[SPOILERS] Lost's 100th episode is a spiritual sequel to season 4's "The Constant", and is almost as good as that acclaimed temporal mindbender. A Daniel Faraday (Jeremy Davies) episode was always going to be a highlight, as the fidgety scientist has been one of the show's better additions these past few years, and this knotted installment was particularly good because the temporal knot formed an unexpected noose...Faraday's back on the island, having spent the past three years at Ann Arbor doing research, inspired to return after seeing a photo of Jack's (Matthew Fox) group as new DHARMA recruits. And, as usual, he's in a flap - concerned that his mother, Eloise Hawking (Fionnula Flanagan) was wrong to send the Oceanic Six back to the island. While previously believing that the timeline was incorruptible (whatever happened, happened), he now believes there are "variables" (i.e., people with free will, whose decisions can change the course of history.)
First, he makes a brief stop at The Orchid to warn Dr Chang (Francois Chau) that his drill team will hit a dangerous pocket of magnetic energy in six hours, and tells him to evacuate the entire island. Chang is skeptical, even when Faraday claims he's from the future and spills Miles' (Ken Leung) secret that he's Chang's son. Undeterred, Faraday makes his position clear to the assembles losties at Sawyer's (Josh Holloway) barrack, and plans to travel into the jungle to find the younger version of his mother, a noted Other/Hostile.Flashbacks are used to fill in details of Faraday's life as a child prodigy, pushed by Eloise to become a university graduate at the expense of everything else, including a relationship with lab assistant Theresa Spencer. He receives a £1.5 million grant from Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), is given his treasured journal by his mother, and then falls victim to a mental illness that ravages his memory and makes him emotionally unstable (explaining that old flashback of him crying at news footage of Flight 815's watery discovery in "Confirmed Dead", a little stupidly.) Then Widmore arrives to offer Faraday the opportunity to travel to the island to continue his research, claiming the island has unique properties that can heal his mind.
A more recent flashback shows that Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) survived Ben's gunshot at the marina, but has been hospitalized with Penny (Sonya Walger) at his bedside. Eloise is also present, apologizing to Penny for her son's actions -- meaning Daniel, not Ben. Outside, Widmore approaches Eloise meet and it's made clear that he's Faraday's father -- before he upsets Eloise by mentioning the sacrifice he's made in destroying his relationship with his daughter Penny, earning a slap across the face from Eloise for daring to infer that his sacrifice is greater than her own...
On the island in '77, Faraday takes the opportunity to speak with his beloved Charlotte (as a child), essentially creating the memory she told him about before she died, when he scared her by telling her to leave the island with her mother when Dr Chang evacuates the island. Then, with DHARMA now wise to recent deceptions when Radzinsky (Eric Lange) discovers Phil (Patrick Fischler) locked in Sawyer's cupboard, Faraday leads Jack and Kate (Evangeline Lilly) into the jungle to find his mother. His plan? To detonate the hydrogen bomb he made Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) bury in 1954, hoping the blast will negate the imminent energy release at the Orchid and change history because, if the Swan Station never has to be repurposed to keep the magnetic energy at bay, then Desmond will never accidentally cause the crash of Flight 815 in 2004 when he fails to push the button...
As with many Lost episodes, it's the climax that comes to dominate your memory of "The Variable", as Faraday arrives at the Others' camp to threaten Alpert with a rifle while asking to be taken to the buried hydrogen bomb, only to be shot and killed by... his own mother, Eloise (Alice Evans)! The terrible reality dawning on him that, for his entire life, his domineering mother has been pushing him towards this grizzly fate -- sacrificing her own son to ensure history isn't altered and the established timeline disrupted. For her, there are no "variables"; time is a strict line of cause-and-effect that you can't interfere with, not even to spare the life of your own offspring.It's a ballsy move, particularly as Faraday is such a popular character who appeared to have a lot more story to tell. Of course, there's always the possibility Faraday's not really dead, just badly wounded -- but it wouldn't be dramatically satisfying if Eloise had masterminded everything just to wound her son, would it? And the shot looked pretty fatal. I know there's even a precedent for the island resurrecting the dead now, but I'm sure Lost won't wander down that path again. Downgrading death as a mere obstacle to sidestep.
Jeremy Davies was very good, as you'd expect. I'm not in total awe of his performances, as Faraday is essentially a bundle of tic's and mannerisms, but he's great at balancing all those quirks with charismatic vulnerability. There are plenty of small moments between Daniel and Eloise that stick in the memory, as he's the archetypal boy-genius who does everything to please his mother and make her proud of him, but ultimately finds her impossible to satisfy.
"The Variable" also positioned season 5 for its two-part finale very nicely, with the losties exposed as charlatans to DHARMA, the threat of "The Incident" set-up, and a workable plan to change history by detonating the hydrogen bomb before The Orchid's drill team have their accident. It seems unlikely the characters will succeed in altering time (as that would effectively turn the past five seasons into a redundant timeline), so hopefully the writers will manage to keep things feeling uncertain and tense, regardless.
Overall, this was an action-packed, tense, emotional and intriguing episode that pushed the show towards its penultimate season finale. Will Chang evacuate the island? What will the Incident entail? Will they hydrogen bomb be detonated and worsen the problem? Will the Incident cause the losties to travel back to the present-day?
Questions!
- Why did Eloise and Widmore fall out?
- How and when did Eloise leave the island?
- How did Faraday know so much about the hatch?
3 May 2009
Sky1, 9pm
Writers: Adam Horowitz & Edward Kitsis
Director: Paul Edwards
Cast: Jeremy Davies (Faraday), Jorge Garcia (Hurley), Matthew Fox (Jack), Evangeline Lilly (Kate), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Alan Dale (Widmore), Ken Leung (Miles), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Eric Lange (Radzinsky), Sonya Walger (Penny), Nestor Carbonell (Alpert), Francois Chau (Dr Chang), Fionnula Flanagan (Eloise), Patrick Fischler (Phil), Ariston Green (Workman), Wendy Pearson (E.R Doctor), Todd Coolidge (Paramedic), Peggy Anne Siegmund (Caretaker), Jennifer Sojot (E.R Nurse), Spencer Allyn (Young Faraday), Alice Evans (Young Eloise), Sarah Farooqui (Theresa), Marvin DeFreitas (Charlie), Brad Berryhill (Anxious Guy), Michael Dempsey (Foreman) & Maya Henssen (Young Girl)
