Episode Recap: The Constant

What is the only constant in Lost? For every answer we get, there are 10 more unanswered questions. In this week’s episode my mind literally gets blown. ABC puts some C4 into my pea brain and blows it up.  The star of this week’s episode is our favorite insane, bearded Scotsman. No, not Sean Connery silly…. it Desmond brutha!

So in this episode Desmond and Sayid are on the chopper on their way to the freighter, when Desmond starts flipping out! He’s zooming back and forth in time from 2004 to sometime in the 1996.  He’s in the army! He’s on the chopper! He’s in a phone booth! He’s in sickbay! Back and forth and back and forth.

Desmond is able to stay in 2004 long enough to have a phone conversation with Faraday on the island. Dude seems to know a thing or two about time travel. I bet he’s a big Quantum Leap fan.  He tells Desmond that he has to go back to the past and find the Faraday from 1996 and convince him that he’s from the future. Faraday tells Desmond to tell Doc Brown that he needs 1.21 jiggawatts of energy to get the flux capicitor to work. Desmond thinks to himself “what the hell is a jiggawatt?” If that fails he’s supposed to mention “Eloise”.

Desmond shoots back to the past. He’s at Oxford to find the Past Faraday, who by the way is even loonier and crazy looking than present Faraday. Desmond mentions the jigawatts but Faraday is not convinced. Then he brings up Eloise which turns out to be Faraday’s drag queen name. He performs a cabaret show Friday nights at the Blue Iguana. Convinced that only a Scottish man from the future could ever know his secret, past Faraday invites Desmond to his secret lab.

Faraday asks Desmond if he’s interested in experimenting. Desmond is a bit scared until Faraday brings out a lab rat. “This is my rat, Splinter.” Faraday proceeds to bombard the rat with high levels of radiation. He puts the rat into a maze, which the rat is able to navigate successfully. The rat then does a jump kick and breaks out of the maze, escaping into a nearby sewer grate.

Desmond: “Why is there a sewer grate in your lab?”

Faraday: “Oh I dump my radioactive waste in there from time to time. And sometimes baby turtles.”

Desmond zips back and forth some more, only now he’s bleeding from the nose. Sayid is concerned that Desmond has gotten into Charlie’s Virgin Mary stash.  Back in the past Faraday tells Desmond that his life is in danger. “You have to go to the Enchantment Under the Sea Dance and make your parents fall in love! Otherwise you will start to disappear!!” OK, so he really tells Desmond that he has to make contact with Penny in the future in order to anchor himself in the future. Which is the present. His future our present. God I hate time travel…

Desmond rushes off to find Penny when he passes out in the middle of a stairwell. A couple of teenagers lift his wallet and draw a mustache on him with a sharpie. Desmond has jumped back to the freighter in 2004. He and Sayid are in the communications room which was trashed during some drunken sailor shenanigans. Luckily Sayid is able to MacGuyver the radio back into working order using a toothpick, a chewed piece of gum, a flame thrower, and a potato. But what’s Penny’s phone number??

Back in the past Desmond has tracked Charles Widmore down at an auction house, where he has purchased the ship’s journal of the Black Rock!! Apparently, the manifest of a slaving ship is a hot ticket item because everyone seems to want it and it ends up selling for a bundle. Desmond asks to talk to Widmore and is lead him into the mensroom. They have an interesting conversation in mid-stream while standing next to each other at the urinals.

Desmond: “Why are you touching my leg?”

Widmore: “I have a wide stance!”

Desmond is able to get Penny’s current address from Widmore after trading him the phone number of a Senator from Idaho. He rushes off to meet her. Unfortunately Penny is NOT happy to see him:

Penny: “How the hell do you explain this rash?!”

Desmond gives her some antibiotics and then begs and pleads for with her to just give him her phone number. He tells her “If you ever loved me at all, promise me you’ll keep this phone number. I’ll call on you Dec. 24, 2004.”

Back….to the Future! Desmond has the digits now so he can tell Sayid what number to dial on his MacGuyver phone. “The potato powering the phone only has enough energy for a short call.” Desmond gets through to Penny and they have a sweet conversation. They share all sorts of I love you’s and even I get a little teary eyed. Unfortunately Desmond doesn’t deem it necessary to ask her anything important like “WTF is up with this island?” and “Are you sending people to get us off of it?” and “Did they ever find those WMD’s in Iraq?” and the potato phone dies before the viewers get any juicy new info. Sayid mutters “Damn. I wanted to order Dominos…”

Back on the beach, Faraday is reading a Playboy, for the articles of course. In it he finds a page that says: “If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant. <3 XOXOXOXO <3″ It is written in his handwriting in pink gel ink and it smells like strawberries.