Desmond Hume: There’s ALWAYS a choice, brother.
This week: true love only exists in alternate realities. Also, the best way to avoid us noticing that you are tap-dancing around cold hard facts is to trot out the dreaded Desmond/Faraday combo.
– What’s that you say? There are six episodes left and we have yet to truly address the central conceit of the current season, much less some of the pressing plot points that have spanned the life of the show? Well, that’s very interesting and it’s good that you brought that up, because – HEY LOOK EVERYONE, IT’S DESMOND! YOU LOVE DESMOND, HE’S SHINY AND HAS AN ACCENT! EVERYONE LOOK AT DESMOND!
– The incredibly frequent commercial breaks weren’t bad at all this week, and in general I guess I can’t fault anybody. LOST gotta be sellin them Kindles. FastForward and V aren’t going to watch themselves (according to the ratings) and short of some big, ugly countdown timer superimposed over all the good shows, all they can do is roll out commercials. But no, my point here is that this season is severely lacking in the Commercial Crescendo moments that previous seasons have had. Let’s take a look at this episode’s “shocking” cliffhangers:
1.That random redshirt died!
2.Desmond and Widmore are FRIENDS?!
3.Charlie almost DROWNED!
4.Charlie name-dropped Penny and Desmond thought about it!
5.Daniel Faraday’s name is Daniel Widmore now?!
Note that four of the five boil down to “This Sideways World is craaaaazy, amirite?”
– “It’s easier to me to show you what we’re doing with Desmond, unless of course you wait 5-10 minutes and ask me again, at which time I’ll be happy to tell you, because, to be honest, I probably will think about it during the next 5-10 minutes and realize that there’s no way showing you will make more sense.”
– Here’s the Team Widmore Organizational Chart:
I.Chaz Dub
II.Zoey The Geophysicist, Wetnurse, Lead Soldier, #1 Fake Crash Victim Actress, Keeper Of The Jin, Presumed Sub Captain Because No One Else Demonstrates Notable Skill (or Notable Command Of English Or Any Other Language)
III.Little Guy With The Round Face Who Tucks His Shirt Into His Jeans And Who Gets Really Intense About Things Like Ordering People To Put Guns Down And Getting A Generator Online Yet Makes Time For Pithy Small Talk With Rabbits And Who Oh Yeah, Is Probably Gonna Die.
IV.Everyone Else (also gonna die)
Someone should have given Sayid a copy before he Iraq Bauer’d his way to The Package – I know he feels nothing yet still resists violence toward women, but the worst thing you can do is let Team W’s Renaissance Woman live.
– “Hey guys, it turns out our big evil electromagnetic memory-zapper microwave didn’t work because we didn’t turn it on! Duh, you guys. Listen, I’m going to switch it back on without any confirmation – I mean, none needed, right? Off to on, instant fix. Maybe I should be the geophysicist, right Zoey? Just joshin. Like everyone else here, I have no idea what a geophysicist does, but it sure seems like A LOT. Anyhoo, ya’ll, it’s a good thing no one’s standing in our li’l Doom Shack out there, lest they be cooked alive by The Rules. I call that thing The Rules because I think we’re all pretty certain that whatever effect it has on a normal human – say one of my faceless colleagues who was standing in El Shacko prior to me flipping the ol’ switcheroo about two minutes back – that effect ain’t gonna apply to the Highlander we got locked up on the sub. Get it? Ah, you really had to watch last season. I’ve got it on my iPod. In summary, the switch = flipped, and I sure hope I haven’t accidentally triggered a harrowing demonstration of the power with which we’re playing, even though it’s basically unanimous that said power won’t have any negative effect on the guy we’re planning to ultimately use it on.”
– So Desmond gets blasted with electromagnetic energy and he developed some powers that make him a kind of “super-man” as far as the Islandverse is concerned. He withdrew from the world (the Island) because his perception of time was no longer linear, bug ultimately had to become involved in the fate of humanity. Also, he was glowing blue and walked around pantsless even though it made people uncomfortable. Ok, I made that last part up. Well, part of it.
– Yikes, poor Minkowski. Going from Communications Officer on a freighter to Shady Limousine Driver Who Is A Little Quick To Offer Whores is kinda like going from, say, Short Circuit to being an extra in an Ashton Kutcher commercial for Nikon.
– One thing Minkowski does have going for him, though: he and Jack are the only people without accents who exist in Desmond’s Sideways Adventure. Faraday doesn’t count, because I really think he should have an accept, nature vs. nurture aside.
– Look, I am all for the exploits of Desmond and Chuckles (although it’s not fair to tease us with the prospect of Chuckles drowning AGAIN and not delivering) but I’m pretty sure this episode was partially sponsored by Get Him To The Greek.
– I like that Eloise is intermittently self-aware enough to tell Desmond to stop being an ass, but not enough to stop from being terrible to everyone else around her. However, the big hair makes her look even more like my grandmother from Scotland, so I am slightly unnerved. If a future Flash-Sideways shows her chain smoking while watching QVC and making racist comments between planning a gambling cruise, I am going to shut the TV off and back away.
– Hey, it’s the 21st century and Penny can run whenever she damn well (excuse me, bloody well) pleases, but she seems awfully cool with encountering a stranger in an empty Los Angeles-area stadium in the middle of the night. Is there a security guard anywhere on the premises?
– No, please, Desmond, stalk everyone else from Oceanic 815 so you can tell them about the Power Of Love theory that some rich hipster brat pitched to you on a bench outside the history museum. Really Bentham it in there. Here’s the key, though: when they ask you to elaborate, just sidestep the question and add some more tangentially-related details to your story. It should last you at LEAST until syndication.
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