The Variable - Episode 14

My Weekly ReviewThe Variable - Episode 14

This was one of those episodes that just had it all. Drama, humor, mystery, and many answers. Things are starting to fall into place in this mind blowing story and our Losties are at the brink of learning where their true destinies lie.

As I stated in last weeks review for Some Like It Hoth, seeing Daniel arrive back at the island was a sure clue that he would be the centric character for this weeks episode.

Sacrificing The Children

In the episode's first scene we see Desmond being rushed into an ER with Penny and Charlie running in with him. I really thought that Desmond had not been hit with Ben's bullet. The way he attacked Ben, I figured a jug of milk had saved him. Although I was wrong about this, Desmond is still okay and that is all that matters.

While Des is in surgery Penny is visited by none other than Eloise Hawking. She claims she is there to apologize for Penny's husband becoming a casuality in a conflict bigger than any of us. When Penny asks her if Desmond will be okay, Eloise replies uncertainly, "I don't know. For the first time in a long time, I don't know what's going to happen next."

What confuses me is why Eloise is suddenly unsure of the future and why she would apologize to Penny for Daniel interferring in his life. She herself has done the very same thing. It was she who stopped Desmond from marrying Penny in the first place. Why the seemingly sudden change of heart?

As Eloise is leaving the hospital, Charles Widmore emerges from the shadows to find out if Desmond is okay. Either Widmore never really disliked Desmond at all or he is just happy for his daughter that Des is okay. Next Eloise and Widmore have an interesting conversation about sacrifice.

Eloise - Your daughter is in there. Why don't you go in and say hello?

Widmore - Unfortunately Eloise, my relationship with my daughter is one of the things I had to sacrifice.

Eloise- Sacrifice? Don't you talk to me about sacrifice Charles. I had to send my son back to the island knowing full well...

Widmore - He's my son too, Eloise

Than she lays a hard slap across his face and gets into a cab. The conversation led me to believe that she knew sending her son back to the island would result in her shooting him. It also made me wonder who Penny's mother is. Daniel and Penny are awfully close in age, so either Widmore was sleeping with two women at the same time or Daniel and Penny are brother and sister. It just doesn't make sense that Penny's mother could be someone else. I am going to throw a crazy thought out there. Maybe Pen and Dan are twins and shortly after they were born Charles and Eloise seperated. For some unknown reason, Charles took Penny with him and Eloise took Daniel. It's not too far fetched when you think about it.

Eloise and Hawking are also not the only two that have sacrificed their own children at some point. Ben sacrificed Alex's life. Sun sacrificed leaving her daughter behind to find her husband. Claire seems to have sacrificed Aaron for the sake of the island. Sacrifice has played a role on Lost many times and not just when it comes to the children.

I Can Make Time

Not only is Daniel a physicist, he is also a musician. A flashback shows us Daniel around age 12 I would guess, expertly playing the piano when his mom approaches him. Eloise gently tries to persuade Dan away from the piano and concentrate more on his studies. She explains to him what it means to have a destiny and that it is her "job" to keep him on his path, that his gift is his mind and he needs to concentrate more on science and mathematics. There is no time for the piano. But wait a minute, Daniel has a solution to that problem. He can do both. As he states, "I can make time." "If only you could", responds Eloise as she covers the piano keys.

A thought crossed my mind after I re-watched this scene. Do you remember back in season 3 when Charlie needed to turn off the jammer? Bonnie had told Charlie that the keypad was programmed by a musician. Could Daniel have been the musician that programmed it? Other than Charlie, he is the only other musician on the show. The Looking Glass could be the first station that was built by the DI since its function is to communicate with the outside world. Maybe Daniel programmed it before he left the island?

Back on the island in 1977, Daniel wants Miles to take him to see Jack. While off in Ann Arbor Daniel learned that Kate, Jack and Hurley were back on the island and has come back to tell them that they shouldn’t have come back. Daniel informs Jack that his mother was wrong. They don’t belong back on the island at all.

He cuts his meeting short to have Miles take him to meet Mr. Chang. When Pierre pulls up Daniel says, “Right on time”. This would mean he knows exactly what is going to happen and when it is going to happen when it comes to the DI’s moves. He cannot predict the Losties moves because they are the variables and have free will.

Daniel confronts Chang and tries warning him of the impending disaster. Of course convincing Chang is not easy and Daniel finally tells him that he is from the future. Pierre thinks that Miles overheard his conversation about time travel and is now pulling his chain so Daniel tells him that Miles is his son. I really think Pierre wanted to believe Daniel and had Miles not lied about who he was, Chang would have been convinced.

Your mother is an other

Meanwhile back at the barracks, a meeting of the minds is taking place at LaFleur and Juliets’ house. With Phil locked in a closet, Sawyer, Juliet, Jack, Jin and Hurley are deciding what to do next. Sawyer does not want to leave his home but realizes that they have no choice.

Hurley – That dude in the closet. I thought he worked for you. Can’t you just convince him that it was all like a misunderstanding?

Sawyer – I punched the man in the damn face Hugo what am I suppose to say, my fist slipped?

The way Sawyer sees it, they only have two choices. They either commandeer the sub and leave the island or head back to the jungle and start anew. Jin proclaims he is not getting on the sub while Sun is somewhere on the island and Hurley thinks leaving the island would be a wishy-washy decision. Hurley couldn’t be more right. I love when the writers acknowledge the fans thoughts about some of the choices the characters have made.

Daniel unable to convince Chang, arrives at the meeting with Miles to find out if anyone knows how to find the hostiles because his mother is one of them and only she can help them. “Your mother is an other?”, asks Sawyer. I could say that sentence over and over again. It sounds like the name of a rap song. There is a bit of a conflict between Sawyer and Jack over whether to help Daniel because Sawyer doesn’t want to go back where they belong. He belongs with Juliet right where they are and feels if Jack and co. hadn’t come back everything would be fine. Jack on the other hand believes Dan and wants to take him to his mother. The conversation that follows was excellent!

Jack – (looking at Kate) You know where the hostiles are?

Kate – What?

Jack – You and Sawyer took Ben out to them. Can you get us back out there?

Sawyer – Whoa hold on a second. Don’t say a word Kate.

Jack – She can say what she wants to say. Kate you made me promise to never ask What happened to Aaron or why you came back here, but I know that reason, It isn’t here.

Sawyer – Whatever her reason is, helping H.G. Wells here talk to his mommy ain’tGot nothing to do with it. Come with us Freckles.

Juliet – The code for the fence is 141717. You should take Daniel. Its over here for us Anyway.

Kate – Okay lets go.

First of all, Sawyer – What the **** is the matter with you? Okay it’s bad enough that he asked her to come without talking to Juliet about it first but he called her Freckles. Right there in front of Juliet. My girl wasted no time giving Kate the code to the fence. She wasn’t having any of that. Sawyer didn’t even comment or object when Juliet stepped up. I think he knows better. It is quite obvious who wears the pants in that family. I loved this scene and the way Juliet delivered her line. She has had so many great lines throughout the seasons and her delivery is exceptional.

Gunfight at the O.K. Corral

Jack, Kate and Daniel head out and Kate immediately states that they need guns and that there are some locked up in the motor pool. Being a janitor Jack has a key so all three of them head to the stash of guns and commence to stealing them. Suddenly, Radzinsky shows up and catches them and bullets begin flying everywhere.

There were a few things that bothered me about this whole scenario. Why did all three of them head to the motor pool? They might as well have held up signs announcing what they were doing. It would have made more sense if Kate had gone alone since she works in the motor pool and her being there would not have looked suspicious. They could have met up at another spot and headed out from there. Duh!

The actual gunfight itself bothered me as well. Both sides were in fairly close range of each other and shooting constantly, yet Daniel, Kate and Jack come out of it unscathed. Oh that’s right Daniel got a little boo boo on his neck. Please. The whole thing was just kind of hokey, especially when Jack shot at the barrel of fuel and it exploded. There was no need to even have a shoot out here if one of them wasn’t going to be shot.

Also, why did Juliet and Sawyer not hear the explosions and the alarm back at their house? Surely they would have heard the commotion and scrambled to get out of there a little quicker.

Back where they belong?

Jack and friends manage to escape and get Faraday to the hostiles, but not before Daniel sees young Charlotte on the swingset. Again with that swing. I mentioned this in my review for Some Like It Hoth as well, but that swingset has been in more scenes than Vincent, Rose and Bernard combined. Do you remember the scene in Terminator when Sarah Connor is watching a young girl and her mom play on the playground by a swing and then a nuclear bomb explodes? The swingset in Dharmaville has an eerie way of reminding me of that scene. I just thought I would share that.

Daniel approaches little Charlotte, who happens to be eating a chocolate bar and Charlotte says, “I’m not suppose to eat chocolate before dinner.” Nice. Daniel then warns Charlotte about leaving the island which is exactly what he told himself he wasn’t going to do when she died. This would make sense since the past cannot be changed. This was a sweet scene and Faraday was great in it.

On the way to the others camp Daniel explains to Jack and Kate , that anyone of them can die because “this” is their present. The writers were practically hitting us over the head with this clue now that I think about it. Of course Daniel was going to die. Jack asks why Eloise was wrong about them returning to the island and Daniel explains the incident to them and the true purpose of the hatch. He explains to them that all of his research has regarding time travel and changing the past has focused on the constants. What he failed to figure into his research was the variables. Our Losties are the variables. People are the variables. “We have free will. We can change our destiny.”

Daniel is going to detonate the hydrogen bomb in order to keep the incident at The Swan from happening. If he does this, the Losties and the rest of the passengers of flight 815 will land in LA where they were suppose to. Hmm. Why would any of them want to do that, except for maybe Jin and Sun. Certainly Kate wouldn’t want to go back when she would most certainly go to jail this time around. And what about Jack? He has pretty much already resigned himself to the fact that he was never leaving the island once he went back so I don’t think that is an issue. Miles isn’t going anywhere and we know Sawyer and Juliet don’t want to leave. Hurley on the other hand has a loving family back home, but he himself said it would be wishy-washy to go back, for the moment anyway. And as Kate herself said, “This is a mistake. He’s talking about erasing everything that’s happened to us Jack. Its insane.”

With Daniel now dead, will Jack and Kate follow through with his plan? Would they even know how to detonate a hydrogen bomb? I don’t believe it will be detonated unless Faraday was somehow able to plant some seed of doubt in Chang’s mind during their conversation, which is most likely what will happen. We know Chang sent Miles and mom away and this is most likely the reason why. He knows what is going to happen and doesn’t want them to get hurt. They will remove people from the island via the sub and I cannot wait to find out who gets on it and who doesn’t.

Jack, Kate and Faraday make it to the others camp when Daniel tells Jack and Kate to wait and he approaches the camp and takes aim at Alpert demanding to see Eloise. Daniel tells Alpert he will shoot if he doesn’t tell him where Eloise is. One…two….BOOM. Daniel looks down and blood oozes from his chest. Pan to Eloise who has just shot her own son. As he lay dying Daniel realizes that his mother knew this would happen all along. She sent him to the island knowing she would kill him when he got there. Whatever is happening on that island must be horribly, horribly bad if a mother is willing to sacrifice her own son to stop it from happening.

Faradays death, although sad was necessary. Faraday’s destiny was not actually to stop the incident but to figure out how to stop it and set the scene so that Jack and Kate could stop it from happening. At least that is one possibility.

Back at the LaFleurs house they are still packing when Radzinsky shows up looking for Sawyer to tell him what just happened. While Radzinsky is ranting, Phil decides to start beating on the closet door and Juliet and LaFleur are taken into custody of the DI. Luckily Hurley, Jin and Miles are outside watching all of this go down. Hopefully they will come up with some sort of solid plan to free L&J from Radzinsky’s clutches.

A Family Affair

As we learn in Daniel’s flashbacks, Widmore and Eloise appear to now be working together to get Daniel back to the island. We learn that Widmore himself contacted Faraday in regards to joining the freighter team and that it truly was him who planted the duplicate of Oceanic 815 on the ocean floor.

We also get to see Eloise interrupt Daniel while playing the piano again only it is about 15 years later. She tells Daniel that he should take Widmore up on his offer. Going to the island may heal him and he can complete his research. Daniel says, “Will it make you proud of me?” and she responds, “Yes Daniel, it will.” I didn’t notice it the first time, but upon re-watching the episode, I noticed that it was very upsetting to Eloise to have to say these things to Daniel because she knew what the outcome would be. What an awful life Daniel Faraday has had to live. Daniel was never allowed to have free will when it came to his life decisions. If his mother hadn’t interfered and pushed so hard, I wonder if he would have become a physicist at all. Maybe this wasn’t Daniel’s true destiny at all since he was not allowed free will. Maybe he himself is the variable as the title suggests.

Random Thoughts

· I will keep saying this until she takes it off. Juliet is wearing a red shirt for the third episode in a row now.

· Juliet rocks

· Ben really was telling the truth about Widmore and the plane.

Best Lines·

Widmore – What if I told you the plane was a fake. An elaborate expensive fake.

Faraday – How would you know that?

Widmore – Because I put it there.

Faraday – Why would you tell me that?

Widmore – Because come tomorrow, you won’t remember I did.

Sawyer – Your mother is an other?