Live-blogging Lost tonight.

Spoilers follow . . .





I might have missed a few seconds of this - Desmond, Sayid, and the helicopter pilot (Frank?) are heading on that mysterious heading, and right into a thunderhead!. Seems a bit crazy.

And - AW YEAH - this is a Desmond episode. Not sure yet if it's a flash-forward or a flash-back. Looks like boot-camp.

Desmond dreamed the helicopter, or remembered it, or foresaw it.

Whoa! The sergeant is yelling at Desmond and now - Zip! - back to the helicopter! But he doesn't know anyone. Not even Sayid.

Commercial . . .

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Back on the beach. Jack and Juliet look pretty stressed. I like Juliet and I'm hoping for a good cat-fight between her and C.S. Lewis. That would rock.

I'm digging the new, more aggressive, sarcastic and serious Juliet. She looks like she will brook no nonsense.

Daniel says "why don't we just tell them?" Yes, definitely.

Something about time moving at a different speed or something.

Back to the helicopter. Desmond's still tripping about why they all know his name but he doesn't know who they are. The good news is that they're heading to the boat. There it is - this is pretty cool. As they land, Des ponders the picture of Penny and him.

Some burly thugs are on the boat and acting all threatening. Actually, now that they've figured out Desmond is losing it, they are being a bit more gentle.

Woosh! Desmond is now back to boot camp, in the rain. Desmond Pilgrim is unstuck in time . . . The drill sergeant keeps catching Des freaking out or standing all clueless, doing stuff he's not supposed to be doing, and he's making everyone run, do crunches, and other PT stuff as a punishment. Des is none too popular right now.

*Flash* Now he's back on the boat again. The two thugs are named Kingly (?) and Omar. They've got Desmond down in the hold, and he's totally freaking out. They've got another guy down their too. He's strapped to a bed.

Other guy: "This is happening to you too?".

Commercial . . .

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Sayid is on the boat, kind of checking things out. He has noticed that they left at dusk and landed in the middle of the day, which is not . . . normal. Frank seems pretty cool; Sayid asks him if he can use the phone. He's only going to let Sayid have the phone if they trade: Sayid's weapon for the phone.

Sayid's talking to Jack, and the whole thing about Desmond losing his memory seems to be, according to Daniel, a side-effect that people who have been subjected to radiation or large amounts of electromagnetism have to deal with. But it's not really memory loss, Daniel says, ominously.

Back on the boat: the other inmate is screaming at a doctor named Ray. "NOTHING CAN STOP IT! NOTHING CAN STOP IT!"

"Yer not gonna stick me with that, bruthah!"

Ray seems fairly nice. He just wants to help. "Why don't you tell me about the last thing you remem-"

*FLASH* And now Des is back in boot camp. Calling Penny. He wants to see her, and she is NOT interested. Cold.

"No Penny! I have am-"

*FLASH* -nesia. Ray just got bludgeoned by Sayid and Frank. Now a very confused Des is on the phone with Dr. Faraday, and Des thinks it's 1996. And the last thing he remembers, he was in Glasgow. Daniel tells him that he needs to get on a train and go to the Oxford's Queens College Physics department.

"Why?" - Desmond is completely wiped by all this.

"Because I need you to find me".

Commercial . . .

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Daniel is digging around for his journal. He's telling Des to tell him in 1996 to "set the device to 2.342 and 11hz"

And if the past Daniel Faraday doesn't believe him. "Tell me that you know about Eloise"

BAM! Back in 1996. Des is meeting up with Daniel Faraday, who looks similar but with longer hair.

Faraday rocks, by the way. But he's not buying this.

"Set your device to 2.342 and make sure it oscillates at 11"

Ok, he's got Faraday's attention now.

"I know about Eloise".

TOTALLY HAS HIS ATTENTION NOW!

They are in some room now. Heh, "This is where I do the things Oxford frowns upon"

Faraday asks him if his future self remembers the meeting.

Desmond: "No. Maybe yeh just forgot."

Faraday: "Yeah, right." Hmm. Ironic, considering his island-bound memory loss.

Daniel: "You can't change the future"; common theme with Desmond.

Eloise is a hamster (or gerbil, or white rat. I do not know of these things).

Daniel is subjecting Eloise to the device settings Desmond mentioned. This will "unstick Eloise in time, just like you". So my earlier Vonnegut reference was prescient.

Eloise is now going through a maze. Not sure what this is proving, but it worked! Daniel just finished the maze this morning and that was the first time she had ever run it. Perfectly. Because her consciousness was sent into the future.

POW! Desmond's back in the hold. Thugs are in there, straightening things out.

The crazy (or perhaps time-challenged) guy in the bed: "You're Desmond?" The guy strapped down in the bed was the communications guy. He lets them know that he has been getting calls (that he wasn't allowed to answer) from Penelope Widmore.

Hum.

Commercial . . .

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Back at Oxford.

Daniel: "So, I take it you were in the future again?"

"Each time your consciousness jumps, it gets harder and harder to jump back". And Eloise is dead.

Des is not in the mood for academician argle-bargle. SLAM! "AM I GONNA DIE!"

"Desmond, you have no constant". Cool line. Daniel says Des needs to find something in the future that he really, really cares about, that also exists here in 1996.

POOF! Desmond's back to the future. He needs to call Penny, his Constant.

But he can't. Two days ago someone sabotaged all the equipment. Probably Ben's man. He also just opened the door.

Sayid: "It's clear. Let's go"

WAKAWAKA! Back to 1996. And here we are in an auction room that features a painting of the Black Rock. There's a journal from the first mate for sale, never been opened. Penny's dad is bidding on it. That's a seriously expensive journal. We're up to 380,000 pounds. Penny's dad got it.

"Desmond? Walk with me . . ."

Desmond is telling him that he wants to get in touch with Penny. Widmore is reminding him of how his "cowardice" lost Penny to him. Widmore is also peeing in a urinal while he talks to Desmond.

"Why do yeh hate me so much?"

Widmore: "It's not me that hates you. Here's her address. I'll let her tell you herself."

YOWZA! Back to the boat. All this popping back and forth is taking it's toll. I hope this doesn't kill him.

Evidently, going to the island can really cause you some harm. The guy who went with the communications officer died. And looks like the communications officer just died too. Or went catatonic.

Sayid's working on the radio. He's going to have it fixed in "a minute". Because Sayid rocks all Casbahs.

Yeah, that guy's dead.

Who's the guy on the boat that's doing all this (opening doors, trashing comm equipment)? Some have suggested Michael. Will we find out?

Oh, wait, now the guy's alive. And Desmond's bleeding.

No wait, after convulsing a bit more, the guy's dead. And Desmond is in deep trouble.

Time travel is very hazardous to your health.

Commercial . . .

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Side note: for people who are always complaining that we never get any answers or learn anything new, I think this time-anomaly angle to the island is very intriguing. Plus the fill-ins on Des's backstory.

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Running water. Desmond's passed out under a sink, 1n 1996.

Knocking on Penny's door. And there she is! "I don't know if you're getting the signals Desmond but I'm trying to make a clean break!"

She really doesn't want to hear this.

"Please Pen. I need you ta listen to me"

He wants her number so he can call her in eight years. She is his constant. I really like this theme.

He won't call her until Christmas Eve, 2004.

"If I give you the number will you leave?"

"Aye"

7946-0893.

ZOWIE! Back to the boat. Sayid's fixed the radio and Desmond is calling her on that number.

Please be there, Penny.

C'mon Penny!

Answer!

Yes!

"Penny?"

"DESMOND?"

"You answered. You answered Penny!"

[Please excuse me. I have something in my eye. . . Give me just a second. . . ]

"I'm on a boat. I'm on an island."

"You still care about me?"

"I've been searching for you for the past three years!"

As we already know, she knows about the island.

"I love you Penny! I've always loved you. I'm so sorry. I love you"

"I love you too"

This is an epic scene. A masterpiece. So beautiful.

Tears and joy, on both sides.

"I'll find you Desmond!"

"I'll come back to you Penny!"

The phone call has ended.

"Thank you Sayid. It was enough". Desmond knows Sayid!

Sayid: "You alright now?"

"Aye"

Back to the beach. Faraday (one of my new favorite characters) is looking through his journal. He finds a note from 1996. It says:

"If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant"

That's a little creepy. I guess that means that Faraday also jumps back and forth in time too.

That was a great episode. Possibly the best one of the season thus far.

Previews:

Next week's show looks like it's going to rock. Looks like Juliet's going to kick some tail, possibly. And we might find out more about what's up with her. And we will find out more about the (evil?) plans of the Boaties.