Desmond finds a man with the same issues in LOST: The Constant(2008).
© ABC

Mania Grade: A+
Episode: The Constant
Starring: Evangeline Lilly, Josh Holloway, Matthew Fox, Michael Emerson, Elizabeth Mitchell
Written By: Carlton Cuse, Damon Lindelof
Directed By: Jack Bender
Network: ABC

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LOST: The Constant

Desmond is one of those fascinating characters that I’ve been interested in learning more about. His episodes are seldom a let down and this new one is my favorite of them. We find him and Sayid on the helicopter heading directly into a storm because he has to follow the path laid out by Daniel in order to get back to the freighter. The action starts when a clap of lightening starts Desmond bouncing back and forth between his current situation and his past. He doesn’t seem to know Sayid and as he lands on the freighter he doesn’t know anything about what he’s been up to since he was in the military back in 1996.

On the boat, we finally learn what’s been going on with Minkowski. He and a buddy got bored and took a boat out to look at the island and they both began experiencing the same issues that Desmond is currently going through. Apparently, the side effect of the trip eventually shuts the brain down. After a quick phone call to Daniel back on the island Desmond knows what he has to do to save himself. Desmond has to find Daniel back in 1996 and give him numbers to plug into his machine to make it work. Past Daniel tells Desmond that to save his mind he must find his constant, someone he knows in both 1996 and 2004. Of course, Desmond seeks out Penny. Up to this point, the romance on LOST has been sort of fun but mostly overly melodramatic. There’s something different about the romance between Desmond and Penny. The two actors have great chemistry and in the series they have the most history of any of the pairings on the show. The final moments of the episode with Desmond finally making the necessary connection with Penny were sweet and they carried some impact. As far as revelations from Penny’s phone call, we don’t get any. Desmond now knows that Penny has been looking for him all along though.

The most interesting twist in this episode is that Daniel seems to have been using or will be using Desmond to cure himself. Daniel has been a mess since he first appeared and I believe we may now know what’s been going on with him. Could it be that his little radiation machine gave him a milder dose of what happened to Minkowski and Desmond? His journal tells him that Desmond will be his constant if anything happens. So did Daniel save himself while saving Desmond or will he use Desmond later to save himself? This closing beat wasn’t as big as they’ve been the last few weeks but the episode overall was so intriguing that I wasn’t at all disappointed.

On the island, Daniel seems to be busting to tell the castaways what’s truly going on but Charlotte holds him back from spilling all the beans. She has sort of played it innocent so far but from the previews it looks like we’re in for a change. The big questions I came away with though are about they mysterious inhabitants of the freighter. When the helicopter landed it appeared that a few thugs just came out to greet it. It seems to me that if a helicopter full of 815 landed that someone important would have made an appearance. Even more intriguing is who opened the door to the sick bay and let Sayid and Desmond out to find the radio. I felt pretty confident that Ben’s inside man busted the radio in a continued attempt to keep the island a secret but who let Sayid out to fix it? Are there two factions working against each other behind the scenes on the freighter? The freighter is this season’s hatch but this time we didn’t have to wait until the end of the season to get inside. Now, I just want more information! This is one of the really fantastic conversation inducing episodes of Lost that I’m sure I’ll want to come back to after we know more about Daniel and the rest of the people on freighter’s motivations. This episode was written by the masters of this series and it shows.