WRITERS: Drew Goddard & Damon Lindelof DIRECTOR: Jack Bender
CAST: Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Terry O'Quinn (Locke), Dominic Monaghan (Charlie), Emilie de Ravin (Claire), Sonya Walger (Penny Widmore), Alan Dale (Charles Widmore), Yunjin Kim (Sun), Naveen Andrews (Sayid), Shishir Kurup (Donovan), Katie Doyle (Receptionist), Jeremy Colvin (Delivery Man), Michael Titterton (Bartender), David Cordell (Jimmy Lennon) & Fionnula Flanagan (Ms Hawking)
After Desmond mysteriously saves Claire from drowning, Charlie decides to find out why the Scotsman seems able to predict the future...Ever since he first appeared down the Hatch in season 2, Desmond has proven to be one of the show's most enigmatic characters. A lot of this is down to Henry Ian Cusick's enjoyable performance, rolling between laconic and fanatic.
Flashes Before Your Eyes is another flashback story for the strange Scotsman, focusing on his newfound ability to predict future events (something touched upon throughout season 3 already). Here, Charlie confronts Desmond about his apparent precognition during a drinking session, and the obligatory flashback reveals what happened to Desmond after he turned the failsafe key in the season 2 finale...
Drew Goddard and Damon Lindelof's script offers a fresh spin on the flashback format, with Desmond apparently thrown back in time and occassionally aware he's "reliving" events. The episode takes place in London, with Desmond setting up home with sweetheart Penny (Sonya Walger) whose father Charles Widmore (Alan Dale) is totally against his hopes for marriage.
For long stretches of the episode it seems likely the writers have finally given us a vital key to the Lost puzzle. With Desmond half-aware he's "in a flashback", is it possible all flashbacks are actually glimpses of the future (in which all of the characters have been sent back in a similar fashion)? A form of time-travel would certainly provide a plausible explanation to some longstanding mysteries, although the writers do have a tendency to allude to popular theories just for fun.
So, Flashes Before Your Eyes may be one big wink at the audience, an idea given credence by the fact a character is named Ms Hawking (after Professor Stephen Hawking, whose theories on time-travel made him a global star). By the end of the episode, it's not clear if Desmond physically travelled back in time, or hallucinated everything, although the loss of his clothing seems to suggest something more physical (to me, anyway). As always, no definitive answer is given and it's all left open for hot debate. But Desmond's precognition remains intact, so it's clear turning that key had a strange electromagentically-induced effect of some sort...
Moving away from the intricacies of the plot, the episode doesn't really give us any information about Desmond we didn't already guess. The flashback takes place before Desmond joined the army, so it's interesting to see the exact circumstances of this decision, if not a massive revelation.
The story is far more interested in having fun with Desmond's belief he's reliving his past, including a brief scene with street busker Charlie. But why is Charlie a lowly busker when he's in a famous rock band? Does this prove it's all a dream (as Desmond may not be aware of Charlie's career), or are alternate dimensions involved? Is your head hurting yet?
Sonya Walger is good as love-interest Penny, although her character is given less time to make an impression this time. Fionnula Flanagan is great fun as Ms Hawking, an elderly jeweller with insider knowledge on cause-and-effect, while the ubiquitous Alan Dale offers another winning turn as Charles Widmore.
But the episode belongs to Henry Ian Cusick. The need to provide fresh material often leads to the introduction of new characters (last year's "tailies", this year's "others"), but Desmond's backstory seems to have far more relevance because of its link to Widmore Industries. It also helps that Cusick is a naturally magnetic actor and fits in perfectly as a rogue/outsider element of the cast.
Overall, hardcore fans will find a lot to contemplate with the episode's numerous injokes and background details (a polar bear mural, amongst them), while casual viewers should enjoy the storyline's quirky nature. It remains to be seen if Flashes Before Your Eyes has provided us with a major clue to solving Lost's mystery, or if it's just a red herring, but it's very enjoyable either way.
