The Constant

This is one of the episode's of Lost that will be pointed out when the series is over. It's one that the producers will look to and say, see we always knew what was going on. It had a big picture feel to it and with each passing season, it will become more clear.

Time
While the series has hinted for a while that something is going on with time, this year they are coming right out and letting us know each week. First it was the 31 minute differential with Daniel's experiment in The Economist. Now Daniel tells Jack that his perception of how long the chopper has been gone, is not necessarily how long it has been gone. Then a bit later in the episode, Sayid asks Frank, maybe you can tell me how we took off at dusk and then landed in the middle of the day. I hope this whole time shift/movement gets explained because it is cool and is something that fans have been wondering about for a while now.

I'm not really sure what this will mean for the Losties when they return to civilization. Will they have aged differently? How much time has passed for them, compared to the rest of the world since the crash? According to the calendar on the ship, it's approaching Christmas 2004, but is this accurate? If its December 24th on the freighter, what is the date on the island? How does the 31 minute differential factor into this and how can the satellite phones work instantly if there's this time gap? Way too many questions in the time area.

Desmond, Daniel. Daniel, Desmond
Desmond is one of my favorite characters on the show and now that he seems to be paired with new fan-favorite Daniel Faraday, we should get even more interesting and exciting episodes. Remember, if anything goes wrong, Desmond Hume will be my constant...awesome. So did Daniel remember meeting Desmond in 1996 or does he now? I think the line that Desmond tells Daniel in the past, maybe you forgot, is true. It does seem like Daniel has experienced memory loss or has trouble remembering stuff. Remember the 3 card memory game he played with Charlotte.

Then there's the question of Penny remembering that Desmond would call her on Christmas Eve 2004. Did she know about this call when she met up with Desmond at the stadium, prior to his sailing trip around the world? Did she know he would call when she stationed a team in the arctic to monitor electromagnetic anomalies? The producers addressed this in their latest podcast (available at ABC.com or iTunes) and said to go back and watch the Ms. Hawking scene from Season 3's "Flashes Before Your Eyes." She told Desmond about fate and the universe "course correcting" so I'm not really sure how that applies, but I'm sure it will become clearer in the future...or the past.

Minkowski
We found out who the mystery voice that answered the phone is from the season finale last year, and he's suffering from the same time travel jumping that Desmond is experiencing. He was the communications man on the boat, but once he starting losing it, they stuck him in sick bay. The communications equipment has been sabotaged (by Ben's mole presumably) and Minkowski is strapped to a bed. But I still wonder why Frank told Daniel to hang up if Minkowski answered in The Economist. They wouldn't have known about his sickness, would they? Also, we still haven't met Regina, who seems to have taken over the communications post and answered the phone a few times.

Minkowski also tells the doctor that the sickness will happen to everyone once they start heading to the island again. So have they all been there before? We know that they've been looking for the island, but the way he said this, it seems like they are going back, not going for the first time.

Black Rock/Find 815
Penny's dad is shown buying a log from the Black Rock at an auction in Desmond's flash(back?). In the Find 815 online game, they were using a log to find the location of Black Rock's wreckage. The salvage vessel eventually finds wreckage of Flight 815, along with all the passengers' bodies. This is believed to be some sort of cover-up done by a powerful organization (Hanso Foundation, The Maxwell Group, Whidmore...) Since Penny's dad buys the log book, is he behind the cover-up? Is he the boss of all those on the freighter? Ben knows who Miles is working for, but why would Mr. Whidmore be looking for Ben? Naomi did have Desmond and Penny's photo when she landed on the island. How is this all tied together?

Next on Lost: "The Other Woman"

*Photos from Lost-Media.com