Lost: Season 4, Episode 5 "The Constant" Review

 "I love you, Penny."

-Desmond Hume

"The Constant" picks up with Frank (Jeff Fahey), Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick), and Sayid (Naveen Andrews) flying out to the freighter.  Frank tries to fly the chopper on the bearing given to him by Faraday (Jeremy Davies), but a thunderstorm knocks him off course, which cause Desmond's consciousness to travel back to 1996 when he was in the army.

When he snaps back to 2004, he doesn't know where he is or recognize Sayid or Frank and starts to freak out.  When they land on the freighter, the crew brings Desmond down to the medical bay, where he meets George Minkowski (Fisher Stevens), who is suffering from time-displacement as well.

Sayid gets ahold of the beach and gets Faraday on the phone with Desmond.  Faraday tells him to travel to Oxford University to find him in 1996 and gives Desmond some machine settings to convince past Faraday to believe him.  As Desmond flashes back and forth, he makes it to young Faraday at Oxford, who uses the machine settings to finish his machine that can dislodge a rat in time, however this ends up killing the rat because it had no constant or anchor to keep it grounded in time.  Faraday tells Desmond he needs to find his constant.

In the past, Desmond manages to get Penny Widmore's (Sonya Walger) address from her father, Charlies (Alan Dale).  He goes to tell her he will call her on Christmas Eve of 2004 and gets her phone number.

In the future, Sayid, Desmond, and George are all locked in the medical bay, but are let out by someone.  Desmond figures out he needs to call Penny and wants to go to the communications room.  George tells them that the equipment was sabotaged.  The three of them sneak to the communications room, but George ends up dying due to the displacement.  Sayid manages to fix the equipment and Desmond calls Penny.  They profess their love for each other and Penny tells him she knows about the island and has been looking for him for three years.  The line disconnects, but it was enough for Desmond to regain his memories and fix his displacement.

Back on the beach, Faraday reads his notebook.  Written inside are the words, "If anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant."

What Works:

In all honesty, I don't know how much needs to be said about "The Constant."  Most people consider this to be the best episode of Lost.  I personally can't put it above "Through the Looking Glass," but this is absolutely an elite episode of the show and I would never criticize anyone for putting this at number 1.  Even though this episode has been talked about a million times, I'm still gonna throw my two cents in.

Henry Ian Cusick is at his best when he gets to play frantic Desmond.  When he is panicking and freaking out, he makes the audience start to freak out along with him.  His performance is incredible from start to finish in both timelines.

The highlight of the episode is the phone call between Desmond and Penny.  Apart from death scenes, I would argue this is the most emotional moment in all of Lost.  Cusick and Walger are at the top of their game.  Even though they aren't on screen together, their performances and the editing really make the tears well up.  It's a conversation we've been dying to see and it's executed to perfection.

Jeremy Davies also does a fantastic here, as per usual.  He's great on the island, but it's also fun to see a more dickish version of him at Oxford.  I love watching Faraday babble about stuff and we get plenty of it here.

"The Constant" also is another test for Lost with sticking its toe into the hard sci-fi elements coming in season 5.  "The Constant" does a great job of setting us up with some of the elements to come and I think the show would have ended up very different if the showrunners hadn't gotten "The Constant" quite right.

Finally, I love that the freighter, which should signal safety for our characters, feels very dangerous.  We get our introduction to Keamy (Kevin Durand), who tries to be reassuring, but doesn't ever succeed due to how intimidating the guy is.  We are also introduced to the doctor, Ray (Marc Vann), who doesn't end up being villainous, but he looks like it thanks to his scar.  Plus seeing what happens to Minkowski and hearing his story about him and Brandon makes the freighter seem just as dangerous as the island.

What Sucks:

I got nothing for you.

Platinum Polar Bear:

The Platinum Polar Bear goes to the most competent character of the episode.  For "The Constant," this award goes to Sayid.  He helps keep Desmond calm, gets in contact with the beach, and really doesn't ask any questions when Desmond says he needs to call Penny.  He quickly recognizes how important this is to Desmond and shuts his mouth and helps.  He just asks that someone explain what is happening when it's all over.  He's the support Desmond needs and that's enough to win Sayid his 11th Platinum Polar Bear, which puts him in 1st place overall.

Verdict:

"The Constant" is one of the best episodes of Lost.  Period.  The performances are top notch, it has one of the most emotional moments in the entire show, and the sci-fi elements work perfectly.  There's nothing else to say except that this episode has got it going on.  

 10/10: Amazing