>: 96* THE VARIABLE

*and sorry to be That Guy, but there’s been all this hullabaloo about this being LOST’s 100th episode and that’s just not true. Hundredth hour of television (minus commercials), sure. But, you know, I've been counting the episodes. It's up at the top. I guess they’re counting every double-sized finale as two episodes, and that’s just silly. It’s true that the first and fourth finales were two parts, but these both aired as part I one week and part II (double-sized) the next week and they’re trying to say that those part IIs were actually two episodes and that’s just not the case. An episode is what airs that night (sole exception being this season premiere which, clearly and inexplicably, aired the first two episodes back to back, just so we could have two skip weeks this time out). It drives me insane that they break the third season finale up into two parts on the DVD and even go so far as adding credits that weren’t in the aired episode over the back half of it! But enough of that. Circle them wagons!
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How perfect was this title? All this time, I’ve been maintaining that the inevitable Faraday-centric will inherit the mantle of Desmond’s simply ridiculous episodes and then they found a way to tie it back in, I truly believe that it was improvisation, THE CONSTANT was not titled with this follow-up in mind, it just evolved naturally, organically, by listening to the story, the writers every bit as enraptured as the rest of us by what’s getting unearthed, week by week.

Thought it was Ben sneaking up on Penny there in the hard foreground of the hospital waiting room. That kid, Charlie, really kind of looks like the offspring of those two actors.

The THIRTY YEARS EARLIER titles are getting a bit superfluous (and I really wish they were in all capital letters actually). They were cool at first, reminiscent of Y THE LAST MAN and all, but at this point it’s almost insulting. Anyone who can’t follow and doesn’t realize that Faraday is getting off the sub thirty years before his mum and Penny are having that conversation is just going to have to hang out there in the void of ignorance.

Love how Faraday is just a force of nature from the get-go, whirling dervishing around the Island. But was it like five in the morning when he hit the dock? The sun rose awful fast in between there and Jack’s place. That actually seems like a weird hole, because it was definitely eight or nine at the latest, one would think, when Miles spied on his dad reading to his younger self with all that delight and pride at the end of last episode, then it was straight to the docks from there, then, seemed like, straight to Jack’s place. And now it’s morning. Wha’happen to all that night? Oooh, big season finale flashback to all the insane shit that went on during that jump, just you wait.

Seriously, though, that seems like quite a breach at this point, for a show that had a guy keeping track of the fucking guns in the first season.

What research was Faraday doing at DHARMA HQ in Ann Arbor?

Jack has certainly been passive since 316, absent or acted upon.

Faraday shows Miles the new CLASS OF ’77 pic and gives that as the reason that he’s here. But then he clearly shows up with the agenda to stop the Incident (WHICH IS APPARENTLY SIX FUCKING HOURS AWAY!!!!) and, furthermore, seems to know little details, like when Chang is due to pull up at the Orchid. That in his journal or something? What Island gospel is Faraday privy to, back in ’77, with only what he brought with him to the Island (or has found in the meantime, there or on the mainland)?

I sure liked that piano piece that Lil’ Faraday was playing. Didn’t care for the actor so much. Just too precious. From the first line, “Didn’t you like it?” but especially that “I can make time.” Too much. Maybe it’s the writing, but the kid certainly did not sell it. And I am ready to buy, waving the $ at the screen every week, you know!

“Faraday’s back,” was my first guess for episode title.

Okay, Jack tells Sawyer it’s six in the morning. That still leaves hours and hours.

Loved Jack’s reintroduction to Phil. Very Blue Velvet.

That “Right on time” line when Chang drives up. How does Faraday know?

And then, yeah, all of a sudden we’re realizing that this is the first scene of the season. Hardcore! Wonderful, have been wondering and wondering how that’s going to click back in and Faraday knocks it out before the first post-title commercial break of his –centric! Thank you, suh. However, on the rewatch, when you’re not just high-fiving the imaginary Writers’ Room astral projecting around your living room, it seems almost contrived. Like there’s no in-scene motivation for Faraday to do what he does, except to create maximum insanity at the top of the season before picking up the plot here in episode 14. I guess you could say that he wants to sneak up and ascertain the situation with that corpse first, but as much as he’s been getting in people’s faces already, seems weird to just let Chang bump into him, apologize, hit his mark for the Season Five opening scene, then, as soon as that’s over, take a deep breath and rush after Chang to crank the plot donkey wheel forward. It just could have been done more elegantly, I think.

Because of course the following interaction is wonderful. I love how Faraday knows the exact energy coefficient (30,000) between the Swan to the Orchid. Then he cuts through to “Miles is your son.” Classic. And of course sounds like deranged lunatic, even before he drops “coincidence.”

What is Chang supposed to do? Boot his wife and infant off the Island? Ha, just realized that Faraday definitely isn’t dead (see below) because he’s still got to tell Chang about the 43rd President of the United States (can barely even type THAT phrase out, never mind the ruined 23rd letter) and film him and then get frustrated, all this BEFORE Miles and Laura have to go (and, really, this is seeming like a bit much to choreograph). Oh, Comic-Con. It’s almost all right that all the other media has swooped in on you, if it’s going to cause this kind of ruckus, here.

Sawyer’s Square One stance is perfectly in-character. Hurley once again stays just a beat ahead of the fans with the “wishy-washy.”

So, Faraday’s mission is also to get in touch with Mum Ellie, who will know (in 1977, mind) how to “get us back to where we belong.”? This from the guy who was correcting whens and wheres earlier, so that’s either a terrible gaffe from Kitsis/Horowitz or there’s somewhere IN 1977 that they all need to be that they need help to find. Right? Am I missing something? Because on firstwatch (and, honestly, second) I just corrected for him, when for where, but this is FARADAY, his last line of dialogue leading us into the titles/16 seconds of Abrams dissonance for the season premiere (again, after that killer opening sequence ending up ‘neath the Orchid) was setting Sawyer straight on “when” and “where”. So. In addition to that new recruit shot of Hurley and crew bringing him back (unless that was just horse-feed he was shoveling Miles’s way), he’s here to make Chang do what he’s supposed to AND get in touch with his young Mum who apparently has the group’s marching orders toward Season Six AND, no, actually “detonate a hydrogen bomb”?

Daniel should have brought Jack Bauer along, that would really about be the only way to see things through at this point, given the time constraints.

And who could imagine that Widmore would show up as soon as that scene ended way back in CONFIRMED DEAD? I like Daniel getting folded into the Island’s healing circle. And Widmore does take credit for the faked crash! Answer without more questions! Write it down, that this happened! Alan Dale’s best bit of acting in this entire role is that grin when Faraday says that he sounds like Ellie and Widmore says that that’s because they’re old friends. That’s character breaking through this insane plot juggernaut, wresting control of the spotlight for just a moment. Before . . . jagged . . . glass chimes . . . waves . . . another . . . flashback (too, how cool is it that what we get next really is a chronological flashback in terms of years but not personal timelines?)

Sawyer calling Faraday “Twitchy” and “H.G. Wells” should be acknowledged.

I like how Juliet just throws Kate the code. Get outta here.

Oh, and Jack’s janitorial keyring comes into play!

Good scene with young Charlotte. This kid sells it. Great bit about the chocolate. Even though Faraday’s opening “I won’t tell,” just smells, you know, wrooong. Solid cutaway, though, when Faraday drops the crazy talk on the poor little girl.

Shootout at the Motor Pool!

Maybe it was Faraday and Radzinsky both getting tagged within about a second of each other. Or the mandatory DHARMA baguas on those fuels tanks that just had to go explodo. Or the windshield in Kate’s hair. Or certainly the way Radzinsky looked during “Sound the alarm!” But it was certainly my favorite scene of the evening. Didn’t need Daniel, later, to tell us that anything can happen. We know.

Almost seems weird to have Jack just be the Doc, fix Faraday up at the pylons. But then that entire Faraday speech is a bit forced. “Anyone of us can die”? Well, of course! Seemed a bit geared toward the layman. But then, of course, the way they cut it, Jack looking to Kate in her coveralls in the following shot, just had me on edge for the entire rest of the episode, every time they showed her, expected a bullet to tear through her skull. So, nice work, I guess.

Pulling a gun on people and telling them to drop to their knees appears to be Radzinsky’s go-to maneuver. It looks very, very grim for Sawyer and Juliet, but I can only hope that since it seems that way now, surely they’ll make it through to the end of the season. Juliet, don’t go over to V! Saaaaaaaawyeeeeeerrrr!

All right, if not the shootout, then that last bit in the woods with Faraday and Jack and Kate is my favorite. It would have been nice to actually get some scenes with insight into what convinced Faraday to toss aside all concerns of time travel’s perpetual nemesis, the Paradox, and just jump right in and try to unmake the entire chain of events that allows him to unmake it in the first place. But hey, it was only his first flashback. “I’m gonna detonate a hydrogen bomb.” Man, this got so distended in my recall, I woke up sure that the finest line of the episode was, “I’m ‘onna drop a hydrogen bomb on it!” exactly the way I would have delivered it.

Of course, now we get into predetermination and causalism (or causality, if you’re not the religious type), are these machinations the very thing that cause the Incident? Just like Sayid’s un-killshot combined with Jack’s “Whatevah!” seems to lead to Other Ben?

(and aaaargh!!!! Passed on THE UNUSUALS after the first fifteen minutes of the pilot, but this last commercial break apparently has Michael Dawson/Kevin Johnson off-Island but still dealing with multiple 42s, at a cash register, multiple street signs at an intersection, too much!)

Then back to Ellie and Penny in the lobby. Ellie doesn’t know what’s going to happen next for the first time in a long time. Has she had access to that same fount of information that Daniel’s been surfing on? This random stranger nurse will watch your son, Pen? I hope THAT turns out well.

Desmond and Penny, safe. That’s not lasting, no chance.

Widmore’s “Good” re: Desmond’s condition is like the plot twist of the night. And he earns a slap from Ellie for confirming what we’ve suspected for weeks. Saucy!

Faraday seems to have this thing about not realizing that he’s holding a gun and wandering into trouble. If he would have made just a little effort to conceal it, he might have prevented that awesome shootout back at the Motor Pool, God forbid.

Then. Does he get himself killed by Mum? I’m still a bit jaded after Master Assassin Jarrah’s killshot turned out to be nothing (“help….me”), so the first time through definitely didn’t think that this was the end for Dan. But it was his –centric. And in that very last shot (no pun intended), the final beat of the episode, he kind of seems to give that last exhale. That would be a twisted way to go. But he’s still got to film Chang and beam the footage to Summer 2008. Stew’s almost got me convinced that he expired, but between the pluck and perseverance of Little Ben (I mean, really, to have him survive the exact same circumstance from Sayid just four cliffhangers ago and then to go ahead and have Faraday’s mom take him out from behind just seems wrong) and that Comic-Con tape, I think Faraday is still numbered amongst the living who walk the Island.

At least until he drops ol Jughead on the Swan to stir up an Incident of some kind.

Eyes wide open, begging for it not to be over.