S4E05 - "The Constant"

Great Scott! That was one of the best episodes ever!

Mind Travel
Now that my first "Back to the Future" reference is over, I can get on with this week's episode, which dealt HEAVILY with time travel... but in a not-so-traditional way. Instead of a body traveling through time, it was Desmond's mind that did the traveling. Basically, his mind skipped back to 1996, where it then proceeded to jump back and forth between '96 and the present.

867-5309 (Penny)
After finding Old-School Daniel at Oxford, Desmond is instructed that he needs to find his Constant. The "Constant" is described as being an element that exists in his life in 1996 as well as 2004. Oh yeah, it also has to be someone that Desmond cares deeply for. So who better than Penny! Easy, right? NO! Of course, Desmond doesn't know Penny's phone number. So, when he switched back to '96, he tracked down Penny (courtesy of her father), got her digits, and finally made the connection.

During their touching phone call, Penny said something along the lines of "I know about the island..... I did research......", of course, interrupted by mounds of static. I wonder how much she actually knows.

Going Once... Going Twice... Sold!
Finally, a solid connection between Charles Widmore and the island! At an auction, we see Penny's father bidding on (and winning) a journal that is said to belong to the captain of the Black Rock (the old slave ship found on the island). And according to the blast-door map, the captain of the Black Rock was Magnus Hanso... an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, founder of the Hanso Foundation, which is the organization behind the DHARMA Initiative. Unfortunately, I don't know that we'll ever learn the contents of the journal. But knowing that Charles Widmore is in possession of it is important.

The Perception of Time
While Jack and Juliet are very worried about Sayid and Desmond (having left the island more than a day ago), they note that Charlotte and Dan don't appear concerned. But why? Well, according to Dan, their perception of the amount of time it's taken is not exactly accurate. WTF?! If the helicopter ride takes about 20 minutes, but Jack said that it's been more than a day, does that mean that time in the real world moves a lot slower than island time? While that was my first thought, it didn't make sense that the calendar on the freighter was pretty in-line with the island time. But then we saw that the helicopter took off at night, and suddenly, it was day-time. It appears to me that there is just a jump in time when travelling to/from the island. And apparently, if you've been exposed to electromagnetism or radiation, you might go crazy.

Rousseau's Crazy Friends
Shortly after crashing on the island in their ship, Rousseau said that her team all went crazy and she had to kill them all. Could it be that this state of craziness is actually the long-feared sickness on the island? And if so, why didn't Rousseau get sick? I have two ideas here. (1) Rousseau wasn't exposed to radiation or electromagnetism, just like Sayid; or (2) Rousseau DID go crazy, but was able to find her constant (possibly Alex?).

A Freighter Friend
Sayid and Desmond needed a way out of the sick bay, and George pointed out that the door had been left open. He mentioned that they must have a friend on the freighter. He went on to explain that someone else on the boat sabotaged the equipment in the communication room. (Hey, it's a good thing they brought Sayid with them). So who is the "friend", and who destroyed the equipment? The obvious choice is that Michael is the friend, and Ben's man is the one who destroyed the equipment. But the more I think about it, the more I think that Michael isn't on the freighter. And if not, then who is helping them?

Next Week
All I know about next week is that it is a Juliet-centric episode, titled "The Other Woman". Want my theory? Juliet is the only other woman to make it off the island, besides Kate. If that's true, why is she not with Jack? Is she in the coffin?

-drew.