LOST Thoughts – S5 E14

Here are my thoughts on the fourteenth episode of Lost (season five), “The Variable”:

1. When Penny asked Eloise if Ben was her son, Mrs. Hawking reflexively reacted as if she had just taken a swig of ’77 vintage Dharma milk.  She no likey the Linus!
2. Exactly how far is it from Dharmaville to the sub dock?  Dr. Chang left his cottage with adult Miles immediately after reading baby Miles a bedtime story, so that had to have been around 8:00 p.m.  When they get to the sub to pick up Faraday, it’s the middle of the night.  Then, when Faraday insists on rushing directly to Jack’s cottage, it’s already broad daylight.  Either it’s a 12-hour round trip by VW microbus, or the island is actually part of the Aleutian Chain during Summer.
3. It didn’t take but one “Freckles” to come out of the mouth of domesticated Sawyer to trigger Juliet’s “hell hath” reflex mechanism.  I love how she just immediately whips out the sonic fence code for Kate, right after shooting Sawyer a look that would have resulted in a brutal rolling pin assault, had this been a Snuffy Smith comic.
4. What happened to cause Eloise to suddenly stop boy Faraday from practicing the piano and insist he immediately become the world’s youngest quantum physicist?  It really seems as if she had just received some sort of directive to do so, right before sauntering into the living room.  The obvious culprit would appear to be Widmore, who just might also be Faraday’s pappy.  If so, exactly what sort of leverage does he have over her?  A set of racy Polaroids, perhaps?  One can only imagine what sort of kinky stuff those two got into back in the day, with nothing more than a tent and an arsenal of rifles at their disposal…I’ll take “Compromising Positions” for $500, Alex!
5. OK, so let me get this straight…Dr. Chang thinks Faraday is punking him with all of his “I’m from the future, catastrophe is imminent,” yet his only response is to tell Faraday to stay away from him.  Wouldn’t he normally consider Faraday some sort of intruder/threat requiring either imprisonment or execution?  I have a hunch that Chang actually believes Faraday, but is putting on an act in front of everyone else that it’s all crazy talk, just so the garden variety construction grunts don’t find out what’s really going on.
6. Why doesn’t Miles back up Faraday when Daniel tells Dr. Chang that Miles is his son as an adult?  He seems intrigued by his dad, but only from the vantage point of anonymity.  It’s not like he’s still sporting the ridiculous mohawk and piercings, which no doubt would have resulted in mocking derision from his father.  I know Hurley’s already done the Star Wars analogy to death, but even Luke tried to forge a relationship with Vader (albeit very briefly) after the initial shock of discovering he was his father.  Sure, Chang’s an a-hole, but so are/were most of our dads, right?  I hope we eventually see Miles reach out to his dad…before Jughead goes BOOM!
7. For being such a genius, Faraday sure is a clumsy idiot when trying to remain inconspicuous.  When he’s not almost knocking Dr. Chang unconscious with a metal canister, he’s failing to grasp the concept of a concealed weapon, by brandishing his gun every time he tries to convince someone he’s just a mild-mannered nerd.  Both the gunfight at the Dharma motor pool and his being shot down by pre-mama Eloise were the direct result of his “Barney Fife meets Bill Nye The Science Guy” approach.
8. Sawyer hasn’t been as forthcoming with the hilarious nicknames since becoming LaFleur, but he really delivered a classic with “Twitchy.”  It’s too bad Radzinsky and the jumpsuit mafia busted in before Sawyer had a chance to bestow a similarly gut-busting nickname on closeted Phil.  Maybe he’ll come up with one for Radzinsky, now that his cover’s been blown.  I was going to suggest “Lefty,” until I remembered that Radz wasn’t shot in the right hand.
9. Faraday’s already plenty creepy as it is, but whenever he starts fixating on little girl Charlotte, my Amber Alert radar starts going crazy.  Where’s McGruff when you need him?  And what made things even more eerie about Faraday’s encounter with little girl Charlotte on the swing was that his speech to her amounted to a relative encapsulation of the lyrics to “Possum Kingdom” by The Toadies.  C’mon, man…don’t talk about death to little girls!  And don’t do it while simultaneously smiling and crying.  Somebody probably needs to fit this pedo with an ankle monitoring bracelet.  He’s about a bottle of lotion, a basket and a tuck away from being Jame Gumb.
10. Back to the Eloise-Faraday mother-son relationship for a second…what was up with her being so mean to his girlfriend at graduation?  I mean, I could understand if Faraday was dating a Kardashian or some equally reprehensible creature, but his girlfriend seemed nice enough.  Certainly no worse than a retired Spice Girl, which is still several steps up the slut chain from the Paris Hiltons of the world.