Episode 405 - "The Constant" For Us Is Confusion

Desmond and Penny finally connect! We finally meet Minkowski (if only briefly before his unfortunate demise)!! And teases of answers to questions we've long been asking!!! All this and more in last night's episode, "The Constant."

Foreword

For the second week in a row, my recap veers off my usual off-island first/ on-island second format. Last week I reversed the order; this week, I combine the two into one stream-of-consciousness passage, as "The Constant" seems to require. The story, a uniquely linear narrative that nevertheless bounces back and forth through time, seems to owe a great deal of literary debt to Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse 5 (strangely, not a book I recall seeing on Lost - and, yes, I thought of this before reading Doc Jensen's recap on ew.com). So, without further ado, on with the recap of the latest Desmond-centric episode...

Last week we were left with Jack questioning why they had not yet heard from the helicopter. This week, we open with Frank, still piloting Sayid and Desmond out to see. Sayid sees Frank refer to a "cheat sheet" given to him by Daniel, and wonders why he does not know where the boat is?

He also wonders why they're flying directly into a thunderhead. Desmond, clutching the picture of Penny, says he expects to find answers on the boat. As they enter the cloud, the chopper slips a bit off its bearing ...

...and suddenly Desmond is back in the army. He tells his drill sargeant he is late to wake up because of a dream - of the helicopter, in the storm....and suddenly he flashes back to chopper, but now he's disoriented and frightened, and doesn't know who Sayid is, or how Sayid knows his name.

Meanwhile, on the beach, morning has come and Jack is still worrying about the day that's elapsed since the chopper left. Juliet thinks Charlotte knows more than she's saying because she's not worried. Daniel says, "maybe we should just tell them." Charlotte, patronizingly, warns Daniel not to confuse anyone, but Juliet snarkily suggests that if Daniel speaks slowly, they should be able to follow along.

"Your perception of how long your friends have been gone, it's not necessarily how long they've actually been gone," explains Daniel. When this (shockingly) does nothing to improve Jack's mood, Daniel assures him "it will be fine as long as Frank stays on the bearings I gave him." If not? "There might be some side effects."

Back on the chopper, the freighter, Kahana, comes into view as Sayid wrestles Des to calm him down. Des looks desperately at the picture of Penny. As they land, Sayid preps his gun.

After they land, the helicopter party is greated by two freighterites, Kamy and Omar, who are none too thrilled that Frank brought 815 survivors (well, really just one) to the boat. Keaney insists on taking the increasingly agitated Desmond to sick bay for a doctor to look at him. Desmond shouts "I'm not supposed to be...here?" Suddenly he is back in the army, standing up, while the rest of his squad is still doing crunches as punishment for Desmond's slow wake up. Desmond later tells a buddy what he experienced, and recalls the only familiar aspect of the boat "dream" was the photo of Penny. He goes to call her, drops his change, and when he goes to pick it up... he's back on the boat. Kamy and Omar lead him below deck.They say they left from Fiji, so at least they know they're still in the Pacific. Kamy locks Desmond in a room, where he's greeted by...George Minkowski, strapped to a bunk."it's happening to you, too, isn't it?" asks George, sounding every bit as mad as Desmond appears. And why wouldn't he be? "Minkowski" gets his surname from the physicist who conceptualized that time is really the fourth dimension of space, a concept since referred to as "Minkowski Space-Time." Bear that in mind...

Later on the deck, Sayid sees Omar using binoculars, and Kamy yelling at Frank. Frank joins Sayid and says he doesn't know what's happened to Desmond, but he is trying to help. He trades the phone for Sayid's gun and says the phones only work with each other. They call Daniel, who lets Jack and company know their friends have arrived and asks, oddly enough, if Desmond was recently eposed to high levels of radiation or electromagnetism. (Purple sky hatch implosion, anyone?) He says some people get confused going to or coming from the island, but this is not amnesia.

In sick bay, Minkowski is locked in a catatonic blank stare, then awakens and tells Des he was just on a ferris wheel. As ship's doctor "Ray" comes in, Minkowski raves that "it's going to happen to everyone, once we start heading to that island again," until Ray injects Minkowski. Ray asks Desmond about the last thing he remembers...

...but Desmond is now back on the base, picking up his dropped change and calling Penny. Still smarting over getting dumped by Des just before he enlisted, she tells him to leave her alone. As he is about to plead that he needs her...

...he's back on the freighter. Sayid and Frank bust in and hand him the phone. Daniel asks where and when desmond thinks he is, and Desmond responds on the British base in 1996. Daniel tells Desmond, when he returns to 1996, get on a train and find him, Daniel Faraday, at Queens College in Oxford.

Daniel then rifles through his bag searching for his journal. He says that Desmond's side effects are unpredictable, a random effect, that sometimes moves an individual a few hours, sometimes days. Daniel tells Desmond to tell 1996 Daniel to set his device to 2.342 (gratuitous mention of the numbers - 23 and 42!), oscillating at 11 herz. If the numbers don't convince past Daniel, Desmond should say he knows about Eloise. Desmond jots these notes on his hand, but they are gone when he finds himself back in the 1996 phone booth. He goes to Oxford, and finds long-haired Daniel Faraday. Daniel, assuming it's a prank, wonders why he would put Desmond through the headache of time travel, and not help him in the future? Des relates the numbers, and says he knows about Eloise, and Daniel relents and takes him to his lab. Desmond asks if he's changing the future by having this discussion. Daniel puts on a radiation vest, which he says Desmond doesn't need because he does not have to worry about prolonged exposure. Eloise, we learn is a rat, who gets put in a maze. Using Desmond's settings, Daniel radiates Eloise with a purple light......and after she briefly goes catatonic (like Minkowski), he releases her into the maze, where she runs directly to the other side. The kicker? Daniel wasn't even going to teach Eloise how to navigate the maze until an hour later. Her mind, it seems, was sent to the future. So...let me get this straight...the purple-tinted radiation can blast your mind through time? And Desmond was at ground zero for such a radiation burst...but despite his prior flashes, it's happening more now? What's going on here? As past Daniel and Desmond contemplate the sketchy knowledge that they end up on some "bloody island"...

...Desmond is suddenly back on the boat. Kamy is pissed for some reason that Frank let Desmond talk to Daniel. Sayid demands to talk to the captain, but he and Desmond are quickly locked in. Desmond desperately wants to get back in Oxford to learn what he's supposed to do next from Daniel. Minkowski hears the name, Desmond, and it sparks some awareness. He says he was the ship's communications officer, and every so often, he'd get a flashing light for an incoming call, with strict orders never to answer (orders he did not exactly follow). Those calls came from Penny...

...and with that, Desmond is back in Oxford, after being "out" for 75 minutes, though he only experienced 5 minutes on the freighter. Daniel guesses Desmond's progression is exponential, making it harder to jump back. Desmond looks at Eloise, who suddenly died from an aneurysm. Daniel postulates Eloise short-circuited because she had no anchors in time. He says, to avoid Eloise's fate, Desmond needs a constant, something in the future that he really cares about, that also exists back in 1996. The constant can be a person, but he has to make some kind of contact. But, of course, Penny's old number has been disconnected. Desmond falls over...

...and finds himself on the boat. Minkowski says somebody sabotaged all communications equipment 2 days earlier, but he could fix it. Minkowski points out that the door has been opened. Looks like, as George says, they have a friend on the boat. Could this be Ben's spy? Could it be Frank, who assured Sayid he was trying to help? Could Frank be Ben's spy?

George develops a nose bleed. As Sayid is about to lead them out of the now-unlocked cabin...

...Desmond is again back in England in 1996. He goes to an auction, where lot 242 (!) is, of all things, the journal of the first mate of the Black Rock, being sold by the family of Tovar Hanso (who is this Tovar fella? We know Alvar and we know Magnus...).

According to the auctioneer, the journal is the only known remnant of the lost ship, and it turned up with some pirates in Madagascar...So to clarify...both Black Rock and Oceanic 815 ended up on an island. The freighter just off the coast of the island got there by traveling a short distance from Fiji, while the ship's journal found its way to Madagascar. Fiji and Madagascar are 8209 miles (13210 km) (7133 nautical miles) apart (I loves me the inernet). So where on Earth is this sodding island?

Anyway, at the auction, Charles Widmore wins the journal for 380,000 pounds. Desmond approaches him after the bidding. Charles tells Desmond to follow him......to the men's room. Widmore snidely gives Desmond Penny's address and leaves, with the sink he used still running.

Lots to unpack here. First of all, presumably, with this journal, Charles Widmore can learn all about the island. On the other hand, if he already knows about it, his purchase of the journal would prevent others from learning about it. In either scenario, eight years later, I'd say Charles is a good candidate for being the puppet master behind the forces Ben wants so desperately to oppose. This would also explain, or at least suggest, how it was that Naomi got that picture of Penny and Desmond. The other interesting thing about this sequence is why Charles gave Desmond Penny's address if he seems so hellbent on keeping them apart...

Desmond reaches to turn off the sink that Charles left running...

...and finds himself back on the boat. George knows it's getting harder for Desmond to stay in one time or the other, and says the jumps will start happening faster. George tells how he and someone named Brandon took off towards the island, but now Brandon is dead. They get to the com room, and George passes out. Sayid asks if Desmond knows the number he's supposed to call, but Desmond doesn't. He sees the 2004 calendar, and starts to bleed out his nose. Suddenly, Minkowski goes into convulsions and dies, just like Eloise! RIP George Minkowski - we hardly knew ye...Desmond knows the same thing going to happen to him if he can't contact his constant....

...Back in the men's room, the faucet never turned off, and the runoff awakens Desmond. He takes the address, 423 (the nubmers again!!!) Cheyne Walk and finds Penny. He begs and pleads for her to listen to him. He tells her in 8 years he will need a number to call to reach her. "I won't call for eight years, until December 24, 2004." She reluctantly gives him the number and, after she shoves him out the door...

...he is back in the com room, where he gives Sayid the number. Sayid makes the call, and it rings and rings, until, finally, Penny picks up. She can't believe it's really Desmond! Desmond suddenly remembers the island, and tells Penny he's been there. Penny says she's been looking for him for the past three years. She said she'd been researching the island and finally knew she wasn't crazy to do so when she talked to Charlie. They say they love each other and promise to find each other, even as the call fades out. And Desmond stays put on the freighter. Apparently, the contact stopped the jumps.

Ok...so why did Charles lead Desmond to Penny's place? I expected him to find her with another man, but that didn't happen. Given that Desmond, five years later, would try to win back Penny's heart and his own honor by winning Charles' foundation's race, the act that would lead him to the island, has Charles been manipulating Desmond all this time? Is Penny in on it? I mean, why would she have been researching the island for three years before Desmond ever told her he was there? Even if she finds Hanso's journal in her dad's things, it would only tell her the island exists, not that Desmond is on it. This leads me to the conclusion there are only three possibilities. 1) Charles and Penny are in cahoots, perhaps to find and exploit the island, and Desmond should not be trusting her; 2) Penny learned about the island and made the wild leap to assuming, since she couldn't find Desmond, he must be there, or 3) Charles intended that Desmond end up on the island, but Penny uncovered this plan and sought to rescue Desmond. Personally, I think only 1 and 3 are truly likely, and I sure hope it's 3...

We end on the beach, where Daniel keeps looking through his easter-egg-laden journal. Check out this diagram, with vectors corresponding to "real time", "real space," "imaginary time" and "space-time." What is that all about? Finally, Daniel finds that he wrote - "if anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."

Okaaaaaaaay. So, last week, Daniel struggled to "remember" three hidden playing cards, improving to remembering two out of three. This week, Daniel tells us what Desmond experienced was akin to his consciousness traveling through time, and that a side effect is amnesia. Daniel told Desmond the only cure would be to find a constant in both time frames he bounces between. And now it seems Daniel anticipates he will need a constant, and that Desmond will be that constant for him. So has Daniel already started traveling through time? Did he come to the island intending to do so? Is this time travel his unique goal, or is it tied to what the freighterites are all after?

Well, that's it for this week. Tune in next week for "The Other Woman." In the meantime, head on over to the spoilers blog for some teases regarding next week and the remaining two and a half seasons of Lost by clicking here.