Flashes Before Your Eyes - Season 3x08

[Kiowa Warrior]

FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES

The eighth episode of Season 3 is Desmond’s flashback, where he seems to travel back in time to his life in London before even going to the island, but where he keeps seeing things that remind him of his time in the hatch. He wakes up on the floor after having a fall from painting his flat because Penny is moving in, and the sound of the microwave is exactly like the hatch computer countdown. Desmond goes to Penny’s father on the pretext of getting a job, but really to ask him for permission to marry his daughter. Mr. Widmore questions Desmond about his life and then tells him that since he’s not good enough to drink his whiskey he’s certainly not good enough for Penny. Outside the building Desmond runs into Charlie, who’s busking, but Charlie doesn’t know who he is. Desmond asks a friend about time travel but is told it’s not possible, and he begins to doubt himself when some predictions he makes in the pub don’t come true.

Desmond goes shopping for a ring because he plans to ask Penny to marry him, but the shop keeper – Ms. Hawking – tells him that it’s not supposed to happen. She knows all about his time on the island, and says that he doesn’t marry Penny and that pushing the button is the only great thing he will ever do. Desmond refuses to believe her, but she says that the universe has a way of course correcting itself and that you can’t change fate. Desmond meets up with Penny and after having their photo taken he tells her that he can’t do this; that he can’t marry her and he isn’t the man he needs to be. Later on in the same pub he visited with his friend he finds that his earlier predictions are only now coming true, and as he steps in to stop the barman getting hit he takes the blow himself, and the next thing he knows is that he’s waking up in the middle of the jungle after the hatch implosion.

Meanwhile on the island Desmond has a vision that Claire is drowning and rushes off to save her, and alter on Charlie and Hurley drink whiskey with him in order to get him drunk and to start talking. Charlie asks him how he knew that Claire was drowning, and after Charlie provokes him and calls him a coward Desmond tells him that he has flashes; that he sees Charlie dying and that even though he’s saved his life twice now, no matter what he does Charlie is going to die.

This is a very good episode, but it still involves effort for me to get my head round it because time travel and all that just confuses me! It’s really sad with Des breaking up with Penny though, and even sadder that he just wants to go back in time again to undo it and have another chance. But it’s good that him and Penny haven’t forgotten about each other and she’s still looking for him, even though it isn’t her boat that’s coming to get them now. And it still irritates me when busker Charlie cheerfully calls England an island...

[The Wizard]

This is a very confusing episode for many reasons, such as why did turning that key send Des back to the paint disaster? Or was he going back at all? Was it just an alternate version of his life? Did getting hit by the cricket bat send him back, or was that just when the action returned to the island? OOh BahH!

[The_abbott]

and why did they have a photo taken on a false background, on a false background of London?

[Easily confused]

I do not like this episode

this is the point at which i decided that i did not like Desmond

it started off well what with the microwave beeping and other links to his future life in the hatch but then the flash just went on and on and its the beginning of Desmond seeing Charlie dying and then Desmond saving him and then Desmond seeign Charlie dying again and it just all goes on a little too much for me

Flashback too long and boring repeated story thereafter just filling up space imo

rewatch value - i gave up on it half way through

[JB Sawyer]

I know this is completely opinion based and ambiguous but EC you are wrong

This, for me, is a brilliant, magnificent and utterly enthralling episode. For me it is what Lost is all about. Mystery, great drama, 'oh my god' moments, and making you wonder what the hell is going on and what's going to happen next.

Firstly I don't find it overly confusing now having watched it many times over, certainly compared to first watch which was such a positive aspect in it's own right. To use Wiz's questions earlier: I believe that, seeing as fate is such a big part of Lost and Des's story, that by turning the key and commiting such a heroic act, sacrificing himself for the good of the world, fate gave him one chance to save himself from ever going to the Island, and one more chance to save his relationship with Pen. I also believe that after getting hit with the cricket bat everything continued exactly the same way it did first time round time continuing up until that exact point in the jungle, with Desmond having just turned the key for a second time, only this time he didn't get a second chance due to him wasting the first. I know these are only 'I believe's' but it's what I'm going by.

Anyway this is nigh on the perfect episode. It has the beautiful story of Des and Pen, how to do a proper romance - no Jate and Skate crap. This was the episode that put Des and Pen high up my favourites list, Pen at no.4 beating the majority of the main characters. She is the perfect woman isn't she, and she truly loves Des. Des, a man plagued by cowardice, shows that he is a good man that wants to do good but finding that last glimpse of courage or a right choice avoids him. He's a brilliant character imo, and S3 was so good largely because of him.

At this moment in time there are only three episodes that I consider a 10/10. Confidence Man, The Brig and Flashes Before Your Eyes. Confidence Man is still my no.1 episode ever, but Flashes is sitting very snugly behind it.

[Easily confused]

Originally Posted by JB Sawyer

I know this is completely opinion based and ambiguous but EC you are wrong

I know when it comes to Desmond i am in a minority of one but the fact of the matter is I feel he has no place in Lost

had they just found him in his hatch and he ran away and never came back i wouldn't mind or even had they found him in his hatch and he joined them straight away i don't think i would have a problem with him

but as far as this flashback is concern i think its a load of rubbish and has no place in Lost

but I do accept i am the only person who thinks that

[charlierocks]

I feel that Desmond is a lot like Locke, in the way that he's never been accepted. He got his job in the hatch, then all these other people turn up who can do his job so I think he ran as he felt that he wasn't needed yet again.

I still don't quite get the time travel thing as he seemed to flit about a lot and I'm not sure if the island is his recent time or he keeps going back and forwards?? This makes me slightly confused as to which tense he's living in, which makes me wonder where the others are!!!

[Easily confused]

Originally Posted by charlierocks

I feel that Desmond is a lot like Locke, in the way that he's never been accepted. He got his job in the hatch, then all these other people turn up who can do his job so I think he ran as he felt that he wasn't needed yet again.

I think he is more like Kate and has to run away from commitment - like he ran away from Penny after they had the picture taken and he ran away from that other girl in his monestry flashback

I still don't quite get the time travel thing as he seemed to flit about a lot and I'm not sure if the island is his recent time or he keeps going back and forwards?? This makes me slightly confused as to which tense he's living in, which makes me wonder where the others are!!!

Its easier if you assume its not time travel at all

[JB Sawyer]

Originally Posted by Easily confused

I think he is more like Kate and has to run away from commitment - like he ran away from Penny after they had the picture taken and he ran away from that other girl in his monestry flashback

I'd agree with that.

Originally Posted by charlierocks

I feel that Desmond is a lot like Locke, in the way that he's never been accepted. He got his job in the hatch, then all these other people turn up who can do his job so I think he ran as he felt that he wasn't needed yet again.

Except Des doesn't take orders from the talking toads or anything else that suggests he may actually need to do something.

[Lost Lewis]

This episode's amazing! I enjoyed it a lot more this second time around and I felt I coped quite well with understanding what was going on too I followed quite well.

Similar to what JB said, if I had to think of what Lost is and what episodes represent it, I'd say an episode such as Flashes Before Your Eyes.

Usually I much prefer island action over flashback any day but this episode was pratically all flashback and I did not care Everything was good about it. Penny, Charlie, Alan Dale, Desmonds decisions, the mystery of it all - it seemed incredibly clever to me and it was terrible watching Desmond leaving Penny when we know that he did have other reasons.

No Jack/Kate/Sawyer either...excellent

[D-Roc]

I still enjoy this episode - a great curve ball, amost a pre-curser to the season finale hijinks.

My take on Desmond's time-travelling is firstly that is he did go back in time (i.e. not a dream or what have you), and secondly that the islands properties along with his own will enabled him to go back. IMO The island's properties, or to be more accurate, the 'magic box' allows someone to 'will' something to happen - this can either be through subconscious or conscious will - as depicted with Locke blowing up the sub for Ben, Jack falling from the sky just in time to fix Ben's tumour and now Desmond getting a 2nd chance at the one thing he wanted most at the point of turning the key. The islands properties are most powerful underground or to those with a communuion with it - Desmond was underground at the height of the electromagnetism corruption, thus he was greatly exposed to the island's "magic box", thus he unwittingly gave himself a 2nd chance with Penny..the very thing which he most desired.

Fates role in the episode is interesting - she presents herself in human form, intriguingly she never forces Desmond down a path..she merely presents him with his 'options' - telling him the futility of freewill. The very thing to cripple a mans hope, the very thing to make a man a slave of time and space.

Fate is playing a game..because fate cannot course correct without first stripping the 'enlightened' (Desmond) of his freewill. If you ask me, fate isn't as assured as she make out.

Although Mrs Hawking's sympathetic disection of the freewill notion does ring some very loud bells:

"The Universe, unfortunately, has a way of course correcting"

Why..why did she say the word 'unfortunately'? This suggests to me that Hawking, as a representative (or whatever she is) of the Universe, isn't as pro-Universe as it would appear.

Like Juliet (3.05?), does Hawking want 'change'..

Re-watch value: 8.5/10

[Murgatroyd]

Its easier if you assume its not time travel at all

The question of whether or not it was time travel was actually answered in a podcast if you want to look it out (I shan't repeat it here in case people don't want to know, though I wouldn't actually consider clarification a spoiler).

[The Wizard]

Originally Posted by Murgatroyd

The question of whether or not it was time travel was actually answered in a podcast if you want to look it out (I shan't repeat it here in case people don't want to know, though I wouldn't actually consider clarification a spoiler).

Please clarify