"Feel It" - 6x11: Happily Ever After

Okay, I'm doing this one cold, partly because I took no notes - I just sat back and enjoyed - and because, well, I need to watch it again to fully comprehend everything that happened in tonight's episode, "Happily Ever After." I think we are now as close as ever to knowing what the "flash sideways" are, but I'll be honest: I don't know what's going on. Still. But as I watched the UConn women win their 7th National Championship and their 78th-straight game, and the Yankees beat the Red Sox, I've had some (very happy) time to let it all sink in and to process this episode.

I haven't checked out any blogs yet, either, mostly because I just want to get the ideas I have out first before I delve into everyone else's. There's a pretty good chance someone has this all figured out on some message board somewhere, but I'll get to that (and tell you about it) later. All I'd like to do tonight is try to arrange the pieces we were given and see if I can put them together. Forgive me if it's too stream of consciousness, but I'll try my best to explain myself.

Here we go!

Desmond has been taken from the hospital in LA, after having been shot by Ben last season, by Charles Widmore, who has brought him to the Island. Charles knows that Desmond is special; he knows that he can resist exposure to large amounts of electromagnetic energy because of his experience turning the failsafe key in the Swan Station. He has a job for Des to do that apparently involves, well, large amounts of electromagnetic energy. Widmore's cronies, including Zoe, have set up some sort of device that produces this energy to test Desmond to make sure he can handle it. Widmore apologizes to him for taking him from Penny and little Charlie, but stresses how much Des is needed for something much bigger. Des fights against them as much as he can, but they eventually strap him in to a chair, lock him inside the chamber, and turn on the machine.

We next see Desmond in LAX in Alt. 2004, looking at an Oceanic flight board. He helps Claire pick up her luggage - and tells her that her baby is a boy, which is maybe why Claire calls out Aaron's name in "What Kate Does" (I have a hunch about this which I'll get into later) - and finds George Minkowski, his driver. In the original timeline, Minkowski was the guy on the freighter who was suffering from the same "time sickness" that Desmond was in Season 4; he talked about seeing a Ferris wheel. Minkowski drives him to Widmore's office, where we learn that Desmond is working for Widmore. He even lets him drink McCutcheon's now!

Desmond, who has no personal connections to anyone, a fact that is noted a few times in the episode, is tasked with ensuring that a rock star from DriveShaft, who was busted for OD'ing, makes it to his son's birthday party, or else "my wife will have my head," or something to that effect. His son is a musician, he says, and it's very important that the band performs for him. We know that the rock star is Charlie, and suspect that Widmore's son is Daniel Faraday - I mean, Daniel Widmore!

Des picks Charlie up from the hospital, but Charlie heads straight for a bar. When Des follows him in and sits down with him, Charlie tells Des that he can't be happy because he's never felt "conscious-altering" love before. (Interesting choice of words, especially as they're said to Desmond.) Charlie tells him that when he OD'ed on the flight, he experienced this love - a blonde. (Claire?) Desmond doesn't quite know what to make of this, but tells Charlie that he has two options: to stay at the bar and drink his career away, or come with him to play the DriveShaft show and stay in a five-star hotel, compliments of Widmore.

Desmond is driving (in Charlie's car? Wasn't Des being chauffered by Minkowski? I must have missed something.) to, we assume, the hotel to get cleaned up for the show. As they drive past the now-familiar marina, Charlie then gives Des two choices: he can show Des this love he's talking about, or Des can get out of the car. And before Des really answers, Charlie grabs the wheel, hits the gas, and the car goes flying into the water. The car sinks, and Des escapes, but he can't get Charlie's seatbelt loose. He comes up for air, then dives back down. He tries to open Charlie's door, but Charlie looks at him through the window, and puts his hand up to the glass, and we all recognize this as the same motion from the Season 3 finale when he dies. But the most interesting part is that Desmond remembers it, too.

As Desmond looks at Charlie's hand, he gets flashes of the "Not Penny's Boat" message, of Charlie's face as he drowns in the Looking Glass Station. He's confused at first, but goes back to getting Charlie out of the car and up to the surface for air.

We next see Desmond in the hospital. He's insisting that he sees Charlie, but they won't let him leave before they run the proper tests on him. They are testing his brain function and they put him into an MRI machine - you know, a magnetic resonance imaging machine? We know what's going to happen here. And of course, they give him a button to push, too! Once the machine starts running, he immediately gets a flurry of flashes of Penny, who he's never met before. He hits the panic button, and races out to find Charlie.

Charlie is escaping the hospital by running through the hallways in every direction. Desmond grabs him and corners him in a waiting area and asks him about the visions he's having. Charlie smiles and says, 'So you have them, too.' Des asks Charlie who Penny is, and he doesn't know, but as he walks away, Charlie tells Des that he should find out.

Desmond calls Charles to tell him that Charlie escaped and that the DriveShaft performance is off, and Charles is not pleased. He tells Desmond that he has to be the one to tell Mrs. Widmore the bad news. Minkowski drives Des to the party site at some sort of estate with a large party tent, and letting him know that Mrs. Widmore is not fun to deal with, wishes him luck. Desmond arrives and finds Mrs. Widmore, who we know as Eloise Hawking, but she isn't going by Hawking this time. (She's not the only one who has lost a mysterious surname...) She says something like, 'It's about time we met.' He respectfully tells her that Charlie Pace escaped and the concert is off. He braces for a rough reaction from her, but to his shock, she very calmly laughs it off as a mere inconvenience. At some point, we see the back of someone's head who is listening to this conversation, someone who has shoulder-length hair and...a bowler hat? As Desmond walks away, he hears two workers reading down the guest list, and they say the name Penny. He stops and asks them to see the list, but Eloise comes along and denies him the opportunity. He presses his luck by trying to convince her, and she clears out the entire tent to talk to him privately. She tells him that he needs to stop what he's doing, to stop looking for what he's looking for, because it's not his time. He has no idea what she's talking about, but gathers that she knows what he's going through. She certainly seems to.

Des gets into the limo, but the man who was listening to his conversation with Eloise knocks on the window and says that they need to talk. It's Daniel Faraday, and he's not going by Faraday; he introduces himself as Daniel Widmore. He tells Desmond that he saw a woman who he felt like he'd been in love with all of his life walk out of the museum - bright blue eyes, red hair (Do I need to spell it out for you? Charlotte!) - and that night (I think he says that night, at least), he had a dream. He then takes out his famous notebook and opens to a page we've seen before which seems to explain time jumps and alternate universes. As a musician, he doesn't know why he dreamt this, but when he showed it to a physicist friend, he told him what it was about. Daniel then explains that there could be an entire other life that they are meant to be living, that the life they are in right now is a mistake. And that it would take an enormous amount of energy - like, say, a nuclear explosion - to get them to the right life. Des visibly thinks he's nuts and asks him if he's going to set off a bomb; Dan says no, but that he's pretty sure that he already has. 

I forget why, but Daniel tells Desmond that Penny is his half-sister, and he knows just where he can find her. That night, Des has Minkowski drive him to a stadium - the same stadium from Season 1, where Desmond met Jack, who was running a tour de stade. Except now, it's Penny who is running the stairs! Des stops her and introduces himself, but when he shakes her hand, we flash to Desmond lying on the floor of the electromagnetic chamber on Hydra Island. Widmore and his people help him up, and he is no longer angry; in fact, he has a pretty dumb, dazed, but happy expression on his face. He tells Widmore that he's ready to help him.

At some point, we flash back to Desmond in the stadium with Penny. She's asking if he's okay, as he fainted when he shook her hand. He asks her out for coffee, and she accepts. He gets back into the limo. Minkowski asks if he found what he was looking for, and he happily says yes. Minkowski, who says this a few times in the episode, tells Desmond that if there's anything else he needs, to just ask him. Des says there is one more thing: he needs a flight manifest for Oceanic 815. Minkowski asks why, and Des says, "Because I have something to show them."

And maybe before that previous scene, we see Desmond, Zoe, and the other Widmore crew walking toward wherever they need Desmond to go, but suddenly they are attacked - by Sayid. He tells Zoe to run, and that Des needs to get away from these people because they are dangerous. Des, who seems to be very dazed after the exposure to the electromagnetic energy, says okay.

Cut to LOST.

So, what the hell is going on? Here's all I can offer so far at this late hour:

I think they are making it very clear that that two timelines are connected. It's not the only possibility, but it seems to be the one they are hinting ever more strongly at. I think the Daniel conversation is the key. I've had a request to try and explain multiple/alternate universes. At 12:23am, here's my best shot, which I'd like to embellish on at a later date.

Imagine two parallel streams of water shooting through the open air. They are flowing in the same direction at the same pace, and they continue on infinitely, but since they are parallel, they never cross over. They are both made of the same elements, they both contain little air bubbles, dirt particles, etc., but since they are two separate streams, they are not exactly alike. The air bubbles and dirt particles move inside them differently, but they still remain in the stream and continue to flow in the one direction. The water is like the path of life, or existence; the air bubbles and dirt are like people. Both streams have the same people, but the people might move differently in one stream versus the other. For example, in one stream, let's say Toniann decided to go to Montclair State University instead of the University of Connecticut for her higher education because it was closer to home. She's still Toniann, with the same parents and high school friends, she's still living her life, but she took one path in one stream, and a different path in another stream. So now, a year after her high school graduation, she has one set of friends at Montclair State in one stream, and a whole different set of friends at UConn. The way she moves in each stream is different - save for things like still visiting her parents, etc. - but she stays in that stream.

What seems to be happening in LOST, or at least what they want us to think, especially after tonight, is that the two streams are bleeding over. It's like someone came along and stuck their finger into one of the streams of water, and it started splashing into the other stream. Desmond is getting memories, maybe because of his time traveling consciousness experiences, of the other stream. He's remembering things that never happened to him, but only happened to him in the other stream, like seeing "Not Penny's Boat" on Charlie's hand, or all the memories of Penny, except he's never met her. For some reason, the electromagnetic energy is the cause of this, and Desmond seems particularly sensitive to it. The rules of "staying in your stream" don't apply to him. He can experience more than one version of his life. I think they showed us Minkowski again tonight to remind us of what happened to him in the original story - the crossing back and forth between streams eventually made his brain hemmorage. He, and just about everyone else, can't handle it, but Desmond can.

The interesting twist they seem to now be adding to this very sci-fi storytelling is that love is a catylist for this ability to detect the crossover of the two timelines. Charlie saw a vision of a woman and felt that "consciousness-altering" love, and now seems to want everyone to experience it. (Is that what he's up to?) Is this blonde - again, I'm assuming it's Claire - his constant? Once Des meets his constant, he goes from acting like a caged animal to being a docile, obedient helper to Widmore. Does this love help you see the bigger picture?

There's something here about a touch, much like Jacob's touch. Charlie's hands were shown numerous times. When Desmond shakes Penny's hand, he faints and it seems that it took him back to 2007. Is there a connection between what Jacob does and what we saw tonight?

Actually, how does everything we saw tonight fit with the Jacob vs. the Monster story? How does the science fit with the faith? I think I have an idea kicking around, but I don't think I can explain it yet...

Did Widmore know he was going to see these memories when he put him in the makeshift electromagnetic chamber? Was it not a test, but actually his plan all along? Did he need Des to see what he saw? Was he pushing him to Penny? Was this all an elaborate setup?

What is Eloise up to? Why doesn't she want Desmond to pursue Penny? Is it because they are not meant to be in this timeline and she's trying to manage all of these different timelines? We do know she is a course-corrector of sorts.

There is so much more to get into, but I am running out of steam. I definitely don't think I have any solutions here, or that I fit any of these pieces together, but I think at least looking at all the pieces can help.

If you have any ideas or find anything interesting elsewhere, please post it here! I'd like to post an update after I hear what other have to say, and definitely after I watch the episode again.

Until next time,

Good Luck & Namaste,

~ Matt