Desmond Is Destiny's Bitch

So here I was thinking Ilana was the one to watch when sneaking up out of the corner of my eye was old lady Hawking. Eloise the Rat.

This is almost a guest post in that my trusty barista at Cafe Bella generously gave me the scoop (as my eyes popped out of my head in amazement).

Eloise Hawking -- since shooting her son on the island while she was pregnant with him (only on Lost, right?) -- has been plotting, planning and scheming to stop that event from happening. Here's what she's got to work with in this equation:

The Island. She was leader of the Others and in Richard's confidence, so I'm thinking she knows everything he knows. But then again, Ben was leader and didn't seem to know jack about the smoke monster even though Richard did. But Richard never did really like him. Maybe Rich got more tight-lipped with leaders after getting burned by Eloise. On the Island (which still doesn't have a name ARGH!), she's got magnetism, a healing-water pool, two powerful gods fighting it out, and all the mangoes you can eat.

Charles Widmore. The variable. Maybe she loves him, but he's just a pawn in her game. Now she's sent him back to the island by packing his ears full of lies about the end of the world. She really just wants to solidify the existence of the flash-sideways world and stop it from course-correcting -- which it is doing rapidly with Desmond's unwelcome help.

Desmond. The constant. We don't know when she found out but at some point, Eloise got wise to Desmond's unique ability to change the future. She's been on him like white on rice ever since. She appears in photos he looks at, drags him into parallel dimensions, the works. Now she's got her husband kidnapping him; it's no longer just subtle manipulation.

The Dharma Initiative. Eloise ran the Lamppost station for several years, so I'm starting to think she may be behind the Dharma Initiative, as a silent partner to Widmore. She created the D.I. to investigate the Island's properties and see what she can use to get her son back. She personally flies over the Island (sans chopper) each month and drops the D.I. food crates.

So where does Ilana come in? Well I'm getting to that. So Ilana is no demi-god like Eloise (or an alien). She can't shift through time and space and alternate realities. She is just a humble servant to Jacob. But humble servants have taken down demi-gods before. My prediction: Eloise gets frustrated watching her husband botch the job she sent him to do on the Island. She trashes the Lamppost and then flies to the Island atop a tub of Dharma ranch dressing yelling, "If you want something done you've gotta do it yourself!"

Ilana is there to greet her. And what we thought was a mono-a-mono e.g. Ben-Widmore/Jacob-ManInBlack turns out to be womano-a-womano. Judging by the state of Ilana's face the first time we saw her, she's a scrapper. But Eloise does drop scaffolding on people without remorse. It will be a close one!

Lost: Uncorked

We now have all the answers we need to figure out the secrets of Lost, thanks to the last phenomenal episode, "Ab Aeterno." It's all about wine. And who is our island wine expert? Desmond, of course (Oh He of the exposed chest hair)!

Desmond was a monk at the Moriah Vineyards; Moriah being the name of a biblical mountain in Jerusalem. That's important because lately the show has been all about bored gods on a mountaintop. I'm talking specifically about Jacob. He explains to us that the island is a cork that holds an evil wine (maybe an alcohol-heavy blend from Argentina). We don't yet know how an evil wine might pop its cork, but an even-money bet would be: by killing Jacob. So why then, if this would allow the evil to escape, would Jacob ever bring people to the island who might kill him? That would make him a pretty crappy guardian.

Jacob says it's to prove a point to the man-in-black. To prove to him that man is good and can change. But what happens if he makes his point? Man-in-black turns into a happy wine? Doubtful. This isn't the reason. It's because immortality is just boring. Jacob needs people to play with. He brings them to the island to watch them struggle. It's him who needs the entertainment. Bringing people has the added bonus of tormenting his nemesis until he gets so mad he smashes bottles in the wilderness.

But now for the big answers. Sure we have a metaphor for the island, but still what is it? In an earlier post I said it was a machine. I stand by this prediction. It's a machine built by Egyptians and run by magnets. When the Dharma Initiative drilled into the magnet and caused an explosion, they risked releasing the man-in-black. They then had to build the Swan station to continually build up the magnetism and retain the island's original properties. I'm thinking after the explosion in Season 5, Marvin Candle picked up the remnants of his arm and then had a visit from Jacob who told him he had popped the cork and needed to plug it back up again, which Candle did.

But now the cork is again comprised. We have no Jacob. Ilana is feckless in installing a replacement. The man-in-black has already begun his march off the island. Desmond better show up tonight and put a cork in this thing already.

O heaven! were man But constant, he were perfect.

Last week I attended Two Gentlemen of Verona at Seattle Shakespeare Company. In the beginning of the play, Proteus is madly in love with Julia. His friend Valentine (the other gentleman) leaves Verona and asks Proteus to join, but Proteus won't leave Julia. He's too in love. But then Proteus' father demands he leave and join Valentine. He cries and carries on. He gives Julia a ring (in this version he had to first extract it from his own nipple) and vows to love her eternally; she gives him a ring. He arrives in Milan and reunites with Valentine, who introduces Proteus to his own new love, Silvia. Proteus instantly falls in love with Silvia and schemes to separate she and Valentine. Both Julia and Silvia are stunned at Proteus' inconstancy.

Here is where Lost comes in. Watching this week's episode, Recon, I was struck by how much Sawyer is like Proteus. He is madly in love with Juliet (Shakespeare!) and has a ring he meant to give her. She dies and he wails and cries on the beach and wipes his salty tears on Kate's sleeve. The next day this is forgotton and he's all "How YOU doin'" to Kate on the beach. And in the flash sideways he's knockin' boots with not one, but two other women.

Sure, it's not 100% fair to condemn him for violating Juliet's memory in a flash-sideways. But his undercover name was "LeFleur" so he still has loyalties to some memories/impressions from other timelines.

Now I was never a big Juliet fan myself, and I realize that in this very column I begged for her death, but for Sawyer to completely forget her in a couple episodes is just harsh. Just like Proteus would not leave Verona because of Julia, Sawyer would not leave the island because of Juliet. And now she's long forgotten and he's ready to go down ... in the sub ... with Kate.

I never believed Sawyer really loved Juliet -- and neither did Juliet for that matter. This episode was the proof. Juliet, had you read "He's Just Not That Into You" you might still be alive today.