Put on your kilts, and grab a pint, while we review a short bit about everyone’s favorite Scotsman. Don’t worry, I won’t lift up his kilt to see what’s under it, but let’s go back and review some things we love to love about Desmond.
The main episodes that trace Desmond’s back story is Live Together, Die Alone (pt’s 1 & 2), Flashes Before Your Eyes, and The Constant. I watched those three over the long weekend, and have a few items to discuss.
Prelude Off Island History
But first, a little more history. According to Lostpedia, Desmond’s story really starts with the off island events in Catch-22 where Desmond is trying to become a monk. While just off completing his vow of silence, Desmond is confronted by the brother of the woman Desmond left (just prior to their wedding) to go join the brotherhood. It seems Desmond lacks a certain amount of courage when confronted with life-changing events like marriage. He also deals with remorse in the unorthodox method of drinking waaaay too much alcohol. Brother Campbell (who also had a frame photo of Eloise Hawking on his desk) tell Des that the brotherhood is a bit too constraining for him, and that he has, “little doubt that God has different plans than you being a monk, … Bigger plans.” then sends him off to load his fate.
The immediate future has him meeting Penelope Widmore while loading wine into the back of her vehicle. This kicks off a new relationship, that we get peeks of in Flashes Before Your Eyes. We get snippets of this story as Desmond recalls the memory of what happened when he turned the hatch key (more on that later) and his consciousness skipped back to living with Pen.
He’s happy to be with Penny, and is thinking of asking for her hand in marriage. First he needs to go and see her father, Charles Widmore, to formerly ask for her hand. Charles isn’t too impressed with Desmond, comparing his whole life to a sip of McCutcheon’s whiskey, then calls him a coward, and not good for his daughter. As he’s leaving Widmore’s office, Desmond bumps into Charlie, who he hasn’t met yet, but knows from the island, which is odd, because he hasn’t been to the island. Loopy.
Back at the flat, that he’s just asked Penny to move into, Penny encourages him to think that she doesn’t need Dad’s permission, that she loves him and wants to marry him. Later, Desmond is mucking about a jewelry store when he meet’s Eloise Hawking behind the counter. He decides to buy the ring, but Eloise won’t give it to him, she knows that he’s supposed to not buy the ring, join the Army, and leave Penny. She tells him after he asks for an explanation, that “The universe has a way of course correcting.” Pshaw, says Desmond and buys the ring.
on the boardwalk… whoa whoa
Des meets Penny on a boardwalk, and as they’re walking they stop to take a photo with a street vender. The street vender pulls down a few backgrounds, and Penny chooses the marina backdrop, which produces a photo that Desmond will carry with him for many many months/years/loops. Sadly, seeing the photo, and recognizing his destiny, Desmond breaks it off with Penny, choosing a path, that has him barreling towards the island.
After tossing the ring he bought from Mrs. Hawking into the Thames, Desmond joins the Army. That’s where we pick up this story, as he’s become unstuck in time because a storm knocked Frank Lapidus off the correct bearing, and Desmond thinks he’s back in England, while really being on the helicopter, then the freighter. Desmond’s mind jumps back and forth from past to present, and while presently on the freighter, Daniel Faraday connects with him via satellite phone and tells him to contact his past self, and gives him (Desmond) a message to give himself (Daniel), so that he’ll (Daniel) believe him(Desmond). The hardest part about writing these time-loopy things in pronouns.
Weekend Passes… soo passee
So Desmond is off on a weekend pass, and hops a train to Cambridge and hooks up with hippy physicist Daniel. Desmond passes on some numbers and frequencies and Danny hooks him up with a front row seat to science breakthroughs. See Danny just happens to be experimenting with science that shifts someones consciousness through time, so by using the numbers that Des gave him, Daniel is able to shift his mouse, Eloise, into the future so she’s already learned the maze that he’s just finished. The downside is that after learning the maze, so she could run it earlier, Eloise dies of a brain hemorrhage because she couldn’t anchor herself in reality. She lacks a constant, and so does Desmond.
Desmond has to reconnect with his Constant. Penny. So he tries calling her, but she’s moved. So Des finds Charles Widmore at an auction where he’s just made the winning bid for Magnus Hanso’s Log from the Black Rock. Charles is a bit surprised to see Desmond, since he’s pretty sure he’s a coward, and couldn’t possibly have the stones to appear out of nowhere. Also since Charles knows that Penny is incensed with Desmond over his jilting her for Her Majesty’s Armed Forces, he gives Desmond her address so she can tell him off right proper.
At Penny’s house, Penny lets Desmond in, and tell him off, calling him a coward for leaving her, and not believing in them as a couple. Desmond just want to get his digits, and thanks to a fateful flash from the future, he knows that he’s going to call her on Christmas Eve 2004, but needs her number so the call will go through. She gives him her number than shows him the door.
Boom, next thing we know Desmond is getting out of the military slammer, and getting the boot out of Her Majesty’s Royal Scots whatchamacallit. As he leaves, he gathers the book that he’s planning to read just before he dies, Charles Dicken’s Our Mutual Friend. He also left with a bit of training in disarming munitions, but we’ll get to that a bit later. Meeting him outside of the prison gate is the very charming Charles Widmore. He’s got two things for the stalwart Desmond, all his letters he sent to Penny while in jail for 3 years, and a good wad of cash to keep Des far far away from Penny.
A three year tour on the boat Elizabeth
Des told the old man to sod off, and with the intent to prove his worth to Charles Widmore, entered a sailing race around the world, he only needed two things, to get in shape, and … a boat.
Well fate, the fickle bitch, and decided to smile on Desmond, and he managed to charm a cup of coffee and a sailboat from one Elizabeth “Libby” Smith, in a stateside StarBux. Desmond assured her that he was going to win this race, “for love.” Cue Giacchino. He starts training by running in the same stadium Jack Shepherd was using to blow off steam after putting together the spine of Sarah, his future wife, who was rendered paralyzed in a car crash with Shannon’s dad. Weird, huh? Desmond gives him a little push of fate, and says, “See you in another life, brother.”
Sailing wasn’t really Desmond strong suit, as he ends up in a storm, then lashing himself to the boat, along with his book of DOOM, he washes ashore, where he is dragged to the Swan Station by a contamination suited Kelvin Inman. Kelvin was pushing the button by himself, since Stuart Radzinsky became a pale brown spot on the ceiling of the hatch. For three years Kelvin and Desmond were the band of button pushing bruthas. With Desmond staying in the hatch, while Kelvin trekked into the presumably contaminated wilds of the island, updating Radzinsky’s invisible map with his findings. Only he wasn’t only exploring, Kelvin was also repairing Desmond’s wrecked sailboat.
We find this out when Desmond bravely follows Kelvin outside of the station, unprotected by a contamination suit, on September 22, 2004. Desmond finds Kelvin and confronts him for his not telling him about his boat, and silly button pushing for three years. They tussle, and Desmond accidently cracks Kelvin’s skull open, and then remembers… “D’oh! The Button” and scrambles back to the hatch, to press the button, but not before the electromagnetic energy that the button pressing was containing pulled Oceanic Flight 815 out of the sky.
A bit depressed about killing his button pressing buddy, Desmond considers pulling a Radzinsky and ending it all, but just as he’s about to pull the trigger, he hear’s John Locke pounding on the hatch ceiling (after Locke found out that his island exploration to the plane kills his confidant Boone Carlisle.) This dual epiphany leads these two men to a dramatic encounter when a bit of the Black Rock’s Dynamite blows the Quarantine Door off the hatch, and Kate, then Locke then Jack climb down into the darkness and find Desmond.
Deep breath … what’s past is prelude
So with relief finally showing up, Desmond skedaddles after a stray round kills the swan hatch computer. But not after showing Locke the Orientation film, and indocrinates him and Jack into the proper button pushing protocol. Desmond goes and finds his boat and casts off from the crazy island. And we never see him again, until the castaways suddenly need a boat, then Desmond drives back up to the beach, in a drunken stupor, because he’s trapped in a bloody snow globe.
The castaways give Des a moment to dry up while Team Jack hikes to othersville with Michael to allegedly retrieve Walt from their nefarious clutches, and Team Sayid takes the Koreans on a reconnoiter of the island, and it’s vista’s filled with four toed statues and rock windows. Team Locke decides it’s time for the button pushing to come to an end. Locke enlists Demond to help him distract and remove Eko from Button Pressing Control Panel Room, then starts the long countdown to not push the button. While this is going on, Desmond puts two and two together and realizes that his failure to push the button may have caused Flight 815 to Crash, and tries to continue the button pushing exercise. Only John Locke don’t play that, and smashes the monitor. Desmond flees to the bookshelf, and grabs the failsafe key from the inside cover of Our Mutual Friend, then dashes beneath the dome and twists the key in the failsafe, taking the finger out of the dam, and releasing the pent up electromagnetism, and imploding the hatch.
Okay, now things get weird
Desmond wakes up naked in the jungle, and rediscovers the photo of Penny, then thankfully he also finds Hurley and a knee length tie-dyed shirt. Desmond has a super power now, he can catch glimpses of the future. In these glimpses, he keeps seeing Charlie die, so he keeps doing things from preventing Charlie to die. Only he can’t keep doing it forever. Only until Charlie decides it’s time to sacrifice himself, does Desmond give up the saving Charlie’s life brutha mantle.
Charlie and Desmond end up in the Looking Glass station, an underwater power station that has a secret Romulan cloaking device that shields the island from detection from outsiders. The have to blow up that station, or render the cloaking device unusable in order for the people on the boat to have clear communications with the islanders, and Naomi’s handy dandy satellite phone.
Dispatching Ben’s buddies that were guarding the station, Charlie enters the Good Vibrations code on the number pad, and Boom. Suddenly the station is getting a call from one, Penelope Widmore, who tells Charlie that isn’t her boat. Right then Mikhail explodes a grenade and in order to keep the whole station from flooding, Charlie seals himself in the communication room, and drowns. Everybody be sad.
Okay, thing are picking up. Desmond hitches a ride with Sayid on Frank’s helicopter to scout out the freighter. Only Desmond goes a bit bad, when Frank can’t fly straight. He has to contact his constant, says Danny, who’s now on the beach. So through mind flashes that threatened to hemorrhage his brain, like it did to Eloise and to Minkowski, Desmond is finally able to make that call he told Penny he would on Christmas Eve 2004. Penny admits she’s been looking for him since he disappeared in that crazy boat race, that she’s spoke to Charlie, and she knows where Desmond is located. She loves him.
loose ends… where to start
So that’s about all for those four hours of TV, and it strangely all connects. *sly grin* What happened next, Penny and Desmond live happily on a sailboat far far away from Charles Widmore. They have a baby, and name him Charlie (maybe after Charlie Pace, who gave his life to reconnect them). They’re wonderfully away from it all, but alas, the island isn’t through with Desmond yet. The prelude is Daniel making an emergency psychedelic call through the dream waves from Desmond’s past to his future. This is possible because the rules don’t apply to Desmond.
Desmond wakes up and decides to head back to Jolly Old England to confront Charles Widmore once more. This time, Charles sends him, and his boat, to Los Angeles, to reconnect with Eloise Hawking. Desmond isn’t playing that game though, and storms out on Eloise, and heads back to his boat, ready to leave this daffy stuff forever. Only Benjamin Linus is on a mission to hit Charles Widmore where it hurts, killing Charles’ daughter Penny, just as Chuck killed Ben’s “daughter”. Ben shoots Desmond and tries to shoot Penny, but realizes that he’d leave little Charlie without a mother, and Ben hesitates and get’s waylaid by Desmond. Wait, didn’t he just get shot?
Oh yes, he did, because Penny and lil’ Charles take him to the ER where he goes through emergency surgery. Eloise makes a visit, introduces herself to Penny, and and on her way out, she bumps into Charles Widmore. We also find out that Daniel is Eloise and Charles’ son. Which didn’t make Eloise any happy for the reminder.
Next time we see Desmond is getting pulled out of Charles Widmore’s submarine on Hydra Island, and now we’re ready. Time for a new episode of LOST.
