So… Apparently Desmond is a “Jumper” ‘cept he keeps jumping around his own his life, and Apparently trading places with the Des in the past. He’s time jumping! He keeps jumping back and forth! But somehow, the folks on the freighter were ready for something like this. How did they know? This doesn’t fit the traditional flashback/forward format of the show, but then again, Dessie has broken those rules before.
Dude!! I knew I heard Fisher King’s voice! and now we know why he won’t answer the phone, huh? *S* Seems he and buddy tried to get a peek at the island and sailed through a time storm. Now the buddy is dead and Fisher King is FUBAR.
So this whole episode was set up to let us know about the rift in time on the island. That “storm” they passed through? not a storm, as much as a break in time. Des already had trouble with time jumping and visions of the future, and Faraday says that prolonged exposure to radiation will cause problems. Did anyone hear Faraday say that he’d been exposed to radiation for long time due to his experiments with Eloise? You see that note on his Journal?? That Des Hume would be his constant? I think he sent Des to meet him in order to save himself. Faraday doesn’t have many friends, so sending past Des to meet up with past Faraday is likely the only way that Faraday can create a constant for himself. Likely Faraday is “jumping” to a different year, most likely sometime after 1996, because otherwise Past Faraday would totally believe future Des when he was approached. However, it’s plausible that Faraday is having flashes of the future like Des had on the island. Maybe on island you don’t jump time so much as see flashes of the future. I mean, yea, Des jumped for a brief time during the hatch explosion, but Faraday explained the exposure to radiation of electromagnetism will make your consciousness jump. Since the consciousness is jumping, it’s possible that past Des won’t remember anything, or else it will seem like a strange dream, if future Des is successful in stopping the jumps. But Penny sure will.
Which brings me to pappa Widmore buying the journal of the Black Rock. Mr. Widmore hated Des when Des wanted to marry Penny. I think his reason for giving Des the address is nothing more than wanting to let Penny smack this guy down, and kick him out of her life forever. But! He bought the journal of the Black Rock, that boat that’s stuck in the middle of the island?? Maybe, just maybe, there is a note in the journal about the island. Maybe that’s how Penny knows about the island. Maybe the first mate of the Black Rock was the only one to escape the island somehow, with the journal, in which he wrote about time jumping (makes sense since Faraday is carrying a journal everywhere and new notes appear in it), and the island’s approximate location. In this past summer’s ARG, we learned that Oscar Talbot, heading the expedition that was supposedly looking for the Black Rock, works for the Maxwell Group, which is a division of Widmore Industries. Black Rock was run by the Hanso famliy. The Hanso’s and Widmore’s go way back. In the book, Bad Twin, released as part of the original ARG, Widmore mentions that he liked ol’ Alavar, and can’t stand Mittlewerk. For good reason as Mittlewerk was the very bad guy in the game. The expedition was looking for the Black Rock, yet they stumbled on the “wreckage” of 815, only it wasn’t. Remember Frank saw the footage on TV and knew right away it wasn’t the right guy in the people in the cockpit. Interestingly enough, Frank is soon afterward recruited to fly for the freighter looking for the island. It’s possible that by this point, the Maxwell group and Dharma know that 815 is on the island. They arrange the finding of815, completely playing Sam Thomas for a fool, to throw others off the scent of the island, and stop the people like Sam who want to know what happened to the plane. The Hanso’s knew about the island, and it’s potential. That’s why they set up Dharma there. Widmore probably knew something about Alavar’s insider info in the journal. That would be why he paid so much money for the journal. With Alavar missing, and Tovard selling off the journal (most likely without knowing what it contained, just saw it as a chance to make some fast money), Widmore steps up, and wants to find not only the island, but the abandoned Dharma system and all the information saved there. But! I think Daddy Widmore dies in 2001. That would explain how Penny gets knowledge of the island. She’s a smart woman. She knows that Des said it would be 8 years, and at that point it would have been 5. She knew he was sailing in the race to win over her dad, and his approx location when he disappeared completely, no traces of him at all. She puts his disappearance together with the Des who was acting very strange, and promised to call in 8 years. So she started trying to find the island. Her guys stationed in the Arctic were tasked to look for electromagnetic anomalies. She may have even heard of this “quack” Faraday and his theories of time travel, being that they all live in England. She may even talk to him. I think the Radio Guy was told not to answer because at this point I’m not sure that Penny controls Widmore. It’s possible that someone else close to her, but with power in the company knows she is looking for Des at this island, and does not want her to know that they’ve sent a boat out there to gather Dharma intel. Would explain how she doesn’t know about the boat when Maxwell Group is part of Widmore, and Widmore controls the Journal.
I think that Faraday came on this mission because Future Faraday is jumping around. He messed himself up in his experiments. Future Faraday has had a run in with Desmond at the island, and sends him back to find him at the beginning. That’s how Faraday knows the island exists where time can be bent. That knowledge is why he’s recruited for the mission to the island. After all, they recruited Frank after he ID’ed the “crash site” as a fake. He may even be jumping to several different years. Future Faraday knows that he has to help Desmond. That’s why he was cool with Des going to the ship, and that’s why he keeps spilling the beans about what is going on with the island. Future Faraday is giving himself a constant in all the time periods he jumps too, as well as in his past, before the jumps start. Perhaps Future Faraday knows that all but six die in the rescue due to a screwy time bend and a bad trip. I think he’s found a way to slow down the effects enough to continue to live in Future, until he can set up his Constant and save himself.
It seems that the Past Consciousness doesn’t *know* what happened in future, but can somehow feel that something is not right, or knows when something will be fine. That would explain why Past Des smiles when he leaves Penny. He knows that somehow it will work out. He just doesn’t know how. That’s why he holds on to Penny’s picture all those lonely years on the island. He’s not sure how, but somehow he knows she will find him and it will be ok. It also explains why Faraday is crying when 815 is “discovered,” but doesn’t know why it makes him sad. Future Faraday knows the fate of the real people, and it’s possible that he is jumping to the time frame just before the mission. Explains why the doctor on board thinks Faraday is useless and can’t even help himself. I think Faraday’s journal holds the key. I know that the consciousness jumps, and doesn’t physically take anything with him, but that journal looks really old. Plus, it has numbers and equations from back in 1996. I think Faraday is hanging on to it specifically because when Future Faraday jumps back, he can write in the journal and give present day or even past Faraday the answers he needs.
Dude. I’m sure I could go on and on… but I’ll wrap it up there.
One last thing – I think maybe Ben has mastered the time bend and can easily jump to where he wants to. And the “friend” on the boat that is helping Des and Sayid is Frank. He’s not too sure about all these people. this started out as a paycheck to him, but now that they’ve found the survivors of 815, which he saw on the news “crashed” in the water with no survivors… well… yea. He’s really suspicious of who these people are.