Lost: Season 5, Episode 14: "The Variable"

Lost:
Season 5, Episode 14: “The Variable”
Grade: 9.3

Honestly I don’t even want to review this because I am trying to forget it happened. Not because it was bad; in fact along with “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” I would say it’s up for Season 5’s best award so far. The episode definitely has elements that I am confused about which makes me in turn again confused about what I am supposed to be thinking about and what will actually be answered. But you do not realize just how great it is until those tragic last minutes when you realize that Eloise knew the entire time that she shot and killed her own son and literally paved the way for that to eventually happen.

People were confused about whether it was clear that Daniel is dead or not; it is official that he is. Who knows if he will make another appearance somehow but he is dead. Thus the episode ends Daniel’s death officially making him the most tragic character on Lost ever. This for me is not an arguable point. As the episode progressed I actually had the feeling that the episode was heading this way. When we got the news that the “Major-ish” character was not as major as we first thought reported by Ausiello I figured he must actually know now and I thought about that being around the time when this episode probably would have screened. Then just the vibe they created around Daniel in the episode; they made him to be a tragedy. There was the way everyone saw him as this crazy pathetic weirdo coot and the flashbacks basically summing up the shittiness of his life only to show how ironically it ends. Then Jack gives him a gun that is fully loaded and make a point of showing that Daniel has no idea what he is doing. Then they have shots of him holding onto the gun basically just flailing it. His plan then we find out goes against every single thing he has been saying this old time and ends up being (although maybe there is validity to it, we shall see) a totally desperate and poorly planned attempt to change things so Charlotte can be brought back. Then despite his best efforts not to, he ends up being the creepy guy Charlotte remembers as a child so whoop de do on the fail of supplying that memory for her. Then when Daniel just walks into the group of Others in the final moments just totally unaware of how unprepared and inexperienced he is and Jack tells Kate to let him go because he knows they should not go with him, I knew it was totally over for the poor guy and I had to sit and watch hoping and praying that I was wrong as I saw that I was right and that we lost Daniel Faraday who happens to be in my Top 5 on the show. He is easily my favorite character that has died so far. He is my Charlie. He will always be my Charlie. Let’s just get into the ep shall we?

Flashbacks:

Basically these flashbacks were a rundown on Daniel’s life and a checklist of the reasons that Daniel Faraday’s life could not have been any shittier.

- Reason number 1: Eloise his mother is an evil wench and early in life puts him on the path of his murder by not letting him play piano anymore. We see that very early in life, Daniel has never really gotten to do what he wanted. What a fun childhood that must have been.

- Reason Number 2: Eloise is a bitch to Daniel’s girlfriends and only really cares about going on his path to death! Seriously what the fuck is it with this woman? Honestly, the question has been floating around since the episode aired; why did Eloise have to make sure this happened? I guess either she really is all for sticking to the whatever happened, happened theory and doing her best to making sure everything went down just so. Or since we are clearly going to see stuff happen during the rest of the season maybe we will see why Daniel’s death needed to specifically happen. Either way, this woman is fucked up. We also see that Eloise does not give a shit about any other aspect of his life than that of his work

- Reason Number 3: Everything that happened to Theresa is just so damn depressing. Seriously that freaking sucks.

- Reason Number 4: Daniel gets dismissed and leaves Oxford; they remove any evidence of him ever having been there and all of this stuff with Theresa happened and all of his work and accomplishments were pointless.

- Reason Number 5: But of course Daniel’s twitchiness and general weirdness is explained by us finding out (even though I think we had known this from “Jughead”) that Daniel had tried out the experiments on himself and had serious memory issues because of it. That sounds fun. Daniel going back to the island would rid him of his problem. I loved the continuation of the scene from “Confirmed Dead” when Daniel has his reaction to the news that 815 went down. It had already been one of my favorite scenes in Lost history for its ambiguity and even though the ambiguity is now taken out of it, it is somehow retained because the facts of the situation in that moment are exactly the same as they were before. I also loved the scene between Daniel and Widmore. Honestly, Jeremy Davies in this episode needs a fucking Emmy or something. Seriously; he was incredible. Unbelievable.

- Reason Number 6: Then we get the scene which was very interesting before the episode ended but now is just a million times more intriguing; Eloise urging Daniel to go to the island. The reason Daniel goes? Because Eloise tells him it would make him proud. Can I just crawl under a rock and cry for the rest of my life? Seriously it gets no more tragic than this. And of course he cries just like in every scene in this episode with Daniel where he either looks like he is going to cry or in fact does.

The 70’s:
It turns out Daniel was in Ann Arbor. Scandalous. He manages to fuck things up slightly for everyone in the episode. First he tells Jack that destiny did not bring him to the island and in fact his presence is harmful. I would still like to know how he knows this. So basically Jack’s whole reason for living goes down the shitter. Then he goes and has his scene which takes place in the first scene of Season 5 which was extremely satisfying to see. Then he tells Chang that Miles is his son who reluctantly does not agree although I think he is in denial. Miles is deeply pissed off which prevents him from offering to drive Daniel later in the episode.

Then we have Jack find out about Phil who is being kept in the closet by Sawyer and Juliet. It was really depressing throughout the whole episode to see Sawyer and Juliet truly realize that the lives they built for themselves all this time was something they had to leave. They tried so hard to keep their life in Dharma but it just did not work out that way.

Everyone discusses options as to what to do. I loved this scene a lot just because so much of the cast was in it. Sawyer and Juliet are going to head for the beach while Jack, Kate and Daniel are going to head for the Others to find Eloise. While they go to do that they pick up guns and get into a gunfight with Psycho Radzinsky and two others. This was a pretty sick scene; one I did not entirely expect to see. Daniel gets shot (not the last time he will in the ep : ( Sawyer and Juliet have a nice scene together as they lament over the loss of the life they built but soon that ends when they are caught by Radzinsky on his way back from his gun battle with Jack, Kate and Daniel. That’s where we end off with them.

We learn that Daniel’s brilliant except it’s not brilliant, it’s sad and desperate plan to stop things from happening is to set off the hydrogen bomb. And then Jack and Kate and Daniel have some really great conversations and then we all know how the episode ends. Okay I cannot go on mainly because I am low on time and high on depression even thinking about this. There is so much more I could go into though.

Reason 7: He fulfilled his job as creepy dude from Charlotte’s past

Reason 8: Shot by his own fucking mother who knew the entire time that she was going to shoot him and he realizes this in his last moments.

Overall this was an incredible episode; one that would mean so much more on a second viewing. The scene with Daniel and Charlotte broke my heart. The last scene broke my heart. The entire episode broke my heart as we saw a brilliant portrait of a tragic character who had no idea the horrible fate that his entire life he spent working to get to. RIP Daniel Faraday. You were one of the most unique characters in television. I will miss you and I will never forget you and how amazing you were.