Recap: LOST 'The Variable' (S5,E14)

Daniel is back and he's more confusing than ever. Not only can you change things in the past, but this may not be your past at all, it might be your present. Or maybe not. Either way, Faraday returns to confound and further complicate matters in the latest episode of LOST. As always, reader beward ... spoilers ahead.
The Variable
What we learned
- Eloise Hawking, Daniels mom (did we know that she was his mom before; I feel like we did or at least, that it was obvious), has manipulated Daniels life to get him to the island; getting him to become a scientist, the journal, etc.
- Somewhere between graduating Oxford and the crash of Oceanic Flight 815, Daniel loses his mind (wherein Charles visits, tells him the crash is an eloborate fake, and that Daniel has to go the island).
- So Daniel is back because he saw the photograph of Jack, Hurley and Kate (but how did he find that photo?)
- Apparently Eloise was wrong in telling Jack that he (and everyone else) had to go back to the island
- Daniel then get Miles to drive him to the Orchid station to confront Dr. Chang about the mass of energy they are inevitably going to release (and cause the "incident").
- The survivors all congregate for a meeting at Sawyers about what to do, based on Daniels insistance that they leave. As usual, Sawyer and Jack disagree.
- Sawyer says "Freckles" to Kate, and Julet decides to give Jack the code to the fence so that Daniel can visit the hostiles.
- All hell breaks loose as Daniel (Jack and Kate) attempt to go visit the hositles; and doesn't Jack show uncommon comfort and control of a firearm for a doctor? Radzinsky gets shot in the hand, comes to visit "LeFleur" and -- uh oh -- discovers Phil in the closet. Jigs up.
- Daniel believes that he was incorrect in assuming that you cannot change anything in the past, because of variables. The variables are them (Jack, Daniel, Kate, Hurley, Miles, etc). He believes that he can avoid the "incident" -- and the need for the Hatch, and the containment unit, and the button being pushed, and Desmond missing the button, which causes 815 to crash -- if he can get to the "hostiles", get the hydrogen bomb and detonate it and offset the electromagnetic energy that Dharma released.
- Free will trumps everything
- While looking for Eloise at the "hostiles" campsite, Richard emerges to tell Daniel that she's gone and then BANG; she shoots Daniel. He whispers "You...knew this was going to happen, but you sent me here anyway."
- Charles Widmore is Daniels father (which I called before it happend).

What We Don't Know
- Is Daniel actually dead?
- What caused Daniel's memory lapses and mental breakdown?
- Has Eloise been manipulating Daniel to cause all of this to happen, or to prevent it? Did she always know that she'd shoot him or is shooting him the catalyst to change the outcome?
- I still want to know how and why Jack's father is involved in all this.
- "What lies the shadow of the statue"
- Does anyone know if the "What did you just see?" commercials (on TV) were related to LOST or something else entriely?
What did you all think? Pretty mind blowing, with even more "variables" to consider. There's only 1 season after this, right?

Comments for "Recap: LOST 'The Variable' (S5,E14)"
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First of all, this was one of my favorite episodes of all time. I loved every minute of it.
However, I'm stuck on one thing: A few episodes back when Charlotte dies, she says something along the lines of Daniel telling her to never come back to the island. She has a memory of this. This was her past when it was Daniel's present. Does this mean they are not able to stop the electromagnetism and everything happens again just like it did before? If Daniel is right in that he can stop it, Oceanic 815 never crashes and Charlotte never arrives on the island via the freighter, right?
Or are they stuck in the time loop and as it's been hinted before, the island course corrects itself to make sure the events that are suppose to happen happen?
by Jarrett Fuller
∞ Thursday, April 30th, 2009
I'm starting to think that this is just a long version of Back To The Future II -- where Doc explains that you can create this alternate time reality (that splits due to interference in the past). It seems to me that everything in the future is merely a disguised reality, or a reality set to the consequences of messing with time and science in general. I think the ultimate corrector of this has to be some Egyptian god (Richard?) or guardian of time or something. Otherwise you're right, Charlotte wouldn't have that memory of a "crazy old man"
by Paul
∞ Thursday, April 30th, 2009
so you think it will end then with them simply preventing the crash by altering the past so that we can watch everyone walk off into the sunset without any knowledge of what "could have been"?
by hwm
∞ Thursday, April 30th, 2009
I believe it will all be an autistic boys imagination.
by Paul
∞ Thursday, April 30th, 2009
I'm pretty sure Daniel's mental breakdown was a combo of his time travel experiments on himself at Oxford along with the time travel experiment that went wrong with his girlfriend Theresa, sending her into a coma state.
I may be going out on a limb, but what if Jacob represents himself through certain dead people on the island; Jack's dad, Claire, maybe now Locke ("dead is dead")? Locke definitely came back to the island this time with confidence and a seemingly quiet understanding of the island. But if that's true, Jacob's being isn't limited to the island.
I don't think the "What did you see?" commercials were related to LOST... In the two ads I saw, I saw a baby (ultrasound) and kids (getting out of school); anti-abortion. It'll be interesting to see if they do a followup ad with the results from their website.
by Ben
∞ Thursday, April 30th, 2009
Are you looking for coffee gifts? We can tell you more about the coffee gifts including coffee machines and coffee pods.
by coffeeatea
∞ Thursday, July 29th, 2010