If his short appearance in the first episode of the season didn’t give it away, then surely seeing Henry Ian Cusik’s name in the cast list in every episode did: but yes! as we noticed in The Package, Desmond is back. He can finally give a spin on the seemingly ex machina Charles Widmore return – and it’s a good one. A conversation changer.
The Episode…
In my opinion, Desmond episodes are usually awesome. They often tend to break the storytelling rules set by the series. Flashes before your eyes was a first step towards time travel; the constant was a full-blown mind fuck with an emotional ending. Happily ever after follows these two episodes: after a magnetic experiment, Desmond is sent into his own flash sideways. As always, we get an episode with little to no cast members in it, but a lot of theorizing and speculating possibilities.
I loved the little appearances made by ex cast members: the interactions with Charlie were great (and they finally explain why he wanted to die back on the plane), there was the funny George Minkowski, Eloise Hawking made her creepy return (and seems to be all-knowing again), and last but not least, there was Daniel. His speech was the best ever.
The Questions…
Some interesting questions got raised after watching this episode – the most important of which is towards the reason of the Flash Sideways device. It’s become apparent that the Flash Sideways are the “fake” stories, the ones that should end. In these stories, everyone seems to get the thing they desire the most on the island (Ben wants a normal relationship with Alex, Kate doesn’t want to be afraid to be on the run, Hurley wants to be lucky…) – with the occasional “wish blowing up in your face” part (e.g. Sun and Jin).
But where does that leave Desmond? What is his task? Or what does Eloise, who knows that this reality is fake, have to do with it? I thought they had resolved her storyline – she was all-knowing because she had read Daniel’s diary – but apparently there’s more to it all. Are they going to be able to resolve this in so little episodes?
Next Episode…
Next week’s episode is titles “Everybody loves Hugo” – it’s not hard to know who this is going to be about. I’m excited about this episode: when we first saw Hurley in the flash sideways, we were dumbstruck that he was lucky all of a sudden. After this episode, however, it’s perfectly reasonable. What will they tell us? Surely it can’t feature a lucky guy for fourty minutes…
In All…
This was undoubtedly one of the top season six episodes. It was exciting, emotional and completely caught me off my guard with the plot twists that kept happening. I wonder what will happen to Desmond next? Has he really become a messiah?
Favourite Quote: Widmore: “I can’t take you back. The Island isn’t done with you yet.”
