We're gonna party like it's 1996!

I think I'll just type the phrase "Lost rocked the fucking house this week, again!" somewhere, and cut and past it every single week instead of just typing it over and over. Because really, Thursday's episode, "The Constant," was Lost at the top of its game. Again. This one had everything. Great performances, more mysteries, some answers, humor and even some tear welling (if I was that kind of sentimental) moments from Des and Penny.

I had a wonderful dinner Thursday evening that involved several cocktails and an abundance of red wine. So maybe it was just the grapes talking, but I kept writing down notes as I was watching that mainly consisted of "fuk yeah!" "awsum" "best this seson" and "hole shit." (Yes, my spelling and handwriting is awful after a bottle of wine).

I jotted down a lot of quotes, too, because not only was this ep wonderfully acted, it was tightly and entertainingly well written. In a nutshell: During the copter flight to the freighter, Des becomes "unstuck in time" between the present (x-mas 2004) and the past (1996, while he's serving in the Scottish army). Fortunately, we're spared a lot of grandfather paradox questions because of the nature of time travel here, where it is just your "consciousness" that moves back and forth across time. Past Des "remembers" things happening to the future Des, though the future/present Des forgets what happened in the interim period between 1996 and 2004. That is, until he latches on to a "constant" at the suggestion of past Faraday, whom he looks up at 1996 Oxford at the suggestion of 2004 Faraday, who oddly doesn't seem to have much recall of his own of meeting 1996 Des. That sounds confusing, but damned if it didn't play well. Anyhoo, Faraday is experimenting with time travel in 1996, and 2004 Faraday's suggestions of frequency and hertz (not the rental car, though I would definitely switch from Avis if they included a time travel option along with satellite radio and a GPS) via time tripping Des allows Daniel a breakthrough in the technology that puts a rat through time. Of course, the rat's brain becomes overloaded and she dies eventually, as does Minkowski, who was also suffering the effects of time travel. Guess they didn't have a "constant," which is something that can emotionally "anchor" you in each time. Desmond's is, of course, Penny.

Quotes, observations and thoughts:

• "Why are you flying directly into the thunderhead?"
• "I never had a dream that was so vivid!"
• "Who are you? How do you know my name?"
• Is there some equation that explains the time actually spent in the past by a future self, and the amount of time the future self is unconscious? I don't think it's necessarily 1 to 1. I also noted at one point, that "75 minutes = 5 minutes."
  
• By the way, how fucking awesome was that new Iron Man trailer that aired during Lost Thursday? Can't wait for this flick.
• Minkowski: "It's happening to you, too, isn't it?" (one of the drunken notes I scribbled at this point was "banging catwoman." It took me a few moments to realize I was referencing that the actor playing Minkowski was Fisher Stevens, widely known for the Short Circuit movies, who also dated Michelle Pfeiffer in the late 80s. You're a lucky man, George Minkowski).
• So it took the test rocket 31 minutes to get to the island, yet the copter left at dusk and landed in the middle of the day?
• "Side effects." No shit. Tell that to Eloise the rat.
• Voice communications and sat phones can work through the time distillation, apparently.
• The doc on the freighter was also the doctor in Angel's last season (Marc Vann), who gave Gunn the "legal upgrades."
• "This is where I do the things Oxford frowns upon." I'm sure Bill Clinton said the same thing during the late 60s.
• "So what do you put on your head?"
• "Uh..............yeah."
• "Why would I go to an island?"
• Sayid is really the modern day MacGyver, isn't he?
• Minkowski's last words: "I can't get back."
• "Looks like you guys have a friend on this boat." Surely this is Michael, right?
• "I know about the island. I spoke to your friend Charlie."
• "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be MY constant."
• So in 1996 Penny's father, Charles Widmore, was bidding on a diary from the first mate of the Black Rock. It was owned by someone named "Hanso" (of the mysterious Hanso Foundation) and supposedly never read until now. What do you think we'll find in this? And is Charles more connected to the shenanigans on the island than we know?
• Why was Minkowski ordered not to answer calls from Penny? How did she know how to call the boat in the first place?
• Though I didn't jot them all down, there were multiple instances of "the numbers" on this ep.
• If "The Constant" reminded fellow geeks of Star Trek: TNG's "All Good Things" series finale (where Picard becomes "unstuck in time"), you're not alone and it's not a coincidence. Check out this interview with Damon Lindelof at trekmovie.com.
• Does the fact that present Faraday doesn't remember past/present Des indicate that he is indeed suffering from some type of memory loss? Does this shed more light on the card game last week?

This week: "The Other Woman" featuring Juliet.