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“Lost” Love (Conquers All)

Posted Apr 7, 2010 by Ray Reyes

Updated Apr 7, 2010 at 12:09 PM

So after half a bunch of Sideways flashes where I was beginning to question the worth of these possible destinies for our favorite characters, we finally get, in last night’s episode “Happily Ever After,” the season’s game-changer.

We get an inkling on how the two timelines are intertwined. We get an idea of who pulled the strings to create those relatively happy endings in the Sideways universe and why Sideways Time must end. 

And, with great rejoicing throughout the land, we find out that Desmond Hume is the key to all the universes of “Lost.”

The producers actually told us this way back in Season 2, when my man Desmond went under The Hatch and literally TURNED A KEY to trigger an electromagnetic discharge that, in ensuing seasons, gave him the ability to survive shifts in the space-time continuum.

He is immune to the brain-damaging effects of time travel because the love of his life, Penny Widmore, is his constant in all universes and realities. In “Happily Ever After,” Desmond realizes that no matter what, he will always be with Penny (this echoes the sentiments in Richard Alpert’s episode “Ab Aeterno,” in which Richard’s wife Isabella tells him that she is always with him).

Once Desmond realizes this, he has no fear and decides to act so that all is right with the universe again. He sees the Sideways world for what it is: a fabrication of lives that someone else or some other greater power (my vote is the Man in Black, partnered with Eloise Hawking-Widmore—but more on this later) thought would give closure and peace to the Losties.

Desmond realizes everybody has a choice. Everybody has free will. Yeah, there may be one true love for us in all possible universes, but how we find them and how we get there should be OUR choice, not influenced by the machinations of Island demigods or mad scientists.

So, regardless of the show’s dense mythology, red herrings, dead-end character arcs (Nikki and Paolo; Ana Lucia; Mr. Eko), and slow-burn mysteries, we as viewers also have a constant.

It’s Desmond.

He’s the heart of the show, the key that makes all the sci-fi/metaphysical stuff palpable. And, at heart, what the entire show is apparently about and spoken of outright by Daniel Farady-Widmore and Charlie Pace, is . . . love. The kind of love that spans space and time. The kind of love that doesn’t make us feel lost and gives us purpose.

Yeah, I can dig that.

Desmond knows what his purpose is in both timelines; for all appearances, he’s the catalyst that will send the end-game into motion.

OK, now on to the theory floating out there in the blogosphere that I prescribe to: the Sideways universe exists because the Man in Black escaped the island. MIB punched his ticket to freedom when, back in 1977, Juliet fell down the Swan hole and introduced a rock to the tip of an atomic bomb.

The resulting blast sunk the Island; MIB escaped, like a genie from a bottle (yeah, why is he black smoke anyway, right? And why does he always promise people he’ll grant them whatever they wish?); his escape caused the creation of Sideways time.

Remember when Charles Widmore said that if MIB escapes, everything that the Losties ever knew would simply cease to exist? In Sideways time, Jin isn’t married to Sun and Sun’s daddy wants him dead. And it looks like the Kwons’ kid may not survive in that universe either.

In Sideways time, Daniel Faraday-Widmore is a musician—his first love—not a brilliant quantum physicist. If he was a scientist, that career path would have led him to the love of HIS life, red-headed, blue-eyed Charlotte. Instead, he just catches a glimpse of her in a museum in Sideways time and she and him move on.

And in Sideways time, Desmond lives a solitary, yet globe-trotting life under the auspices of Charles Widmore, his nemesis in Island time. Yet in Sideways time, he doesn’t have Penny and he doesn’t have a child with her. Eloise Hawking Widmore even encourages Desmond in “Happily Ever After” NOT to meet or even ask questions about Penny, perhaps to keep Sideways time intact.

Because when he finds out the truth, the Sideways timeline begins to unravel.

But I and other bloggers agree that the MIB didn’t work alone. His accomplice could be Eloise Hawking, Daniel’s mother, a brilliant scientist in her own right and the one character, other than Desmond and Daniel, who has caught glimpses of the future and alternate timelines. Did Eloise strike a deal with the MIB to manipulate Jughead’s detonation and the destruction of the Island? And did she do it to break the cycle of her son dying in Island Time?

And now some random thoughts:

1) Next week’s episode is gonna be Hurley-centric, and if it’s following the love theme of the show, we’ll get to see Libby again. Finally.

2) Coffee houses in “Lost” seem to be a nexus for all universes. In the Season 6 opener, didn’t Juliet tell Sawyer they’re meeting for coffee? Didn’t Desmond meet Libby in a coffee house where Libby gives him her boat so he could set sail around the world? And Desmond and Penny’s first date in Sideways time will be in a coffee shop.

3) Speaking of Desmond and Penny meeting in Sideways time: that stadium also has to be some weird, important “Lost” nexus. It’s the stadium where, in Island time, Desmond trained to prepare for his circumnavigation of the globe and where he met Jack for the first time. Back in Sideways-ville, we get the first meeting of Desmond and his constant. And I have to say, Henry Ian Cusick SMASHED that scene. Man, I love Desmond and Penny stories.

4) I kind of feel sorry for Ben and Locke. Because in the Sideways world, they have the people they care about: Ben-Alex and Locke-Helen. If Desmond rips out the fabric of Sideways time, then Ben and Locke lose out on the people they love. Then again, I also feel sorry for Sideways Sayid. He gets nada out of Nadia in both timelines. Then AGAIN, the people Ben, Locke and Sayid love are always with them, considering the logic of the show, right?

5) More and more, the Island seems to be a place where world mythology converges. Maybe the Island is SO old it’s the place where most myths originated. Thinks about it: the four-toed statue is Tawaret, the Egyptian goddess of fertility. The MIB is black smoke, like a genie—or a djinn in Persian myths—who needs to escape from his bottle.

6) “Not Penny’s Boat.” Awesome. One of the most iconic of the show’s images makes a grand comeback. Got chills.

7) Desmond is destined to push buttons in every timeline. That was his job in The Hatch. And then he hit the panic button during the CAT scan. Funny stuff.