Spoilers ahead
Well, things are definitely moving faster than before, but not in entirely satisfying ways. Sorry to see that Daniel got shot and appears to have died.
In the episode, young Daniel was playing the piano and was interrupted by his mother. She was visibly upset, and I could tell that she’d gotten some bad news. From that point in the story on, I knew Daniel was going to end up a goner. They pretty much telegraphed it in his “anyone of us could die” speech to Jack.
I think the big question about that is, how did his mother know this was going to happen? In fact, how did she know what she did know?
I think it’s because she was visited by Daniel – ala the way Charlie visited Hurley or Christian visited Jack. Daniel, for some reason, visited her and convinced her to make the younger version of himself a scientist and send him to the island. Why? No idea.
Another question about Mrs. Hawking is: If she knew what was going to happen in the future, all this time, why did she say she didn’t know what was going to happen? I think she said something, “For the first time, in a very long time, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.”
If Daniel had been feeding her information about what was going to happen, if he stopped visiting her, she wouldn’t know what happened next. Maybe he finally quit visiting her right before she went to apologize to Penny.
The biggest revelation was the Charles Widmore was Daniel’s father. I think people long suspected that relationship once they saw that Eloise and Charles had both previously been on the island.
Note too that Daniel planted the idea about using the hydrogen bomb to prevent The Swan from being constructed. It appears from the preview for next week that Jack is going to go through with this plan. In the posting before I made this one, I proposed that the bomb would be detonated in the finale. I didn’t really think it would be Jack that set the thing off; I’d been thinking it would be Ben.
I don’t think this will be the last we’ll see of Daniel. I sure hope not.
What did you think of tonight’s show?
Interesting episode, but it does leave me with questions about time and interractions across it. Richard did not seem to know Daniel at all. I remember one instance when Richard told Locke, “The next time we meet, I may not recognize you” (or something to that effect). My head hurts…
If Eloise knew her younger self would kill Daniel, what possible benefit could there be to it? Is it possible that all they wanted was the notebook? That seems so damned callous!
I will say this, at the crucial moment I screeched, “OMG, Steve totally called it!”
Jack will try to detonate the bomb but it will not work. Despite what Dan said, tonight really showed that whatever happened, happened and nothing can change it (unless it’s Desmond trying to make the change).
I think Eloise knows/knew what was going to happen, because the same thing happened to her that happened to Desmond when the Swan station blew up. Except for her it will happen during The Incident.
Don’t you think that piano-mother Eloise was upset because that was after young-island Eloise had already shot adult-Daniel? In the mean time, she had learned something that convinced her that she had to grow him into a time-travel expert, knowing that he’d eventually go back in time and she’d shoot him. That would upset me.
Seems to me that knowing (remembering) that her younger self will shoot her own son is the basis for her outburst at Charles about sacrifice outside the hospital.
There may still be a purpose for Daniel’s role, since she raised him into time travel, despite knowing that she’d also shoot him. She may know something that makes it still matter.
Or, she’s hoping that this endless cycle can be broken by the people (the variables) and that eventually there will come a cycle where Daniel is not shot, or it still fixes things after all.
Plus, Daniel may not actually have died yet…we may find out next episode that he merely passed out. They may have a hypothermic needle to give him (oh, wait, wrong show).
Charles and Eloise have aged appropriately (assuming that they are in their 60s). Richard, on the other hand, does not appear to have aged at all. Ben, we’ve seen as a child, a young adult (well, they tried) and the weasel we all love now. I’m thinking that there might be Others and then “Others” and that perhaps death is a sort of temporal barrier. But I’m not sure I know what the heck I’m talking about…
I have flashes of clarity and then it fades out. It’s far more entertaining than frustrating, but then I’ve always been a little weird.
I think you are wrong about why his mom was upset. she has his journal. she knows everything because of it…..INCLUDING that desmond bounced back in time. thats how she knew to stop desmond in that ep.