The Rogers Family

Well, Nathan called it. He called it all. From "oh, that's just Faraday and Miles at the door" to "Charles Widmore is his father," Nathan called all the surprises in last night's episode.

All in all, I was pleased with this episode. I am glad to have some back story on Daniel Faraday, and he has more depth as a character to me. Starting from the beginning, it seems as though there is a distinct lack of freedom in the Lost universe. I know that there is this whole fate vs. free will thing going on anyway, but to me, fate doesn’t rob you of your freedom. Destiny and fate things that will happen no matter what you do, whether you know about them or not. Telling someone that they have a purpose and then forcing them to live out that purpose is bondage, not freedom.

For example, if the guy wearing the red shoes was going to die, no matter what he or anyone else did to prevent it, it seems like acceptance and living his life the way he wanted would be acceptable to both the ideas of fate and free will.

So, it seems to me that forcing someone into their “destiny” defeats the purpose of destiny. Forcing the inevitable doesn’t make it an inevitable situation; it makes it a fact before the fact.

And that’s just the piano scene at the beginning!

My friend Lu basically said that Daniel had crappy parents and I agree. Eloise Hawking pushed Daniel into the life that she wanted him to have (or said he was supposed to have) without really having his welfare at heart. Their relationship can somewhat be compared to that of Jesus and God (bear with me a moment). Jesus had a destiny that was his purpose to fulfill. He knew that and accepted that. However, he was not told by God that he needed to live his whole life focused on dying for our sins and that he couldn’t have any friends and couldn’t have a life. Jesus was able to hang out with his friends and go to weddings and have good times. He didn’t have a cross sitting in front of his face all the time reminding him of his destiny and he didn’t have to hide his life from his Father because God would disapprove.

Daniel’s mother did not treat him the same way. As it is implied that Daniel’s destiny is imperative to the whole world, Mrs. Hawking pushed him and pushed him to that destiny at the cost of his own physical and mental health. And, uhem… I think Jesus’ destiny was a bit more imperative to the world and you don’t see God telling Jesus that he won’t be proud of him until he does exactly what God tells him to do. Anyway, Mrs. Hawking was selfish, no matter how much of the fate of the world she had in mind.

AND… let me point out another philosophy that applies: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few” (or the one [tear]). Once again, there was free will and a choice in Spock’s decision to save the Enterprise. The needs of the many did outweigh Spock’s need, and it may have been his destiny to save everyone, but he still could have said no. Mrs. Hawking never seemed to give Daniel the chance to say no, nor did she instill in him at a young age his ability to do so.

But I digress…

Now, let me vent a few of my frustrations with this episode. First, I am again disappointed in the production values and continuity. It was clear in “Confirmed Dead” last season when Daniel was introduced that his hair was shorter, and wet, if not gelled back a little. While they used the same scene from “Confirmed Dead” to open the 2004 portion of his story, his hair went from short and sweaty to a little longer and wispy. Call it nit-picking on my part, but I call it lazy on production’s part. I mean Lost is better than that! And are they going to explain (on the show) why Ben said Charlotte was born in 1979, but she is clearly older than that since she’s showing up as a child in 1977?

I don’t know if I said it before, but I’ll say it now, I feel like now that the show has an end date, things are being rushed and the quality is lower than in the past.

Overall, though, it was a great episode. I would ask you to voice your thoughts, but you never do… so :p on you!!

“The Variable” bullet points:

• Did Daniel really put Theresa Spencer in a coma? How does he remember it if his memory is messed up? Did someone else do it and blame Daniel?
• Is Charles Widmore telling the truth when he says that he faked the plane wreckage?
• Does Mrs. Hawking “remember” in the future that she shot and killed Daniel in 1977?
• Are Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking really Daniel’s biological parents or were they charge with raising him like Kate was with Aaron?
• Why doesn’t Daniel have a British accent?