Lost: Season 5, Episode 14 Review: The Variable
The VariableOriginal Airdate: April 29, 2009
Writer: Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz
Director: Paul Edward
Every show with a complex mythology needs a Daniel Faraday. He managed to give the exposition for the hard to comprehend rules of time travel and be a fully realized character in his own right. However, the time traveling adventures are starting to wind down, resulting in this swan song. This compounds the problem from the last episode, keep the momentum of the story going to its season’s climax and tell a centric story that covers a lot of background because it is the character’s last. They really only succeed in one.
Ultimately Daniel’s story reveals a lot more about Hawking. By giving Daniel that through line, it makes the story more consistent than Miles’ flashback. Killing her son, with the obvious psychological ramifications, set her life on a path to make that happen for the sake of preserving the timeline. Her son ended up suffering his whole life; giving up his love of music to study science, leaving his love Teresa in a coma while damaging his memory due to his experiments, then heading to the island in hopes of healing his mind where he’s ultimately killed. That’s evil, but she believes it’s a necessary one, which is a more challenging perspective.
Through this journey she becomes the temporal policeman who helps Desmond not reconcile with Penny before he is supposed to so he can make the crash happen and the one who runs the off island operation to get the Oceanic Six back so they can cause the situation the season has been building towards. Now that the event she’s planned for 30 years has happened, she’s left uncertain and that is scary for her. These reveals add a lot of interesting layers to her decisions, as chilling as they may be.
It does reinforce the puppet nature of many of the characters’ decisions. Their lives are guided by forces more powerful than they are and have no choice to refuse. Ultimately I think this will resolve with some affirmation of the characters becoming masters of their destiny, but this season still has a few more people pulling the strings to reveal.
Confirming Hawking as the Other Ellie makes three of the four freighties directly tied to the island: two with Dharma, one with the Others. With that in mind, where does that leave Frank? He was originally meant to fly 815, but fate intervened. Hopefully we’ll get an explanation for why those four were picked, but as the story goes on we may be able to infer enough to be satisfied.
One big event from the flashbacks is Widmore coming to Daniel’s home and confessing to planting the fake plane at the bottom of the ocean. Of course Widmore is one of the least trustworthy people on the show and one of its major villains, but here I think he’s telling the truth because he has no reason not to: Daniel’s memory is fried and can be bought off with the promise of being healed on the island.
In 1977, Daniel charges around like a lunatic after getting the picture of the new Dharma recruits, taking him to where we first saw him this season in the Orchid construction site, which seems out of character for him. Yes the return of some of the Oceanic Six to 1977 may have been something that didn’t happen, but storming into The Others camp guns blazing is quite the gambit for a plan that may not work. If it does, the timeline changes he never goes to the island, but if it doesn’t, he just rots in the jungle.
The stakes are high enough that he doesn’t have to be reckless in his planning. He’s talking about setting off the bomb we saw in “Jughead” at the Swan construction site, which he thinks would alter history so the Swan doesn’t bring down the plane and by extension, the past three years don’t happen. The idea of rewriting the story so the last five seasons never happened is enough. For the characters they get a second chance, but for the audience we’re left wondering how, if it works, they can do it without making the previous five seasons be for nothing. “Whatever happened, happened” is one of the writers’ essential rules to the point where it was a critical piece of several stories and that change doesn’t sit well with many viewers. That kind of reboot should only be used as the nuclear option to course correct a show that’s gone way off the rails and while Lost is complicated, it hasn’t gone off the deep end in a bad way.
There is also the question of whether Daniel’s plan to prevent the future assures it will happen. This has been a common thing in fiction involving prophesy, from Oedipus to Harry Potter. They tease it here: as Daniel originally promised not to warn young Charlotte in Dharmaville, he does it before they split.
There have been rumors that say Daniel was killed off the show because Lost, like many shows in prime time, had to cut costs because of the hard economic times. This also could be why he hasn’t been seen in a few episodes, much like Sayid (I don’t know if leads get paid regardless of being in an episode). It’s unfortunate that a show like Lost has to trim down, especially with a large ensemble with characters that we’ve grown to love or love watching, but this way felt rushed and out of character.
As their tranquil life in Dharma ends, so Juliet realizes her life with Sawyer is over when he calls Kate Freckles, meaning he still has feelings for her. While I don’t care much for the Kate-Sawyer-Jack triangle as mentioned many times, Juliet and Sawyer has been one of the best surprises of the season. At worst it could’ve been bad fan fiction, but Holloway and Mitchell made it one of the more believable couplings on the show, which makes the realization that it’s over more dramatic than the larger triangle it’s connected to.
And a quick side note: Jack, playing the “I didn’t ask why you came back but by bringing it up again just opens the wounds again” card was a real jerk move.
Off island, it turns out Desmond’s milk wasn’t quite bullet proof, but he survives. While he reaffirms Penny that he won’t leave her again, the audience knows the warning that the island isn’t done with him is right. What that means to Penny, who is played by an actress now on another show, could mean more doom, but hopefully the series ends with them on a happy note. They do have to get him interested in returning to the island, and with Hawking and Widmore in LA, they certainly have avenues to do so.
Another strike for the episode is that it is meant to be a counter to one of the series’ high points, “The Constant”. Sure it deals with the other piece in equations, but to remind us of such a great episode and not be up to that classic makes its shortcomings all the more noticeable.
There were also some complaints that Daniel’s death makes a video released at the previous year’s Comic Con not canon. In the video Chang, addressing the camera run by Daniel, advised people in the future to reform Dharma (a part of that summer’s ARG). With Daniel gone, it means that video doesn’t exist on the show. For me, this is a non-issue as while it is contradicted by the show, it doesn’t contradict anything on the show. If they explained what the smoke monster was in the video and then contradicted that, then I’d be upset.
For a 100th episode, this episode feels like a let down. They let down a character to kill him off for the sake of the drama, but it doesn’t feel right for the character. The writers’ hands were tied and while it ties together far better than Miles’ backstory, the result is another disappointment.
Ultimately Daniel’s story reveals a lot more about Hawking. By giving Daniel that through line, it makes the story more consistent than Miles’ flashback. Killing her son, with the obvious psychological ramifications, set her life on a path to make that happen for the sake of preserving the timeline. Her son ended up suffering his whole life; giving up his love of music to study science, leaving his love Teresa in a coma while damaging his memory due to his experiments, then heading to the island in hopes of healing his mind where he’s ultimately killed. That’s evil, but she believes it’s a necessary one, which is a more challenging perspective.
Through this journey she becomes the temporal policeman who helps Desmond not reconcile with Penny before he is supposed to so he can make the crash happen and the one who runs the off island operation to get the Oceanic Six back so they can cause the situation the season has been building towards. Now that the event she’s planned for 30 years has happened, she’s left uncertain and that is scary for her. These reveals add a lot of interesting layers to her decisions, as chilling as they may be.
It does reinforce the puppet nature of many of the characters’ decisions. Their lives are guided by forces more powerful than they are and have no choice to refuse. Ultimately I think this will resolve with some affirmation of the characters becoming masters of their destiny, but this season still has a few more people pulling the strings to reveal.
Confirming Hawking as the Other Ellie makes three of the four freighties directly tied to the island: two with Dharma, one with the Others. With that in mind, where does that leave Frank? He was originally meant to fly 815, but fate intervened. Hopefully we’ll get an explanation for why those four were picked, but as the story goes on we may be able to infer enough to be satisfied.
One big event from the flashbacks is Widmore coming to Daniel’s home and confessing to planting the fake plane at the bottom of the ocean. Of course Widmore is one of the least trustworthy people on the show and one of its major villains, but here I think he’s telling the truth because he has no reason not to: Daniel’s memory is fried and can be bought off with the promise of being healed on the island.
In 1977, Daniel charges around like a lunatic after getting the picture of the new Dharma recruits, taking him to where we first saw him this season in the Orchid construction site, which seems out of character for him. Yes the return of some of the Oceanic Six to 1977 may have been something that didn’t happen, but storming into The Others camp guns blazing is quite the gambit for a plan that may not work. If it does, the timeline changes he never goes to the island, but if it doesn’t, he just rots in the jungle.
The stakes are high enough that he doesn’t have to be reckless in his planning. He’s talking about setting off the bomb we saw in “Jughead” at the Swan construction site, which he thinks would alter history so the Swan doesn’t bring down the plane and by extension, the past three years don’t happen. The idea of rewriting the story so the last five seasons never happened is enough. For the characters they get a second chance, but for the audience we’re left wondering how, if it works, they can do it without making the previous five seasons be for nothing. “Whatever happened, happened” is one of the writers’ essential rules to the point where it was a critical piece of several stories and that change doesn’t sit well with many viewers. That kind of reboot should only be used as the nuclear option to course correct a show that’s gone way off the rails and while Lost is complicated, it hasn’t gone off the deep end in a bad way.
There is also the question of whether Daniel’s plan to prevent the future assures it will happen. This has been a common thing in fiction involving prophesy, from Oedipus to Harry Potter. They tease it here: as Daniel originally promised not to warn young Charlotte in Dharmaville, he does it before they split.
There have been rumors that say Daniel was killed off the show because Lost, like many shows in prime time, had to cut costs because of the hard economic times. This also could be why he hasn’t been seen in a few episodes, much like Sayid (I don’t know if leads get paid regardless of being in an episode). It’s unfortunate that a show like Lost has to trim down, especially with a large ensemble with characters that we’ve grown to love or love watching, but this way felt rushed and out of character.
As their tranquil life in Dharma ends, so Juliet realizes her life with Sawyer is over when he calls Kate Freckles, meaning he still has feelings for her. While I don’t care much for the Kate-Sawyer-Jack triangle as mentioned many times, Juliet and Sawyer has been one of the best surprises of the season. At worst it could’ve been bad fan fiction, but Holloway and Mitchell made it one of the more believable couplings on the show, which makes the realization that it’s over more dramatic than the larger triangle it’s connected to.
And a quick side note: Jack, playing the “I didn’t ask why you came back but by bringing it up again just opens the wounds again” card was a real jerk move.
Off island, it turns out Desmond’s milk wasn’t quite bullet proof, but he survives. While he reaffirms Penny that he won’t leave her again, the audience knows the warning that the island isn’t done with him is right. What that means to Penny, who is played by an actress now on another show, could mean more doom, but hopefully the series ends with them on a happy note. They do have to get him interested in returning to the island, and with Hawking and Widmore in LA, they certainly have avenues to do so.
Another strike for the episode is that it is meant to be a counter to one of the series’ high points, “The Constant”. Sure it deals with the other piece in equations, but to remind us of such a great episode and not be up to that classic makes its shortcomings all the more noticeable.
There were also some complaints that Daniel’s death makes a video released at the previous year’s Comic Con not canon. In the video Chang, addressing the camera run by Daniel, advised people in the future to reform Dharma (a part of that summer’s ARG). With Daniel gone, it means that video doesn’t exist on the show. For me, this is a non-issue as while it is contradicted by the show, it doesn’t contradict anything on the show. If they explained what the smoke monster was in the video and then contradicted that, then I’d be upset.
For a 100th episode, this episode feels like a let down. They let down a character to kill him off for the sake of the drama, but it doesn’t feel right for the character. The writers’ hands were tied and while it ties together far better than Miles’ backstory, the result is another disappointment.
Overall Score: 7/10
posted by Matt @ 3:44 PM
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