What Will You Tell Her? (This Night, Billy Joel / Ludwig Van Beethoven)

"This woman - when she asks you what you did to be with her again... what will you tell her?" - Desmond, The Last Recruit

Probably my favorite single scene in The Last Recruit is the encounter between Sayid and Desmond at the well. Like everyone else I've consulted, I'm convinced that Sayid let Desmond live. They were friends, after all, and Desmond can be pretty persuasive... Here's Desmond in that scene to the tune of Billy Joel's This Night.

What Will You Tell Her?

Brother, I think
You ought to give me a reason
If you intend on
Shooting me in cold blood.
I was your friend,
And so this murder is treason.
Will you stand by as I die
Like a dog in the mud?

Brother, if love
Is your professed motivation,
If you believe
He can restore the one you lost,
You’re a naive
Victim of manipulation.
Will you obey? First I pray
You’ll consider the cost.

Should she return,
And should she want to learn
What you did to be with her again,
Sayid, what will you tell her?

Under your gaze,
Penny and I reunited.
You saved my mind;
Now let me help preserve your soul.
Brother, you’re blind -
Or you are sadly short-sighted.
Where will you run after gunning me
Down in this hole?

What will you say
To get relief from your conscience?
Will you confess,
Hoping that she will understand?
Will you address
This risen woman with nonsense,
Knowing you’d chill her by killing
An innocent man?

Should she return,
And should she want to learn
What you did to be with her again,
Sayid, what will you tell her?

Should she return,
And should she want to learn
What you did just to be with her again,
Sayid, what will you tell her?

Sayid... Oh...
If you do this to be with her again,
Sayid, what will you tell her?

This Night

Getting Harder (Getting Better, John Lennon / Paul McCartney)

"Desmond. I know... it's getting harder."- George, The Constant

The Constant, one of my favorite episodes of LOST, focuses on Desmond's experience of being unanchored in time, but George Minkowski, the communications officer on the freighter, is going through the same thing as Desmond and is thus able to empathize and give him an idea of what to expect. Here, to the tune of the Beatles' Getting Better, George and Desmond compare notes.

Getting Harder

George: It’s getting harder all the time.

No fun on a ship when it’s moored.
(Desmond: Hey, what happened, mate?)
George: Easy for us to get bored.
(Desmond: So what happened, mate?)
George: My buddy and me set out to sea,
Thought it was time we explored.

Hey, Desmond, I know. It’s getting harder,
(Desmond: Harder)
George: A little harder all the time.
(Desmond: When will I jump next?)
George: Hey, Desmond, I know. It’s getting harder.
(Desmond: Harder)
George: It’s getting hard not to lose your mind.

My friend had a panic attack,
So we turned around and came back.
Went out of his head, then Brandon was dead,
And now I’m the one out of whack.

Hey, Desmond, I know. It’s getting harder,
(Desmond: Harder)
George: A little harder all the time.
(Desmond: When will I jump next?)
George: Hey, Desmond, I know. It’s getting harder.
(Desmond: Harder)
George: It’s getting hard not to lose your mind.
Getting so much harder all the time!

George: It’s getting harder all the time.
Desmond: Harder, harder, harder.
George: It’s getting harder all the time.
Desmond: Harder, harder, harder.

George: One minute I’m strapped to a table.
Then I’m on a Ferris wheel, feeling as free as a bird.
This is bizarre, but I’ve made it so far.
Can you get it to stop? Say the word.

Yes, I know it’s getting harder.
(Desmond: Harder)
George: A little harder all the time.
(Desmond: When will I jump next?)
George: Desmond, I know it’s getting harder.
(Desmond: Harder)
George: It’s getting hard not to lose your mind.
Getting so much harder all the time.

It’s getting harder all the time.
Desmond: Harder, harder, harder.
George: It’s getting harder all the time.
Desmond: Harder, harder, harder.
George: Getting so much harder all the time.

Penny Hume (Penny Lane, Paul McCartney)

Over the weekend, thousands of geeks converged in San Diego for the 2009 Comic-Con. Though I wasn't one of them, through the magic of eBay, I did manage to snag an official Ben Linus bobblehead, which captures the after-effects of his confrontation with Penny and Desmond in the fifth season. Here, then, to the tune of the Beatles' Penny Lane, is an ode to Penny, who's had to put up with an awful lot as Desmond's One True Love.

Penny Hume

Poor Penny Hume was separated from the one she loves.
He disappeared for years before the two were wed.
Though many others would have thought him dead,
She had faith instead.

In The Searcher she endeavored to discover him.
A chat with Charlie proved her hope was not in vain.
When she found him, nothing could restrain
Desmond's utter bliss.
What a kiss!

Penny Hume is Desmond's long-awaited wife.
She'd become the constant in his life,
The one who rescued him.

When Penny Hume and Desmond left the Oceanic Six,
They knew they'd have to have their wedding on the run.
In circumstances that were far from fun,
Penny bore a son.

Penny Hume has got a complicated life.
Ben is sowing seeds of strife.
He plots a mean attack

While Desmond steers his little family to Los Angeles
To meet the spooky mom of Daniel Faraday.
He doesn't mean to put her in harm's way,
But Ben plans to slay

Poor Penny Hume, whose father Widmore is a scallywag.
She doesn't want a jot to do with his affairs.
But avenging Benji doesn't care
That she's unaware.
So unfair!

Penny Hume is begging Ben to show some grace.
Then the boy named after Charlie Pace
Turns up and Ben relents.
Penny Hume is both a daughter and a wife,
But the role of mother saved her life.
Penny Hume.

The Thinker (The Tinker, John Reynolds)

I've really missed Daniel, my favorite season-four addition to the cast, in these last few episodes of LOST, so I'm very much looking forward to the next episode, in which he seems likely to play a central role. He's a reflection by him, addressing a just-departed Desmond, to the tune of the Irish Rovers' The Tinker, inspired by the episode The Constant.

The Thinker

'Tis a thinker I am, a pondering man
Accustomed to sounding bizarre,
Always dodging defeat while the Oxford elite
Sit and sully my name in the bar.

Though I shrug off the sneers I've received from my peers
When they should have been doling out praise,
I am stung by each slight, so I keep out of sight,
Seeking proof in a rat and a maze.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

Though I'm hardly insane, I'll admit that the brain
Underneath all my scraggly hair
Has been jolted and jarred and repeatedly scarred
By the tests that I run in my lair.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

You restored my resolve when you entered my life,
Bringing meaning to all that I've done.
Though you're already leaving, our fates are entwined,
And our kinship has only begun.

When you're settled in time, leave some room in your mind
To remember our meeting here, please.
I intend to depend on your being my friend
If I end up like Eloise.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

So thank you for showing that I'm not a liar,
That my theories are really true,
That I've not been misled by these thoughts in my head.
For your validation, thank you.

The Tinker

Penny Girl (Danny Boy, Traditional)

The writers' strike put a bit of a damper on the fourth season of LOST, mainly in terms of developing the quartet of new characters who came from the freighter. Nonetheless, this season has had some of the most beautiful moments of the series thus far, and perhaps my favorite of them all is the life-saving phone call that occurs at the end of The Constant, a brilliant episode from start to finish. Here's my meager attempt to capture some of its glory. I think of it sort of as Desmond practicing what he's going to say to Penny when he tracks her down in 1996, to the tune of Danny Boy.

Penny Girl

Oh Penny girl, my mind, my mind is flailing.
Again, again I'm tumbling with the tide.
Adrift, alone and starless, I am sailing.
It's you, it's you can heal this great divide.

So bring me back. Pen, sing me to my senses.
With you my anchor, I will not let go,
And I'll atone for all my past offenses.
Oh Penny girl, oh Penny girl, I love you so.

Eight years from now, you'll hear the fateful chiming -
If you have faith. Oh, Penny, please believe!
And when you answer, I will praise the timing,
The perfect present on that Christmas Eve.

Then, through my tears, I'll cast away my sorrow.
Though it may seem that I am lost at sea,
You'll have my pledge to meet you in tomorrow,
My life preserved, Pen, by your constant love for me.

Penny Gets An Early Christmas Present and Erin Gets a Late One

Wow. I had this feeling that The Constant was going to be dismal, depressing and possibly deadly for dear Desmond. How wrong I was! How relieved I am! Well, I guess I wasn't exactly wrong; poor Desmond really went through a traumatic experience. I think this episode is definite Emmy material for Henry Ian Cusick. What a range of emotions! I love that this episode was every bit as perplexing as Flashes Before Your Eyes; in fact, I'm thinking of it as that episode's bookend. They go together so perfectly, and this one really seems to show that Desmond's time traveling is a side-effect of the hatch implosion.

I felt so sorry for him at the beginning of the episode, getting yanked around in time and having no idea what was going on, and at the same time there was something comical about it. Or maybe the Desmond overload was just making me giddy. This was also like Flashes in that barely a minute passed on screen without Desmond. It was a bizarre format, bouncing back and forth and not really being quite sure where the "real" Desmond was grounded. Time travel makes my head hurt. Early on, Mom asked, "So is this a flash-forward or a flash-back?" I answered, "It's a flash-sideways!" And that really seemed about the most logical way to describe what was happening there.

We really didn't see why Desmond got booted from the army, unless we're supposed to assume that it had something to do with him acting crazy, only supposedly that was something that happened in his new past, not his old past, so that wouldn't have been it, and you'd think his going back would have changed a lot of things; I wonder if we'll start to see any strange effects. Time travel is very, very dangerous stuff. This episode reminded me of a lot of things. Star Trek. Journeyman. Back to the Future. *shudder* Premonition. *shudder*

But it also seemed wholly original and absolutely brilliantly executed. I just had a big goofy grin on my face from the moment I saw Penny's picture at the beginning of the episode. I cheered, and then I cringed and said, "Ooooh, I sure hope they don't kill Desmond!" And then I cheered again.

I didn't think the helicopter was going to land on the freighter in this episode. I thought it would land somewhere else, in some mysterious vortex or something, and Michael might be there, and everything would be very weird, but I definitely thought the chopper was going to go down in the storm. But it didn't. It was so strange spending most of the episode with 1996 Desmond in 2004, especially with Sayid, who was so obviously concerned about him, even though they haven't really spent a lot of time together, at least that we saw, though I suppose hiding Naomi was a bonding experience. Now that they've been through this ordeal together, I think they will most definitely share a bond; after all, by putting him in contact with Penny, Sayid saved Desmond's life. And he seemed deeply moved by the long-distance reunion to which he was a witness.

Desmond and Penny finally connecting again was one of the emotional high points of the entire series thus far. I wouldn't have expected it before tonight; I thought if they reunited - and I hoped they would - that it would be at the end of the series, and face to face. It did occur to me that "the constant" of tonight's title would probably have something to do with temporal anomalies if it was a Desmond-centric episode, and when Daniel was yammering on about constants to Desmond, I thought that the constant might be the photograph. But no, it was actually Penny herself. And somehow I managed to majorly miscalculate the date, and when I saw that calendar and Sayid pointed out that it was almost Christmas (which I thought was rather ironic, considering that he's a Muslim), I felt like Ebenezer Scrooge, jumping up and down and shouting to the streets below, "I haven't missed it!"

I want to give Darlton a great big bear hug. They gave me my Christmas after all, and there may be more to come. Of course, that also may mean the tsunami is imminent, but let's think happy thoughts, shall we? Because I certainly do feel happy after this episode. And wasn't that a gorgeous tree at Penny's house? There was such joy and passion in their reconciliation, I could have sworn they kissed, even though that was completely impossible. It felt like they genuinely touched each other from across all those miles. (And how eerily appropriate it is that I picked Same Old Lang Syne for my Penny and Desmond tribute when their story comes to a climax on Christmas Eve...) Anyway, it was one of the happiest moments on LOST ever, a perfect ending, and then I heard the creepy music and saw Daniel leafing through the journal, and I thought, "Oh, no, something is going to come along to ruin this." Instead, what I saw written there - "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be MY constant" - was an immense comfort. Now Daniel's fate is tied to Desmond's, and to my mind, that makes Desmond's position considerably more secure. If they kill off Desmond, Daniel most likely dies along with him, and I don't think they're going to be in any hurry to kill off two major characters at once, especially when there wouldn't be much of an element of surprise involved.

And let's talk about Daniel, because I believe he is starting to fill a void. Now, granted, if I could trade him to have Charlie back, I would, but I think Daniel is just adorable, in an extremely eccentric Doc Brown sort of way. I wanted to not trust him, I really did, but doggone it, he won me over almost immediately, and I like him more with each episode. His interaction with Desmond here is wonderful. He comes across as intensely interested in him, both from a scientific standpoint and out of deep concern for his fellow man (and possibly, as Nathan suggests, romantic interest; I'll have to keep my eye out for more hints on that, which could complicate things...). I get a sense of profound empathy with Daniel. It also seems that he is used to being on the fringes of society. I love that he taught at Oxford, and his hippie-ish hairdo was groovy. I think it's both sad and funny that his colleagues are always teasing him because of the tone of his research. Daniel thinks outside the box. That's important. When we met Eloise, I immediately thought of Flowers For Algernon, and that made me sad, especially when Eloise died. It really looked like Desmond was in trouble. But Penny wasn't kidding when she said she would always stand by him, even if her behavior in 1996 might seem to indicate a change of heart. Penny saved Desmond.

Alas, there was nothing and no one for George Minkowski to cling to, and I was really surprised that they killed him off so early, since I thought he was supposed to be a major character this season. I want more Fisher Stevens! Ah, well; it's always sort of disappointing to hear him without a crazy accent anyway... Frank really does seem to be with the good guys; I think he's the funniest of the newbies and Daniel's the sweetest, and I love them both. I'm still undecided on Charlotte, who it seems I know the least about, though with her name, I'm pretty primed to like her. (And the whole time delay thing reminds me of how differently time works in Narnia than on Earth.) Miles is obnoxious, but I think he's more petty criminal than evil mastermind. I really think these four are pawns, and I'm not sure how much they understand about the intentions of their employers.

I want to read that Black Rock journal! Obviously, so does Charles Widmore. I'm guessing he plans to scour the journal for coordinates or some other clues as to how to reach the island, and I still can't help but think the race was somehow orchestrated as a way to get Desmond there. But that would require Libby being in on the conspiracy too, I suppose, and them somehow rigging his instruments so that he sailed to the island without knowing it... Or maybe the race was just more generally intended to have someone find the island. Somehow or another, Charles Widmore is very involved in the bid for control of the island, and I'm pretty sure we don't want it to fall to him. I was a little surprised he gave Desmond Penny's address, but I guess he wanted to rub it in his face that Penny didn't want anything to do with him anymore. Little he knew...
I hear that Juliet has a flashback coming up, which probably means more Tom, which definitely means a happy Erin. I suppose it might be a couple of episodes before we see Des and Sayid again, but I'm okay with that. They're not exactly in friendly territory at the moment, but they've got each other, and it seems Frank as well, and Desmond has a renewed sense of purpose that should sustain him for a while, anyway. It will have to be enough to sustain me too.