Lost: Happily Ever After

Warning spoilers for Lost 6.11 Happily Ever After:

"This doesn't matter. None of this matters. All that matters is that we felt it."

Desmond episodes are usually a special affair (Live Together, Die Alone, Flashes Before Your Eyes, The Constant) and this one certainly followed this pattern. It was 42 minutes of an exceptionally good Lost where partial explanations were given for what the sideways is (an effect of the nuke being detonated) and yet I am still confused as to what the hell is going on, which at this point I still like this brain seeping feeling that this show generates. I have no idea what Desmond's plan is after seeing this other time line and as to why he went  with Sayid so calmly after seeing him break that guys neck like a twig escapes me but I am excited for the path that this show is going on and I am glad that Desmond is once again the key to the whole time line drama as he was always the character that seemed the exception to the rule. 

The idea that it is love that is driving some of these characters could come across as trite but when you have characters such as Penny and Desmond the effect is the opposite and if these two can make it through the series I will be a very happy viewer. When Penny first appeared in the season 2 finale I was automatically hooked on these two being the one relationship that mattered in this show, forget the love triangle (or quadrangle as it became) it is these two that really matter and so to see them again in the sideways time line meeting for the first time was superb. The facilitators of this meeting being Charlie Pace and Daniel Faraday (or Widmore in the sideways) made it all the better, both of these character experiencing an intense feeling of love, with the island world bleeding in to the sideways world in some way. It made complete sense for it to be these two characters who influenced Desmond's sideways world considering how intrinsically they were linked on the island. Both Charlie and Daniel are favourites of mine and seeing the names Dominic Monaghan and Jeffery Davies in the opening titles ensured that this would be an excellent episode for me, for some reason I can't help but look at the names at the bottom of the screen which often ruins any kind of surprise but is something that I have no will power with.

I especially liked the call back to not Penny's boat and with the music used in this underwater scene incorporating the Michael Giacchino 'Looking Glass Half Full' track from when we first saw this message gave me goosebumps:

As a whole I really did think that this was a fantastic episode and I am so glad to see the return of Desmond and to see that he is as vital as I was hoping he was. Now for why he needs the passenger manifest in the sideways world, does he need to convince those on it that they need to get on a plane? For this I have no real clue but I am really looking forward to what is to come, and with next weeks episode being called 'Everybody Loves Hugo' (a call back to the season 2 'Everybody Hates Hugo') I'm guessing it will be a Hurley episode

and hopefully we will get some more answers as to what the purpose of the sideways world is in regards to the island time line as I believe that Hurley like Desmond is important to the island and what will go down when the war comes to the island. 

What we learned from this episode really is that even if you have anything, without love it is all kind of pointless (as Emily Nussbaum from New York Magazine pointed out Desmond's sideways story is much like George Clooney's in Up in the Air with added electromagnetism). Now that he has found Penny in both time lines what is the sacrifice that Widmore said that he was going to have to make, losing her in one time line or both? Or something completely different? What ever it is I'm sure it will involve stopping  Smokey from leaving the island and ensuring that every character is where they are suppose to be, but which time line is this? Hopefully all this and more will be addressed in the last six episodes. One final thing, Eloise was clearly aware that there is another time line and she doesn't want Desmond messing with anything but is Widmore aware of the other time line in the sideways world as he seems aware in the island time? How much of a mastermind are these two characters behind all of what we have seen? 

Now my brain hurts and I haven't even been placed in the 'microwave of mayhem'.