The Universe Has a Way of Course-Correcting

Last night, I watched the best Lost episode of all three seasons. Ever.

The episode is the eighth of Season Three, fourth on disc two, entitled "Flashes Before Your Eyes." It focuses on Desmond, the crazy Scotsman who we first meet in Season Two, pushing the button in the Hatch (actually, I think he makes a brief appearance in Season One during a Jack flashback).

At the end of Season Two, Desmond turns the fail-safe key to circumvent the Hatch's self-destruct sequence (or whatever it was counting down to.) It's unclear what exactly happened, but the Hatch exploded anyway. Desmond wakes up at the start of Season Three naked, bloodied, and disorientated. He makes his way back to the shore to join the rest of the stranded islanders, and in the ensuing episodes, discovers he's suddenly developed some precognitive powers. He foresees a speech that John gives a bit later, builds a lightning rod that absorbs a strike on Claire and Charlie's hut, and saves Claire from drowning.

But it turns out, Desmond isn't clairvoyant, he's time traveling. He's reliving parts of his life over again. He's not sure how many times he's redone his life, but he recalls enough bits and pieces that he can foresee certain events before they happen and intervene if he chooses.

Or can he?

He wants to stay with Penny, but he finds he can't. He wants to save Claire from dying, but he can't. An elderly woman interrupts the flow of his time traveling and teaches him a law of fate, informing him that the universe "has a way of course-correcting." Meaning, people that are meant to do something will end up doing it no matter how much they struggle to do otherwise. If someone is meant to die at a certain time, they will die, despite all efforts to the contrary. If someone is meant to be stranded on and island and push a button to prevent world Armageddon, then the universe will ravel events to make that happen.

This episode is devoted almost entirely to Desmond's flashback to life in England some years before he ends up on the island. I know I said I preferred island story events to the character flashbacks, but Desmond's plight had me riveted. And man, do I sympathize with him. He desperately misses Penny and wants to be with her more than anything. He has to relive the moment when he breaks their relationship off and he knows that he can't alter this moment to be with her because his destiny is on the island.

At the end of the episode, he explains all this to Charlie. As the audience, we know more than Charlie knows. We know that Desmond time travels, that he has been saving Claire because she is destined to die. But in a final twist that literally sent shivers down my spine, Desmond patiently and painfully explains to Charlie that it isn't Claire he has been trying to save, but Charlie. The lighting bolt was destined to strike Charlie, not Claire. Claire does begin to drown, but before Charlie has the chance to swim out to save her--and drown himself--Desmond intervenes and pulls her out. Desmond ends by saying he doesn't know how much longer he can continue defying fate, that he doesn't know how much longer he can continue saving Charlie.

The universe has a way of course-correcting.