LOST: 4×05 - “The Constant”

What did I think of the latest LOST episode, The Constant?

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This episode was a very interesting episode. I think I can honestly say that it is my favorite episode of the season so far. It really opened up so much more questions, while answering a few along the way, which I thought was done very nicely.

This episode was one that centered around the character of Desmond. I have really enjoyed the character of Desmond. I think he has a rich character background and think that his character and the events concerning his character have more to do with the uber-story of the island than we realize.

This episode also showed that this show was a return to form for the show once again by utilizing flashbacks instead of the flash-forwards, which dominated a high percentage of this show. I don’t think that with the end of season 3, the flashback was scrapped entirely. In fact, executive producers Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse have said that they will have flashbacks but they won’t have flashbacks that don’t involve the overall story of the island anymore. Anyway, I digress.

I thought Desmond’s flashback was actually quite intriguing. It really reminded me of the episode, Flashes Before Your Eyes. That episode was also a Desmond-centric episode, and really brought to life that the nature that illuminated the nature of Desmond’s time-travel. It had a lot of emotion and a lot of heart.

Another reason I liked this episode, like all Desmond-centric episodes because it really allows Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond to really stretch his acting legs a bit. It really made it interesting to watch and really tugged at the heartstrings.

I think that this approach to time-travel was very different. In most time-travel stories (Back to the Future, Terminator, Heroes), you find that time-travel really has no long-term effect on the participants involved. Sure, there are those effects that naturally happen after a time-travel, there are effects on the actual timeline, but n I truly enjoy the time-travel stories that actually have an effect. In this particular interpretation of time-travel, Desmond actually suffers a sort of brain aneurism due to his frequent visits in between times.

Of course, this episode really brought to life more of Desmond’s time-traveling escapades like in the aforementioned Desmond episode. Some people have wondered how that had even happened. It brought that answer to the plotline of Desmond’s visions that had run the course of season 3. It turns out it all had to do with the island, surprisingly enough. This had explained Desmond’s visions were possible.

One would be tempted to ask why Desmond is feeling these effects now, even after all of his “visions”. I do think though that when Desmond saw visions of Charlie dying in the future, he would actually visit the Island in the future, and then his mind would go back to the present. So I think that maybe due to his exposure from the blast in the season 2 finale, Live Together, Die Alone gave him more resistance to the after-effects of the time-traveling. But I think now long after the fact he is now starting to feel the effects of these time-traveling trips. But then again, I could be dead wrong and those “visions” weren’t exactly the same time trips as the time trips that were brought to light in this episode.

This episode also saw a very real connection between the characters of Sayid and Desmond. I don’t remember seeing much character connection between those characters before in the series, but it was really cool to see them interact in this manner. I think that Sayid actually seemed concerned with Desmond’s welfare, and with him contacting Penny. It was quite nice to see that connection between these two characters.

But that brings up the question - - why hadn’t this happened to any of the other people who had visited the island? (ie. Jack, Locke, Ben etc.) This actually furthers the theory that Locke made in the season 1 finale that they were “chosen” by the island. Very, very interesting.

This episode also brought forward the mystery of the Freighter. It kind of brought that to life, and gave it some substance. We really got to see kind of an inner politics amongst the crew of the freighter, as I had suspected there might’ve been from previous episodes. Especially in regards to Minkowski.

We also saw the handiwork of Ben’s spy on the Freighter, whom I still believe to be Michael. We saw that he had sabotaged the Freighter’s communication with the outside world and taken a lot of their power to do so. He had also opened the door, thus allowing Sayid and Desmond to escape. Why is Ben’s spy doing this to the Freighter? What are his motivations? I guess we’ll have to wait for a future episode to find out.

I think I can honestly say that I was slightly surprised with Minkowski’s introduction in this episode. I honestly wasn’t expecting for Minkowski to be the communications officer, who had secretly tried to board the island and then return to the Freighter. I honestly ask when had this happened. I know I’d like to know, but we will probably never know due to the fact that Minkowski is now dead, which is a shame because I actually liked his character, even though his character was actually quite shortlived.

More things we got to see regarding the Freighter is its positioning in regards to the island’s location. When Desmond is talking to some of the Freighter’s crewmembers, they mention that their last port was at Fiji, which places the island somewhere within that location. But we still don’t know where in regards to Fiji, the island actually is. But those coordinates give us something to work with in regards to the island’s location, which up until now, have all been but mysterious. So I was pleased to have that question answered somewhat.

But, as much as this was a Desmond-centric episode, it also centered around the character of Daniel Faraday, who I think is a nice welcome addition to the series. I really think he seems to gel with the rest of the cast quite well. I have really come to like his character in these past episodes. He really has a sense of mystery about him that just seems to work for the series, I think.

We really got to see a little of bit of the history of Daniel Faraday. We got to see that he was a kind of a kindred spirit with Desmond, as he was kind of an outcast. Many have theorized that something on the islands had done things to spur his somewhat neurotic nature. But I think that neurotic nature has always been there. Seeing Faraday kind of obsessive with his experiments that could kick him out of his teaching job at Oxford kind of reminded me of Doc Brown from Back to the Future. I definitely think Faraday has that eccentric aura about him that fits that persona. So, I really hope we get an episode centered around Faraday’s character in the near future.

I really enjoyed Faraday’s and Desmond’s interactions together. I think they both share a common thread that makes them somewhat adapt to the time-travel of the Island. That is they’ve both been exposed to a degree of radiation. Faraday has obviously been exposed to radiation due to his increased amounts of experiments with time-travel and with the islan’s form of time-travel that it uses.

I almost imagine that there is a connection between the characters of Desmond and Faraday. I hope to see this character connection explored in further episodes of the series. You can definitely see it onscreen when Jeremy Davies and Henry Ian Cusick work together. I believe there will be a connection. I think Faraday feels there is some sort of connection between himself and Desmond there as Faraday wanted him to be his constant.

You almost have to ask the question. Did Faraday have Desmond visit him in the past so that he could be his constant? Or did Desmond visit him all along, and this was just a pleasant coincidence. Well, considering that this is LOST, I can see that Desmond hadn’t originally visited Faraday in the original timeline, but Faraday, through his many experiments, knew that if Desmond could visit him in the past, he would be able to ensure his own survival. Because in the end, that is what this show is about - - Survival. But, discussing all the various things in time-travel doesn’t really do any good, as there are multitudinous possibilities that could emerge here. Just watch the Terminator movies.

This whole “constant” thing made the time-travel aspect of this episode even more intereseing. It was basically a safety net for time travel. If you had a constant while time-traveling, you were basically safe from all the after-effects that this form of time-travel could bring. And that was where the title of the episode factored into. I love it how writers can easily flow a title of an episode to fit the events of the actual episode so flawlessly like that.

As with all Desmond-centric episodes, this episode had all plot points regarding the family of Desmond’s girlfriend, Penny. I almost want to think that there is something more to the Widmores than meets the eye. I think the Widmores are more connected to the goings on of the island than I think we could possibly know this season. We obviously know that Widmore was instrumental in a roundabout way in Desmond going to the island. We saw more of Mr. Widmore’s seeming interest in the island and things connected to it when he auctioned to have the Ledger-book from the Black Rock in his possession. I have to wonder if Widmore is actually connected to that organization, that has been trying to find the island, that Naomi and her group was part of. Like I said, I think the Widmores are more connected to the goings-on of this island. Can they be connected to DHARMA? I guess only time will tell.

Another reveal in this episode regarding the Widmores was regarding Penny herself. In this episode, Penny revealed that she has been trying to locate Desmond for three years. She also revealed that she has known about the island for some time. How long has she known about the island? I think that she has known about the island by default from her father. But I don’t think he has been entirely truthful about his involvement with the events of the island. I am so anxious to see the connections between the Widmores and the Island, explored in later seasons.

My favorite scene of the episode, in fact, is the scene where Penny is receiving Desmond’s phone call. I really felt the emotion between the characters of Desmond and Penny. I admit that I really got choked up over this scene. It was Lost emotions at its best. Especially with the music swelling and the acting of Sonya Walger and Cusick at the highest levels. I honestly hope we see a “snogging” reunion between these two characters when she finally makes her first appearance island. It’ll be awesome indeed.

In conclusion, I really enjoyed this episode. I thought it was very well-written and flowed very well in between the two timelines. It reminded me very much of an episode of Star trek: The Next Generation, called All Good Things, where Capt. Picard time-traveled in the same way Desmond did. The writing style of this episode reminded me very much of how that episode played out.

In many ways, this episode did feel like a standalone episode, as there were not many scenes that didn’t involve the character of Desmond directly. There were a few scenes here and there, but it was mostly about Desmond. It also did not have the episodic cliffhangers that an episode of LOST usually brings. That’s not to say that I didn’t enjoy the episode. I really did enjoy this episode quite a great deal. It had the nice blend of mystery, heart, and character drama that LOST has been quite adept at doing these past few years.

RATING: 10/10

This entry was posted on 15. April 2008 at 19:26 and is filed under LOST Reviews, Tv Reviews. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.

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