First of all, all I’ve done for the past week is apologize for being completely whacked on meds fighting my bronchitis and being on steroids which has made me a quivering pile of goo. And it’s also created a lack of thought synapses. It’s also created grammatical challenges, inane wanderings about this blog and, in an honest note, kicked my ass harder than anything I’ve been through in a long time. (We had an allergy to the first antibiotic. Yeah, that was enjoyable. Make a note to yourself, never be allergic to antibiotics when you are trying to get well. It will sidetrack you for a few days trying to get over it.)
Thank God I’m a cheerful person, but, yeah, this hasn’t been fun.
But, I guess I’m better than Desmond in Lost though because my nose isn’t bleeding and I’m not skipping to and fro between 1996 and 2004. I just want to eat raw meat, play baseball and appear before a congressional hearing headed by Henry Waxman. Have I told you that steroids, and I’ve had a lot of ’em, aren’t fun?
I did?
Let’s talk Lost then …
I think the main thing I have to say about “The Constant” is my head kept screaming “SLAUGHTERHOUSE 5” and yes it was in capital letters.
More for those who haven’t seen it or are catching up after the jump.
In Lost, there has to be those episodes that force the transition from one plotline to another. Because there isn’t anything like Lost out there, I think the main thing that I noticed tonight was that we are actually having our castaways interact with non-Island people for the first time outside of a flashforward or a flashback. It’s a new ballgame.
The freighter folks are still in that “Hey we are friendly. We are going to lock you in sickbay.” I sorta like them although I’m sure they are the bad guys and I REALLY like Frank although I can’t tell you why.
Sayid and Desmond, who is skipping about in time, got to the phone within seconds which The Professor from Gilligan’s Island Sayid fixed within 15 seconds. Sometimes, it’s stuff like that on Lost that drives me nuts. Where was the crew during all of this? That bugged me, quite frankly.
Anyway, the transition in the plot showed us that there is some major juju going on around the island and it can impact people into quivering piles of goo (see opening sentence of this post.) Folks like Dessie and the guy who was in Short Circuit 100 years ago had a rough time of it tonight. (Did you notice Daniel said short-circuit when he was talking about his dead rat?)
The question I have is whether or not this has turned toward time travel or is it some physics/hard science fiction throwback. For Science Fiction lovers, there are different kinds of sci-fi and the hard sci fi is revered.
Faraday is getting more interesting. I don’t think he’s a hero though as some websites are proclaiming. I think he didn’t cover his head during the tests with Eloise and wasn’t that radiation? “The Day After” and “China Syndrome” were both out before 1996. Didn’t he watch these movies? Radiation to the latest doctor’s brain may come back to haunt those Losties.
We are moving forward. This episode moved us along. The Losties are in flux and tonight’s episode got us ready for changes. We don’t know who all of the Oceanic 6 are at this point. Desmond and Penny are the great love story of Lost, moreso than Kate and her boys. Will they get back together? Who knows but we do know there are larger elements happening.
Things like the Black Rock journal bought by Charles Widmore. Things like the parallel universe that Desmond may or may not live in. There were two pictures of Desmond and Penny (Naomi had one as well. It was taken on the streets of London and if memory serves me right, there was only one photo.) And how did Penny know to go looking for him. But let’s also remember that Desmond was compelled to go on this big boat ride around the world (he told Jack this in the stadium when they first met in the beginning of season two.)
And do we now know what the “sickness” was that they talked about a lot in season 2. Is this the sickness?
This is too long, but we had some pseudo-answers thrown at us in “The Constant” but there are still tons of questions lingering around Desmond’s story line.
I wonder if we will ever get the answers.
Newscoma 
I agree that this might very well have been a watershed episode in the series.
The most brilliant part about Lost is that so many of will go back and watch them all again once it’s all said and done, just to see what it was that we didn’t know then but that we know now.
It’s like watching a wonderful puzzle being done before your very eyes.
I may have to finally read this “Slaughterhouse 5” everyone keeps talking about… but to me, Commander Sinclair and poor Zathras from Babylon 5 are more relevant examples of being “unstuck in time”.
“No-one ever listens to Zathras. Quite mad, they say. It is good that Zathras does not mind. He’s even grown to like it. Oh yes..”
As wonderful as this episode was, how have we actually moved forward (if that can be an applicable term anymore in a time-travel series) in the plot? Des and Sayid have made it to the boat, had the opportunity to start a rescue plan in motion but Des and Penny have their tender moment of reunion before the battery goes dead on the phone. They’re on the run from the boaties. Jack and company know the guys are there and something weird’s going on with Faraday, but that’s all. And nothing from Locke’s gang (Does Miles still have to keep that grenade in his mouth another whole week?). I just wish there had been a little more forward momentum – next week we’ll start not much farther along than we did this week.
What we did learn is that Charles Widmore is connected with Magnus Hanso (the captain of the Black Rock) and by extension, Alvar Hanso, the one-time head of the Dharma Initiative – which is really a huge revelation.
We don’t learn why Des was in military jail between 1996 and 2001 – one might think he went AWOL during his trip to see Faraday in Oxford in the past, but he said he did have leave that weekend. So is it that important to the plot what he did?
Who unlocked the sickbay door? Frank was my initial thought, but I’ve read speculation it was Ben’s “man on the boat”, who could be Michael.
Finally, will Desmond continue to have flash-forwards or flash-backs or premonitions as a result of the hatch explosion like he did in several past episodes, or has finding his “constant” basically cured him of that? I think it’s great to have a character that can interact with his flashes, but if Des is cured, then it’s quite possible Faraday may take on that role….
We thought it was the other sick guy (going to look up his name, hold on), George Minkowski. We don’t know where he’s going when he blacks out, and he’s the one that noticed the door was open when they were in sick bay. Could he have gone into the future, distracted the crew with something and unlocked the door so the Desmond and Sayid could get out?
I loved this episode. Ok, I love any episode with Desmond, but we were all about to cry when we didn’t think Penny was going to answer the phone, and then all screamed when she did. This one had great suspense, and it centered on one big mystery, not just bringing up more uncertainties.
I DO NOT LIKE CHARLOTTE.
PS I’d also like to mention the appearance of the Doctor, who in our house is known as Douchebag Extraordinaire Conrad Ecklie on CSI. Jin also is a guest character on one of our fave episodes of CSI, but Conrad showing up on Lost makes my 6 Degrees to CSI mind very very happy. I got bored with Back to Bacon, so now I play Back to CSI. Or Back to Friends. I’m a nerd.
PPS I finished Season 2 of Buffy. If you hadn’t been sick and already in bed, I was going to call your punk ass. DYING to start S3.
I loved this episode, but I love your observations even more. More oft than not, I’m left saying wtf!?!? afterwards, but last night I actually could keep up. I can’t wait to see next week’s…as usual.