Season
4, Episodes 5 and 6- “The Constant” and “The Other Woman”
Summary:
Frank’s
helicopter hits turbulence, and Desmond finds his consciousness transported to
his days in the military. He shifts back to the chopper, seemingly having
amnesia about where he is or who Frank and Sayid are. They land on the
freighter and mercenary Martin Keamy escorts him to the sick bay, all the while
continuing to shift between time periods. He sees Minkowski, who is having
similar issues. Faraday tells Jack and Juliet that time moves differently
inside and outside of the island’s bubble and that if Frank flies differently
than the bearings he received, there could be side-effects. Sayid finally calls
to say they made it but that Desmond is in trouble. Faraday gets in contact
with Desmond, telling him that the next time he shifts, he needs to head to
Oxford University to find the younger Faraday. He does so, and provides
calculations for Faraday’s experiment which sends a rat’s consciousness to the
future to run a maze. The rat eventually dies after its brain short-circuits
from the time jumps. Faraday claims the brain needs an anchor, or a constant,
to keep it from fluctuating. Desmond decides he needs to find Penny in both
time periods, and meets her at home in 1996 asking for her phone number so he
can call her in eight years. Minkowski shows Desmond and Sayid the
communications room but eventually succumbs from the illness. On the freighter
Desmond calls the number and talks to Penny, thus anchoring him in time.
Faraday finds a note in his journal saying Desmond Hume is his constant.
In
flashback, Juliet is pampered by Ben as she settles into the island and gets
into a love triangle with Goodwin and Harper Stanhope, causing jealousy with
Ben. Faraday and Charlotte disappear into the jungle, and Juliet and Jack go
after them, encountering an apparition of Harper who says they are going to the
Tempest. Charlotte knocks Kate unconscious when she finds gas masks in their
bag, and Juliet abandons Jack as he tends to Kate. Ben shows Locke a video of
Charles Widmore, who sent the freighter to find the island, and Locke lets him
out of captivity. Juliet enters the Tempest and finds Faraday rendering the
poison gas inert. Jack and Juliet kiss.
Review:
Everyone
praises “The Constant” and it’s not hyperbole. It really is that good, even
after seeing it multiple times. It took Desmond/Penny (a relationship that had
such a tiny amount of screen time compared to Jack/Kate, Kate/Sawyer,
Charlie/Claire, etc.) and made it THE defining couple of the show. It turned
Daniel Faraday from an intriguing new character into a fan favorite. It took a
brain-bending metaphysical concept in the temporal-shifts and made it
understandable, weaving it in with the emotional arc so the audience is
completely onboard for the duration. The freighter is a weird little world,
with its own political game happening. Minkowski would have been fun to have
around for a while. It’s a small cast here, so we can focus almost all of our
power on Desmond’s crisis, and Henry Ian Cusick is as wonderful as he’s ever
been. Jeremy Davies ain’t no slouch either.
The
production team used loud sounds to help hit home the erratic time shifts. The
slight jolt we get from the crash of the sudden downpour in the army base helps
us feel the jolt that Desmond feels when he is switching back and forth. It
also happens with the sounds of the storm and helicopter bleeping and blaring
are erased, and when the freighter’s alarm system suddenly throws us out of
Faraday’s office. It’s interesting that in only some of these shifts (the
1996-to-2004 transitions, I believe), Desmond actually loses consciousness and
falls, while in others he simply appears to continue like a zombie. The roles
of Eloise the rat, Minkowski, and Faraday are all used as examples for what
could happen to Desmond if he doesn’t find his constant, which the audience
needed to see in order to rally behind him. That climactic phone call is
satisfying on a few different levels
(long-awaited reunion, first time contacting outside world, saves our boy from
an ugly death), and when it’s all over we feel like we’ve been on a long
movie-length journey, even though it’s just been about 40 minutes. It takes a
truly great piece of writing to maintain the tension and emotion after multiple
viewings, and it’s possible that “The Constant” will just get better with age.
It’s a real
shame that one of the best episodes ever is book-ended by a couple duds. On the
heels of that odyssey into Desmond’s consciousness, we return to everyone’s
favorite: more love triangle/quadrangle drama. They make a point to show Ben’s
supposed ownership over Juliet, and yet the two of them never meet again, and
that thread is never relevant. That’s not obvious on a first watch, but now
it’s glaring. And Harper seemed primed for a further role, but instead becomes
a one-and-done character. I have no problems with a Juliet/Goodwin
relationship, but throwing his wife into the mix, in addition to whatever is
happening with Ben, only makes the present-day story – with a smooch from Jack
to top it off – a total mess. A shame, since another island flashback from an
Other should have given us something good.
Faraday’s and Charlotte’s sneakiness in
shutting down the Tempest station would make sense if Ben was at the beach with
them, but he’s not. Maybe they don’t totally trust that Jack and the others are
not part of Ben’s group. But it seems like preventing the poison gas from being
released is something that everyone should be on board with. Instead, it’s just
played as a plot device to get some action. And Harper…well…I discuss Harper a
little more in the following section, but suffice it to say that I don’t think
anybody had any idea what she was supposed to be, either in this episode or in
the future (hint: there is no future for Harper – this is it). On the plus
side, we do get some progress in the Ben and Widmore battle, as Widmore is
pulled closer into the island mythology.
Connecting the Dots:
Eloise the rat was named after Daniel’s
mother, Eloise Hawking.
Michael opened the sick bay door.
There are some timeline discrepancies
with the Black Rock ledger that Widmore buys at the auction. It was supposedly
found in the 1850s, but we see in “Ab Aeterno” the ship was lost in 1867. Also
dynamite was only invented in 1866. It’s probably just a continuity error.
Widmore may have been looking for clues as to how to find the island, but we
don’t know because the ledger does not factor into the show after this.
Harper tells Juliet that Ben has been
friendly to her because “You look just like her”. Other than Mrs. Linus (whom
Juliet does not exactly look like), the only option here is Annie (whom we
never see as an adult, so it’s possible). It’s a further hint at Ben’s
relationship with Annie that never gets explored.
Harper is never explicitly stated to be
a ghost, a vision, or the monster. In Darlton’s podcast, they mention that they
“did not kill her”. But then, not everything they say there has been canonical,
unfortunately. Juliet never mentions that she dies, but that doesn’t mean that
she didn’t at some point since Flight 815. So being a ghost is a possibility
(whispers accompany her appearance), but that doesn’t explain why she needed
Faraday and Charlotte dead (he also would not want the gas released on the island because he needed living people to do his bidding, and for all he knew they intended to set off the gas). The most satisfying answer is she’s the monster and
is trying to get Juliet to kill two more candidates. He would have found her in
Juliet’s memory when he scanned her in “Left Behind,” but without confirmation that
Harper ever died, this is just another piece of speculation.
Ranking:
1.
The Constant
(10/10) (The perfect mix of character moments, mystery and danger, and island
wackiness. A wonderful piece of writing.)
2.
Confirmed Dead
(9/10)
3.
The Beginning of
the End (8.5/10)
4.
The Economist
(7.5/10)
5.
The Other Woman
(5.5/10) (A pointless flashback, a Ben/Juliet story that will lead nowhere, and
unnecessarily hostile reactions from Faraday and Charlotte.)
6.
Eggtown (5/10)
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