The Variable

We start off with Farraday telling Jack that his mother - Eloise - was wrong...they don't belong back there at all. Bummer - all the effort and motivation of the last two seasons...and they don't belong there???

We go to the Orchid, where Daniel interacts with Pierre. We have seen a brief clip of Farraday here before in an earlier episode, and now understand the fuller meaning. He begs Pierre to evacuate the island, because the energy released at the Swan will be 30,000 times more powerful than the energy at the Orchid. He reveals to Pierre that he is from the future, and that Myles - is his son!

In a flashback, we see Eloise taking Daniel out for lunch after graduation. After revealing to her that the man who gave him a grant is 'some industrialist...Charles Widmore', she gives him his gift - a journal. She gives him the very journal that he will keep all his time-travel, etc., notes in.

We cut to Daniel crying at the sight of Oceanic 815 at the bottom of the ocean. He is then, overwrought, visited by none other than Charles Widmore. This scene could have been cheesy, but - the actor playing Daniel Farraday did it quite well. He is also distrought over what happened to his assistant Teresa, (also his girlfriend) who was incapacitated by the experiment he was testing (which we saw back in The Constant). Apparently, Daniel has gone through the experiment to some extent as well. Charles tells him that going to the island with his team will heal his mind.

We see a very touching moment with Farraday talking to a very young Charlotte. Charlotte had earlier alluded to this scenario. There was a little fadichah when the writers did not match up Charlotte's age as told by Ben with the year in which she appears here. But - none the worse for wear. Farraday scares the living daylights out of her and begs her to leave with her mother.

Another eerily touching moment when Farraday talks to his mother Eloise, and agrees to go on Widmore's mission when she confirms that going to the island will make her proud of him.

I won't go into the casuality issues, i.e. - this is our present, any one of us can die. But suffice it to say - major implications for how the show will progress.

We later hear from Farraday that he spent so much time focusing on the constants, that he forgot about the variables - human choice. He reveals that his plan - which will eliminate the future where Oceanic 815 crashes - is to detonate a hydrogen bomb at the Swan. The bomb would be Jughead.

Penny's ttalk with Eloise was interesting. She admits that she does not know what is going to happen next. Join the club, Elli!

Penny is fine. Desmond is recvovering. The rest of the blogging world must be going crazy - everyone has been suspecting that Ben had killed Penny, and maybe Desmond and Charlie too. Yet it all worked out.

Now - we see Eloise and Charles! We find out that Charles is Daniel's father. That means that Daniel and Penny are at least step-siblings. Question is - who is Penny's mother? Who is the outsider that Charles Widore had a child with?

Daniel walks down into the Hostiles' camp and speaks with Richard...and is shot by his own mother! With his dying breath, he says to her - 'you knew!' Eloise was aware, during Daniel's entire life, that it was his destiny to be killed...by her!!! The conversation earlier between the two when she says that she would be proud of him for going to the island takes on a whole new darkness...