SPOILER WARNING
* I like Desmond; I’ve never loved Desmond. Despite a consistently warm and compelling performance from Henry Ian Cusick, one of the seemingly countless casting coups that I think really saved the show’s bacon once things started getting truly baroque, Desmond’s the kind of character I’d call “Internet-beloved” and mean it as a sneer, I’m afraid. He strikes me as what people who hate Jack wanted Jack to be: A hero. Desmond will never let anyone down, which is what makes him much less interesting to me than Jack. I’m glad he’s in love, but that doesn’t really move my needle all that much in the context of a show with umpteen million star-crossed couples; I’m glad he can time-travel and dimension-shift with greater ease than the rest of the cast, but that also doesn’t really move my needle all that much in the context of a show with smoke monsters and psychic children and immortals and people who see dead people. I liked Desmond best in Season Two, when he was the crazy Scotsman in the Hatch injecting himself with drugs, listening to Mama Cass, and trying and failing to escape the Island where he’d lived a hallucinatory hermetic life as the only thing keeping the world from ending.
* So I don’t dread Desmond episodes; I dread the aftermath of Desmond episodes. I’m just not fully on board with the rapturous reception all his episodes get–at least two of them are usually held up as potential “Best. Episode. EVER”s, and I’m not feeling it. My quick, dismissive post last night was just an attempt to dodge the deluge of “OMG!!!!”s I knew was coming; I couldn’t even close my computer down fast enough to avoid a few, and Todd VanDerWerff’s review is probably the apotheosis of the form: “If you did not like “Happily Ever After,” then I’m pretty sure we can’t be Internet friends anymore.” Rats!
* But, you know, I did like the episode. It was fine. In the immortal words of History of the World Part I: “Nice. Nice. Not thrilling…but nice.”
* Aside from my general lack of “DESMOND FTW” vibes, my biggest problem with it–and this is what I was getting at with that one-line post–is that it’s pretty much exactly what I expected. Veteran time-jumper Desmond is the first to figure out that the flashsideways timeline is a bogus existence created by (according to Daniel) the detonation of the nuclear bomb by the Dharma Bums, and now he’s going to try to persuade the castaways to abandon their new, fake lives for the old one. Like, duh, right?
* Admittedly, that first moment when Charlie opens his eyes underwater and smilingly puts his hand on the glass sent a little shockwave for me. It’s one of the show’s most memorable images. But of course, it’s an image from another, earlier episode. Whatever revelatory juice we were supposed to get from the discovery that these aren’t the lives the characters are supposed to be leading was undercut, for me at least, by the fact that that was my assumption from the jump.
* So, unlike the “I want ANSWERS” crowd VanDerWerff rightly rails against in his review, I was perfectly satisfied with the volume of answers we got in this episode. It seemed like a lot to me. Moreover, anytime Lost does one of its big super-science experiments–like throwing some switches and forcing Desmond to quantum leap through the stargate in arguably the cheesiest effects sequence the show’s done so far–I feel like I am getting an “answer” even if you end up just having to shrug your shoulders and roll with pseudoscientificity of it all.
* I also had no beef with spending all that time in the flashsideways universe rather than on the Island. Like I always say, I like these characters, and since the core of who they all are has remained consistent from the main universe to the new one, I never feel, as apparently many people do, that these flashsideways sequences are a waste of time we could be spending on the “real” characters and the answers they seek. These are the real characters too, as far as I’m concerned.
* Specifically, I was thrilled to see Desmond receive not just the approval, but the friendship, of Charles Widmore. I’m a sucker for when grown men are kind and cooperative to each other in fiction, it really hits my buttons, and seeing them smile at each other and warmly hug, their real-reality animosity vaporized, was a treat.
* So too was the part when he got really angry at Desmond for losing Charlie: I thought we were gonna see the old, awful Widmore come out, but his ultimate punishment was just making Desmond tell his wife himself. Chuckle!
* I also really enjoyed the return of Charlie Pace. Is it just me, or has Dominic Monaghan grown as an actor considerably since the start of the show? I find him really convincingly dissolute and puckish; if he were older I could see him going toe to toe with the reigning Manchester junkie-rockstar champ Shaun Ryder. (PS: “You All Everybody” needs to be transported back to about 1994 and released as a single.) It warms the cockles of my heart to see a drugged-up rock star break on through to the other side for real, you know?
* I also got a big kick out of the return of George Minkowski. Poor Fisher Stevens: Everyone was so excited to see him join the cast, but he stuck around for all of an episode before biting it. (Zoe Bell too!) He was so unctuous here he made me uncomfortable through the television screen. Well done!
* Some guy on Twitter spoiled the return of Daniel Faraday for me, so I was kind of left flat by that. (If you’re wondering how any of these return appearances could surprise me to begin with given that they’re all in the opening credits, I cover up the lower third of the screen until the “Guest Starring” section is finished in order to avoid getting spoiled by the show’s own credits.) I mean, I like Jeremy Davies fine in that role, and I liked seeing how he accessed those same mannerisms through the filter of a brilliant musician who’s basically happy rather than a brilliant scientist who’s basically miserable. I just wasn’t bowled over by it, is all.
* Eloise is always fun, isn’t she? A Harry Potter harridan. Perhaps the one aspect of this episode’s mythology advancement that did take me by surprise was that she’s apparently a timecop in this reality as well. I thought the show was clever to present her as this intimidating but ultimately kind lady, only to flip a switch the second she hears Desmond nosing around about something that might trigger his memories of the original reality–boom! out comes the hardass.
* Finally, just because I’m not head-over-heels for Desmond doesn’t mean I wasn’t glad that he managed to score a date with Penny despite an entire reality built on the premise that they’d never met. If I were Penny I would have been blowing my rape whistle and spraying him with mace the whole time, but whatever, good for those two crazy kids.
* So yeah, like VanDerWerff and unlike the ANSWERS!!!!1!! crowd, I had no problem with the flashsideways reality dominating the show, and enjoyed a lot of it. It’s just that at long last, this was a case of the show zigging exactly where I expected it to zig, zagging where I expected it to zag. It’s a bummer is all.
* Over on the Island: This is kind of picayune, but I think casting that dimpy dude from cereal commercials or whatever as one of Widmore’s scientists was the first big casting mistake I can remember the show making in a long time. I’m just not scared of or impressed by a guy who looks like a chipmunk. Casting Debbie from Singles as Dark Tina Fey is fine, though.
* After all these years, Sayid actually is a badass! Sure, it took the Lost equivalent of demonic possession for him to successfully infiltrate anything other than Shannon’s vagina, but give the guy a hand.
* A friend of mine was all psyched up after the episode, saying that it was the show declaring “Alright, it’s on”–but I don’t see it, certainly not any moreso than all the episodes where Jacob or Fake Locke revealed their motives and goals. I mean, Desmond has his quantum leap and returns all beatific and doo; over in the flashsideways timeline it’s pretty clear what he’s up to, but on the Island? First he’s joining the Get-Along Gang with Widmore, then he’s just as pleased to wander off with Sayid after Sayid ices the two Widmorians and (in what I assume was a pretty bad move, aka classic Sayid) lets Zoe run away. That’s intriguing, certainly, but it’s far from “a-ha! Now we know what the endgame will be.”
* So there you have it. My little one-liner was more a response to the response to the episode than to the episode itself, which I liked fine. I’m sorry about that; that’s lame behavior and it’s not the kind of thing I’m glad to have done. But like I always say, I’m always trying to find a way to approach the art I like that maximizes my enjoyment, and kicking against the pricks late last night wasn’t that way. Turns out gettin’ a good night’s sleep and then writing about the episode this morning was, so thank you for your patience!
Moving my responses from the previous thread over to here (before I read the actual post, mind you):
Yeah, I was just thinking this episode kinda defied too much commentary for some reason.
Worth noting: Near as I can tell, nothing happened when Sawyer and Kate made contact in the sideways world, so I guess they’re not meant to be. Then again, nothing happened with Jin and Sun either.
Not sure what to make of that.
More food for thought: Is near-death + happily ever after the necessary equation to awareness of the “real” universe? If so, how did Faraday get it without the first part? And is Charlie special somehow in the same way Desmond is?
Lot of new questions raised here which are kinda delicious but at the same time feel like they shouldn’t be coming up for the first time with six eps left.
GAH, you faker. Like Ben, just moving my comments over:
So, as has been speculated around these parts, the Sidewayses are part of a world where Smokey is unleashed, and they seem to be something to be avoided? Seems to be the implication.
My big question:
What did Desmond see in the sideways that made him understand so implicitly what Widmore wanted of him? Sure, he doesn’t have Charlie, and if you gave me a vision of a world where I can meet and romance my wife but we don’t have our kids (knowing the statistical impossibility of creating the exact kids again), I’d fight against it as well. But for the most part, the world seems all right. Certainly, Widmore runs down the list of sacrifices he’s made in Island world (son dead, daughter not speaking to him), and none of that seems to have happened in Sideways…why is he fighting it? What is going on in that world that we can’t see, and did Desmond see it? Or is it just a sense that this other world is not real?
I loved Charlie running through the hospital in his gown, shouting the sentiments of final season flash-sideways haters: “NONE OF THIS MATTERS!”
Is this going to set up a conflict where only EITHER Penny and Desmond OR Sawyer and Juliet can get a happy ending? Or are the two worlds somehow going to merge at the end? Because I’d hate to see either of those couples get fucked over.
And NO SPOILERS, but the previews last night gave way too much away. Wish I hadn’t watched ’em.
Yes, NO DISCUSSING THE “NEXT WEEK ON LOST” PREVIEWS IN THIS THREAD PLEASE. Justin, stop watching them!
And guys, thanks for your patience with me, for real.
Ok, now comments on this post itself (a lot of which is just me agreeing with Sean, except in the general spirit since I just realized I am one of those sappy Desmond fans he hates…so ‘ll stay away from that thank you ;-)).
1. Something about the general docility of Desmond in the Island world post-jump as well as the creepy vibe I got from him in that final “I want to show them something” shot (and that that was the cliffhanger shot) makes me wonder if persuading the castaways to abandon their “fake” lives is his goal and/or if that’s necessarily the best thing for everybody. Something about the way he carried himself really made me feel like the Smoke Monster somehow “got him” even across realities. Maybe Widmore sent him too soon and sideways-Eloise was trying to prevent him from being compromised. Could Smokey want the sideways world destroyed for some reason?
2. I really liked the friendship between Des and Widmore in this sideway world and even the way Widmore treated him at least somewhat kindly on the island for the same reasons you did, Sean. Dig the manlove.
3. For real, Dominic Monaghan got way better (and he was no slouch before). Almost made me want to watch FlashForward. Speaking of which, where does that show film? Did he and Sonya Walger carpool? Boatpool?
4. Jeremy Davies is not a name I had memorized, so I really was unsure whether or not Faraday’s role would be just a tease of the back of his head until he actually showed up. That was nice (I’m thinking of doing what you do with the opening credits).
I had a specific comics-related flash last night to Kurt Busiek’s Astro City #1/2 — the story where the guy is haunted by the memory of a woman he knows he hasn’t met; it turns out that they were married, but then a big Crisis-style timeline-altering event happens, and although the heroes hit the cosmic reset button, there are a few little details in the restored timeline that don’t fit with what went before — like his wife never being born. What I really like about that story is that it’s not about the Power of Love to Transcend All Space and Time, a la Mark Waid’s 1990s Flash comics; instead, it’s about this guy having to come to terms with the fact that yeah, he loved his wife strong and true, but no, she’s not coming back.
I make this comparison because it *seems* like the series is going to go the Love Conquers the Multiverse route, but it would be much more satisfying to me if they did something a bit more like that Astro City — something tragic and a little more memorable than Happily Ever After. I’m reminded that Widmore tells Desmond that he’s going to have to make a sacrifice — mightn’t that sacrifice be his life with Penny? Of course, we don’t know what Widmore is really up to. But I’m intrigued.
BW Costello: I was just thinking about that story, and how much it fucked with my head and how sad it made me. I’m man enough to admit I’m welling up right now thinking about it. Call me old fashioned, but after spending so much time with these characters, I’d like to see as many happy endings as possible. At this point I’d even like Ben and Widmore to get happy endings. Hell, even Smokey! But maybe not Kate. But everyone else.
Ben: Pretty smart of them to put that Flash Forward ad in an episode featuring Charlie and Penny, eh?
I’m down with the everybody but Kate gets a happy ending train. And they get new cars too. Jacob is there to present them with fresh-off-the-line Subarus.
I thought it was striking that this week and last week both reorganized relationships in the same way: a formerly antagonistic relationship between Lostie and father in law is transformed into a cooperative one.
Also, anyone else think that Penny/Desmond end up having their coffee date at the same place as Juliet/Sawyer?
I’m one of those dorks who really, really likes Desmond. It’s partly because of the charm of the performance, but also because he is one of the characters who has an absolutely specific goal and is willing to do whatever it takes to get there, even if it means severe abuse of the laws of physics.
I mean, this is a guy who has literally crossed oceans of time to be with the one he loves, and is now traveling between entire universes for the same reason.
With that in mind, if he has to choose between the two realities, I could totally see him going for the new one, simply because it’s one where he can guarantee that won’t be dragged away from penny and back to that bloody island again.
Once again, thanks to everyone for your patience with me, especially those of you who commented on the old thread and then did me the favor of copypasta. You’re why I look forward to these discussions!
Ben:
* Worth noting: Near as I can tell, nothing happened when Sawyer and Kate made contact in the sideways world, so I guess they’re not meant to be. Then again, nothing happened with Jin and Sun either.
I would say two things to this: 1) Have Jack and Kate seen each other yet? Sawyer and Juliet haven’t… 2) Jin and Sun weren’t introduced recently, they’d already known each other and fallen in love and were able to start a relationship, so maybe that charge of “hey, this is the life I’m supposed to have!” was subsumed into their normal flashsideways life.
* Is near-death + happily ever after the necessary equation to awareness of the “real” universe?
I think it’s either/or, not and.
Justin:
* I don’t see how the Sideways world has anything to do with Smokey based on what we’ve seen or even what’s been implied. We’re guessing this, because we’ve all read “For the Man Who Has Everything” and are expecting MIB to play the Mongul role, but I don’t think the show has given us any indication that this is what’s to happen beyond his cryptic words to Sayid. Based solely on what’s been presented on-screen, there’s a lot more evidence that the bomb blast was responsible for the divergence.
* Desmond’s post-flash motivation, in both worlds, is the big mystery raised by this episode. I was so baffled by it I’m tempted to run with your suggestion that it’s “just a sense that this world is not real.”
* I loved Charlie running through the hospital in his gown, shouting the sentiments of final season flash-sideways haters: “NONE OF THIS MATTERS!”
Ha, totally missed that! Love it.
Ben again:
* RE: Desmond’s “general docility” at the end and the “creepy vibe” that emanates from it–I felt it too, though I don’t think we’ve been given any cues that he’s been contaminated. I think it’s just a “he knows something we don’t know” thing.
BW:
* I’d guess that some characters will go in one direction and get their happily ever after, and some won’t. It’s too smart a show to not have a little tragedy mixed in. Nice Astro City reference, by the way–this is why it’s fun to discuss this show with comics people.
Simon:
* Uh, last week, didn’t Mr. Paik try to have Jin killed? Unless you’re talking about a different father-in-law.
* Also, anyone else think that Penny/Desmond end up having their coffee date at the same place as Juliet/Sawyer?
Oh, I’m absolutely certain of it.
“Based solely on what’s been presented on-screen, there’s a lot more evidence that the bomb blast was responsible for the divergence.”
Ah, but do we know for sure that Smokey didn’t somehow put events into play to lead to that bomb? I daresay we’ve yet to see the full extent of his manipulations (though admittedly I also can’t come up with a decent working theory of how he would be responsible).
–Is it just me, or did Widmore’s electro-pulse-thingy room look like it was specifically trying to evoke Horace/Jacob/Smokey’s cabin? Even if it wasn’t, it reminded me of the cabin, and I got kind of a weird kick out of it and what they might be trying to do (like resurrecting Jacob or something). I love it when people in movies use (pseudo)science to try to approximate something essentially magical in nature (cf. The Prestige). Kinda dug the effects too–as far as cheesiness goes, it’s not even in the same ballpark as the blurry CGI polar bears or the tour through Underwater Island that looked like a Sea World commercial.
–“If you don’t like X, we can’t be friends” is one of the most useless praise phrases anyone can say on the internet, right next to “It’s got X, Y and Z! What more do you need?” Beyond that, however, I’m pretty much in agreement with VanDerWerff’s assessment of the episode.
–Desmond will never let anyone down, except for the many times in the past when he has let people down. (The only reason he was on the island in the first place is that he let Penny down.) His whole thing there for a while was “coward who always runs away”–from Penny, from Widmore, from his first fiancee, from the Hatch. I like Desmond a lot, but it’s not because he’s the hero that Jack isn’t–it’s because his Odyssean quest to be reunited with Penny, the laws of space and time be damned, is so informed by that cowardice, his failures, and that Hatch/Numbers-induced cabin fever.
–Plus, like you said, Cusick is pretty great in the role. That’s one of the things I like most about the Desmond/Penny Perfect Destined Love thread–they’re both just these cool, real people. Despite all the mystical hoopla surrounding their relationship, it has always been grounded in the simple fact that these two people like each other and want to spend some time together.
(Though speaking of Penny breaking out the mace, I was really surprised Desmond’s first line wasn’t “I work for your dad please don’t run away.”)
–Somehow I have managed to purge my brain of all expectations for this show, so I didn’t have that sinking feeling of seeing things happen exactly as I thought they would. I’m sure, like everybody else, I could have predicted that Desmond would be a key figure in the merging of the timelines, I had no idea how he would fill that role, and it was really thrilling for me to watch all the pieces click into place. And my one spoilerish indulgence is watching the guest star credits to get pumped up for the episode, and this one was pretty much the Lost Guest Star A-Team.
–At the end, I got the feeling that Desmond going back to Locke’s camp with Sayid was all part of his and Widmore’s plan.
– In general, I’d almost agree 100% that Desmond holds less impact as a character because he isn’t as complicated as the Jacks of the show, but at the same time, I like the fact that he and Penny have their own fairy tale romance going on that is the show’s one example of “one true love” or whatever. It’s played everywhere else on the dial, but on “Lost” it’s unique, and the characters have enough chemistry that they pull it off (that scene where he finally calls her at Christmas fucking KILLED me). Moreover, the fact that they’ve always been “side characters” to me means their bits have always been more acceptable within the bigger framework.
– This is one of the few flash sideways where the callouts to past episodes really worked for me. The Charlie hand bit in the car, Des sharing the Scotch with Widmore…sure those moments were way more powerful when we first saw them, but the flip of those moments is satisfying because they were so powerful. I have no problem with a series playing a bit of “greatest hits” towards the end so long as all that builds back to a good finish. We’ll see if they pull it off, but I’m ready to let a predictable chapter roll on if they can make it work altogether.
– All that said, yeah…Eloise was still the best part of the episode, as her “I’m a time lord” moment a few seasons back was the best part of any Desmond episode ever. Though with so few episodes left, I have my doubts that we’ll get a satisfying explanation for why she knows what she does, but then again at this point I’m just trying to ride along with as little expectations as possible.
– I think you’re too hard on chubby scientist. He was more memorable than a lot of others in the “yell because shit’s going wrong” part. However, the guy who was all “I’m gonna turn it on” and then flips the switch while she yells “NO!” was a bit too much, even for “Lost.”
– What I’m really loving about how things are shaping up is that they’re deliberately pushing us away from easy answers to the show’s central questions…Charlie and Desmond’s whole “that doesn’t sound like much of a choice at all now, does it?” conversation. I don’t know what the flash sideways represent in terms of the Smoke Monster getting out or not or whatever, but I am fairly certain that if it comes down to our leads deciding which reality should “win” then it won’t be so cut and dry for everyone to want one or the other. Exciting prospects.
“Based solely on what’s been presented on-screen, there’s a lot more evidence that the bomb blast was responsible for the divergence.”
Yeah it was, but if the bomb destroyed the “cork” that is the island, doesn’t that mean that Smokey is free?
Don’t worry Sonny JIm, we’re gonna see some Smokey throwdown in the sideways universe too, methinks.
Maybe Desmond is immune to the Smokey experience, because he can’t be burned by electromagnetism. (What? Burned by electromagnetism? What?? Must be painful for the writers to pull something that big and stupid out of their collective ass. )
Anyway, good episode.
COOP: I don’t think that guy was “burned by electromagnetism” so much as just electrocuted by electricity – he was touching the big wire coil when they turned it on. Not an unusual outcome, although I kind of half expected that either he or Desmond would end up as an omnipotent blue nudist instead.
STC: Ooof. Yeah, that comparison didn’t come out at all the way I wanted it to. I guess what I was trying to get at is that in the regular timeline, Desmond and Jin meet Widmore and Paik because they fall in love with their respective daughters, and this leads them to meeting dad, whose antipathy for the suitor leads to either a rivalry (Desmond/Widmore) or an exploitative relationship (Jin/Paik). In the F/S universe, the Lostie’s relationship with the father precedes the relationship with the daughter. I assumed from last week that F/S-Jin worked for the shadow-side of Paik’s operation before he ever fell in love with Sun, just like F/S-Desmond worked for Widmore before he ever heard the name Penny.
As for the flash-verse more generally, I’m starting to wonder about this cork. Does setting off a bomb release the prisoner? Or does it bring the prison down on top of him?
Responded to your view of Desmond here:
http://arche-arc.blogspot.com/2010/04/losts-labors-loved.html