LOST: Billy Pilgrim Has Become Unstuck In Time

LISTEN: Desmond Hume has become unstuck in time.

And so has Daniel Faraday. And so did a rat and a few others, but they died.

The Constant, this past week's episode, followed the arc laid out by Eggstown, the episode before it, of the character episode. The first few episodes were nonstop action and mythos laden sock rockers that ended invariably in cliff hangers. It was all I could do to keep my pants dry. The past two episodes have been character driven, focusing on one castaway and his or her struggles. Kate had to choose between men, and still managed to make an ambivalent decision. Desmond had to get back home.

Everybody loves to point out that Desmond's girlfriend Penelope takes her name from Odysseus's wife, who waited twenty years for him to come home. Obviously, Desmond has not been gone twenty years, but tell me that when Desmond told Penny he would not call her for eight years your stomach did not churn, and I would tell you that you are going to hell, because, as we all know, liars go to hell (it's in the bible - look it up).

The separation of the time betwixt the island and the real world became more entangled, as it takes the helicopter twenty minutes to reach the boat, but those on the beaches perceive it to be a full day. This throws my long thought out and unflappable calculations to the winds - obviously something crazy has been going on, to the point where I question whether the writers are in over their heads. But, as it is well known, the writers of LOST are creative geniuses, recruited from infancy to build the entertainment equivalent of the Tower of Babel, so I give them the benefit of the doubt. We also get an explanation for last season's time traveling episode: shifting consciousness. Only the thoughts of a person move, not the person himself, very much like Billy Pilgrim from Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse-Five. Daniel of a Decade Before gives Desmond a cliff notes version of this, saying that the only way to break the cycle is to find a constant, a foundation in both time spans. 

(He also gives voice to the producer's feeling on the show Heroes, mumbling about the "time traveling paradox" as so elementary.)

Penelope, as it was everyone's guess, is Des's constant. In his search for her, he runs across her father, Mr. Widmore, buying the diary of a Hanso, first mate on the Black Rock. Hanso is the family that runs the Dharma Initiative, and the Black Rock is the boat washed ashore on the island. My good friend and Native American Ricky Shade recently pitched me a theory where Mr. Widmore was behind the freighter and its search for the island. I laughed it off and made a crude racial slur. I recently sent him an apology (not about the slur).

So we find that Penelope has been searching for Desmond for three years, and knows about the island (quite possibly through her father). When Desmond reaches her by the phone that MacGuyver, also known as Sayid, jerry rigged, and breaks the time traveling loop, the two have about the best phone conversation I have ever listened to (and listened to about four times). The conversation has been three years lying in wait, and did not disappoint, as the two proclaimed their love. And yes, Lip Gloss Riggan, I did almost cry.

The Downer: Daniel Faraday is most certainly, too, unstuck in time. We have seen his memory problems before, in the shape of the card game he and Charlotte played, and now this comes to fruition. The time traveling can be caused in two ways: overexposure to electromagnetism (Desmond) or to radiation. When Desmond meets Daniel of a Decade Before, he is conducting experiments involving heavy radiation, he isn't wearing head protection. When Desmond asks about this, there is no answer (which is how LOST deals with questions: usually, Hurley asks, "What is that," or, "Who are you," or, "Is this a good idea," and no one answers. But the fact that the question was asked puts the audience at ease). Since he doesn't remember meeting Des, it can be assumed that he, too, will be taking a trip shortly.

IN OTHER NEWS, Daniel is way to nice to be a bad guy, the freighter employs an in-house Dr. Kevorkian, the inside man (quite possibly Michael) is a ghost, and Jack and Juliet still have not hooked up. This is getting old.

When Desmond absorbed so much electromagnetic energy, so did Locke. If Locke really did, by some cosmic joke, leave the island (and I think he did), he too would go through such a time traveling journey, which, for someone with his past, would be the last circle of hell. Maybe that's why he committed suicide.