Lost Review: “Happily Ever After”
An entire episode based in the alterverse? Oh Lord have mercy. I’ve been quite an outspoken critic of practically every installment of the alternate reality that’s populated nearly every episode this season, so with an entire show full of it, I was expecting a hell of a lot of eye rolling.
But of course, in comes Desmond to save the day. Almost all of the best episode of Lost have been Desmond-centric, and he made the alterverse not only tolerable, but downright interesting with his charming good looks and propensity to mess up the space time continuum.
The episode opens with Desmond waking up to find out he’s been hauled out of the hospital and back onto the island by Widmore. Soon after this realization comes the most hilarious beating Lost history, where Desmond whacks the old man over the head with his IV stand repeatedly. But Widmore’s goons subdue him quickly and haul him toward a rather ominous looking shed.
It’s an electromagnetic generator, and Desmond watches in horror as it accidentally fries the guy trying to fix it. But Widmore is determined to prove that Desmond is immune to the energy (as proven by his hatch explosion antics in season two). He throws him in the shed and flips the switch.
I like my Desmond medium-well.
We flash to the alterverse where Desmond has deplaned from Oceanic 815, and has a brief flirtatious encounter with Claire at baggage claim before heading off to see his boss, who is…surprise, Charles Widmore.
Yes, in the alterverse, it’s really no shock that Desmond and Widmore are BFFs, because why the hell not? Desmond is Widmore’s right hand guy, and he sends him all around the world closing deal and running errands. His latest assignment? Pick up a recently arrested member of the band Drive Shaft from the police station, and haul him over to Widmore’s musician son’s charity ball performance.
Now, this immediately seemed like yet another cameo opportunity, and a ludicrous way to get Charlie back onscreen, but once he shows up, he actually has interesting things to say. He claims that while he was about to die in the airplane bathroom choking on a bag of heroin, he had a transcendent moment where he saw a woman he knew he was truly and utterly in love with, despite the fact he had never met her before (though as fate would have it, she was on the same plane).
There is so much mirroring in this episode, it’s ridiculous. But cool.
To prove to Desmond what he’s talking about, he yanks the wheel of his car, sending both of them careening off the road in the water. With the threat of death imminent, Desmond has a flash of Charlie’s “Not Penny’s Boat” moment in the real timeline, and the hospital’s electromagnetically charged MRI that follows the accident sends a shockwave of memories through Desmond’s head where he sees visions of he and Penny’s happily ever after life together.
Soon after, Charlie is bolting through the hospital, and when Desmond catches up to him he claims that nothing in this life matters, and Desmond should be focusing on finding this Penny person the way Charlie is going bonkers over Claire.
Des goes to the charity ball to deliver the bad news to Mrs. Widmore (Eloise Hawking) that Drive Shaft won’t be making it to the event. She’s quite cordial, but things quickly turn south when Desmond starts poking around asking for Penny. She then reveals she knows everything about Desmond’s new quest, and tells him to drop it all immediately.
What has the alterverse done to your hair?!
A freaked out Desmond starts wandering around only to run into Daniel, who tells him of similar experiences with his “true love” Charlotte, and shows him some physics scribbles he drew one night, claiming he did them with knowledge of a past life. Or an alternate life I guess if that’s somehow different. He then somehow theorizes from this that he blew up a nuclear bomb in his other life that changed everyone’s current lives for the worse. Close, he blew up a hydrogen bomb, but I’m not sure just how the hell he figured all that out from a few random sketches he didn’t understand as some rich kid musician.
Desmond hunts Penny down via Farraday’s suggestion at the stadium where he first met Jack. He shakes her hand and wakes up back on the island with singed clothes a newfound enthusiasm to help Widmore, Sayid and anyone else who comes his way.
This is the first episode that bridged the alterverse and reality, something that we knew HAD to be coming, but it almost raises more questions than it answer, which is par for the course for Lost, but with only five episodes left, we really should be wrapping things up.
Someone with any smarts want to deduce this page for us? It apparently explains the entire plot of Lost to Farraday.
So the connection between the worlds is a combination of true love, near death and electromagnetic energy, but I’m still not sure why exactly this entire parallel universe plotline exists. Why is this necessary on top of the whole “evil smokey escaping from the bottle”? What is it adding if they’re just going to use Desmond to reset things and make it go away? I’m sure it’s connected somehow, but the connection seems flimsy at best, and I’ve never gotten the impression that the alterverse has screwed everyone’s lives up. In fact, I think for the most part, it’s the opposite.
Jack now has a son that he’s learning to connect with. Dogen didn’t kill his kid while drunk driving. Locke is paralyzed, but has a good relationship with his father (and is also not dead and housing the soul of the devil). Ben is teaching history instead of being a murderous sociopath. Claire gets to raise her baby NOT on a desert island and will probably be present and sane for his first three years. Sawyer is still emotionally scarred, but is mainly directing his anger toward catching bad guys as a cop. And let’s not forget all the tail-section passengers, background extras and Boone and Shannon who are still alive in this universe because they didn’t die from a fiery plane crash, a hundred foot drop off a cliff, multiple gunshot wounds or a giant column of clicking smoke.
The only people really shafted by the alterverse so far appear to be Jin and gut-shot pregnant Sun, Kate, who is still a criminal on the run and possibly Sayid with his so-close-but-yet-so-far love with Nadia, but he’s kind of f*cked in both universes as he’s a mass murderer either way.
I know I just randomly hunted you down in this stadium, but you want to get a coffee?”
Sure, I’ll buy the whole “maybe life wasn’t supposed to be this way” gimmick of the alterverse, but when life is actually better for the majority of the people involved, it’s kind of hard to be rooting for Desmond to hit the reset button so the H-bomb never goes off and everyone continues their present life path of dying, murdering and being played with by demi-gods like chess pieces. Hell, even Desmond’s life is better as in this universe as he’s rich, successful, loved by Widmore AND he still gets to meet Penny and potentially start a life with her.
The alterverse is becoming relevant, but I still don’t like the issues that are cropping up because of it. And with only a few episodes left, I’m really wondering how they’re going to tie this all together.
Eloise said something that stuck with me, she told Desmond that he had what he had so desperatly desired in the approval of Charles Widmore. If you think about it just about every one we’ve seen has what they’ve wanted, at the cost of something they cherised in the other life. Desmond has Charles’ approval at the cost of Penny, Sayid has Nadia alive, but can’t be with her, Jin and Sun were together and happy, but had to hide it, etc.
This has all been brought up before a few times, but is much more reinforced now. As to what it means with regards to the greater story………..i have no clue.
I was glad to see Desmond return and it will be interesting to see Desmond pull a Locke and go around gathering up the passengers.
I like my Desmond smokin’ hot 😉
“I know I just randomly hunted you down in this stadium, but you want to get a coffee?”
Desmond didn’t randomly hunt her down. Faraday/Widmore said he could tell him exactly where and when he could find her.
The one thing no one in the alter-verse has (except Locke)? Love. Thats the basis for why their lives “arent better”.
@marc – it would seem random to her
@jake – Do they have it in the “real” universe? Charlie had it for two seconds with Claire then died. Sawyer had it with Juliet then she died. Sayid had it with Shannon who died. The list goes on…
How is this better?
@Jake – good thinking. maybe that’s the point indeed. Everyone’s love life is messed up, and they all have what they most desire in previous life.
But I got a reference maybe you all didn’t see. Remember the MRI machine Desmond went to? We can see some random numbers above it:
E1 A37. 215 C .46
Those are all the digits of the remaining Numbers (15 16 23 42) on exact account, except the first 4 (Locke already ruled out?), and SCRAMBLED (hinting the altverse is indeed messed up?)
You could account for duplicates, Locke’s 4 would still be there, and even 51 for Austen. But that’s not what I think suggest something. The 8 for Heyes isn’t there, and is replaced by a 7, which is the only thing that doesn’t add up. I’ve looked for the 7, it’s neither on the cave or lighthouse.
If I can come up with any theories about those numbers, I’ll come back here. Suggestions are appreciated 🙂
A funny side note on Desmond.
He says the last book he wants to read in life is Dickens’ “Our Mutual Friend” which is all about money (money being the mutual friend) and who is he in love with?
Penny.
I thought it was funny.
I agree with your point of view in regards to the alternate reality. I noticed most other reviews think that the sideways-world is what happens if Un-Locke/smoke wins -so by default this alter-world is bad. In regards, to the “equations” which actually are more diagrams,they explain nothing. I am a physicist. The only equation that I see , assuming standard notation is being used, is just a Lorentz transformation equation with a a kinetic energy variant – which by itself means nothing even with a partial diagram of “whatever”.
Just wanted to point out that there’s not “just 5 episodes” left in the season, but 5 left until the 2 hour finale. So it’s kinda like there’s 7 hour-long episodes left.
any desmond-centric episode will be amazing… in the LOST world of chaos and confusion, that fact remains true.
One thing I noticed in this episode was that the people who seem to naturally see through the alta-verse are those people who are dead in “reality.” Charlie, Libby, and Farraday all seemed to remember, in some way, their real universe.
Also, curious as to what Desmond’s purpose is in giving people back their memories of the real universe and what will it achieve if all the candidates regain their parallel world memories?