Lost 3.08 "Flashes Before Your Eyes"
I realize that some of you might have been bored to tears by a Desmond-centric episode. (And I realize this was not a smart move for the writers, featuring an episode with another oddball character right after Juliet's flashback, as well as one that pretty well avoids dealing with the island or any characters except Desmond (Hurley, Charlie, and Claire), that doesn't even start to deal with Eko's death.) All that notwithstanding, rest assured that my happiness is well worth your boredom. :p *loves you all*
I will admit that I cannot in any way disentangle or make any fucking sense of the sci-fi plot other than in general terms. Maybe I'm just exceptionally dense, but I don't get it. If you do, 'splain it to me, huh? But I'm having a hard time caring too much about the confusion, though, what with the gratuitous Desmond and all. Damn near exhausting to my fangirling, I tell you!
Prepare for a surprisingly lucid and in-depth (and caps-filled!) discussion as well as a lot of squeeing over teh pretty…
Naturally, I will chart this episode in terms of the various hot Desmonds featured throughout.
1. NakedSavior!Desmond
It does not bode well that the episode starts with Desmond going up to Charlie in mysterious Eko-like fashion, beckoning him into the jungle. Luckily there are no quests and no ghosts, just a pow-wow, then Desmond taking off in a dead run through the jungle.
Then he's half naked. And wet.
Then Charlie's hella jealous, and I really, really love that more than anything. First off, I adore Charlie for not even hesitating, once he knew it was Claire, to go after her. I really want to love Charlie again, and he's so easy to love when he's being jealous and overprotective and giving Desmond dirty looks. (I like my Charlie a healthy mixture of earnest and bitchy.)
[Just so you can be amused, the following is a transcription of my notes as Desmond walks away (yes I take notes): tan! damn! back! eek! squee!]
I also adore how Hurley's all over the precog logic: If he's psychic, how are you gonna make a plan to beat him, Charlie? I LOVE Hurley. I do.
2. Drunk!Desmond
Charlie's a sneaky bastard, and I keep having to remind myself that this only seems like anti-climactic info he wants because the audience already knows the secret.
I love my boys drunk here. (But I had blasphemous thoughts as I watched: I bet Desmond's the kind of man who can't get it up when he's drunk off his ass. I would forgive him that, I bet. ;) ) Anyway, I will admit I really did like seeing Desmond get cranky and knock Charlie on his ass for calling him a coward (is it like calling Marty McFly a chicken?).
So, back we go to when the key was turned. And then back we go again. Actually, I thought at first we were maybe going forward in time (and I was super pissed because I could see what was coming: Desmond gets his second chance after the island but is forced to give it up. I wasn't totally wrong…) Anyway, I'm not happy about the scary teasy red paint bullshit, but then Desmond is kissing Penny and I'm like…beaming for him. Big smile. But, ooh, poor bastard.
3. SuitWearing!Desmond
GUH. We NEED ties on the island. We just do. For Desmond and for Jack, too. And Sawyer. And Sayid. And everybody. (This episode makes me awfully magnanimous with my love for all losties. Hell, give Charlie a tie, too. And Paolo. And Locke. And Bernard…)
So he was a set designer? How cute. Not as blue collar as I thought, but still manual labor, I suppose. And artistic. So double hot. And he has three (younger?) brothers. (Yay for new canon to play with!)
I think it's lovely that he's there to ask for Penny's hand in marriage. (I know, some of y'all are snorting at the chivalry. Snort away. Like Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing," I'll just say to that: "…a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour.") So can we shove Mr. Widmore off whatever fucking cliff Sarah's going off? Or can we introduce him to Juliet's gun? Please? ASSHOLE. *fumes* "You will never be a great man," my ass!
(I was also thinking of comparison's to the Jin/Sun story here. Is this a better or worse alternative?)
I also wonder if this moment is what kills Desmond's chivalry, because it would seem to make a person jaded, to have his white knighting shit upon in such fashion, but I don't think it does completely, and I adore him for it. And for the disheveling of the suit:
4. WetConfused!Desmond:
I realized I skipped over the WTFCharlie? moment, but I'm still trying to make sense of the plot. (BTW, Did you notice Charlie's singing "Wonderwall," but Oasis: maybe…your're gonna be the one that saves me…; clever preview of the twist at the end.) We get more of the weirdness when he brings his incredulous physicist friend to the pub and we're shocked to find out Desmond doesn't remember the game right. Things have changed already (remembering my Star Trek rules for time travel, how changing even small things sorta sends the future to hell in a handbasket), or he's else nuts.
And now, caps from the scene that really nearly made me sigh myself off the couch and onto the floor: when he came in to find Penny asleep in the bed. (Some of these caps aren't perfect, and I've had to tinker with the color in my limited and techonophobe way, but I had to have this scene in here):
Why do you love me? he asks her. Stupid question, I think. But in this scene I get this uneasy feeling, like I'm starting to see the cracks in their relationship. I know a lot of fans are really bugged by how epic and unreal this love story has seemed, but I think it seemed realer to me in this episode. I have no doubt she loves him tremendously, but she doesn't rattle of a list of nice personal things about him that she loves. She just says it's because he's a good man. Which he is. But, still…
5. ScarfWearing!Desmond:
Here's where the episode begins to lose me. Suddenly, the old lady at the jewelry store is talking to him like this is Quantum Leap and she's the guy that gets to tell Scott Bakula's character what he needs to do to get home (except that's not exactly right, because home isn't the island, but if you're both lame and old enough, you'll understand the reference anyway, I think). I asked myself here if fate was trying to fuck up his second chance. I cursed fate. Yep, I did. Then I wondered how the fans would take this latest and more blatant push of the show into sci-fi territory. I'm not sure how much I like it myself.
(At this point I notice we've been in AUflashback land for a long time. And we'll stay there, apparently. How odd but delightful for me.)
He thinks it's all in his head, that he's imagining the island stuff-a concussion or something-but I’m starting to think he's imagining this stuff in the island present, concussed (is that a word?) by the implosion. Is this woman his "subconscious," as he thinks, or is he really in the past, and she's another psychic, teaching him the way fate operates with their sort of people? I don't know, but she's intriguing. I might've done without the red shoe man's death thing, but I guess it was necessary, even if the episode/show is turning into a rip-off of Final Destination. *frowns* But it's intriguing to get another addition to the fate vs. free will debate. I wonder which will win out by the time this series winds down.
Oh, yeah, and I wibbled to hear her say that the island is the only way for Desmond to be a good man. BAH!
When he bypasses the army office, I'm glad, but I know these small gestures at change won't stick. He's going to the island. When they take the picture, I had already made a note about Desmond not being able to live with her making more money than him (he's chauvinist old-fashioned that way). Then they break up, and I find myself a) feeling like it takes a while for the actors to build the emotion that should've been there all along (they get it by the end of that scene, I think), and b) intrigued to find that the writers seem to leave a little wiggle room for and ambiguity about why he's breaking up with her: is this the reason he broke up with her in the real past (I suspect so), and now he's having to choose to repeat mistakes he doesn't want to repeat because of fate? Basically, how much hand does fate have in this, and how aware is he of the role of fate? How much of this is simply what he's feeling? (For that matter, how much of the real past does he remember in this AU past? And is this really just a literal replay of the actual time they broke up? Something tell me no on that.) Whatever it means, Desmond and Penny didn't have a perfect relationship, and I find myself relieved. Is that bad? Is it also bad that I'm glad Desmond's honor sometimes bites him in the ass? Because, dude, his unrealistic honor is both precious and destructive. I like the honorable man we know, but he needs to temper that chivalry a little, yeah?
6. EmoPub!Desmond
I love the twist that when he goes into the pub, he finds he was right all along about the game and everything. He wasn't nuts. And I love that he makes the decision to change things and propose, right at that moment. But by then, the laws of ambiguous sci-fi (and the Quantum Leap theory of world-correcting time-travel *cough*evenifit'sinalliniyourknocked-aboutbrain*cough*) require him to go Back to the Future (shit, I didn't bring in that Marty McFly reference earlier because of the time-travel thing, I swear. Serendipity! *cough*fate*cough*).
So, was he actually back in time, or was he just lying in the jungle, knocked out? Probably the latter, right? But who cares at this point. I'm beginning to think the character shit is more important. So Hurley thinks Desmond's nuts now? He's given up his belief in Desmond's comic-book superpowers? I'm glad to see Hurley pull him off Charlie and Charlie take him back to his tent. They're good guys. Desmond even says so (see how sweet he is? Apologizing for being a cranky drunk…)
I really like the red herring that it wasn't Claire but Charlie he was/is trying to save. I didn't see that coming. It explains why he was so dismissive of his help when he pulled Claire out of the water. (Makes me think back to the fact that Charlie's almost died once before. Why didn't he then? Not his time, or something interfered?) I don't love where this whole Charlie-is-doomed thing is going, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm thinking…
How soon can we get Henry Ian Cusick (and his cocky little hips) into a tailored suit again?
Like I said, this was a weird one. Maybe weirder than the Locke episode this season that I mocked mercilessly. So mock if you want. I don't care. Just remember if it bored you, there are surely some of us whose squees could power entire city blocks just because of the pretty alone. :)
I will admit that I cannot in any way disentangle or make any fucking sense of the sci-fi plot other than in general terms. Maybe I'm just exceptionally dense, but I don't get it. If you do, 'splain it to me, huh? But I'm having a hard time caring too much about the confusion, though, what with the gratuitous Desmond and all. Damn near exhausting to my fangirling, I tell you!
Prepare for a surprisingly lucid and in-depth (and caps-filled!) discussion as well as a lot of squeeing over teh pretty…
Naturally, I will chart this episode in terms of the various hot Desmonds featured throughout.
1. NakedSavior!Desmond
It does not bode well that the episode starts with Desmond going up to Charlie in mysterious Eko-like fashion, beckoning him into the jungle. Luckily there are no quests and no ghosts, just a pow-wow, then Desmond taking off in a dead run through the jungle.
Then he's half naked. And wet.
Then Charlie's hella jealous, and I really, really love that more than anything. First off, I adore Charlie for not even hesitating, once he knew it was Claire, to go after her. I really want to love Charlie again, and he's so easy to love when he's being jealous and overprotective and giving Desmond dirty looks. (I like my Charlie a healthy mixture of earnest and bitchy.)
[Just so you can be amused, the following is a transcription of my notes as Desmond walks away (yes I take notes): tan! damn! back! eek! squee!]
I also adore how Hurley's all over the precog logic: If he's psychic, how are you gonna make a plan to beat him, Charlie? I LOVE Hurley. I do.
2. Drunk!Desmond
Charlie's a sneaky bastard, and I keep having to remind myself that this only seems like anti-climactic info he wants because the audience already knows the secret.
I love my boys drunk here. (But I had blasphemous thoughts as I watched: I bet Desmond's the kind of man who can't get it up when he's drunk off his ass. I would forgive him that, I bet. ;) ) Anyway, I will admit I really did like seeing Desmond get cranky and knock Charlie on his ass for calling him a coward (is it like calling Marty McFly a chicken?).
So, back we go to when the key was turned. And then back we go again. Actually, I thought at first we were maybe going forward in time (and I was super pissed because I could see what was coming: Desmond gets his second chance after the island but is forced to give it up. I wasn't totally wrong…) Anyway, I'm not happy about the scary teasy red paint bullshit, but then Desmond is kissing Penny and I'm like…beaming for him. Big smile. But, ooh, poor bastard.
3. SuitWearing!Desmond
GUH. We NEED ties on the island. We just do. For Desmond and for Jack, too. And Sawyer. And Sayid. And everybody. (This episode makes me awfully magnanimous with my love for all losties. Hell, give Charlie a tie, too. And Paolo. And Locke. And Bernard…)
So he was a set designer? How cute. Not as blue collar as I thought, but still manual labor, I suppose. And artistic. So double hot. And he has three (younger?) brothers. (Yay for new canon to play with!)
I think it's lovely that he's there to ask for Penny's hand in marriage. (I know, some of y'all are snorting at the chivalry. Snort away. Like Benedick in "Much Ado About Nothing," I'll just say to that: "…a college of wit-crackers cannot flout me out of my humour.") So can we shove Mr. Widmore off whatever fucking cliff Sarah's going off? Or can we introduce him to Juliet's gun? Please? ASSHOLE. *fumes* "You will never be a great man," my ass!
(I was also thinking of comparison's to the Jin/Sun story here. Is this a better or worse alternative?)
I also wonder if this moment is what kills Desmond's chivalry, because it would seem to make a person jaded, to have his white knighting shit upon in such fashion, but I don't think it does completely, and I adore him for it. And for the disheveling of the suit:
4. WetConfused!Desmond:
I realized I skipped over the WTFCharlie? moment, but I'm still trying to make sense of the plot. (BTW, Did you notice Charlie's singing "Wonderwall," but Oasis: maybe…your're gonna be the one that saves me…; clever preview of the twist at the end.) We get more of the weirdness when he brings his incredulous physicist friend to the pub and we're shocked to find out Desmond doesn't remember the game right. Things have changed already (remembering my Star Trek rules for time travel, how changing even small things sorta sends the future to hell in a handbasket), or he's else nuts.
And now, caps from the scene that really nearly made me sigh myself off the couch and onto the floor: when he came in to find Penny asleep in the bed. (Some of these caps aren't perfect, and I've had to tinker with the color in my limited and techonophobe way, but I had to have this scene in here):
Why do you love me? he asks her. Stupid question, I think. But in this scene I get this uneasy feeling, like I'm starting to see the cracks in their relationship. I know a lot of fans are really bugged by how epic and unreal this love story has seemed, but I think it seemed realer to me in this episode. I have no doubt she loves him tremendously, but she doesn't rattle of a list of nice personal things about him that she loves. She just says it's because he's a good man. Which he is. But, still…
5. ScarfWearing!Desmond:
Here's where the episode begins to lose me. Suddenly, the old lady at the jewelry store is talking to him like this is Quantum Leap and she's the guy that gets to tell Scott Bakula's character what he needs to do to get home (except that's not exactly right, because home isn't the island, but if you're both lame and old enough, you'll understand the reference anyway, I think). I asked myself here if fate was trying to fuck up his second chance. I cursed fate. Yep, I did. Then I wondered how the fans would take this latest and more blatant push of the show into sci-fi territory. I'm not sure how much I like it myself.
(At this point I notice we've been in AUflashback land for a long time. And we'll stay there, apparently. How odd but delightful for me.)
He thinks it's all in his head, that he's imagining the island stuff-a concussion or something-but I’m starting to think he's imagining this stuff in the island present, concussed (is that a word?) by the implosion. Is this woman his "subconscious," as he thinks, or is he really in the past, and she's another psychic, teaching him the way fate operates with their sort of people? I don't know, but she's intriguing. I might've done without the red shoe man's death thing, but I guess it was necessary, even if the episode/show is turning into a rip-off of Final Destination. *frowns* But it's intriguing to get another addition to the fate vs. free will debate. I wonder which will win out by the time this series winds down.
Oh, yeah, and I wibbled to hear her say that the island is the only way for Desmond to be a good man. BAH!
When he bypasses the army office, I'm glad, but I know these small gestures at change won't stick. He's going to the island. When they take the picture, I had already made a note about Desmond not being able to live with her making more money than him (he's chauvinist old-fashioned that way). Then they break up, and I find myself a) feeling like it takes a while for the actors to build the emotion that should've been there all along (they get it by the end of that scene, I think), and b) intrigued to find that the writers seem to leave a little wiggle room for and ambiguity about why he's breaking up with her: is this the reason he broke up with her in the real past (I suspect so), and now he's having to choose to repeat mistakes he doesn't want to repeat because of fate? Basically, how much hand does fate have in this, and how aware is he of the role of fate? How much of this is simply what he's feeling? (For that matter, how much of the real past does he remember in this AU past? And is this really just a literal replay of the actual time they broke up? Something tell me no on that.) Whatever it means, Desmond and Penny didn't have a perfect relationship, and I find myself relieved. Is that bad? Is it also bad that I'm glad Desmond's honor sometimes bites him in the ass? Because, dude, his unrealistic honor is both precious and destructive. I like the honorable man we know, but he needs to temper that chivalry a little, yeah?
6. EmoPub!Desmond
I love the twist that when he goes into the pub, he finds he was right all along about the game and everything. He wasn't nuts. And I love that he makes the decision to change things and propose, right at that moment. But by then, the laws of ambiguous sci-fi (and the Quantum Leap theory of world-correcting time-travel *cough*evenifit'sinalliniyourknocked-aboutbrain*cough*) require him to go Back to the Future (shit, I didn't bring in that Marty McFly reference earlier because of the time-travel thing, I swear. Serendipity! *cough*fate*cough*).
So, was he actually back in time, or was he just lying in the jungle, knocked out? Probably the latter, right? But who cares at this point. I'm beginning to think the character shit is more important. So Hurley thinks Desmond's nuts now? He's given up his belief in Desmond's comic-book superpowers? I'm glad to see Hurley pull him off Charlie and Charlie take him back to his tent. They're good guys. Desmond even says so (see how sweet he is? Apologizing for being a cranky drunk…)
I really like the red herring that it wasn't Claire but Charlie he was/is trying to save. I didn't see that coming. It explains why he was so dismissive of his help when he pulled Claire out of the water. (Makes me think back to the fact that Charlie's almost died once before. Why didn't he then? Not his time, or something interfered?) I don't love where this whole Charlie-is-doomed thing is going, but I'm not thinking about that right now. I'm thinking…
How soon can we get Henry Ian Cusick (and his cocky little hips) into a tailored suit again?
Like I said, this was a weird one. Maybe weirder than the Locke episode this season that I mocked mercilessly. So mock if you want. I don't care. Just remember if it bored you, there are surely some of us whose squees could power entire city blocks just because of the pretty alone. :)