Wading in the Velvet Sea

Black Hole Sun

Season 3 is moving towards a central theme, and that is “time”. And time, as Boy George once eloquently told us, could have been so much more, but time is precious I know. How time works on the island versus the “real world” is of increasing concern. Factor in Hurley’s oft-quoted line that Duke Ellington’s “Moonlight Serenade”, heard in Season 2 by himself and Sayid, could have come not only from anywhere, but “anytime”. That line’s looking more anvilicious by the day. Sort of like every time “Smallville” has Clark Kent say, “When will I ever find a girl who will be right for me?” only to have the camera cut to Lois Lane. CLANK! ANVIL!

Where the flashbacks differed tonight, not merely in terms of percentage of episode dedicated to it (roughly 85%), was the fact that the character in the flashback had all knowledge of the island with him during said flashback, which makes the very term “flashback” suspect. Was this a reliving? A retelling? Desmond engages his “flashback” in a way not seen on the show, and as such merits discussion.

His proximity to the blast at the end of Season 2 clearly permits him a special place amongst all on the island. He’s a singular individual and warrants our close attention. I wondered, at the end of Season 2, if the creators of “Lost” would have the balls to make the main narrative thrust of the show lie not with the Lostaways, or even The Others, but in Desmond and Penelope. As if we needed to slowly back into their story to grasp the true meaning of their relationship and their struggle to finally unite. It would be as if Homer had formed “The Odyssey” around some random dude who happened to meet Odysseus a third of the way through his journey and then rode this new character home the rest of the way.

In any case, Desmond’s clearly a unique character on the show, an his uniqueness can be directly tied to him turning the key at the end of Season 2. Whether you believe the electromagnetic anomaly of the island to literally be a black hole, clearly it contains properties of a black hole, and as such, allows for some fun and funky bending of time and space to occur for Mr. Hume.

But I have a feeling he’s not the only one.

Ticking Away, The Moments That Make Up a Dull Day

One of the central mysteries of the show, at least since the advent of The Others, is just how much information The Others have had on the Lostaways. We first picked up on this with the advent of the “lists”, which seemed to contain insta-assertions of who exactly was good and bad. By the end of Season 2, they knew Sawyer’s real name, and by the start of Season 3, they seemed to know everything about jack short of how many times he wet himself as an infant.

Hypotheses flowed as to how The Others could gather all such info: outside contact with the real world? Previous knowledge of who exactly would be on Oceanic 815? Well, tonight may have given us another possibility: what if The Others have literally all the time in the world at their disposal to gather information?

Think about this for a moment. We know there was an electromagnetic anomaly on the island (until Desmond turned the key), we know they have had contact with the outside world, and we know that the island, in some capacity, is “unique”. If Desmond could somehow “go back” and relive things, what’s to stop The Others? I myself have always wished to be able to stop time, in that I could theoretically have all the time in the world to slack off, or write that paper, or whatever the case may be. All signs this season point to time working differently on the island, and as such, could allow time to not only pass more slowly on the island but could in fact be working “backwards”---towards a time when world war and famine and global warming were not on the radar.

In the promo for next week’s episode, we see the lady from the jewelry store ON THE ISLAND. (Props to my fiancée for figuring this out.) She’s “unstuck” in time as well as Desmond, a la Billy Pilgrim in “Slaughterhouse Five” or, um, Michael J. Fox in any of the “Back to the Future”s. To be able to exist outside of the normal time continuum would be a powerful asset for The Others and an important property of the island.

Childe Desmond to the Dark Island Came

Obsessed as I am with pop culture, and knowing how much the creators of “Lost” love “The Dark Tower”, it’s hard to escape analogies to the gunslingr Roland to the character of Desmond. (Note, if you want to read “The Dark Tower”, just skip this, as I’ll give away the end of the series. Just a heads up.)

In “The Dark Tower”, Roland takes an epic quest, as epic, one might say, as Odysseus in “The Odyssey”. Roland seeks the Dark Tower, has sought it all his life, with a nagging suspicion of déjà vu along the way. At periodic times throughout the series, Roland as his companion do things largely because they “feel right”. What seems like narrative laziness turns into tragic horror by the end. His friends, his fellow gunslingers, his ka, always and ever die, each time through. When Roland finally climbs the tower, he’s sent back to the beginning of his quest again, with no knowledge of the number of times he’s already completed his quest, his life a Sisyphean nightmare.

Phrases throughout the episode, such as “course-correcting” and “don’t you dare rewrite history” allude to this type of quest, as multiple parties seem to collude against Desmond deviating from script, or, in their minds, “fate”. When Desmond rebels, the world works against him (such as the soccer match he unsuccessfully predicts). When he complies, all goes according to plan. Problem is, for Desmond, the plan never has him meeting up with Penelope, but in fact in the bowels of metaphorical hell, pushing a button.

Last Impressions

A few more things to note about tonight’s episode:

Any significance to Charlie’s middle name being “Hieronymus”? The allusion seems o be to Hieronymus Bosch, who painted fantastical tryptichs of demons which, according to Wikipedia, “portrayed the evil of man”. Are his own demons (namely, his drug addiction) going to lead to his death this season?

Desmond’s physicist points to the problem of experiments where, “Run[ning] the same test ten times get different results. Is the Island a place to knock out such inaccuracies?

Did Desmond ever hear that Mamas and Papas song before coming to the island, or was it just a by-product of his imagination? (Same goes for seeing Charlie, seeing the polar bear on Widmore’s wall, etc.)

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As always, thoughts and theories are welcome! Drop them below. In my podcast this Sunday, I’ll touch on these and many more topics.