Review: Lost 4.5: The Constant

Note: If you want to understand these reviews, I'd direct you to Lostpedia's Season Four portal. All of the images in my Lost reviews have been taken from Lostpedia, and the plot there goes into greater detail.

A dying Desmond calls his consant, Penny.

I enjoy Lost the most when it's presented as a primarily sci-fi based show with a few mystic elements. Sci-fi often channels the emotive, as well as being a little more coherant than "a wizard did it". The Constant is a Desmond-centric episode, so one knows (based on the character's track record with time-travel) that something funky is going to happen.
     A break from formula this week, as during the flight over to the freighter Desmond suddenly wakes up in a Scottish barracks in 1996, with no knowledge of the Island. Jumping back and forth between 1996 and 2004, the confused Desmond thinks he's in the former. It's revealed, once they get on the freighter, that this is a product of passing the invisible barrier between the Island and the outside world. Daniel Faraday, on the Island, explains to Desmond over the phone that he needs to find him in Oxford.
     On leave from the Army, Desmond meets the 1996 Faraday, who confirms his future self's theory and explains to Desmond that he's become unstuck in time; his consciousness is jumping back and forth, with no constant inbetween. A Constant is something notably similar in both time zones. Remembering heartbroken girlfriend Penny, he finds her and begs her to give him her number, on condition that he will only ring it in eight years. He skips back, and rings Penny from the freighter, who answers and reveals that she's been looking for Desmond for the past three years.

Desmond wakes up in 1996.

     This episode could have so-easily gone wrong, with an experimental format and a lot of sci-fi-babble concepts at play. But it didn't, and the roller-coaster ride of intrigue and emotion is only made more potent through the singular focus on Desmond. It was also a good hour for Michael Faraday, who despite acting like little more than Mr. Exposition does also provide some great irony in the discreapancies between his future and former selves.
     An episode so good, then, that it leaves very little to be said. The Constant hits the right buttons at the right time, with the right mix of elements and expert direction, as well as a beautiful score from Michael Giacchino. Lost at its best.


Thanks.