LOST Season 6 Episode 11 Happily Ever After

Charles Widmore: Charles Widmore is, in my opinion, one of Jacob’s wild-cards. (Kate being the other...more on that below). Okay, follow along here: Charles Widmore was on the Island, but booted off by Ben in a power struggle. Back in real-life, Widmore is a successful businessman with lots o’ money. The relationship he had with Ben on the Island appeared to put them on opposite sides. So, the Man In Black (now FLocke) would have known them as enemies, so there’s no need to think about Charles Widmore, right? Wrong! Widmore has been able to keep tabs on the Island through many ways, most notably through Eloise Hawking (with whom he has a son, Daniel, who knows how to manipulate the Island properties and wrote his experiments down in a notebook) and through Penny. Penny? How does he extend his reach to the Island via Penny? Easy. Through Desmond. Read more on that below. Back to Widmore - he is likely going to use Desmond to merge (?) or collapse the Flash Sideways timeline using the electromagnetic characteristics of the Island. He tells Desmond that if Des doesn’t help him, he will lose not only Penny, but everybody on the planet will die.

Desmond: Desmond, as pointed out by Charles on the Island, is the only person he knows who has lived through an electromagnetic experience (when he turned the fail-safe key in the Swan Hatch). Desmond is now back on the Island and Widmore is likely going to use him to bring the two timelines back together, or something along those lines. But let’s remember something: It was was Widmore who put Desmond on the Island in the first place. Remember? Desmond liked Penny, Widmore’s daughter. But Widmore used his dislike of Desmond to convince him that he needed to go on this around-the-world sailing adventure knowing full well that he would land on the Island. Also, it would be Libby’s role in this to give Desmond the boat he would use for this journey. In this episode, the Flash Sideways Desmond does not know who Penny is, until Charlie Pace provides him with the near-death experience that caused Desmond to essentially flash back to the real, Island timeline in which he and Penny are together and have a son. With no Penny in the Flash Sideways life, it seems that Des will sacrifice himself to make things right. Whether or not this will result in his death is unknown at this time. What is known is this - Desmond is definitely aware of both timelines. Wonder if his consciousness from the Flash Sideways switched to the Island Desmond, and vice versa? This would give each of them the full vision of that timeline they are in.

Simmons: Probably wishes he hadn’t gone down to the check the circuits on the solonoids. **zzzztttttttt** But at least we know what happens to someone not named Desmond when exposed to a strong EM field.

Charlie Pace: Drive Shaft and Daniel were going to get together to do a “classical mixed with rock” concert for Widmore’s family. But poor Charlie was arrested on the Oceanic 815 flight when it landed in LA, and Widmore hired Desmond to babysit Charlie for the show. See, when Charlie nearly died on the plane after swallowing his stash, he saw Claire. Not the Claire on the plane Claire, but the Claire he knew from the Island, in the other timeline. The Claire he loved. Once he had those memories, he knew to force Desmond into a similar experience so he too would see that timeline’s history. He does this by forcing the car he and Desmond are in to go into the water and sink. When Des tries to rescue Charlie, Charlie puts his hand on the car window in the exact way he did in the Hydra Station before being killed when Mikhail blew up the room Charlie was in, causing him to drown. This is the moment where Desmond flashed to the Island timeline and he remembers Charlie putting his hand on the window with the message “not Penny’s boat”. Charlie’s flash on the airplane in the Flash Sideways did give him strength through the power of love, as corny as that sounds. Life and death are two things that cause one to reflect deeply. They have all had to deal with that.

Eloise Hawking/Widmore: In the Flash Sideways, she tries to convince Desmond to stop trying to find Penny. It’s as though she is trying to steer Desmond away from figuring out how he can fix things. As though she’s been planted in the Flash Sideways to try to talk Des out of figuring out what it will take to put things back in order (in Jacob’s favor). This sort of implies that the Flash Sideways is under the direction of the Man In Black. But even in the Flash Sideways, there are people trying to steer Desmond to do the right thing (Charlie Pace being the most obvious one working against the Flash Sidways’ Eloise, and possibley even Widmore since he’s the one who put Des in charge of watching over Charlie.)

Daniel Farraday/Widmore: In the Flash Sideways, Daniel is not the scientist we know him as in the other timeline, but an accomplished classical pianist. But he has an experience that involves him seeing Charlotte in a museum (I wonder if it’s the same museum that Miles’ father works in?). In the Flash Sideways, he’s never met Charlotte, but he knows he loves her. After seeing her, he wrote down in a notebook (yes, THAT notebook) a quantum-mechanics formula, but he’s not a physicist in this timeline. Taking the formula to a friend at Cal Tech who is a physicist, he’s told that the equation is for setting off a nuclear bomb. Daniel thinks he may have already set one off (thinking of the Island timeline), so both timelines are crossing over for Daniel, too. Daniel tells Desmond that Penny does indeed exist, and that he is her half-brother. Don’t forget: in Daniel’s notebook on the Island, he had written “Desmond Hume is my constant”, and in the Flash Sideways...voila!....Daniel meets with Desmond.

George Minkowski: Hey George! In the Flash Sideways, he’s the limo driver for Charles Widmore who picks Desmond up at the airport when his Oceanic Flight 815 lands in LA from Sydney.

Zoe: I believe she’ll be called in to create another “incident” that will merge the timelines and lead to the beat-down of FLocke/Man In Black.

Sayid: “Desmond, these people (the Widmore team) are extremely dangerous, we have to go” is all he says. And Desmond leaves with him. That’s weird. But Des has something up his sleeve, don’t’cha think?

Interesting

--Widmore telling Desmond that “the Island isn’t done with you yet”, which is similar to what Eloise told him previously.

--Desmond telling the still-pregnant Claire (in the Flash Sideways) that her baby would be a boy.

--Flash Sideways Desmond and Widmore are buddies, even sharing a shot of McCutcheon Whiskey.

--In Widmore’s Flash Sideways office, he has a model of the Black Rock on the wall, in addition to a painting of a scale with a black rock on the left side and a white rock on the right.

--Though not a mirror, Desmond stares at his reflection for a few seconds in the glass door to the courtroom when he picked up Charlie. More mirror, or more literally ‘reflection’, scenes.

--Man In Black needs the plane (or sub?) to get off the Island, but it would seem that Team Jacob also need the plane. I still don’t see how that plane will get off the Island with no runway and (presumably) being low on fuel.

--Desmond’s flashes were both triggered by the EM blasts...one flash from the solonoids on the Island, and the other from the MRI machine in the Flash Sideways.

--Desmond meeting Penny while she’s running steps in the same stadium that he met Jack in.

Questions

--Is the Flash Sideways timeline a vision of what the Man In Black has promised those who will serve him/help him, and without it the Man In Black would have no power over those he’s trying to use to get off the Island? If so, destroying the Flash Sideways timeline would appear to be the motive of Widmore. By using Desmond to somehow destroy that timeline would take away the ‘perfect world’ promises being made by the Man In Black. Without that offer, there’s no reason for anybody to follow Man In Black and this would severely diminish his ability to recruit anybody for his army.

--Why does Desmond need the manifest for Flight 815? And who does he have to show it to?

In Jacob’s Cave where all of the names are etched into the wall and most are crossed out, six remained that weren’t: Locke, Reyes (Hugo), Ford (Sawyer), Jarrah, Shephard and Kwon (either Sun or Jin...we don’t know). Kate’s last name, Austen, was one of the ones crossed off. However, in Jacob’s Lighthouse, Kate’s name is NOT crossed off. If FLocke hasn’t been to the Lighthouse, then he wouldn’t know that Austen is still a Candidate. He’s only keeping her around to bat her va-va-voom eyelashes at Sawyer because he needs Sawyer as part of his army. Did Jacob use slight of hand to keep Kate off of Man In Black’s radar? If Man In Black thinks she’s not a candidate, he could be surprised later by this.

My thoughs are that Kate will be the final Candidate to take Jacob’s spot. That’s my prediction. Although I’ve never really been into her character arcs and back-story, it seems the perfect distraction to reveal that she’s the one to take his place. Plus, the fact that she gave up her life to return to the Island to re-unite a son with his mother, shows that she has the ability to give up the ultimate sacrifice of one’s life for another. She made this sacrifice on her own, without guidance.

I have to believe some of the characters are going to die: Sayid, Richard and Claire all seem obvious. But I think Jack will remain and be a leader, sort of the Dogen replacement. And I think Hurley will be the Richard replacement. They’ll opt to stay on the Island. Any who remain after the war (Jin & Sun perhaps?) will have an option to leave on the sub (plane?) but the rest who remain (Rose? Bernard? Ilana?) would likely go to the Temple.

This is assuming the “good guys” win. And in terms that might be accociated with a game of backgammon, it would seem that Kate and Widmore were both pieces that got bumped to the center holding area, and are just now being rolled back in.

Of course, every time I make a prediction, I’m wrong. So there you go.

That was a lot of reading. Thanks for sticking with it.

Tune in next Tuesday night for episode 12 Everybody Loves Hugo.

Here’s how the episodes stack up for the rest of the season:

Ep 13 The Last Recruit

Ep 14 The Candidate

Ep 15 Across The Sea

Ep 16 What They Died For

Ep 17 The End (pt 1) will be shown as part of two-hour series finale

Ep 18 The End (pt 2) will be shown as part of two-hour series finale

Until next week, remember that I’m happy to be your constant.

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