Lost clues: "The Constant" Ep. 4, Season 4

Episode summary:

In the chopper on the way the freighter with Frank and Sayid, Desmond experiences some time frame difficulties. He keeps flashing back and forward in consciousness between his 1997 British military self and the present time.

Desmond doesn't remember that he was on the island, or Sayid or anything that happened post '97. He's freaking out.



Once on the ship, he's shut in the sick bay with another man, communications officer George Minkowski who we've heard a few times talking to Naomi over the satellite phone. Minkowski is having the same problem, he keeps flashing back into the past.



Sayid, baffled as to what's going on, manages to trade his gun with Frank (who seems to want to help the crash survivors) in exchange for a satellite phone, which Sayid uses to call Jack on the island.

Once Daniel Faraday hears about how Desmond is freaking out, he gets on the phone to talk to Desmond. Faraday somehow understands what's going on with Desmond. He asks Jack if Desmond has recently been exposed to radiation or a large amount electromagnetic energy (which Desmond was--in the Hatch implosion that resulted in Desmond's seeing-into-the-future abilities).



Faraday asks Desmond where, in time, he is. He tells Desmond that when he flashes back into 1997, he needs to hop on a train and travel to Oxford University to find the 1997 version of Faraday (at this point, my brain started to hurt).

The present-day Faraday gives Desmond some coordinates for a machine to remember, along with the phrase "I know about Eloise." (Eloise turns out to be the '97 Faraday's lab rat, which he's been using for time travel experiments).

Back in 1997, Desmond follows these instructions and the '97 Faraday realizes Desmond is flashing back from the future and attempts to help him. He tells Desmond that he needs to focus on a "constant" in order for his consciousness to find its way into the present time. This constant needs to be something, or someone, that's consistent in both time frames.



Desmond, of course, knows that this constant is his girlfriend Penelope, who happens to be quite mad at him back in 1997. Still, he manages to track her down in that time frame and gets a phone number out of her. He tells her he will call this number in several years. She thinks he's nuts.



Back on the ship, the crew has taken away the satellite phone but Sayid, Minkowski and Desmond manage to sneak up to the radio room (which has been mysteriously vandalized. Nobody on the crew seems to know who's responsible. Ben's "spy"?).

Sayid cobbles together a phone of some sort, powered by a battery and, lo' and behold, Desmond phones the present-time Penelope and everything falls back together. He remembers Sayid, the island, everything that's happened.

The phone conversation is short, but Penelope manages to tell Desmond she loves and has forgiven him, and that she knows about the island, she's been researching it.



Before Desmond makes the call, however, Minkowski dies. His brain is fried by all his shifting backwards and forwards through time. The same thing would've happened to Desmond if Penelope hadn't been his constant.

Back on the island, we see Faraday leafing through his journal. He's written a note to himself. If there's trouble, Desmond will be his "constant."



Questions/clues/observations:

* Someone unlocked the sickbay door so Sayid, Minkowski and Desmond could get up to the radio room. Who was it? Frank? Ben's spy?

* Is Ben's spy someone we know? Namely Michael?

* Back in 1997 searching for Penny, Desmond tracks down her dad Charles Widmore at an auction, in which Widmore has just made a successful bid for a journal belonging to the first mate of the Black Rock--the old slaving ship that's on the island but, as far as the rest of the world knows, was lost at sea. What is Widmore's connection to the Black Rock and the island?



* The auctioneer makes reference to the journal having been previously owned by Tovard Hanso. Alvar Hanso was the founder/funder of the Dharma Initiative. Is Widmore involved in Dharma? It's enemy?

* Does the Black Rock journal contain information about the island?

* Faraday has seemed pretty addled from the get-go. Now it seems as if his sketchiness must be the result of time travel. That and being a physicist. They're all a little nutty. But still... what's he been through? The flashback we saw of him seeing news coverage of the Oceanic crash made it appear he was in bad psychological shape in the past. He'd experienced a breakdown or something and was weeping uncontrollably when he saw the news report, but didn't seem to understand why. It seems he's caught between time lines, much like Desmond was.

* Was the "sickness" that killed off Danielle's people related to this brain-frying time frame confusion?

* In island time, those on the helicopter haven't been heard from in over a day, but the chopper trip to the ship didn't take very long at all. What's the deal with this crazy island time anomaly stuff?

Also see:

Lost Season 4 Episode Guide
The Best Lost Sites on the Web
Lost: What we STILL don't know

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