Well, on the bright side, he’ll never have to deal with the swine flu…

So I loved last night’s Lost, but I’m not without concerns, so I think this is going to be tough to write, even though I have about 2 pages of notes.

Honestly, the ep is still swimming in my head and I don’t really know how to respond. I’m just going to transcribe my notes and see if I can go from there…

Writing the title of the ep got me even more excited to watch. I was hoping for the greatness of “The Constant.” I don’t know if we’ll ever get that greatness again, but as I said it was a really, really good ep and Jeremy Davies was fantastic, but I think I set my bar a bit too high for this one. It wasn’t the disappointment that “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” was (I actually quite liked a lot of that episode too, but a few things bothered me, and in this season of greatness, I have come to expect greatness week to week, not just goodness that “Bentham” was) but it certainly wasn’t “The Constant.”

Guess Desmond’s injuries are why they didn’t finish off Ben. Was wondering about that. Not that I wanted them to finish Ben off, but I did wonder why he was able to swim to surface and leave unscathed when Des had just wrestled him to the ground and thrown him in the water. Mystery explained.

Lost ‘whoosh’ fading into Star Trek promo (not great) was very freaky and weird (not in good way.) I yelled at the TV when I saw the stars behind the Lost logo. Did not care for that.

This new younger Hawking casting = really good. Facially and vocally, a very nice match for Finnoula Flanigan (sp?)

Miles: Faraday inventing DVDs. Oh Miles…

Faraday “outing” Miles to Chang. Could this be what causes Chang to send Miles and his mom packing? Does older Miles survive the 1970s? (Based on what has now happened to Charlotte and Faraday, not looking good.)

Sawyer calling Faraday Twitchy. That’s a billion times better than Freckles.

Sawyer: “He still crazy?” Miles: “On a whole new level, man.” Favorite exchange of the evening.

GREAT sequence (x4)!!! About halfway through the ep, they had 4 GREAT back to back scenes: Widmore visiting Faraday/The Meeting at Sawyer and Juliet’s house/Daniel talking to young Charlotte/Shootout between Jack, etc. and Radzinsky, etc.

Wired Magazine? In Widmore and Faraday’s scene, Widmore picked up a Wired magazine that the camera seemed to linger on for an extra few seconds. Is this significant or I am being crazier than usual?

Sawyer calling Faraday H.G. Wells. Not as good as Twitchy, but worth a giggle. Interesting to note…as their world is crumbling, Sawyer is going back to his old habits of calling people by nicknames. Maybe I just noticed it more last night, but it seemed more prevalent than it had been.

Josh Holloway’s acting in the meeting scene. I think I’m more disappointed than Sawyer that their life in the DI is coming to an end, because my heart broke with Sawyer’s during this scene. I hope that Juliet and Sawyer survive whatever the DI has planned for them, but if they don’t, I’m glad that they are going down together. I know I’m a broken record sometimes, but I wouldn’t feel the same if it was Jack and Kate. I do love Juliet and Sawyer and it hurts to think that they might not make it.

“Your Mother is an Other?” That might be my favorite line of the night.

“I’m not allowed to have chocolate before dinner.” That is definitely the most heart-breaking line of the night. I immediately flashed to poor older Charlotte dying in Daniel’s arms at this line. I miss Rebecca Mader, but I’m gonna miss Jeremy Davies more.

Poor Faraday. God, that short scene between him and young Charlotte was so powerful, so well-acted, and the camera pan away as they finished their conversation was beautifully done. And essentially, Charlotte is what brings about Dan’s death. He wants to change the future so she doesn’t die (in the past…). That’s really his motivation: if Charlotte is not a variable (heh) in his equation, he never comes back to the Island to try to change the future.

“Do you have something for a beginner?” Faraday bringing the funny. I think that’s probably something I would say.

Jeremy Davies and his incredible acting eyebrows. A lot of actors on this show And in general, of course) use their eyes to convey emotion, but I don’t know if anyone uses their eyebrows more than Davies. He’s got some flexible muscles up there.

FF = better this week. I thought that the last time we saw Finnoula Flanigan, she was a bit too over the top (especially in her scenes with Jack), but that she was more effectively used in this ep. There was still a bit of overacting, but she worked better this time for me.

Hawking says yes to Widmore? I was surprised that Hawking told Dan to go to the Island at Widmore’s request, but I guess that was cleared up later as her “sacrifice” for the Island.

Jughead? Well, I guess I saw that conclusion coming…

It can’t work, right? I just don’t think anything can really change, so while I was certainly surprised by Dan’s death, I think it does make sense.

Don’t leave Charlie alone with Hawking?!? Penny, c’mon! I truly expected Hawking to walk out of the hospital with little Charlie. In fact, as she walked out, I expected to see a small child struggling under her trenchcoat.

Oh Des. You’re the greatest. (Tears) I actually was afraid that they might kill Des. Obviously, I am very happy that they didn’t, especially because this tension produced my favorite scene of the night. Generally, any scenes between Des and Penny are fantastic, but reunion scenes just make it that much better. And those two have the greatest chemistry in the history of chemistry. I need more Desmond, so I do hope that the show isn’t done with him.

Widmore = Dan’s dad. Wha-huh? Not something that was at all shocking, but the execution was kinda swept under the rug. I don’t really think it makes a difference who his father is and Ellie and he obviously have a history, so I buy it, but I guess I don’t really care. I would probably have more of a problem with the Widmore is Dan’s dad reveal if it wasn’t executed so matter-of-factly. It was almost like an aside and then they were gone.

Dan really dead? I don’t watch previews, so I don’t know if he showed up in them. The show would miss Davies as an actor and Faraday as a character, and I do really love both, but I’m at peace with his death. I think the problem with a character like Faraday running around the Island is that he would constantly be trying to change the future (which I staunchly believe cannot be done) and he’d become a one-trick pony at this point in the show. Either that, or he’d be shuffled into the background and everyone would be asking where he was. Since his point in coming back seemed to be to change the future, I think to prevent ruing a great character, he had to die. And I find it satisfyingly twisty that his mom did him in. Creepy, yet satisfying. The more I think about it, the more I like it. (I know there’s only two weeks left in the season and presumably, we’re coming to the end of their time in the 70s, but then you’d have Faraday trying to change the past in the future, you know?)

Issues: Failsafe key, Chang video. So onto my issues:
Number One: Desmond’s turning of the failsafe key. I don’t really know what to make of this after Dan’s claims last night. Shouldn’t everyone have died if no one was pushing the button? Or am I not understanding this correctly? Could the failsafe key be connected to the hydrogen bomb? If so, how? It’s not like the Hostiles and the DI were chummy, and one has the bomb, while the other is building the Swan.

Number Two: Faraday and Chang in ComicCon video. So I guess that it wasn’t Faraday’s voice in the video made by Dr. Chang, unless Faraday is still alive. Was it ever officially confirmed that it was Faraday? That video has to be filmed soon because Miles is still a baby in it, but there clearly was no time for it to have been done during last night’s ep. Could it be Dan’s “spirit” like Christian and Locke? (Even though both of them died off the Island?)

Time travel. I think I spend too much time writing about how I think the show feels about time travel. I need to find some time to work out my thoughts on it, mostly because I think it will help me understand what I think better if I write it down. (If that makes any sense…) Basically, I think that it always happened this way. Even though in 1977, Dan isn’t born yet (I guess Jeremy Davies is playing way younger than he is – I think he’s about 40), he was always there to get shot by Ellie. It’s not about course-correction or variables (not in my mind at least). It always has to happen that way. Kinda like The Terminator (the movie, not the machine). John Conner has always been the son of Kyle Reese, even though Reese is from the future. Maybe one day, I’ll sit down and write a few pages on this. Don’t have the head for it now. Not with Lost still swimming around in there.