused, and pretty soon Desmond asks him why he hates him so much. Penny’s dad just laughs and says he’s not the one who hates him. He finally gives Desmond Penny’s new address though and—BAM
Desmond’s back on the boat. George completely understands what he’s going through. They’re now traveling back and forth between present and future faster, and it’s getting harder to come back. The three men continue on to the radio room, and George explains that he and Brandon decided to take the ship’s tender and go out to see the island. But when Brandon started acting crazy, they had to turn around. Desmond asks where Brandon is now and George replies, “In a body bag.”
Sayid starts to fix the phone. Suddenly George falls onto the table, Desmond tries to wake him up as Sayid tells him that after they get the call made someone really needs to tell him what’s going on here. Desmond is still trying to wake up George, but suddenly sees the calendar on the wall. “It’s 2004?” Sayid says he didn’t realize it was so close to Christmas.
Suddenly George starts to twitch, gasping out that he can’t get back. His nose is still bleeding. Suddenly he cries out then goes slack. George is dead. Desmond stares at him, knowing all to well this could happen to him if—BAM
Desmond finally finds Penny’s new apartment in 1996 London and rushes up to knock at the door. When Penny sees it’s him standing there, she flat out tells him she wants nothing to do with him and tries to get him to leave. Desmond begs her that he won’t bother her, he just wants to know her new number. He tells her he’s made a huge mistake breaking up with her, but Penny wants nothing to do with him.
He finally makes his way in the house, promising that he’ll won’t call her for eight years—Christmas Eve 2004 to be exact—if she’ll just give him the number! Penny finally gives in. He begs her not to change the number as she’s kicking him out. He tells her he promises he won’t call her she just has to—
“Trust me.” Sayid looks up and tells Desmond he does trust him, but he needs Penny’s number. Desmond quickly repeats Penny’s number, and…it’s ringing! Desmond waits nervously as it continues to ring…and ring…and…”Hello?”
Desmond is speechless for a few seconds upon hearing Penny’s voice after all these years. She seems just as surprised and relieved that she called! Realizing they don’t have long, she asks him where he is. When he mentions The Island, she tells him she knows about it, that she still cares about him and has been looking for him for three years.
Through bursts of static, Penny tells him she’s been trying to research The Island, that when she talked to his friend Charlie she finally knew Desmond was still alive. Desmond is overcome with emotion, telling Penny that he loves her, that he’ll always love her. Penny tells him that she’s going to find him no matter what, that she still loves him too—Suddenly the phone goes dead as the battery dies.
Desmond looks up at Sayid, teary-eyed. Sayid apologizes for the short time, and asks if Desmond is all right. Desmond looks at him. “Aye.” It may not have been much time but, “It was enough.”
Back at the beach, Faraday flips through his journal until he comes to a page where, written in large red letters are the words:
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Finally some answers! Well, kind of. Are we looking at a Bermuda Triangle-ish thing going on here? A sort of time warp or worm hole? Hmm….
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Quotes of the Week:
Daniel Faraday: In your case, I'm guessing that progression is exponential. Every time your consciousness jumps, it gets harder to jump back. I would be careful crossing the street if I were you.
~*~*~
Daniel Faraday: Who are you calling?
Desmond: I'm calling my bloody constant!
~*~*~
Daniel Faraday: You can't change the future.
~*~*~
Penny: I'll find you, Des—
Desmond: --I promise—
Penny: --no matter what—
Desmond: --I'll come back to you—
Penny: --I won't give up—
Both: I promise. I love you.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Pics from Lost.Media.com
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