[JB Sawyer]

Brilliance. Just pure sheer unadulterated brilliance. This is the only possible way I can describe Episode 5 of Season 4, ‘The Constant’. After a poor episode such as ‘Eggtown’, Lost needed to be able to recover. It’s episodes like The Constant that prove that Lost really does have that power to recover. It’s strange how the writers can sometimes predict when episodes may have a negative response from the audience. Obviously the writers are immensely proud of every episode that they make and hope that every single episode gets a great reception; but something tells me that they expected a negative reaction to Eggtown from some viewers. Hence ‘The Constant’. An episode long overdue for many reasons and an episode which may just define the direction of Lost from here on in.

There has been much upset at the lack of Desmond so far in Season 4, and the criticism, it has to be said, has been very much deserved. Des produces great moments; it’s a fact. Henry Ian Cusick is one of the very best actors on the show, along with Michael Emerson, Terry O’ Quinn and the soon to be mentioned Elizabeth Mitchell. And so it has been disappointing for many Lost fans, including myself, to see him be so underused for the start of this Season. Whilst it had only been four episodes it has seemed like a lifetime that we had been neglected of Desmond. And then there was The Constant. The Constant brings everything that I personally love about Desmond, and everything that Desmond brings to an episode. I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the writers have decided to give Desmond all the time-travelling story lines, as Des appears to be the perfect character for it. He obviously dislikes going through this torment, as he’s now gone through it twice, but it is his love for Penny that always keeps him going.

Des and Penny are proof of how to do a proper love story. No Jate or Skate rubbish. Shannon and Sayid were cute but they lacked any real emotion in the form of love. Hurley and Libby were a sympathy relationship; proof that even the least likely of us can get the hot blonde. But Desmond and Penny are for real. They are the perfect love story. One of faith, determination, trust and true love. I never fail to get goose bumps when those two are on screen together. The actors have such great chemistry together and this helps to send the believability of their love over the ‘failed love’ category occupied by Jate and Skate; to real love. In my heart of hearts I hope beyond all hell that Des gets to meet Penny again. If the don’t I will not be happy and I can guarantee it will be more upsetting than any death.

Just like there had been a real lack of Des there had also been a lack of Juliet in the previous episodes of Season 4. Now, my love for Jules is no secret and so the joy that I experienced in this episode was a throwback to Season 3. She actually got some screen time and I couldn’t have been happier. As previously mentioned, Elizabeth Mitchell is one of the best actors on show and so for her to be held down by one-liners and taking orders from Jack (I’ll get on to you soon son) was more than infuriating for a fan of hers. In this episode she actually gets some lines. And what lines they were. It’s so interesting to watch, because despite her siding with Jack in 4x01, it has become apparent that she really doesn’t trust the Freighties. She told Sayid that they were more likely to be harm rather than help, and she seems very wary of both Daniel and Charlotte. I adore the ‘take-no-bs’ Jules, and this is who she’s being around both Daniel and Charlotte. And she’s doing it without taking any of them hostage ala Locke.

Speaking of whom it was so unbelievably fantastic to have an episode without the bald goon in. That made me so happy it was hard not to dance round my living room. I’ve had John Locke forced into my poor eyes every single episode this season and been increasingly infuriated by him in each, and so to be given a well deserved break from him was nice to the extreme. His arrogance, his self-infatuation, his rudeness, his pathetic nature, his blind-faith, his ignorance and his cruelty to others has been overlooked and excused in what must be said to be absolutely pathetic ways recently. For too long I’ve heard one rule for Locke and another rule for everyone else. For too long I’ve heard excuses for his actions that would make grown men cry. The Locke-tinted glasses obviously have incredulously thick lenses. TPTB take notice, I like the lack of Locke; keep it up.

I personally am not a fan of Lost going sci-fi. It was nice to hear Darlton say that the time-travelling would be kept to a minimum and to a simplistic value as of Flashes, that oh so brilliant episode of long ago. So to see this episode go back to the time-travelling roots, and to also add more questions to it, should have annoyed me. It didn’t. It was amazing. Simply amazing. The effect that the Island bubble has on intruders has now become evident. If you have had any contact with radiation or electromagnetism, and you go through that bubble, you’re time becomes limited. You become able to consciously go back into the past, however your conscious mind also goes back the specific point in time. Thus was Des’s mind resetting to 1996 (a great moment when that was said), and his mind consciously being able to go back to that time period. Yet the mind is a vulnerable thing, and with this new pressure on it, the conscious mind becomes unable to hold such pressure and short cuts. Poor little Eloise with having a smaller mind capacity, couldn’t do this for long. The incomparable George Minkowski, of whom so much deliberation had been done, finally succumbed, unable to find his Constant. Minkowski turned out not to be the answer to so many problems, nor did he turn out to be the master of the Freighter, these marauding intruders. He was a fallen man, ridden with a curse that his body finally gave into. This appeared to be Des’s fate, his mind slowly succumbing to a conscious switching of realities, until Penny came along. Yet there is one more man who has fallen to the curse, one Daniel Faraday.

Now I was heavily sceptical of Mr Faraday when he first dropped onto the Island and our television. When a lot of people were becoming Faraday fans I was not impressed. This episode changed my mind. We now know he doesn’t have a forgetting problem. Instead he has no memory to go back on. When we saw him crying in his living room (which I incorrectly slated him for) it wasn’t because he forgot why he was crying, his mind was simply in a regressional state of conscious, hence his tears and his not knowing why he was crying. His switching of states is what causes his overall confused demeanour, his inability to remember the order of cards; not a messed up memory. His mind isn’t messed up; it’s in a constant state of flux. A constant which is now Desmond Hume (great ending).

Other points include Sayid, who swung from being a fist swinging maniac, let’s be fair he did seem like one, to a caring compassionate man who did his all to help Des. Charlotte was great again; I’m really taking a shine to that woman; even though she seems very reluctant to let Dan reveal any Island and Freighter secrets. Frank also went up in my estimation this episode, despite him still looking like a hob I gave a pound to. Yet Jack remains constant too. Consistently bloody infuriating. Not as infuriating as Locke but still bloody annoying. Why keep asking Charlotte the same question over and over when she’s said she doesn’t know? It took Jules to point out something that probably never even crossed Jack’s plum sized brain. Jack you really are a twit you know?

Anyway, this was great viewing. A truly amazing episode that is up there with the very best. Desmond produces great episodes and this stuck to that, it brought back all the brilliant memories of Flashes. Des and Penny need to be together, this proves it. There were three episodes before this that had rated 10/10. There are now four. The Constant was constantly fantastic.

The Constant – 10/10.