Lost in Lost – Why is Desmond so important?

At the end of last week’s episode “The Package,” it was revealed that Charles Widmore had brought Desmond back to the island with him. It certainly appeared that the unlucky Scot didn’t come willingly, as he was being held in a locked room, drugged. It would seem that after half a season of wondering, Desmond does indeed have a part to play in the endgame of Lost.

Tomorrow’s episode promises to give a little more insight into Desmond’s situation. I’m curious to see if it’s going to be a more classic flashback episode, showing how and perhaps why Widmore got Desmond onto the sub, or if it’s going to be a flashsideways episode. In any case, it will be nice to have good old Des back on the show, even if his happy ending will be spoiled. By the way, if you haven’t seen the title of this week’s episode yet, it’s “Happily Ever After.” Are the writers just slapping us Desmond fans in the face with the title or is there something more to it? I guess we’ll have to wait a day or so to find out.

The question rolling around in my head is: why is Desmond so special? His name was not featured on either the cave wall or the lighthouse. Certainly, we didn’t get a full picture of either, but it would seem that Des is not a candidate. He does, however, have a strong history with the island, being tossed about by some of its mystical energy. To date, I had always assumed that his time traveling escapades were separate and unrelated to the deep mythology of the island. I had figured that most of the time travel that we had seen last season had been a means to an end to get Smokey into Locke’s body, as well as set up the explosion and alternate timeline (if the two are even related). However, now that Desmond is back in the picture, I’m wondering if there is more to it.

Of course, knowing Desmond and Widmore’s history, it could just be that Charles wanted to drag Des back to the island to keep him away from Penny. Although, it’s entirely possible that Widmore hated Desmond so much because he had some inside information about him. Perhaps he knew that Desmond had some ultimate role to play on the island and wanted to spare his daughter the pain of being with someone who had a destiny to fulfill without his young family.

With eight hours left, the final season of Lost seems to be ready to kick it into another gear. All the players appear to be back on the island. Even executive producer Damon Lindelof made it sound like the show was going to be moving faster. After “The Package” aired, he tweeted, “In one week, the conversation is going to change.” Whatever that conversation shapes up to be, I’m looking forward to jumping into it.

What are your thoughts on the return of Desmond?

Clacked by Bob Degon
on Apr 05, 2010 @ 12:00 EST5EDT