Tempest in a Tank Top...

This week is late...again.

I apologize, again. Sometimes I have real life commitments that keep me off the keyboard. Unfortunately it's the 'Gasm readers who are inconvenienced and I am sorry for that.

The good news is that things look a little better for next week.

So, now that the formalities are done, let's take a look at last week's episode, just in time for this week's.

We open with Betty...er, Juliet, in an office. In comes Veronica...er, Harper Stanhope, who is a therapist, something that Juliet doesn't feel she needs.



After an uncomfortable beginning during which Juliet tells Harper that she feels that she's feeling a bit under the microscope, Harper turns from pleasant therapist to bitchy she-cat, telling Juliet:

"Well, maybe you feel that all eyes are on you, but you're not a celebrity, and soon enough you'll realize that you're no different than anyone here."

Can't you just see her being one of those gals that put Neet in the cheerleader's shampoo bottles in high school?

Before the interview can go further, Moose...er, Tom busts in to get Juliet. It seems that Reggie...er, Ben wants to see her.



Juliet leaves with Tom, but if your freeze frame is REALLY good, you can see the message she left in the sand ...



Tom takes her across the compound to see the house that Reggie...er, Ben has prepared for her.



Juliet is surprised that Ben has set her up in such fancy digs, and reminds him that she's only going to be there for six months. Could Ben possibly be lying by omission when he says that they just want her to feel at home? Nah. Not Ben.

On the beach, Juliet is setting up her shelter. Sun jumps up from patting Hot Dog (Was that taking the Archie thing too far?) and gives her a hand but then wonders why Juliet is going to so much trouble when they're about to be rescued. Could Juliet possibly be lying by omission when she reminds Sun that she still needs somewhere to sleep tonight? Nah. Not Juliet.

Just then, Jack slides into the conversation to ask if Juliet has seen Faraday and Charlotte. Seems they've disappeared, along with their stuff and the satellite phone. Jin, speaking Korean, explains that he saw the two newcomers heading into the jungle.

Jack asks why he didn't say anything at the time.

"You said they are friends."

Sun asks the obvious: "Aren't they?" Anyone want to bet that Jack lied by omission when he answered?

Shortly thereafter, Jack has the gang on the move, searching for Faraday and Charlotte.

"If you cut their trail, call out to me. I'll come to you." When did Jack become Island Action Guy With Kung-Fu Grip? Did I miss an episode where they found a stash of cool guy pills? "Cut their trail?" Last time Jack tried to track someone he ended up tracking himself in a big circle and now he's looking to "cut their trail"? And don't get me started on "I'll come to you." It starts raining right as he says that so A) Bad things are about to happen. B) Crying on them won't get them any wetter.

In the wet jungle, Juliet gets separated and hears...whispers.

(*Whisper Sidenote: I'll post some possible transcriptions of the whispers. Credit goes to http://the-odi.blogspot.com which is where I found them. I don't vouch for the accuracy, but here's what they said they heard:
"Sarah is having another..."
"Is that the other woman?"
I actually hear "Sarah is having another..." but don't know about the rest.*)

When she turns around she sees...Wet Harper.

(*More Whispers Sidenote:
"Look out"
"Sarah is having another..."
"Did you hear that?
"If she won't save us then who is?"
"Sarah, somebody's coming."
Male: There is somebody coming
Female: Hold on one second
Male: There is somebody coming
Like I said, I have no way of verifying these.*)

Wet Harper, no less a bitch than Dry Harper gives Juliet a message, supposedly from Ben. According to Wet Harper, Faraday and Lewis are headed to the Tempest. Ben wants Juliet to stop them from deploying the gas. Juliet wonders how Ben could know this when he's a prisoner.

"Ben is exactly where he wants to be." Odd how that echoes Miles sentiment. That doesn't really bode well for Ben. I wonder how he likes his hand grenades? Over easy or poached?

"How am I supposed to stop them?"

"By pointing the gun. And pulling the trigger."

Just then, Jack shows up. He wants to know who Wet Harper is.

"I'm an old friend of Juliet's. I just told her where the people you're looking for are headed. Maybe you and your gun can go, too.

At that moment, more...whispers.

(*Whispers sidenote II:
Male: "Sarah it's someone we know, Sarah it's someone we know"
Female: "I'm not answering"
Male: "Answer them"
"We have our answer"
"Can we trust her"
Again, I don't vouch for the accuracy.*)


As Jack and Juliet look around for the source of the whispers, Wet Harper disappears. Fortunately, Juliet and her wet tank top remain.



In a lab, Juliet sits impersonating Jack on the floor. She hears a noise that distracts her from her grief. She follows the sound and finds Archie...er, Goodwin.



She spots the burn on his arm, which he claims to have done by leaning up against a transformer in the power station. She does the doctor thing and takes care of it. As she plays doctor with him, he brings up that morning's loss of one of her patients, which makes her do a Jack again. He tries to tell her that it wasn't her fault.

"Pregnant women are dying on this island. I was brought here to help fix that. So whose fault is it?"

Somehow, I think that the answer to that question will turn out to be the answer to so many more that I have.

Goodwin suggests that Juliet might want to talk to someone, perhaps Dry Harper.

"Harper hates me. We only talk because...we have to. I get the feeling that she is a mean...and spiteful person."

"She's my wife."

Juliet uses her extensive medical training to remove her foot from her mouth.

As he gets set to leave, Goodwin offers his own ear for bending. Of course, from last season, we know that she's going to bend more than his ear sooner or later. She offers a trade. If he won't tell Dry Harper what she said about her, Juliet won't tell anyone that he lied about how he burned his arm. She knows a chemical burn when she sees one. Methinks Goodwin knows a blond he can score with when he sees one.

Back in the wet, steamy jungle, Juliet and Jack are following Faraday and Charlotte to the Tempest. Jack hasn't heard of the Tempest.

(*Shakespearean sidenote: There's a good deal of parallel with Lost and Shakespeare's The Tempest, but I'll try to hit the high notes in short. It's set mainly on an island, ruled by a guy who was shipwrecked there who has the son of a witch as his slave, until the island is invaded by some of the ruler's former compatriots who bring their own political history with them when they too are shipwrecked. There are actually several more parallels that are of interest to Lost fans, so it's probably worth checking out the wiki... It's also noteworthy that one of the island's spirits appears to several characters as a harpy - which made me think of Harper, Wet or Dry.*)

"The Tempest?"

"It's safer for you if I don't talk about it."

"No. Talk about it. Please."

"It's an electrical station that powers the island." Um...that doesn't seem very dangerous to talk about. Any bets on more lies of omission?

"Why would they go there? Hey. If there's something you need to tell me, now's the time to do it."

"What I need is for you to help me. Will you help me?"

Jack doesn't say anything, which Juliet takes as a "yes". They continue on in the rain.

In a sunny glade, Faraday and Charlotte are checking their map. There are lots of unknowns. Actually, pretty much all that we see is "Unknown" which makes me wonder what the point of the map might be.



Faraday is worried that he might not be able to do "it", but Charlotte is convinced that he can.

Before I get a chance to ramp up my innuendo machine, Kate comes waltzing out of the jungle. C.S. Lewis draws down on her in a heartbeat but Daniel is able to keep her calm enough not to reduce the island's hot chick population.

As Kate fills her water bottle, she quizzes the two about what they're doing in the jungle away from where the supposed rescue would be taking place.

Charlotte tries the old "The sat phone is out of juice and we're out here searching for our packs wherein are stowed more batteries" ploy, but Kate spots the bright green light on the sat phone staring her (and anyone else who cares to look down) in the face and sees through the ruse.

(*Debatable point sidenote: I don't know who's the bigger dipshit in this scene: Charlotte for not seeing the BRIGHT GREEN LIGHT on the sat phone in plain sight or Kate for pushing the issue with obviously untrustworthy Charlotte BEHIND HER.*)

When Kate pushes the issue by asking about Faraday's pack and then further by asking to see inside, Charlotte finally sees her opportunity and cracks Kate's skull with the butt of her gun. Before Kate gets knocked out Hollywood style, she sees the gas masks and hazmat suits that the pair are carrying, but of course we saw those back when we first met Faraday, so not a huge surprise.

Walking through the jungle, Jack asks Juliet about Wet Harper.

"She was my therapist."

"You people had therapists?"

"It's very stressful being an Other, Jack."

I don't have a smart assed remark for this bit. It stands on it's own two sarcastic feet just fine.

Jack presses the subject but Juliet doesn' t really want to discuss Wet Harper.

"I'm sure there are things from your past you'd rather not talk about."

"Yeah, you read them all in my file."

"Trust me Jack, you don't want to see my file."

Back in Riverdale, Betty and Reggie are discussing just what makes the pregnant women die. It has something to do with the immune system turning on the foetus in the second trimester. Reggie tries the old "hand brush" pick-up technique, to no avail. What's next? The theatre seat yawn and stretch?

(*Way more information than you need sidenote: I used this exact same technique to pick up my first girlfriend. I was about twenty-five years younger than Ben at the time. If Ben is copping dating techniques from my teenage years, a ladies man, he ain't.*)

Juliet is about to explain something about what she thinks might be the reason why it only happens to women who conceive on the island when Archie...er, Goodwin shows up with two lunches. He sees Ben and the look that the evil bastard gives him and lamely covers by pretending that he just had an extra sandwich rather than admitting that he was coming to see Juliet for a whole different kind of noon hour activity.



Shortly thereafter, Juliet is in session with Dry Harper. Within seconds of starting, the therapy session ends and next week's episode of the Young and the Restless begins.

Dry Harper comments that Juliet looks just like "her" whoever the "her" in Ben's past might be.

(*Speculation runs wild sidenote: Everyone from Ben's mother to Jack's ex-wife has been proposed as "her" on the web this week. Given that we're watching Lost, my bet is someone unexpected, probably a woman we haven't met yet.*)

Things further degenerate into bad soap opera territory when Dry Harper brings up Juliet's relationship with Goodwin.

"When did you start sleeping with him?"

"What?"

"Look, Juliet, I'm not an idiot. So just tell me. When did it start?"

"Okay. I'm not doing this. We're done."

"Please respect me enough to spare me the pretense that you are actually offended. I know. I followed you. Watched you."

So, we now know that Dry Harper likes to watch.

(*Dirty mind sidenote: Is this how Dry Harper becomes Wet Harper?*)

And really, is it adultery if the wife is watching? That seems more like swinging to me.

Dry Harper warns Juliet that Goodwin might be in danger from Ben.

Again, if you have REALLY good freeze-frame, you can catch Juliet's last words to Dry Harper.



In Occupied Otherville, Locke is butchering a rabbit when Claire comes over wanting to know what's going on with Miles. She tries to convince Locke that his bad cop routine might benefit from some girly good copping. Locke's not interested though and Claire is still completely useless.

"You do remember what Charlie said about these people?"

"All Charlie said was who's boat it isn't. Don't you want to know who's boat it is?"

I'll give her a couple of points for trying and a couple more for standing up to Locke, even though he is rapidly spiraling into impotent hatch-wife II.

In his cell, Ben is reading Valis when Locke comes a knockin' with his hasenpfeffer.

"Rabbit today?"

"Running out of chickens."

"This didn't have a number on it, did it?"

"What?"

Obviously, Ben is probing to see just how much John has learned from living in Otherville and perhaps what he might have discussed with Sawyer. Either that or the numbered rabbits aren't good eatin'.

Locke gives Ben some instructions about his dishes and laundry and makes to leave. Of course, Ben waits juuuust long enough and pushes the button.

"So has the revolution begun yet?"

In spite of the dead obvious fact that Locke ought to know better by now, he turns around and takes the bait.

"What are you talkin' about?"

"Well, you're the leader now. I know it's a tough position. You have to deal with all those people constantly second-guessing your decisions. And it always starts out so innocently, doesn't it? A question here, a comment there, and then if you're not careful, you find you have a full blown insurrection on your hands. Believe me, your people are gonna be so angry when they realize you still don't have a plan."

"And I assume you have a plan."

"I always have a plan."

Hi. Welcome to this edition of "Understatement of the day".

Locke figures it's time to flip the situation and drops what he figures is a bomb.

"Does it involve you raising $3.2 million dollars?"

This does actually seem to catch Ben off guard for a second. Locke pushes by sarcastically offering to donate to the cause, putting a dollar bill in Ben's hand. Was anyone else impressed that after all that has happened over the last three months that Locke actually has paper money in his pocket?

As he turns to leave, Ben tries to reel him in.

"I can help you, John. We have shared interests...or at least a common enemy."

"And that would be our friends on the freighter."

"Not them. The one they work for."

Ben tries to deal his information for some privileges, but since Locke doesn't trust Ben's word, he isn't willing to let Ben have any freedom on his word alone.

"All right, then. I guess I'll have to show you."

On a sunlit beach, Juliet emerges from the water and joins Goodwin on the beach. He has a bottle of wine and they appear very unconcerned with being discovered by their fellow Others. They discuss their situation and we learn that Goodwin has been sleeping on the couch for a year. Dry Harper, indeed.

We also learn that Ben has Goodwin working with chemicals that could kill everyone on the island, which makes him think that despite Ben's crush on Juliet that there is nothing to worry about.

"What's Ben gonna do?"

Cut to the plane breaking up over Otherville. That's some implication.

We watch Ben send Goodwin and Ethan into their roles as infiltrators of the two groups of survivors. Given the conversation we just watched, we see the selection of Goodwin for his assignment in a new light. That Ben. It's like he always has a plan.

Goodwin leaves without even saying "Bye" to either Betty or Veronica.

Back in the jungle, Jack and Juliet come across the little stream where Kate got her melon smacked.

"Something's wrong. We should have caught up with them by now."

"These people base jumped out of a helicopter, Jack. Let's give them the benefit of the doubt."

Some low moans alert them to Kate's presence. While Juliet offers to get water, Jack checks out Kate's melon. Yeah...I'll leave that. It's just too easy.

Jack applies that standard First Aid technique we all know, getting the injured person with the bleeding head wound to sit up.

Once Kate explains how she wound up there and tells him that they had the gas masks with them, Jack looks around for Juliet. She's nowhere in sight.

In Ben's house, Locke leads a bound Ben into the living room. After confirming that they have a deal, assuring Locke that Ben's people would have stormed the camp to get him back if they still wanted him, Ben directs Locke to open a hidden safe and extract a video tape labelled "RED SOX".

On the tape, a familiar millionaire is seen getting out of a limo and pummeling a man Ben claims to be one of his operatives that was discovered. Ben claims not to know how Widmore knows about the island, but that he knows that the intent is to exploit the island's more exotic properties. When Locke doesn't see why that would be a problem, Ben tells him a story about people flocking to see a vaguely Virgin Mary shaped bunch of mold. If 5,000 people would travel to see mold, an island that was able to heal John Locke's paralysis would be overrun if it's existence was known.

Ben then hands Locke the other item in the safe, a file on Charles Widmore.

"Everything I know about Charles Widmore is in this file. Some of it's vague, some of it's guesswork, some of it's concrete. But this is everything, and now it's all yours. I'm sorry I didn't tell you all this sooner. But it was the only bargaining chip I had left."

Am I the only one who doesn't actually believe that Ben is out of chips?

"There's one more thing I need to know. Your man on the boat. I want you to tell me who it is."

"All right. But you might want to sit down."

(*Speculation runs wild sidenote II: I've seen about a hundred different ideas as to who Ben's man on the boat might be. There's a fabulous thread about it at my blog's discussion forum, the Purple Hatch. It's the thread called "Barnum" but that's just an accident of labelling.*)

Now that Jack has Kate with him, he's no longer the cool tracker guy he was last night, content to let someone who actually knows what they're doing do the tracking. Kate cuts their trail with ease. As they travel, he asks her about her choice to stay with Locke.

"I stayed to find out if the people on the freighter know who I am. If they knew that I'm a fugitive. That I'm wanted for murder."

"Do they?"

"Yeah they know."

At the Tempest Station, Juliet arrives and as she prepares to open the door, we again hear faint...whispers....

(*Final Whispers Sidenote:
"It's Juliet."
And again, no verification on that.*)

She uses the counterweight system to manually open the door, since the electronic door system has been destroyed. The pulley system makes a helluva racket, so stealth is out the window. She enters, puts her bag down and draws her gun.

Ben opens the door of his house and as he invites Juliet in, we see a portrait in the background that looks awfully familiar...



Ben has invited her over for a dinner party and pulled the old "didn't I tell you it was just us?" ploy. He might be Mr. Mastermind Villain Guy, but when it comes to the man/woman stuff he's friggin' Inspector Clousseau. Women don't fall for this crap in real life, do they?

As Ben serves dinner, they discuss the children, Zack and Emma, that they've taken from the tail section survivors.

"They're really sweet kids. Ben, they've been asking me about their mother in Los Angeles. I'm not really sure what to say."

"They'll stop asking in time."

"They're children. Do they really belong here?"

"They're on the list, Juliet. Who are we to question who's on the list and who's not?"

Do I have to mention lies of omission?

Juliet then raises the issue of Goodwin remaining undercover after three weeks. Ben tries to sour Juliet on Goodwin by implying that he might be inappropriately interested in the survivor named Ana Lucia.

"After losing Ethan, it's a risk."

"Goodwin stays where he's at right now, Juliet. There's no reason for him to hurry back, right? But his assignment will be over soon. I promise you."

Juliet makes her way into the Tempest station. She comes to a spot overlooking a bunch of equipment and while an alarm blares, she sees a figure in a hazmat suit working at a computer.

She creeps up and shouts at the figure while a mechanical female voice repeats "Repeated attempts to access storage tanks will result in contamination."

When the figure turns, we see Faraday in the hazmat suit. "Juliet. What are you doing here?"

After Faraday tells her he can't stop what he's doing and turns back to the computer, she pulls his mask off.

"You wanna release the gas? You'll die with the rest of us."

"No, no, no. I'm not trying to release it. I'm trying to render it inert. I'm just trying to make it safe, Juliet."

A second figure in a hazmat suit jumps Juliet and while a less than sexy girl-fight rages around him, Faraday frantically types away at the computer station. With two seconds left, he finally succeeds in stopping the gas from killing everyone.

"That...that was a close one."

Ben enters Juliet's office to find her reading Jack's file. She tells him that he's a spinal surgeon who can help him and Ben seems far less surprised and enthusiastic that we might expect under the circumstances.

"I need you to come with me."

He takes her to a clearing, where they find Archie, dead.



Juliet is naturally distraught and demands to know what happened. With no witnesses, Ben has no answers. When she asks him why he brought her out to see Goodwin's body, Ben responds with uncharacteristic fury.

"What, you mean instead of his wife?"

"You knew this would happen. You sent him out here because you knew this would happen. You wanted this! You wanted him to die! Why?"

"'Why'? You're asking me why? After everything I did to get you here, after everything I've done to keep you here, how can you possibly not understand...that you're mine!"

After a pause, Ben returns to form.

"Take as much time as you need."

I know, I know. The Riverdale analogy is not really accurate, but come on, we all know that Reggie would totally kill Archie, marry Veronica and have Betty for a mistress if he thought he could get away with it.

Back at the Tempest, Juliet and Charlotte leave the station and are confronted by Kate who draws down on Charlotte.

"Whoa, Kate, it's all right. They're on our side."

"Our side, Juliet? She just knocked me unconscious."

Charlotte apologizes and offers to show Kate just how they just saved her life. She is pissed off and not ready to let bygones be bygones without some proof. Jack on the other hand is willing to take her word for it.

(*Faith vs. Science Sidenote: It has been suggested that this acceptance is an indication that Jack is becoming a "man of faith" which would imply that Locke might become a "man of science". Personally, I think that this acceptance indicates that Jack is becoming a man of "I'm sick and tired of dealing with Kate and would really like to be alone with Juliet" but that's just me.*)

Once Kate and Charlotte head back into the Tempest, Jack asks Juliet if she's okay.

She tells him about the instructions that Ben gave to kill the two from the freighter and that Jack is in over his head.

"Don't you understand? These people came here to wage war against Ben, and Ben's gonna win, Jack. And when he does, you don't want to be anywhere near me."

"Why not?"

"Because he thinks I'm his. And he knows how I feel about you."

After a lukewarm kiss, Jack has tough guy words for her.

"He knows where to find me."

(*Final sidenote: A lot has been made of how passionless this kiss is, but I don't buy any of the theories about it that I've seen. I think that the lack of passion was played intentionally by the actors, because the characters are BOTH playing a double game against Ben AND each other and the kiss was going through the motions for BOTH of them.*)

In the final scene, Sawyer and Hurley are enjoying that most cottage vacation of games, horseshoes. The oh, so lucky Hurley beats Sawyer's leaner with a perfect ringer and after a comment about how lucky the big guy is, the two are left dumbstruck as they watch Ben stroll casually across the compound with a stack of neatly folded laundry.

"What the hell are you doing out?"

Ben, perfectly composed and enjoying the slack jawed expressions more than even getting his face pounded, casually answers as he goes inside.

"See you guys at dinner."

A Desmond Saved by a Penny Spurned.

Two important things about this week and they're both about time.

First, since I was so slack in getting the recap done for last week's episode, I'm gonna burn this one out just as quick as I can.

Second, if you thought that having Desmond become unstuck in time was a novel idea, well, you're exactly right. It's an idea that comes directly from a novel.

Two words. Slaughterhouse Five.

Lots to cover and not much time...or lots of time...

The episode starts with Desmond looking at the crumpled picture that he and Penny had taken way back when. Frank is using a cheat sheet that Faraday drew for him to help him navigate back to their boat.Sayid, watching Frank consult the sheet and then fly directly into a thunderhead is less than impressed with the Lapidus Flying for Dummies approach.



A little turbulence and Desmond is...elsewhere.

He finds himself in an army barracks, waking to the sound of his an angry sergeant (I assume sergeant. I don't know much about military designations, but I've seen Stripes enough times to figure that only sergeants are that perpetually pissed off.) waking the men for morning calisthenics. When Desmond is slow to haul his enlisted ass out of bed, he earns the wrath of the Sarge. Sarge wants to know why Hume is so slow to come to his mark. Desmond tries to explain that he was having a dream that he had trouble waking from.

A few military cliches later and Des is in the yard doing crunches when he suddenly finds himself back in the helicopter. Only this time, unlike a "regular" flashback or even Hume's previous time jumping, he has no memory of Sayid, Frank, the chopper or where he is or how he got there.

Enter the Slaughterhouse Five angle. I write a 5,000 word essay on Lost every week, but it would be easy to write double that on Slaughterhouse Five alone.

I'll try to restrain myself.

Back when Desmond first did his little time hopping routine, a lot of people thought he was not so much time travelling as he was "unstuck" in time. This "unstuck" concept is the main plot device in Kurt Vonnegut's novel Slaughterhouse Five. Normally, this would be a sidenote, but I think it's a weird enough parallel that I'll devote a little recap space to it.

From Wikipedia:

"Slaughterhouse-Five spans the life of a man who has "come unstuck in time." It is the story of Billy Pilgrim experiencing different time periods of his life, most notably his experience in World War II and his relationship with his family. The book is a series of seemingly random happenings that, in combination, present the thematic elements of the novel in an unraveling order."

Slaughterhouse Five is one of those must read classics that I have only recently gotten around to reading. In fact, I read it only a few months ago. As I read it, I couldn't help thinking of Desmond and his time jumps. If a real person "came unstuck in time" it would be exceptionally disorienting. Vonnegut conveys this quite well in the novel and I remember thinking that Desmond seemed almost too comfortable with the concept when he first started jumping. The freaking out in the helicopter Desmond fits my idea of how a reasonably normal person might react in that situation.

Vonnegut uses Pilgrim's experiences as a soldier and a time traveller to roll out various commentaries on the human condition, most notably the futility of war, the futility of anti-war sentiments, the concept of free will and the inevitability of death. Every time a death happens in the novel, the narrator comments "So it goes," to remind us that there is not a damned thing anyone can do to stop death. The time travel that Pilgrim experiences is the result of his interaction with a race of aliens who are able to perceive time in a way that we cannot. To them, time is a physically available dimension, just like up/down, side to side and back and forth are to us. The aliens have no concept of now and then, before and after. To them, it's all the same. If you think that sounds confusing, it is. Think of it like this: To the aliens in question, moving back and forth through time is no different or stranger than you and I moving from home to office. Pilgrim gets used to it over time, as Desmond seems to.

In Desmond's case, he seems to be dealing with only one shift, from a specific point in the past to a specific present, not a random selection of times. We have seen him shift to other points previously. Perhaps it's something that he'll get a handle on and learn to control.

The point is, Lost might not be a retelling of Slaughterhouse Five, but it's borrowing heavily from many of Vonnegut's ideas. I highly recommend the book, if only for the visual of a World War II era human on display in an alien zoo with a hyper-erotic porn star who they've chosen to be his mate.

Desmond should be so lucky.

Okay, here endeth the unstuck in time lesson. Keep it in mind though.

On the beach, Jack is still concerned that the chopper has yet to arrive, despite having left a day ago. Charlotte protests that she only knows what Jack does, since she's been with him the whole time since the chopper left.

Juliet notes that unlike she and Jack, Charlotte seems remarkably unconcerned about the fate of the helicopter, despite the extreme weirdness of it not having arrived at a boat anchored a twenty minute flight out to sea.

Faraday hesitantly tries to explain the situation over Charlotte's protests. It seems that the on island perception of time is a little different than it might seem. It seems that we all sort of knew that, but it really was nice to have it confirmed, if only by a guy who thought it was a good idea to wear a tie on a rescue mission.

"It'll be fine. It'll be fine, as long as Frank flew on the bearings that I gave him...if he stayed on it...it, it'll be fine."

"And what if he didn't?"

"Then there might be...side effects."

Side effects like Desmond flipping out and trying to fight his way out of the cockpit of a helicopter flying two thousand feet above the ocean.

Frank manages to get them safely to the boat, where they're greeted by a couple of big guys who want to know who his passengers are.

"Survivors of 815."

"And you brought them here? What the hell were you thinking?"

Interrupting the questions, Desmond again loses control, screaming that he isn't supposed to be there, demanding to know who the strangers surrounding him are. The bigger of the two greeters asks Frank when all this began and then calms Desmond down and gets him aimed toward the sickbay. Sayid wants to accompany him, but the greeter's word that he'll be able to see Desmond once the doctor examines him and some reassuring eye-speak with Frank seems to satisfy Sayid for the moment. As they escort Desmond toward the ship's superstructure, he is once again...elsewhere.

After a disconcerting moment of re-orientation and Sarge's order for the troop to take a run as punishment for Desmond's disobedience, he's loading a truck with an army comrade. He tries to explain what happened to him, but naturally, his buddy is skeptical. When Desmond realizes that the one recognizable element of his experience was the picture of him with Penny, he drops what he's doing and heads to the nearest phone to call her. As he nears the booth, one of his other army comrades deliberately bumps him on his way past, a small repayment of the debt owed for causing the troop to suffer the Sarge's wrath that morning. Desmond drops his change and as he bends to retrieve it, he's...elsewhere.

"I'm not here. This...this isn't happenin'."

"You are here and this is happening."

As they walk toward sickbay, they introduce themselves. The big guy is Keamy and the little guy is Omar. I guess I can stop calling them Spike and Chester. We also learn that their last port of call was Fiji, so the two men assume they're still in the Pacific Ocean.

I say assume, since nothing is certain on this show.

The two leave Desmond locked in the sickbay while they go and fetch the doctor. Desmond demands to be let out, yelling that he's not supposed to be there. Obviously, he's still very disoriented. As he pounds desperately on the door, he hears a voice from the shadows. It's a man, strapped to a bed. A man with a familiar voice.

"Hey. Hey. Hey! It's happening to you too, isn't it?"

When Regina said Minkowski couldn't come to the phone, she wasn't kidding.

Up on deck, Sayid watches an exchange between Frank and Keamy. He figures that the folks on the boat know what's happening to Desmond. Frank assures him that if they do, they aren't sharing the information with him.

"Then perhaps you can share how we took off at dusk and landed in the middle of the day."

Frank gives him a look that says "I would love to explain it to you, but I don't have a bottle of scotch handy."

(*Why you need scotch to dull the pain of any time travel sidenote: Dusk to mid-day is a hell of a lot longer than 31 minutes, no matter which way you spin the big hand. It seems obvious that all speculation of time running differently on the island might have just been blown out of the water. If I had to guess, I'd say there's a "bubble" of distorted time around the island and while inside the bubble time perception might be off (how many times have our castaways left the beach in broad daylight only to find themselves in the jungle in the dead of night seemingly a short time later?) the relationship of time is relatively stable, possibly fluctuating in both directions by several hours or even days, but basically in close sync. In my head, I see the real world as a fixed point and the island as a pendulum on an elastic band, fixed to the real world but swinging forward and back, sometimes ahead of and sometimes behind "real" time. Transitioning from one to the other will take a longer or shorter time, depending on the island's position on the arc of the pendulum swing AND on the length of the stretching elastic. The elastic represents the "bubble", which seems to be variable in the amount of time lag it produces. If I was writing the pseudo-science, I would use the "stretchiness" of the elastic to explain why sometimes the transition is easy and other times it isn't. As the island's time lines up most closely with time in the real world, at the very bottom of the pendulum arc the transition is smoothest, whereas at either extreme of the swing, the elastic is stretched so much that any in/out movement between the island and the outside world is extremely difficult.)

Instead of trying to explain the whole wonky time thing to Sayid, Frank changes the subject back to Desmond.

"Listen, I don't know what's happening to your buddy, alright? But you gotta trust me when I tell you this. I am trying to help you."

"You want to help me? Give me your phone. Let me call my people."

"You give me that weapon and I'll give you this phone."

Sayid makes the trade and puts in a call to Jack.

He explains that something has happened to Desmond since they left. His description of the Scotsman's condition catches Faraday's attention.

"What your friend's...Desmond... Has he recently been exposed to high levels of radiation or electro-magnetism?"

Jack and the crew share a "Does an imploding electro-magnet strong enough to suck cutlery and belt buckles across the room and throw hundred pound metal hatch covers hundreds of feet through the air and turn the whole freakin' sky a pretty shade of lilac count?" look.

"Okay, look...we don't know why, but going to and coming from the island, some people can get a little...confused."

Juliet asks if this is amnesia.

I cannot convey the depth of Faraday's concern, certainty and simultaneous uncertainty as he assures her that it's not amnesia.

Back on the boat, Desmond is trying to wake Minkowski from an eyes open coma state. His lights are on, but nobody's home. Finally he comes around.

"I was just on a Ferris wheel."

Just then, a lab coat wearing gentleman comes in.

"See, Ray? I'm not crazy. It's happening to him too, Ray. And it's gonna happen to you. It's gonna happen to all of us. Everyone, once we start heading to that island again."

Ray gently pushes Desmond aside, then pushes some sleepy time joy juice into Minkowski's arm as the restrained man repeats "Nothing can stop it!" until he goes nappy-time.

As if noticing Desmond for the first time, Ray turns to him and asks how he's feeling. You'd swear by his tone that everything is perfectly normal, despite the fact that Ferris wheel riding mattress monkey Minkowski was just preaching doom and gloom at the top of his lungs until Ray sent him for a ride on the narcotics express.

He asks Desmond to let him check his eyes and Des seems to relax a bit as Ray does what seems like normal doctoring. Ray shines the light in Desmond's eyes in what looks like a routine check, but before he can say "There's no place like home," Desmond is...elsewhere.

Desmond finds himself picking up his change in the rain, right where he was the last time he was here...er...now...er...then...er...there...er...in that uniform! Time travel descriptions are a bitch.

Scooping up his fallen coins, he hurries into the telephone booth and jams the money in and quickly dials a number. Two European rings later (Impressive...Hollywood usually has European phones ring in the traditional North American style) Penny answers. When Desmond asks for her help, she reminds him that he was the one who left her to join the army. He tries to convince her to let him see her, but she's purely pissed with him and tells him in no uncertain terms that she doesn't want to hear from him or see him anymore. He tries one more time, but he's...elsewhere.

Ray is still checking his eyes but notes that Desmond went bye-bye for a bit and asks him if he just experienced something.

At that moment, Frank barges into the sickbay with Sayid. Ray tries to protest, but Frank tells him that he has Faraday calling from the island and he needs to talk to Desmond.

Ray tries to keep Frank from letting Faraday talk to Desmond, but Sayid grabs him and throws him against the wall, ordering Frank to give Desmond the phone. Ray is able to press an alarm button on the wall, as Frank hands Des the phone.

"Desmond? My name is Daniel Faraday. We met yesterday before you took off, but I'm guessing you don't remember that. Am I right?"

"Took off? What?"

"Desmond, we don't have long to talk, so I need you to tell me what year you think it is."

"What do you mean, what year do I think...it's 1996."

Okay, so definitely not your normal Lost flashback. We knew that, but it's nice to have it spelled out for us.

"Alright, Desmond, Desmond look, you gotta tell me, where are you?"

"I'm in some kind of sickbay..."

"No, no, no, not right now, Desmond. Where are you supposed to be, where are you in 1996?"

"I...I'm at Camp Miller, it's ah...Royal Scottish Regiment, it's just North of Glasgow."

Jack tries to interrupt, but Faraday shushes him.

"Desmond listen, when it happens again Desmond, I need you to get on a train. Get on a train and go to Oxford. Oxford University, Queens College Physics Department, alright?"

"Wha...Why?"

"Because I need you to find me.

Officially one of the weirdest conversations I've ever transcribed. I normally don't like to use that much dialogue at once, but the conversation just demanded to be transcribed so we could see it in print.

Faraday then grabs his journal, saying that without it, he won't believe Desmond. Time travel paradox things like that are why Captain Janeway always hated temporal mechanics. It gives me a headache just thinking about it.

Jack asks a perfectly reasonable question. "Why does he think he's in 1996?"

"I don't know. I don't know. It's unpredictable, it's a random effect. Sometimes the displacement is only a couple of hours, sometimes it's years."

"Wait, wait. This has happened before?" That's two good questions in a row for Jack. And he didn't cry once.

Faraday retrieves his journal and while Sayid is holding the sickbay door shut against the ship's crew, Faraday relates the numbers that Desmond has to tell him in order for his past self to believe Desmond is telling the truth.

"When you find me at Queen's College, I need you to tell me to set the device to 2.342. Alright, you got it? 2.342 and it must be oscillating at 11 Hertz."

Desmond writes the numbers on his hand as best he can.

2.342...um those look familiar...23, 42...



"And one more thing, Desmond. If the numbers don't convince me, I need you to tell me that you know about Eloise."

Just then, Spike and Chester...er, Keamy and Omar bust through the hatch into the sickbay. As Keamy is wrestling the phone from Desmond, he's...elsewhere.

On the phone at Camp Miller, in the rain. Again.

A sunny day at Oxford University finds Desmond stalking Daniel Faraday. Faraday is handing what looks like a term paper on Quantum Physics back to a student, quietly admonishing him about it not being original. The student leaves and Desmond confronts Daniel.

When Daniel asks him why he is there, Desmond tries to explain that he's come back from the future and needs Faraday's help. This convinces Faraday that his colleagues are playing a not terribly funny prank on him because of his unconventional work.

As he walks away, Desmond recites Future Faraday's instructions for the device, stopping Former Faraday in his tracks. Former Faraday asks where Des got the numbers and Desmond tells him that he got them from Future Faraday. When it looks like Former Faraday is about to walk away, Desmond drops the Eloise bomb.

(*Second sidenote of a LONG recap: Was I the only one who assumed that Eloise was going to turn out to be a student that Former Faraday was fondling?)

Former Faraday takes Desmond to his office, where he does "all the things Oxford frowns upon."

Um...like Eloise?

"This future version of me, he referenced this meeting right? Obviously. So I would remember you coming to Oxford, right? I would remember this, here, right now."

"Actually...no. Maybe you just forgot."

"Yeah, right. How would that happen." Oh, just ask the three of clubs....

As Former Faraday puts on a lead apron, Desmond has questions about Daniel's equipment.

"So this, this is changing the future?"

"You can't change the future."

When Des asks what the apron is for, Daniel tells him it's for radiation. A little concerned, Desmond asks if he gets one. Apparently the radiation is only dangerous after many repeated exposures.

"What d'you put upon your head?"

A great question, for which the lack of an answer goes so far to explaining so much.

Former Faraday takes a white lab rat from her cage and introduces Eloise to Desmond. So if Faraday was having an affair with Eloise, we all have questions about his equipment.

Putting the rat beneath what looks like a cross between a McDonald's heat lamp and a hair dryer, Former Faraday explains that if the numbers Desmond gave him are correct, the device "Will unstick Eloise in time."

Billy Pilgrim, Future Faraday's tie and now Eloise.

A few seconds of zap with the heat lamp and Eloise goes quiet. After a few seconds, Former Faraday declares that she's back and pulls the gate on her maze. He's quite excited as she runs the maze flawlessly. Desmond is less than impressed.

"I'm sorry, how is a rat running through a bloody maze so incredible?"

"What is incredible is I just finished the maze this morning. I'm not gonna teach her how to run it until an hour from now."

Desmond digests the implication. "So, you sent her to the future?"

"Consciousness. Her mind."

"So, how does that help me."

"You? I don't understand. Am I supposed to help you? Didn't I send you back to help me?"

"I don't know why you sent me here. All I know about you is you, you end up on some bloody island."

"An island? What island? Why would I go to..."

The sickbay. Desmond is once again in the "now" as Frank tries to calm Keamy and Omar down. He tries to explain that Faraday wanted to talk to Desmond, so he brought him the phone. Keamy is annoyed that Frank let the tie wearing head case talk to Desmond.

"He said he could help."

"Faraday can't even help himself." At least, that's what Ray thinks.

So, do Keamy and the Keamettes know about Faraday's little memory trouble? Whether they do or not, the captain wants to talk to Frank. Sayid also wants to have a chat with the captain but Keamy is in no hurry to bring the new passengers to meet him. He locks the sickbay door behind him as he leaves.

Once they're gone, Desmond desperately scoops up the discarded light that Ray used on his eyes and starts flicking it at his own peepers. He mutters that he needs to get back, which Sayid assumes means to the island. Calling him by name, Sayid asks Desmond to please explain to him what's going on.

From the mattress in the corner, Minkowski chimes in. "Desmond? You're Desmond?"

"Do I know you?"

"I'm George Minkowski, I'm the communications officer. Before they strapped me down here, all the calls to and from this boat came through me in the radio room and every so often, I'd get this flashing light on my console. An incoming call. We were under strict orders never to answer them."

"So? What's that got to do with me?"

"Those calls came from your girlfriend. Penelope Widmore."

Before Desmond has time to process this new information, he's...elsewhere.

(*Recognizable voice sidenote: I've been calling Minkowski "Minkowski" all through this recap even though he only now introduces himself. I figure most folks recognized the voice and made the connection.)

In Former Faraday's lab, a disoriented Desmond comes around after something like seventy-five minutes in a catatonic state. FF asks him how long he was in the future this time, and Des figures around five minutes. 75:5 or so. Keep that number in your head fellow travellers.

"Why does this keep happening?"

"In your case, I'm guessing that progression is exponential. Each time your consciousness jumps it gets harder and harder to jump back. I would be careful crossing the street if I were you."

Just then, Desmond notices Eloise. "What happened to her?"

"She died."

So it goes.

When Desmond wonders if the same thing will happen to him, FF starts in with an equivocal explanation, but Desmond is really, really fed up with not understanding what's happening to him. He grabs FF and shoves him up against his equations.

"If this keeps happening, am I going to die?"

"I don't know. I think Eloise's brain...short circuited. The jumps between the present and the future...she eventually...she couldn't tell which was which. She had no anchor."

"What'd you mean, anchor?"

Pointing to his equations, he explains that everything is random in the time jumps and that every equation needs an anchor, a constant. Desmond needs to find something familiar in the future. Something that exists in both times that he really cares about.

(*Really pseudo pseudo-science side note: This is about as scientific as an episode of Jimmy Neutron. Still, it's such a great plot device, we'll let it go.)

"This constant. Can it be a person?"

"Yeah, maybe. But you'd have to make some kind of contact. Didn't you say you were on a boat in the middle of nowhere?" When FF sees Des dial his phone, he asks who he's calling.

"I'm calling my bloody constant."

Unfortunately, his bloody constant has bloody disconnected her bloody phone. Desmond runs out of FF's bloody lab and down the bloody stairs, but before he can get to the bloody bottom, he's bloody...elsewhere.

After a moment of disorientation, he looks in the mirror and sees a much shaggier guy than the one doing crunches in the rain not long ago. Minkowski knowingly says "You look a lot older now, huh?"

The two men are understandably confused when Desmond says he needs to call Penny. Sayid puts into words.

"Calling your girlfriend is not our priority right now."

"Listen, brotha. I don't know you, but you seem to know me. So if you and me are friends, I need your help. I need to call Penny, now."

Minkowski puts the brakes on Desmonds headlong rush to make his call. It seems that two days ago, someone sabotaged all the comm gear, leaving the boat incommunicado with the mainland.

"I probably could have fixed it, but then...I went nuts."

It's really too bad that there isn't another communications expert on board.

Sayid asks, "Where is the radio room?"

Oh. Right. Gee, that's lucky.

Minkowski offers to guide them. Of course, there's still the little issue of being locked in sickbay. Too bad that there isn't someone on the boat working against the freighter folk.

Oh. Right. Gee, that's lucky.

"Looks like you guys have a friend on this boat."

While Sayid checks the corridor, Desmond helps Minkowski to his feet. As the guy starts to get up, he notices that his nose is bleeding. A sure sign of brain trauma, at least in Hollywood. As Desmond hands him a soon to be bloody tissue, he's soon to be bloody...elsewhere.

Still in the stairwell, Desmond collects his wits and heads for the nearest auction. How Desmond found out that Mr. Widmore would be at the Black Rock auction is a mystery, but one that I don't think anyone really cares about. I'm just as happy to leave that off my list of questions. I don't think we need another mystery to worry about.

From the auctioneer, we learn that the Black Rock set sail from England on March 22, 1845 on a trading mission with the Kingdom of Siam. Siam? I wonder if any of the sailors had life defining tattoos done while they were there?

(*Geography sidenote: Thailand used to be called the Kingdom of Siam.)

On auction is the journal of the First Mate, one Tolvard Hanso. The journal was found seven years later among the artifacts of pirates, on Madagascar. According to the auctioneer, the contents of the journal have never been seen outside of Hanso's family. The bidding on lot 2342 starts at one hundred and fifty thousand pounds.

Lot 2342? Um...those numbers sound familiar...




Bidding is fast and furious, with several audience members and a phone bidder (Anyone care to bet that the phone bidder is NOT Mr. Paik?) drive the price up, but ultimately, bidder 755 (A NEW set of Lost numbers, perhaps?) is the winner at three hundred and eighty thousand pounds. It's Mr. Widmore. During the auction, Desmond tried to barge in to see the scotch hoarding bastard, but was stopped by security.

When Widmore sees Desmond, he is surprisingly pleasant to him, even asking him to walk with him as he leaves. Of course, being the prick that he is, he doesn't walk far. Just to the washroom, leaving Desmond standing uncomfortably as he empties his bladder.

Desmond explains that he needs to get in touch with Penny and surprisingly (again) Mr. Widmore, he of you're not good enough to touch my scotch, let alone my daughter fame, actually writes down the address and hands it to him. Of course, being the prick that he is, the note is accompanied by a lovely diatribe about what a coward Desmond is and a smug assurance that Penny will tell him herself what she thinks of him.

In a bizarre but effective display of alpha-male dominance, Widmore leaves the water running, certain that Desmond's subordinate nature will force him to turn it off for him. As Desmond reaches for the faucet, he's...elsewhere.

Back on the ship, Desmond hears from Minkowski that his time shifting will not only get harder but start happening faster. He and his two amigos sneak stealthily and quickly through the ship to the radio room. As they travel, Minkowski explains that he and someone named Brandon were bored while the ship was anchored and decided to take the ship's tender and headed for the island for a look see.

(*Nautical sidenote: I was pretty sure, but looked it up anyhow, since I'm a landlubber. A tender is a small boat towed or carried by a larger one, but not a lifeboat as such.)

Before they got very far, Brandon started acting crazy.

"Where's is he?"

"In a body bag."

So it goes.

The three men arrive in the communications room. Every wire looks to have been cut, every console smashed. Sayid asks who did it, but Minkowski doesn't know. Apparently the captain doesn't either, but when he finds out...

Before he can finish his sentence, Minkowski goes catatonic.

Seemingly neither surprised nor moved by Minkowski's face plant, Sayid simply says, "After your call, someone has to tell me precisely what is going on."

Desmond keeps his eyes on the prize.

"Can you fix it brotha?"

"I need a minute. Do you have the number to make the call?" As Sayid asks, Minkowski starts to convulse. Desmond tries to call to him, to tell him to come back but Minkowski stays...elsewhere.

As he checks his pulse, Des notices that it's not exactly the year he thought it was. He sees the 2004 calendar, marked off to Christmas Eve. When he mentions the year, Sayid misunderstands and remarks that he hadn't realized how near to Christmas it was.

(*Will they or won't they sidenote: If the show uses the tsunami of December 26, 2004 as a major plot affecting event, that would seem to blow their "we had a plan from the beginning" mantra out of the water. Now, there's nothing wrong with adapting the story to include a real world event that would have a minor impact in the Pacific Ocean, but if the plot turns on the tsunami, that would pretty much prove that there was no plan at all.)

As he looks up at Des, Sayid sees that the Scot's nose is bleeding, which as we noted before is a sure sign of brain trauma, at least in Hollywood.

Right then, Minkowski once again starts to convulse.

"I. Can't. Get. Back." With those words, Minkowski is...nowhere.

So it goes.

"What happened to him?"

"The same thing that's gonna happen to me."

And once again, he is...elsewhere.

The sink in the bathroom has overflowed and is spilling onto the floor where he's lying. He gets up, turns the faucet off, splashes some water on his face and rushes out to find his bloody constant.

At 423 Cheyne Walk, Desmond knocks frantically on the door.



4, 23? Again, there's something familiar about those numbers...

Penny finally answers and Desmond tries to get her to give him her new phone number. She's not about to give it to him, since he's the one who left her. He's reduced to begging her to listen to him. Finally, she relents and lets him in to say what he has to say.

"I know this doesn't make any sense because it doesn't make any sense to me, but eight years from now, I need to call you and I can't call you if I don't have your number."

Penny says what any sane person would say in this situation. "What?"

"Look Penny, just...just give me your number. I know, I know I've ruined things. I know that you think things are over between us, but they're not. If there's any part of you that still believes in us, just...just give me your number."

"What's to say you wouldn't call me tonight or tomorrow?"

"I won't call for eight years. December the twenty-fourth, two thousand and four. Christmas Eve. I promise. Please Pen."

"If I give you the number, will you leave?"

"Aye."

"Seven nine four six, oh eight nine three."

Desmond starts repeating it under his breath, trying to burn it into his memory.

"All that and you're not going to write it down?"

"It wouldn't do any good. You have to keep that number!" As he starts to rant that she has to keep the number for eight years, she shoves him out the door. He continues to rant at her door, pounding on it, shouting that he's not crazy and that she has to believe him, then he's...elsewhere.

In the radio room, Sayid reminds Desmond that he still needs the number...

"Seven nine four six, oh eight nine three. It's a London number."

"Excellent timing."

I'll forgo the sarcastic remark about how lucky this is, since it's just so darned romantic.

Sayid has the patch complete but he's not sure how much juice is in the battery. He dials the number and hands Desmond the handset. At this moment, Desmond seems to be...bothwhere.

After a whole whack of rings, Penny finally picks up.

"Hello?"

"Penny?"

"Desmond?"

"Penny, you answered. You answered Penny."

Smiles all around, then and now.

"Des, where are you?"

"I'm...I'm...I'm...I'm on a boat. I've been on an island. My God Penny is that really you?"

Finding his constant seems to have brought his consciousness back to the present.

"Yeah, yes it's me!"

"You believed me. You still care about me."

"Des, I've been looking for you for the past three years. I know about the island. I've been researching it...[garbled]...and then when I spoke to your friend Charlie, that's when I knew...you were still alive. That's when I knew I wasn't crazy."

The battery on the phone starts to run down, their conversation gets some heavy static. It clears up momentarily...

"I love you Penny. I've always loved you. I'm so sorry. I love you."

"I love you too."

"I don't know where I am, but"

"I'll find you Des."

"I promise..."

"No matter what..."

"I'll come back to you."

"I won't give up."

"I promise."

"I promise."

"I love you."

(*Impressive dialogue, direction and editing sidenote: The final "I love you" is simultaneous and I couldn't help but note as I transcribed the dialogue that the back and forth between them on the phone at the end felt very musical, like the back and forth singing in an opera. It takes some great acting and editing to pull that off in a scene with actors in two different rooms on telephones. Very impressive.)

Sayid apologizes that the phone's power finally gave out.

"Thank you, Sayid. It was enough."

So Des really is back in his own head. I wonder how long that will last?

Back on the beach, Future Faraday is leafing through his journal. He comes across an entry and stares at it. It is written in red and takes up a whole page.

"If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."



Um...just exactly how much does he have to care about his constant?