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Lost: So Faraday (Doesn’t Anybody Stay in One Place Anymore?)

Lost

The Variable
Season 5 Episode 14

For those who worry that Lost has too many bad dads, this ep is for you: a mother so icy, so British, so capable of the long con, she makes Locke’s kidney-stealing grifter dad look like Jin’s menschy fisherman!

In addition, the Hatch is explained; fresh time-travel theories agitated our husband; plus, intimations of doom for Sawliet and a shocking and quite sad ending. (Although we’re starting to wonder if every episode will end with someone shot in the heart; if Richard can take Ben’s innocence and save him, surely he can do the same for [SPOILER REDACTED]!)

Mainly, though, this is the tale of Twitchy, a backstory powerful enough that it actually made us, for all our Faralotte hate, mist up when Faraday tried to warn poor Charlotte on the swing …

Teaser
Penelope, verklempt in the hospital, is confronted by Eloise Hawking, who apologizes: Faraday is her son and he’s responsible for Des’s shooting.

Back in the seventies, Daniel Faraday swaggers off the sub, clutching the Losties Orientation photo. He confronts Jack, who explains that Eloise sent them there, and yeah, she said it was their fate. Nope, says Faraday, it’s opposite day: They’re not supposed to be there at all.

Seventies, Eighties, and Now(ish): Tales of Faraday!
Sweet little Faraday plays the piano, but his mom explains “destiny”: His metronomic brain is meant for science, not music. He says he can “make time” to play the piano. She sadly wishes he could and slams the keyboard lid on his dreams.

Back in the seventies, Faraday peels off in the jeep, ignoring follow-up questions. Jack visits Sawliet to gripe, but finds them fretting about stool pigeon Phil, whom they’ve locked in the closet.

Faraday and Miles lurk near the the Pearl, waiting for Chang. How satisfying: It’s the first scene of the season, with Faraday in Dharma drag, Chang shouting “God help us all!” and that whole “time travel, how stupid does he think we are?” encounter with the construction worker. Faraday demands Chang evacuate the island, because there’s going to be an electromagnetic catastrophe at the Swan. He knows because he’s from the future.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, says Dr. Skeptical. To shore up his claims, Faraday explains that Miles is Chang’s son, but Miles bridles. Faraday says he’s just making sure Chang does what he’s supposed to do, but when Miles quite reasonably asks what, Faraday says, “You’ll see.”

Flash forward! Hot young Faraday graduates Oxford, snuggles Theresa. Eloise insists they lunch alone and berates her son for playing sexual piano with his assistant, intimating that women in his life will be terribly hurt. Yikes. She’s never satisfied: He’s the youngest doctorate ever, plus he got a $1.5 million grant from some industrialist, Widmore. Eloise blanches. She hasn’t come to fight but to give a gift: that journal he’ll fill with insane scribblings.

Sawliet, Hurley, Kate, Jack, and Jin bicker: should they commandeer a sub? Head into the jungle? Jin won’t leave if Sun might be there; Hurley’s with Jin; then Faraday and Miles show up. “Welcome to the meeting, Twitchy,” says Sawyer. SHOUT-OUT? Or are we crazy?

Faraday gets all “critical importance!” insisting they find the Hostiles, because, um, his mom is one.

Flash to CRAZY ORIGINAL-FLAVOR TWITCHY, freaking over news reports of Oceanic 815. He has a visitor, Widmore. Faraday explains that his memory is damaged; Widmore says they’ve never met, then picks up a copy of Wired that contains a story our husband wrote on anti-gravity machines. INSANE SHOUT-OUT TO OUR HOUSEHOLD! Or possibly we’re becoming schizophrenic, but anyway, Daniel mournfully explains the terrible accident, the damage to Theresa, etc. Widmore offers an opportunity.

Faraday sobs, unable to understand why the crash makes him so sad. “Daniel, what if I told you they’re not dead,” Widmore says — the plane was Widmore’s elaborate fake. Faraday asks why he told him; Widmore says that tomorrow, Faraday won’t remember, an elaborate metaphor for the experience of the recapper struggling to remember Season 1, so: Shout-out three.

Widmore explains the plane crashed on an island with “unique scientific properties” and he wants to send Faraday there, to further his research and heal his memory. Because he’s a man of great gifts that shouldn’t go to waste. Widmore sounds like his mother, says Faraday; Widmore smiles and says he and Eloise are old friends; poor addled Faraday looks quizzical; we are sad.

Back in the seventies, Faraday explains: Yep, his mother is an Other, that Ellie spitfire they met in the fifties. “Like, Fonzie times?,” Hurley asks. Faraday plans to get them back where they belong, but Sawyer isn’t buying it: Whatever happened to “whatever happens, happens”? But Jack digs Faraday’s angle, and the quadrangle heatedly debates “where they belong,” a subtext that climaxes with Sawyer snarking about “helping H.G. Wells talk to his mommy” and the explosive return of nickname Freckles. Which breaks Juliet’s heart! (And ours.) And causes Juliet to reveal the security code.

Just like old times, the group splits in half: Faraday, Kate, and Jack head for Hostilia, while tragic Sawliet, Hurley, and Jin pack for the beach. But first, Faraday takes a poignant detour toward child Charlotte, who is sneaking chocolate. He gently tells her to take the sub, gradually becoming more emotionally freaky in his hope that he can change her fate.

The Hostilia Team grabs guns, is confronted by Radzinsky; big shoot-out, they escape.

Memory-damaged Faraday plays piano while Eloise lobbies him to accept Widmore’s proposal. She promises it could heal his big brain. “Will it make you proud of me?” he asks, and she says it will. Ah, Christ.

At the fence, Jack checks Faraday’s wounds while Kate deprograms the fence. Faraday reminds us: This is their present, so they can die.

Sawliet packs up, their love poisoned by essence of Kate. Then Radzinsky appears, shouting “I’ve just been shot by a PHYSICIST!” and though Sawyer fronts, when Phil yells from the closet, the jig, she’s up.

Key Faraday exposition: In about four hours, the Dharma folks are gonna tap a massive pocket of energy (that’s what she said) and in order to contain the explosion, they’ll cement the notorious Hatch. For twenty years, they’ll hold off catastrophe by pushing the button, until Desmond doesn’t, causing Oceanic 815 to crash.

Faraday spent his life studying physics, convinced he couldn’t change anything, but while he focused on the constants, he forgot one thing: the VARIABLES. “We are about to descend into the sub-carrels of bullshit,” intones our husband, but we’re intrigued. Because who are the variables? Us! Them, that is. Faraday believes he can prevent the “incident,” and thus the hatch being built — and then Oceanic 815 can land safely in Los Angeles. How? Hydrogen Bomb, my plot-winding friends!

At the hospital, Eloise continues to harass Penelope with haughty apologies, because for the first time, she doesn’t know what will happen next. Luckily, Des is fine, and he and Penny make smoochy promises, but we’re distracted by how crazy Pen is to leave Charlie with some random nurse. Outside, Widmore and Eloise confer. He sacrificed his relationship with Penelope, he says. “Don’t you talk to me about sacrifice, Charles! I had to send my son back to the Island, knowing full well — ” It’s his son too, Widmore says, and she slaps him.

Kate’s freaking over Faraday’s “erasing the plot of our show” plan, but Zen-Flavored Jack is cool with the insanity. Faraday storms Hostilia demanding Eloise, but Richard appears instead, confused, toting coffee: Do we know each other? When Faraday threatens him at gunpoint, he’s shot from behind. By Eloise, his mom. “You knew, but you sent me back,” Faraday moans. She asks who he is. He explains he’s her son. That’s cold, lady.

What We Know Now
• As expected, Eloise and Widmore are Faraday’s parents.
• The hatch was created to contain electromagnetism.
• Something about variables.

The Wha? Factor
• While Eloise is apologizing to Penny, shouldn’t she mention that whole “I convinced him not to marry you” incident? Also, why the slap?
• What is Chang “supposed to do”?
• Who is Penelope’s mother? (Shannon and Boone’s mom? Time-travelling Yi-Jeon? Some random flight attendant?)

Lost: So Faraday (Doesn’t Anybody Stay in One Place Anymore?)