God Help Us All (God Only Knows, Brian Wilson / Tony Asher)

Ben: What happens if I can't get them all to come back? Eloise Then God help us all.
- The Lie

Eloise and Ben don't seem to like each other very much. Here, to the tune of the Beach Boys' God Only Knows, she tries to impress upon him the urgency of his mission.

God Help Us All

I saw you light that candle.
So, is this job too much to handle?
Are six recruits too many?
Good gracious, have you got any?

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

In seventy more hours,
We’ll have to trust in higher powers
If your talent still proves lacking.
Come on, Benjamin, get cracking!

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

God help us all if you don’t collect them.

In seventy more hours,
We’ll have to trust in higher powers
If your talent still proves lacking.
Come on, Benjamin, get cracking!

God help us all if you don’t collect them.
God help us all if you don’t collect them.
(God help us all if you don’t collect them.)
God help us all if you don’t collect them.
(God help us all if you don’t collect them.)
(fadeout)

Penny Milton (Pretty Woman, Roy Orbison)

Desmond: I don't know...I don't know what I felt.
Daniel: Yes, you do. You felt love.
Desmond: That's impossible, because I don’t know anything about this woman, I don't know...I don't know where she is. I don't even know if she exists. She's...she's an idea.
- Happily Ever After

Desmond and Penny are fated to find each other, but there always seem to be complications. Here, Sideways Desmond battles Eloise before getting some help from Daniel about Penny's whereabouts, to the tune of Roy Orbison's Pretty Woman.

Penny Milton

Desmond: Penny Milton. That’s the name they said.
Penny Milton. But is it in my head?
Penny Milton.
I have to struggle to understand
The words I saw on Charlie’s hand.
Penny...

Penny Milton. Could it really be?
Penny Milton. Is she the one for me?
Penny Milton.
I need some answers, Eloise.
Let me see that guest list, please.
Now!

Eloise: Penny Milton? Just forget.
Desmond, you’re not ready yet.
Your arrival is a threat to me.

Desmond: Penny Milton. So surreal,
And I can’t conceal my zeal.
Penny Milton, now revealed to me.
But this Penny, does she exist?
Would it be crazy if I persist?

Penny Milton. I’m losing steam.
Penny Milton. Is she a dream?
Penny Milton. I know what I feel. It’s real.
But am I chasing a mere ideal?

Daniel: Now there’s no reason for such gloom.
She’s my half-sister, Mr. Hume.
Take it from me.
I can tell you where she’ll be.
Yes, I know just where she’ll be.
You’ll find Penny Milton.

Eloise (Edelweiss, Richard Rodgers / Oscar Hammerstein)

"This man walked into camp and put a gun to my head, and Eloise... reacted."
 - Richard, Follow the Leader

One of the moments on LOST that has stuck with me the most is the death of Daniel Faraday. I've written about it from two different perspectives. Here's a third, the sage Richard's, which is later echoed by Jack, to the tune of Rodgers and Hammerstein's Edelweiss, from The Sound of Music.

Eloise

Richard: Eloise, Eloise.
Must you be such a hothead?
Look at me. Do you see
Who it was that you shot dead?
That was your son, so what you have done
Brings no satisfaction.
Eloise, Eloise.
What a fatal reaction!

Richard: Eloise,
Jack: Eloise,
Richard: Eloise.
Jack: Eloise.
Richard and Jack: Must you be such a hothead?
Richard: Look at me.
Jack: Look at me.
Richard: Do you see
Jack: Do you see
Richard and Jack: Who it was that you shot dead?
Jack: That was your son, so what you have done
Brings no satisfaction.
Eloise, Eloise.
What a fatal reaction!

Before He Had Been Born (The Wind That Shakes the Corn, Traditional)

One of the saddest stories on LOST is that of Daniel Faraday, the gentle, addled quantum physicist killed by his own mother. In an earlier parody, I imagined that he died believing that she had led him as a lamb to the slaughter. Here, I take her perspective, and I imagine something a little different - that she insisted so intensely on his studies in hopes that he would find a way to undo her fatal moment (without ripping a gaping hole in the space-time continuum).

For this, I picked another tragic tale of love lost in wartime: the traditional Irish ballad The Wind That Shakes the Corn, as sung by the Irish Rovers. (I'm also assuming that Daniel was born after the Incident - that he was the baby with whom Eloise was pregnant at the time. If that's not true, this parody has a fundamental flaw...)

Before He Had Been Born

I stepped in on a shocking scene. 
I stepped in with my gun.
Back then, I was the Island queen, 
The boss, the number one.
I meant to rescue Richard, though 
He greeted me with scorn
When I took aim and shot my son 
Before he had been born.

I watched his fingers fleetly play 
The music he adored.
I made him cast his dreams away; 
It pierced me like a sword. 
But still, I set him on his path, 
Although my heart was torn,
In hopes I wouldn’t shoot my son 
Before he had been born.

He grew into a physicist 
With such a brilliant mind.
I thought, “If only I had missed!” 
He was so sweet and kind.
And still he seemed a shattered man, 
So frazzled and forlorn,
Yet unaware I’d shot him dead 
Before he had been born.

“Whatever happened, happened” was 
His often-heard refrain.
I hope that he was wrong because 
If not, I strove in vain.
I pray he’ll somehow change the past 
So I’ll no longer mourn
That in coldest blood, I shot my son 
Before he had been born.

My Mother Was Armed (Brothers in Arms, Mark Knopfler)

With The Variable, LOST has now reached the 100-episode mark, and what a momentous episode it was. Eccentric physicist Daniel Faraday finally got the limelight to himself, but it wasn't such a pleasant experience for him. Here are some thoughts I have running through his head in the last moments of the episode, to the tune of Dire Straits' Brothers in Arms.

My Mother Was Armed

So here's the fulfillment of my grand destiny.
All my life, she pretended to care about me.
Upon my return here to send out the alarm,
She knew I would be burned here. My mother was armed.

The advance toward destruction began as a child.
My dreams were worth nothing; they were dashed and reviled.
"Because you are gifted," she said as she smeared on the smarm.
She guided and grifted. My mother was armed.

In the slowly seeping stain that started with her gun,
Will she see the pain of her disillusioned son?

Who am I to rebel and to want to know why?
If I've done my job well, then it's worth it to die.
But her message in my journal is no longer a balm.
How brutal to learn that my mother was armed!