Episode 14 - The Variable

Wow! Amazing episode! And I haven't started a post like that in a while. The 100th episode will go down as one of the best ... I thought I knew it all and they threw this game changer at us! I'm scared to even attempt a summary but here goes ...



SUMMARY

ISLAND
Daniel Farraday gets off the sub with Miles and goes to see Dr. Chang. He tells him he's from the future and that he needs to order an immediate evacuation of the island or else in six hours an electromagnetic incident will occur and wipe everyone out. To prove his point he tells him that Miles is his son. He then went to Jack and the gang to tell them they weren't supposed to come back and that they are the variables that have the potential to change the future and prevent the incident. He recruits Kate to tell him where he can find the hostiles because his mother is one of them. With Juliet's help, Kate and Jack leave with Daniel amidst a Dharma vs. Oceanic 6 shootout. They escape to the Others and Dan approaches the camp. He is then shot by his mother Ellie and comes to the realization that she knew about his impending death all along.

OFF THE ISLAND
A young Daniel is told he is special by his mother and she's there to guide him along his path. He attends Oxford graduating the youngest physicist with a grant to study his research from Mr. Whidmore. He and his mother attend a graduation dinner without his girlfriend Theresa and she gives him a journal. A few years later Daniel is with a stay at home nurse because he has lost his memory from testing his experiments on himself. He is watching coverage of the 815 rescue and crying when Whidmore comes to visit. He tells him that the people on the island are alive and that he created the fake plane to protect them. He then asks Farraday to go to the island so he can study it. Daniel refuses until his mother approaches him and tells him he has to take the offer. Further into the future we see Desmond and Penny in the hospital. Penny is approached by Eloise and she asks how Desmond is doing. She apologizes claiming it is her son Daniel's fault and she honestly doesn't know if Desmond will be okay. Penny goes in to visit Desmond on the recovery room and he is fine. Eloise and Whidmore talk and we find out that Whidmore is actually Farraday's father.

Woohoo on to my thoughts!

1. So, are you telling me that there is a possibility that the incident might not happen causing no need for Dharma to create the hatch to monitor the electromagnetic build up which Desmond will come to the island to push every 108 minutes until one time he fails to push it on time and thus crashes the Oceanic flight 815 and chaos ensuing as we know it? Ha so basically I LOVE this idea. I love that their entire destiny was to change their future and I think there is no other option now than for the Oceanic 6 to prevent the incident from happening thus making season 6 totally different. So the plane lands find in LA and then what? Do we have to watch the characters somehow miraculously find each other again? Will Jack and Kate have a chance now? I don't even know how that storyline would play out but I am pumped to see!

2. Commercials - I hope no one DVRed through the commercials last night because they placed little clues in them! And thanks to my abc insider, she informed me that a commercial for last night cost more than the finale! Well our first clue was the title board turning into stars for a nice little Star Trek preview (which btw and I'm sure no one is surprised I am super pumped to see that!). Which leads me to wonder if the rest weren't actually about LOST, just a ploy to get us to see Star Trek next weekend ... but we had little snippets of a scene, one was a coffin being carried, a wedding, a baby, and children leaving school. All of these are plausible LOST story lines but also could be from Star Trek. Either way I'm intrigued!

3. Kate chose Jack! Well I mean Juliet helped her with her choice but come on, they've been the love story since day one so we're assuming since they are pursuing the hostiles with Farraday that they will take over in his quest to stop the incident and one thing Kate and Jack do well together is run through the island on a crazy mission and fall in love.

4. I love how well thought out this show is. Basically we're seeing a lot of flashbacks/flashforwards start to make sense. Farraday did his experiments on himself and it caused memory loss. This explains why he and Charlotte were flipping cards to test his memory. Also it explains why he was crying about the wreckage of 815 being found. And why he was digging at the Swan station at the beginning of season 5. Even though its not much, I just love when things get explained because I've spent quite a few years in the dark.

5. It was a tender scene between Farraday and young Charlotte. But I do remember her saying he scared her but it didn't look like that to me. But maybe that goes with the whole you can change the future thing that this episode seemed to point out.

6. I'm starting to have faith that LOST will be re-building Jack up again. He's been a little down and out so maybe now we'll see him responsible for the choice of whether or not the incident happens. So me thinks he does have a purpose going back after all!

7. The Variable - well this made a lot of sense. The Oceanic Six coming back is the variable that Dan never saw in his experiment. Since he knew nothing else could change unless it was reacting to an unseen changeable aspect, he should have assumed that him going back to the past could happen and affect the future. We've been saying it all along, that if they did go back in time, why couldn't they affect the future? Because it already happened and is the Oceanic Six's past? No, that could never have been true - maybe Dan Farraday should have watched Back to the Future!

8. So now is the real war between Ellie and Whidmore? Does Ben even matter to them at all? The Whidmore/Ellie dispute would make sense as to why Ben is on Ellie's side. It seems like Whidmore wants nothing but to find the island for himself and Ellie sent Daniel to try to prevent the incident by blowing up the island after everyone was evacuated thus ending the dispute for it for good? So why is she trying to keep it out of the hands of Whidmore? I guess all will be revealed in due time.

9. Richard Alpert - he still seems to be the key to everything as far as the explanation of the history of the island. There are so many different groups now its hard to keep them straight. Basically I think the Hostiles came over on the Black Rock (the boat from season 2) and lived there ageless until Ellie and Whidmore came over to explore the island (Government?). There was a change in regime (perhaps Ellie vs. Whidmore) and Whidmore took over. Dharma came to the island to explore and Ben joined up with the Hostiles and banished Whidmore. The Hostiles then took over Dharma becoming the Others. The Others then terrorize Flight 815. This all however will become obsolete if the incident does not happen. So that's my explanation.

10. What's going to happen to Sawyer and Juliet? Their secret has been found out all thanks to Phil and now they'll have to answer for it. It was clear to Juliet that he still loves Kate, but I think he'll stay with her. And I think that one of them will die, I don't think Daniel's death is considered big enough to be the big death this season.

Okay so I loved this episode obvio, tell me what you think because I think I have a headache from trying to think about it!

xoxo
Bridget

**Update - the mini commercial blasts were a preview for ABC's new show called "Flash Forward" which is set to take place of LOST. It's about a world where everyone blacks out for a certain amount of time and flashes forward to the future only to return to the present and then deal with the chaos of the entire world blacking out at the same time. Sounds AWESOME!