Flashes Before Your Eyes - Review

Before there were Jate shippers or Skate shippers ...or shipper wars... before the Fuselage became a shipper zoo patrolled by small-minded incompetents and meanspirited enemies of free and open discussion...there was a show we all could enjoy together. And this episode was a little dose of deja vu to remind us what that was like. So to celebrate, let's all have a little fun...


Easter Egg Hunt



And 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42=???



How many clues can you find? Hint:(3)



Answer: polar bear, upside down Buddha (useful for brainwashing), NAMASTE spelled backwards (which means what exactly? It's kind of a Hindu Aloha - hello/goodbye in one word.)




Credit to Dark UFO for this one. Can you pick out the image that appears in both these pics? Answer: Apparently Mr. Widmore has a painting in his office that was painted by Aaron's daddy...cue Twilight Zone music.



A house falling on someone wearing red shoes? Is Desmond Dorothy? Answer: Yes. Or no. Whatever. What the big question is...who's the Wicked Witch of the West?

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See anything familiar? Answer: Ads for Apollo candy. On a British football field. Is the UK part of Dharma now?





What's wrong with this picture? Answer: American spellings of honor on a Brit recruit poster.

************************************************************************************* This episode was muy entertaining and had a neat season one feel to it and Desmond is a total hottie, but WTF was it about anyway?

Theory One: Time travel. Slaughterhouse Five territory. All layers of time coexisting - not just as one past/present/future but infinite varieties of pasts/presents/futures. Not just what did happen or will happen but what could have happened and what should happen. When Desmond wakes up covered in Dorothy-red paint, he is actually present Desmond. He knows he's having a flashback. He is conscious of the future he has already experienced. Yet this past-as-present is entirely real as well. It's not the same past as he lived before. In fact, when he confronts street minstrel Charlie, all layers are in that one scene - the real moment past Desmond confronted past Charlie, present Desmond trying to explain the island present to an uncomprehending Charlie and future Charlie (dead) in Desmond's precog-infested mind.

Theory Two: When Morpheus, the old Irish lady, commands him to believe that fate is immutable, Desmond apparently believes her. He wants to defy her predictions, but instead ends up doing just as she says. In explicably, he throws away his future with Penny - which is entirely available to him now - joins the military and plods along on the exact same future that he has come to loathe. Why? Now that he knows how badly his decision will turn out, why repeat it? Did he really have to do it? In the last second of his flashback, before another blow to the head wakes him up, he in fact does change fate. Jimmy Lennon doesn't club the bartender because Desmond prevents it. But back on the island, Desmond has learned nothing and continues to terrify Charlie with exactly the same fatalism as the Irishwoman gave to him.

Theory Three: It's all a dream. Nothing all that complex. Desmond gets a concussion and enters a dream state. Where all his regrets (Penny) and all his shame (Widmore's insults) return to haunt him. The numbers appear on the clock (108) or from a delivery man (815) because these numbers are roiling Desmond's subconscious. Penny calls him a coward because Charlie called him a coward seconds earlier. The Mama Cass song plays to trigger revelations. The microwave beeps with exactly the same tone as the hatch signal. The old woman is just Desmond speaking to himself, reminding himself of what an idiot he was to throw away his only chance at happiness.

Theory Four: Lost can go an entire episode without referencing Kate's sexual choices even once. Can you believe it? It's possible!

Theory Five: Lost can still be creative. There is no law that says flashbacks have to be repetitive, boring bathroom breaks. They don't have to constantly retread the same tired ground or use the same format. If the writers gave themselves the freedom to think outside of their own self created box, maybe they could even find a way to make the rest of the season as fresh and lively as this episode felt.


Kulcha References - a.k.a clevah homages to stuff we didn't think up ourselves

Kurt Vonnigut, Slaughterhouse Five (Ooh, how literary!)



Vladimir Nabakov - Speak, Memory (Can't quite make out the cover for sure)

Wizard of Oz (see above)



Hieronymus - Hieronymous Bosch, Flemish painter (Garden of Earthly Delights Tryptych, Adam and Eve, island-like outer shutters) / or reference to the machine created by Dr. Thomas Galen Hieronymus - does the art world or the pseudo scientific psychic world put Charlie through his 'Pace-s'?


Lord of the Rings, tossing the "precious" into the sea


A Brief History of Time - Mrs "Hawkings" (See below - Aldo was reading the book in NIP as well)



Will Charlie really die?


1. Yes. Clare will kill him for being such a kvetching yenta who can't even give her five minutes to thank the man who saved her life without pushing the baby in her face.

2. No. It's bad luck to kill a hobbit...or the leading lady's boyfriend.

3. Err....Technically he already died in Season One, so maybe Desmond's got the past/future thing in his head a little mixed up?



Who was that freaky Old Lady?


1. Penny in the future.

2. Desmond's subconscious.

3. Stephen Hawkings' mommy

4. God herself.

5. Someone Demon & Curse hired because she starred in a really cool movie called The Others.



Now, as we all know, even though this was a pretty awesome episode, the ratings were dismal. Lowest in the history of the show. In fact, the Mediaweek TV critic calls Lost the "tragedy of the season" because of the incompetence of ABC execs who chose to mishandle the scheduling of this fine show. The hiatus was a mistake. The 10PM slot has not been kind. And the fandom is as sour as acid right now, just nitpicking the show to bits and looking for any opportunity to pounce. Lost isn't the finest show ever made. It's not even the finest show on tv right now. But in a time of reality show wastelands and celebrity trashathons, does Lost deserve the attacks it's getting right now? This episode proved, if nothing else, that the writers can still produce, that they can give a good actor a great showpiece, that they can befuddle and confuse and still leave us entertained.

I think there's a lot of hope left for Lost and I'm rooting for it to come back....Though D & C's chess analogy wasn't encouraging - the one about losing the queen and knights in the first two minutes or whatever and still winning the match. Guys, if you lose the queen and both knights in the first two minutes, you are the world's worst chess player. Time to button your lips, stop making buttocks of yourself in the media and get back to WORK. Write a good show. The rest will follow.