The Variable

This episode was packed with stuff, I suppose to make up for that lame clip show last week. Let's get into it:

1. First of all, The Return of Faraday was a trap. Writers had Miles overreact a bit to make it seem amazing that Daniel was getting off the sub, when really, it was no big deal. We didn't know where he was, but Miles and everyone else did.

2. Lots of Daniel information here. Obviously, the big reveal is that Widmore is Daniel's father (probably). While Eloise's slap at the pronouncement indicates it's not that clean-cut, I'm taking the statement at face value for now. My guess is that Penny is Widmore's daughter with another woman (a mainlander), making Daniel and Penny half-siblings.

3. Daniel is entirely unaware that Widmore is his father. I wonder who he thinks his dad is.... All the Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues.

4. Widmore personally recruits Daniel to go to the Island. The main reason is to help Widmore gain control of said Island, and the secondary reason is that the Island will heal Faraday. It explains the scene with Charlotte and Daniel and the memory cards last season, and explains why Faraday has gotten progressively more lucid.

5. The nature of Faraday's illness is explained. He retains some level of base knowledge; he knows who he is and know his mother. He knows he used to be brilliant, and knows he's forgotten things. But he is unable to remember specific information from his past, and anything new he learns will be forgotten by the next day.

6. This is the result of the experiment he ran on himself at Oxford, presumably the same experiment he ran on Eloise the rate and Theresa, his lab assistant. If you remember, the experiment with Eloise (that Desmond witnessed) was transferring the rat's future consciousness into the present animal. The rat then successfully navigated a maze that Daniel would not teach it for another five minutes. The rat died as a result of this expirement, and we assume the same experiment put Theresa the lab assistant in a coma.

7. Daniel believes his mother was wrong in sending the 316-ers back to the Island. We're not sure why.

8. The Incident Chang referred to in different Dharma orientation videos was the result of Dharma workers drilling into the ground at the Swan site and releasing a ton of energy. Daniel confronts Chang not to prevent the Incident from happening, but to make Pierre worried enough to send the women and children away. This is presumably how Charlotte and her mother get off the Island and maybe how Chang is separated from his wife and Miles.

9. Faraday is currently on a mission to try and "change things", even though he previously believed he could not. I think Charlotte is the catalyst for this. He believes that if he stops the construction of the Swan, then Charlotte will never return to the Island, and she will survive. This ignores Hawking's "course correction" speech to Desmond in The Constant, in which she teaches that the universe will fix any attempts at changing the timeline. Daniel may prevent Charlotte from returning to the Island, but then she might die in a car crash around the same time anyway.

10. Daniel is shot (and killed?) by a young Eloise Hawking in 1977, as he threatens to shoot Alpert. I will get into this in my analysis post.

Good episode. Seems like the writers are ramping up for a great season finale in four or five episodes.