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Lost
Flashes Before
Your Eyes
Airdate: 02.14.2007 If
we’re to believe the axioms of mainstream entertainment,
then the good guy always comes out on top, the bad guy is
always punished, and you only get one shot in life, so live
it up. That is, of course, unless your last name is McFly
and you’re best friends with Doc Brown.
Whatever.
The point is, it’s uncommon that anyone is ever given
a second chance to undo mistakes they’ve already made,
but in “Flashes Before Your Eyes,” our man Desmond
is given just that. The stinging irony is that despite his
second shot at making things right with his beloved Penelope,
he willingly repeats his previous mistakes for the greater
good of humankind.
So it
seems that Desmond is becoming the Lost equivalent
of Odysseus, forever lost at sea (in this case the island),
and eternally pining after his long lost love. But is that
all there is to everyone’s beloved Scotsman?
Unlike the Homeric
hero, Desmond is plagued with premonitions, or flashes as
he calls them. These appear to stem from his brief stint
traveling back in time prior to turning the failsafe key
inside the Swan Station. As anyone whose watched the episode
knows, Desmond jumped back in time to re-live a series of
events involving his beloved Penny, her father Charles Widmore,
and of course, Charlie from Des’ inevitable future
on the island.
An examination
of the recurrence of the color red led me to dive deeper
into Charles Widmore’s whiskey of choice, MacCutcheon’s.
It features a distinct red label, and Widmore uses it to
insult Desmond in response to his request for permission
to marry Penny. Charlie also uses the whiskey in an attempt
to pry the truth about Desmond’s premonitions from
the Scotsman.
The word MacCutcheon
ties back into the numbers in an odd way. In chess, the
MacCutcheon defense is a variation on the French defense.
This variation is unique in that it weakens the kingside
dark squares while affording the opportunity to still castle
your opponent on the queenside.
Not
a chess player? Me, neither, although I’m fairly certain
that the references to king and queen may be intentional.
After all, Widmore is portrayed with regal stature, in a
corporately domineering way. Of even greater significance
is the method in which one executes the MacCutcheon defense.
Here is a hint: it involves counterattacks using both 4
and 8.
The use of MacCutcheon’s
whiskey as an insult immediately follows a scene in which
Desmond witnesses a parcel being delivered to Widmore Industries
“for 815.” This could be extrapolated into “4,
8, 15,” and given the peculiar look the delivery man
gave Desmond I’m betting there is something to this.
Alas,
this column wouldn’t be called “Lost…in
Deconstruction” if we didn’t do just that. During
Desmond’s run-in with Ms. Hawking, we learn that Desmond’s
full name is Desmond David Hume – no doubt in reference
to 18th century Scottish philosopher David Home.
David Home, who
changed his surname to Hume, is notable for being heavily
influenced by John Locke, and for his somewhat flawed musings
on sensory perception and causality.
Many
question whether or not Hume was actually a great philosopher,
or merely a shrewd thinker, and this reputation brings to
mind Desmond’s own run-ins with the word “great.”
Widmore informs him that he will never be a great man, and
Ms. Hawking expresses that pushing the button in the hatch
is the only truly great thing he will ever achieve.
In addition,
Hume’s approach to causality, while flawed, is strikingly
familiar to Desmond’s attempts to save Charlie from
his fate. Hume believed that while “x may cause y,”
what is more true is that “x happened, then y happened,”
and that they must occur in this order.
Desmond exemplifies
this belief system when he attempts to predict the outcome
of the soccer match in the pub. He assumes that because
the same song comes on the jukebox, that the next outcome
will be a come-from-behind victory that he recalls from
his previous trip through time. This fails to prove true,
as just because x happened does not mean that y is about
to happen.
Ms. Hawking,
a mysteriously prescient woman who attempts to steer Desmond
down his fated path, touches on this very point. During
their debate over Desmond’s intent to propose there
is a sequence involving a man in red shoes who suffers a
horrible fate.
His
death is reminiscent of The Wizard of Oz, another
film involving time travel or spatial displacement depending
on your interpretation. Ms. Hawking insists that no matter
what she could have said or done, the universe would have
found a way to course correct by killing the man in the
red shoes in some other fashion.
While much of
this is likely background inspiration for the character,
I still question how, or if, our Desmond Hume will follow
in the footsteps of David Hume and actually become influenced
by our very own John Locke? Also, how much longer will we
wait to learn more about Ms. Hawking?
Only
time will tell.
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