Let me tell you a few things about Desmond…
this guy
First off, this is no shocker, the guy is my favorite character on this television show. Hands down. I love a lot of characters (most of them bit role-characters like Mikhail, Ethan, Lapidus, and Clancy Brown, etc.)
more on this guy in a few weeks,
but none of them are as likable as Desmond. The man has charm, charisma, and – when long – always has the best haircut of any of the characters. Plus, he’s a singing drunk. I can appreciate that.
But here’s the deal… After last week’s episode, “Happily Ever After”, I wanted to proclaim that Desmond is The Universe Wrecker. Let’s examine how many times he’s had “the good life” and how many times he’s wrecked it, shall we?
First off, that famous photo of him and his beloved Penny. If you go through this in chronological order, Desmond and Penny met after he got kicked out of “Brothah-hood” and he dates her and loves her and her father hates him and that’s all great and grand. But he is a coward and doesn’t go through with his desired future and ends up having to “earn his keep” in the world, enters that race, and ends up on the island. He could have had her, but he didn’t elect to do that.
who was her fiance? remember when he got out of prison and Charles said she was getting married and then at the stadium Des asked “when is the date?” and Pen says “we haven’t set the date” and all that? i wonder who she was going to marry…
Instead he ended up the island and – through some stroke of dumb, blind luck (or the fact that he’s the true hero of LOST!), he ends up going back in time (so to speak) and enters into his own brain and “tries again” here. But, again, instead of doing what he wants, he backs out and leaves a perfect, possibly happy universe wrecked behind him as he rejects his possible future with Penny… IN THE PAST. Again!
Now Desmond has flashes that involve Charlie dying over and over and over and over again.
what if he’d killed Charlie when he flashed back into his own past? wouldn’t THAT have been messed up?
Rather than let whatever happens, happen… Des says “screw you, timeline!” and saves his damn life a billion times over (not before we get to see a ‘flash’ of Charlie’s throatbox getting jabbed by an arrow, though. Try squealing out “You all, everybody!” now, you little sprite!), constantly causing the universe to repair the wrecked up shit Desmond leaves behind.
Now we have Desmond this season. He’s a man about the island. Well… (pun intended). But in the Alt-timeline, he’s once again wrecking the universe. Clearly having “memories” of another timeline is not good. Plus, its quite possible he ruins some good lives. Who can say what will happen when Desmond tells Sawyer that he wasn’t really ever going to to be anything but a lousy conman and also that he never gets better hair than Desmond himself? Good lives ruined. Maybe not the best lives, but good lives. People here live. If Charlie’s world gets corrected, he ends up dead. Is that really better for Charlie?
What about the people that are likely alive but in no way did they get redeemed on the island? Boone, for example, didn’t really have a shitty life or lifestyle, and wasn’t a bad guy off island or on island. Did he have some kinda messed up feeling for his sister? No. No he didn’t. He had feelings for his step-sister. Thats not messed up. Its understandable. Was it a touchy subject to bring up at Thanksgiving? You’re damn right. But not worth getting crushed by a plane over.
kill count: 0 cool points: ironically, 0
Boone deserves to be alive way more than someone like Ana-Lucia or even Libby (the former because she was “not a good person, Ana” and latter because, well, she just wasn’t all that interesting). What becomes of these characters and their lives when Desmond fucks that shit up?
So, at first I thought Desmond was really my favorite character but, in his quest to unravel the mystery he’s stuck in, he would no doubt ruin lives.
But, here’s the deal. All Desmond is doing is course correcting. All the time he’s course correcting. For the benefit of Jacob himself.
clearly not a golfer
The first time he should have died. When he turned the failsafe key in the Swan station, it should have killed him. Without question. But Jacob had a chance to use island power to his advantage and have an agent that could bend (or wreck!) universes. So, the first time he goes back was just the byproduct of being “activated” so to speak by the electromagnetic shiz going on around him. He didn’t realize – at that time – that he had any powers to speak of, and thus stayed on the same path.
In season 3 he course corrects Charlie dying to benefit Jacob. The island was more or less “done” with Charlie, so it was going to kill him. But Jacob needed these people to get off the island for reasons I’ll address here in a moment. So he kept providing Desmond with opportunities to keep Charlie alive until a time that he could sacrifice himself, rather than Desmond dying. This results in the boat coming and the people getting off.
BUT WAIT UP. The boat was going to kill everyone, right? Well, that’s just a nasty side effect. Clearly Jacob doesn’t want just anybody coming to the island. Who knows what would happen, right?
__________________
Wait a fucking minute. I just lost all interest in this shit.
Here’s the real deal:
In the opening episode of this season (“LA X”), they say that The Man in Black can’t change his appearance anymore, that he’s simply Locke now.
EXPLAIN – THEN – HOW IT TOOK THE FORM OF ALEX TO SCARE BEN INTO HELPING FLOCKE!!!!
BULLSHIT
I cry bullshit. Way to go, LOST writing team. You just derailed my Desmond theory AND showcased – once again – proof that you didn’t really have a plan for this story’s progression, just a start, and end, and likely some filler stuff. You really should have people that love the show be consultants… They would bring to light these inaccuracies.
Pffft.
Added September 27, 2016
I like how this got “derailed” when it was very clearly not going to end up anywhere even remotely interesting or profound. Good exit strategy, Young Skyler.
Having said that, this is a solid read and I liked reviewing it. And look! A zillion comments! Yay!
amused
skylerbartels 