This device kills electromagnetism.
When a television show promotes an episode with the word “explosive,” you can expect some things:
1) There will be an explosion.
2) You will be emotionally manipulated.
3) A shocking ending.
And the “explosive” 100th episode of Lost really didn’t disappoint.
The episode mostly focuses around Daniel Faraday’s back story and his relationship with his mother, the apparent master of time-travel and premonition Eloise Hawking.
Here’s a hint: It’s not a good relationship, and for some very good reasons.
SPOILERS AHEAD!
The biggest reason may be that Eloise Hawking kills her adult son while he is stuck in time in the 1970s, evidently before he’s even born. That’s a hard thing to explain, so let me go a little deeper.
We find out in this episode that Faraday is actually the son of Eloise and the notorious Charles Widmore — yes, the wealthy industrialist, former leader of the Others/Hostiles and an all around bad dude. Eloise raises Daniel with a focus on science and insists on “his work” and pushes him hard toward studying time travel and physics his entire life.
This eventually leads Faraday to lose his mind and his memory, and he ends up crying while watching the wreckage of Oceanic flight 815. Widmore — his father — comes and offers him a job trying to find the island on the freighter. Hawking tells Faraday he should take it, because it will heal his memory.
And then: Faraday comes to the island on the freighter, travels through time, joins the DHARMA Initiative as a scientist, goes to 1970s Ann Arbor, hatches a plan to change history, gets in a gun fight with some dark-jump-suited DHARMA dudes, sticks up Richard Alpert and is shot by his own mother, in the back, by a rifle in the last moments of the show.
Got it? Good.
The episode boils down to another battle of science versus faith, which seems to be a prevailing theme this season. Faraday believes that he can change history through science — “People are the variable!” he exclaims wild-eyed. His preferred method to change history? A half-baked plan to negate an electromagnetic explosion by detonation an atomic bomb.
Because, honestly, what could prove your free will more than setting off a nuclear blast on a small, populated island?
His mother, on the other hand, sticks to predestination. The troublesome part of the entire show — the emotionally manipulative one — is that she knows she will eventually kill Daniel in his future, her past. We find out later it’s something that’s weighed on her all her life.
Who wins in this battle?
Predestination.
Whatever the outcome of Faraday’s plot — and it seems that Jack plans to continue it — it’s beneficial for Eloise and the Others/Hostiles. Why else would she raise Faraday with the expressed purpose of making him come to the island to be killed? What has happened has happened, and it seems that it’s going to happen no matter what anyone does.
Or, maybe, because of what they do.
What do you think? Free will or predestination? Does anything anyone does on the island even matter anymore? Post a comment below.
How do we know Faraday is really dead? He could come back to life, just as others have (I.E., Locke).
Good point. It’s entirely possible, but I think he’s really dead.
Eloise said she “sacrificed” a lot.
I, like Ron, initially thought that he would still be alive. The island can certainly do that to people. However, when Daniel’s stated purpose is to detonate the bomb which would destroy the island, it seems to me that “the island” has ways to ensure its self-preservation.
Personally, I like Daniel (the character) his interaction with Miles is priceless. At the end of the last episode (and beginning of this one) where he comes out of the sub, suprises Miles, and just says Hi Miles. That was great.
By the way. I have one GREAT concern. This show is getting more complicated and losing more viewers, I have a sneaking suspicion that we’ll never see the end. I mean are there are real guarantees that it will make it to next season? I could see the next work pulling the plug. (Although even if they are losing money on the series, once it is over, they can expect a continued stream from the DVDs).
I don’t know if cancellation is a real concern or not.
The network will still have a very dedicated (and large) group of people who will watch the show no matter how complicated it gets. And I think they know exactly what products they can sell to those fans to keep their advertisers.
An end date is already set, so we have to see the end.
(I hope.)