To Be Continuumed

Continuum - con·tin·u·um (kən-tĭn'yōō-əm)

1. A continuous extent, succession, or whole, no part of which can be distinguished from neighboring parts except by arbitrary division.

Yeah. "Arbitrary division." That sounds about right.

Welcome back, oh LOST ones! It's been a long time since we last took this ride together and some things have changed. Of course, some other things haven't changed, among them the tendency of LOST to hand out answers only when they're wrapped in a new question.

Before we get into the new season, I just want to remind everyone of one of my new rules of recapping. When faced with a question, my new policy is to go with the most obvious answer, not because the obvious answer is the best one, but because I figure that with only 34 episodes to go, LOST doesn't have any more time to get cute. "Obvious answer, on to the next problem" was the mantra last season and I don't expect this one to be any different.

Welcome back and let's go!

Season 5 opens on a clock (If ever there was an obvious metaphor, the fact that a clock is the first thing we see in a season likely to be dominated by time travel issues is IT!) that quickly flips over to a familiar set of numbers, 8:15. The clock's alarm goes off and a hand reaches up to silence it. In the next moment, a baby starts to cry and the woman in the bed instructs the man in the bed to deal with it. He first puts on some music (Shotgun Willie from Willie Nelson's 1973 album of the same name.) and heats up a bottle before picking up the baby and feeding him. The record starts to skip, but by then the man has showered and shaved and is ready to leave the house.

It turns out that the house is on the island, in Otherville and the man with the baby is none other than Dr. Marvin Candle.

(*Drip off the Old Ball of Wax sidenote: Is there anyone in the cast who looks like he could be Candle's son and is about the right age...and can talk to dead people...hmmm?)

Candle enters one of the Otherville buildings and is hustled into a chair to record the second orientation film for the Dharma Initiative. Interestingly the second film (and by extension likely a top priority) is for the Arrow Station which is tasked with coming up with "Defensive strategies and gather intelligence on the island's hostile indigenous population."



Hey! Is that Sawyer?




No.

While "Candle" is interupted by a worker who addresses him as "Dr. Chang", I want to stick with this "defensive strategies" point for a moment.

If an isolated group of people on an island pose a threat to a newly arrived group, there are only a few ways this is possible.

1. The indigenous population is better armed than the newcomers.
2. The indigenous population outnumbers the newcomers by a wide enough margin to make defense difficult.
3. The newcomers have settled in an indefensible position.

#3 seems to be out of the question, since Otherville seems peaceful and we know that it's surrounded by the sonic fence, although that might be yet to be built.

#2 seems unlikely as well, as there seem to be a fairly large group of the Dharma folks.

That leaves number one. If that's the case, then the "indigenous population" must have a huge stockpile of weapons and ammunition or the capacity to manufacture them. Or perhaps a secret weapon of some sort.

Okay, back to Candle...er...Wickman...er...Chang. The worker tells him that they have a big problem at the Orchid station. The two men descend to a level where a foreman informs Chang that something about the area that Chang's specifications directed them to has caused drill bits to melt and also caused a worker to collapse with a nose bleed and a massive headache.

The foreman shows Chang a sonar image of what is behind the rock face.


Congratulations, Dr Candle! It's quadruplets! All boys.

When the foreman suggests blasting to get through the rock, Chang immediately orders him do no such thing. He explains that behind that rock face is a source of potentially limitless energy that will allow the Dharma Initiative to manipulate time. The foreman is skeptical, joking that maybe they could go back in time and kill Hitler, but the attitude only annoys Chang.

"Don't be absurd. There are rules. Rules that can't be broken."

Chang orders the foreman to drill no further, lest the energy they are trying to harness be released.

(*WTF Sidenote. If Chang fears the possibility of releasing all that energy, why the FUCK does he have these guys drilling there in the first place? It is possible that he knew that the energy behind the wall would stop the workers before they drilled through, but what if the foreman was bucking for a promotion and took some initiative to blast through the wall on his own? This seems not only reckless, but positively stupid planning on Chang's part.)

As Chang leaves, he brushes up against a worker and angrily tells the man to watch where he's going. The man seems to have broken more rules than just violating Dr. Chang's personal space. It's Faraday. Of course when the Orchid Station was being built, Faraday was either a baby or perhaps not even born yet, so he seems just a tad out of place.

Faraday takes a long, hard look at the five holes that have been drilled into the rock face.

Back in the real world, Jack and Ben are in the funeral home with Locke's body. Ben wants Jack to help him load Locke into the truck so they can get on with gathering the five others who left the island with Jack. According to Ben, all the events that have led them to this little body-snatching adventure are the result of Jack and the others leaving. They have to go back.

Ben and Jack find themselves in a hotel room where Jack is cleaning up and shaving off his beard. Ben is somewhat surprised that Jack is ready to return to the island and wonders what Locke said to him to change his mind.

"Sawyer, Juliet, everyone from the boat, everyone we left behind, John said that they'd die too if I didn't come back."

"Did he tell you what happened to them after the island moved?"

"No, no he didn't."

"Then I guess we'll never know."

It seems odd that Ben would say "Then I guess we'll never know." This seems to imply that he doesn't think they will actually get back to the island, since once they're back they could simply ask the survivors what happened.

A brief flashback series shows the consequences of Ben turning the wheel and then we return to the "present". The people around Locke disappear completely, the people on the inflatable raft seem none the worse for wear, Sawyer notices that the smoke from the freighter has vanished and Bernard and Rose find each other on the beach and tell Sawyer and Juliet that the camp is...gone.

Daniel walks up to the group and announces his arrival with the cryptic statement "It's not gone."

Daniel wants them to take him to a man made structure before "It" happens again.

Sawyer asks the obvious: "Before what happens again? And why is our camp gone?"

"It isn't gone. It hasn't been built yet."

Albert Einstein is spinning at the speed of light in his grave. In the words of Captain Kathryn Janeway, Temporal Mechanics gives me a headache.

(*I Won't Bore You With the Details Sidenote: Time travel is NOT a theoretical impossibility and that is not a double negative. Time travel actually happens on a regular basis. At the speeds that the space shuttle and the International Space Station travel, astronauts are actually time traveling. Thanks to the properties of time/space as defined by Einstein's famous theory of special relativity, as a body accelerates closer to the speed of light, time slows down, but only for the moving body. Astronauts who have spent a long time in orbit come back as much as 1/1000th of a second younger than they should be relative to the rest of us. Oh, I guess I did bore you with the details. Sorry.)

Kate and Aaron are watching cartoons when someone knocks on the door. It's a vampire...er...lawyer... and he's there to get Kate and Aaron's blood. So...vampire.

He won't tell her who his client is or why that client wants to prove the relationship between Kate and Aaron is non-existent, but he accomplishes his goal just the same. It pushes Kate right into the predictable action his client is counting on. She runs.

Back on the island (in the present), the gang is walking towards the hatch. Sawyer calls a time out to have Daniel explain what's going on.

"For me to try to explain this...this phenomenon to a quantum physicist, that would be difficult, so for me to try to explain whatever's happening..."

Sawyer decides that he doesn't want to hear whatever Dan was going to say next and gives him a smack. Charlotte objects, but Sawyer is ready for her too.

"Shut it, Ginger, or you're getting one too."

(*Maybe? Sidenote: At one time someone might have referred to Sayid as the Professor, but although I'm reasonably sure that hasn't happened, my memory is hazy on that. Sawyer calling Charlotte Ginger is my first recollection of what could be a Gilligan's Island reference, although it could have just been her hair colour that he's referring to. The thing is, after 3 months on a desert island without a Gilligan's Island reference, the only conclusion would be that these people live in a parallel and Gilligan free universe.)

Daniel finally stops long enough to explain that the island, or just as likely the group of people have become dislodged in time and are now bouncing around like a record stuck in a groove. The gang realize that somewhere out there, Locke too is bouncing around through the space/time continuum like a big bald billiard ball.

Sure enough, Locke is standing on a hill when the Beechcraft that he will one day find with Boone comes flying overhead and crashes not far from his position. He hurries to investigate and when no one answers, he proceeds to try to climb up to the plane, a la Boone. Before he gets too far, shots ring out from the jungle and a bullet hits him in the leg. He falls, not far from where he once lost the ability to walk as he lost his faith in the island.

The bullets came from the barrel of Ethan's gun. Locke tries to explain to Ethan that he has been appointed the leader of Ethan's group by Ben, but of course to Ethan those events have not happened and he'll be long dead before they do. He prepares to make Locke part of the island's history when another flash turns day into night.

Locke might be relieved at not being perforated, but the instant nightfall is disconcerting enough that he looks around in bewilderment. He's not the only one. In the jungle, Sawyer and the gang all look equally surprised.

"Great. So when are we now, Whiz Kid?" asks Sawyer, obviously getting comfortable with the whole Time Bandits thing.

"We're either in the past...or we're in the future." Yeah, thanks Dan. That nails it down.

Speaking of the future (although that is kinda...relative...), Sun tries to call someone as she approaches the ticket desk in Heathrow. No one answers. The ticket attendant flags Sun and she is escorted to an interrogation room where she meets...Widmore.

Widmore is pissed that she approached him in broad daylight in front of his business associates. He seems to think this shows disrespect. Is it just me or is that attitude straight out of the Godfather? It's also very confusing. Sun is an executive with a powerful Korean company. How is it disrespectful for her to approach another business person in public? Perhaps I just don't understand how the world works at those rarefied altitudes, but I came away from this scene thinking that Widmore is little more than a spoiled prick with too much power, money, time and some sort of large, pointy object in his rectum.

Sun wisely lets the baby have his bottle, offers him the respect he thinks he's due and when asked what their mutual interests might be, she tells him that they both want to kill Benjamin Linus.

Two things here.

1. I don't think that Sun wants to kill Ben. I think she's the most important person on the show and that she's playing a deeper game in a "keep your friends close but keep your enemies closer" way. I think she wants to take down Widmore and she knows that he's powerful enough that she'll have to do it in some other way than just shooting him. He can't be gotten to that way, so the bait in her trap is Ben.

2. That same deeper game is how she's going to get the second person she feels is responsible for Jin's death, Jack. The phone call she made on the way to the ticket desk? My guess is that was to see if her lawyers had sufficiently spooked Kate into running. She's planning on using Kate to get to Jack and she needs Kate preoccupied with fleeing the spectre of loosing Aaron so that she won't question Sun's motives too closely.

Back in the hotel room, Ben and Jack are about to go get Hurley, when the television flashes the news that Hurley is now a murder suspect on the run from the law.

Hurley isn't aware yet that he's a fugitive and is just happy to get some take out on the way back to Sayid's safe house. He's relaxed enough to offer Sayid a fry and when Sayid declines, he suggests "You know maybe if you ate more comfort food you wouldn't have to go around shooting people." Sayid seems less than convinced.

When they get to the safe house, well, it's not so safe.

Sayid sees that his improvised security device (a piece of clear tape) has been compromised and gets the drop on one of the guys inside. He then gives the drop to that same guy, right over the balcony.

Inside there's another guy and after a wicked kickee-punchee-shootee-punchee free for all, the dishwasher pops open and voila, murder by Maytag. Well, okay, self-defense by Maytag, but that doesn't have the same je ne sais quoi.



All I said was I'm not emptying the dishwasher tonight!

As Sayid is doing the dishes, Hurley picks up the gun that was dropped when the first guy went over the balcony, just in time for a group of people gathering around the body in the parking lot to see him. One even snaps a quick shot of the big guy with his cellphone.

Hurley finds Sayid about to pass out thanks to a dose or two of tranquilizer from the dead guy's dart gun and manages to drag him to the car.

"I thought this was supposed to be a safe house. We never should have left that island."

Speaking of the island, the gang is traipsing towards the hatch. Charlotte asks Miles if he thinks that Widmore is looking for them.

"It took him twenty years to find this place the first time. I'll start holding my breath now."

My point exactly. What good does the lie that the Oceanic Six tell do? How does it protect the ones they left behind? They know that Widmore set up the fake crash in the trench and sent the mercenaries to the island, so obviously he knows about the island and that the six of them are lying through their collective teeth. Why bother? Aside from the fact that relating some of the island's more colourful properties might land them adjoining suites at the Santa Rosa facility that is.

The gang comes to the hatch, which is still blown up, meaning that they are in the "present" or the future from their perspective. Sawyer is curious (and a little suspicious) about how Faraday knows so much about what's happening and Faraday explains that basically, it's his life's work. He's been studying this sort of thing all of his adult life. He tries to explain causality to Sawyer, and how he's been researching the Dharma initiative all his life, but all Sawyer wants to know is who can stop it.

Given that we cut immediately to him, my guess would be John Locke.

Richard (wearing less eyeliner than ever) finds John bleeding to death where (but not when) Ethan left him. He has a first aid kit and sets about treating Locke's wound, seeming to know exactly what happened. John's curious about that and asks how Richard knew that there was a bullet in John's leg.

"You told me there was, John."

"No. No, no I didn't."

"Well, you will."

Locke asks the question. "When am I?"

"Well, John, that's all relative." That's an Einstein joke folks. You should laugh.

"Where did you go?"

"I didn't go anywhere, John. You went." This is HUGELY important. The island moved in time, at least that's what we are supposed to think. But now it seems like the newer arrivals are moving through time, not the island. So...please explain how that made the island disappear? If the chopper was "within the radius" it would have stayed in temporal sync with the island and no "POOF". If only the people are moving through time, then from outside the radius the island shouldn't have changed. So...what? The only explanation I can see is an actual physical move, which is going to mean a VERY complicated explanation somewhere along the line.

"I wish I had time to explain it John, but you're going to be moving on soon." After some protests, Richard continues. Again, it seems that the people, not the island are moving.

"The next time you see me, I'm not going to recognize you. You give me this."

"What is it?"

"It's a compass."

"What does it do?"

"It points North, John."

Richard explains that the only way to "save the island" is to bring the ones who left back. John isn't sure how to convince them, but apparently the most compelling way to get them to return will be for Locke to die.

Yeah, that seemed odd to me too.

The sky flashes again and Richard is gone. More precisely, John is gone, but since he's the important one we'll stick with him. He takes a long look at the compass and steels his resolve.

Elsewhere in the jungle (before the flash) Miles is asking what the blown up hatch was before it was blown up.

"There was a man named Desmond living down in it. He was pressing a button every 108 minutes to save the world."

"Really?"

"Yeah, really."

Yeah, that seemed odd to me too. Funny what this show will get us to accept.

When the flash takes the group into the past, before the hatch went "Boom", Sawyer figures that he'll use the back door and loot the hatch for some supplies while the looting is good. Faraday tries to explain to him that he, Sawyer, cannot change the past.

"Everybody I care about just blew up on your damned boat. I know what I can't change."

Juliet collects Sawyer and heads the little group back to the beach. Faraday and Charlotte linger for a moment and Faraday notices that Charlotte's nose is bleeding.

Two nose bleeds in one show. Yeah, that's not significant.

As Charlotte heads back Faraday makes the excuse that he wants to collect his pack that he left at the hatch. He returns to the back door, whispering a prayer to the gods of physicists to "Please let this work."

The door flies open to reveal a biohazard suit holding a gun. Inside the suit is Desmond. He wants to know if Faraday is "Him", which he isn't.

Faraday explains that the rules don't apply to Desmond, since he's uniquely and miraculously special and somehow, Desmond knows him...in a way. The sky starts to do that whinee-glowee thing and Faraday desperately tries to get his time traveling point across.

"If the helicopter somehow made it off the island...If you got home..."

"What helicopter? What are you talking about?"

"Listen, I need you to listen or people are gonna die. My name is Daniel Faraday and right now me and everyone else you left behind, we're in serious danger. You're the only person who can help us. I need you to go to Oxford University, go back to where we met. I need you to go there and find my Mother. Her name is..."

(*One more speculation for the episode side note: Desmond is Daniel's constant. In Desmond's case, his love for Penny was what made her his constant. Why would Daniel choose Desmond as his? Could they be related in some way, beyond the fact that Des is a time traveling pinball and Dan is a time travel guru? Just a thought.)

Desmond wakes from a dream, three years after leaving the island. He and Penny are on a sailboat and Des realizes that he wasn't dreaming. He was remembering.

He immediately heads up on deck, strikes the sail and weighs anchor for Oxford.