Featured Character: Daniel Faraday
Major Events & Revelations: Eloise Hawking’s knowledge of the future comes from Daniel’s journal; Eloise encourages Daniel to go to the island, knowing that she’ll kill him; Charles Widmore is Daniel’s father
Major Death: Daniel Faraday
Despite being a phenomenal and highly enjoyable season, “The Variable” is – SPOILER ALERT! – the only season five episode that appears on this list. I thought about “Jughead,” but ultimately went with this trippy episode.
“The Variable” – the sole Daniel-centric episode of the series, was a real eye opener, giving us our first real glimpse of Eloise Hawking, and a unique perspective of Charles Widmore. We learned that these two were so devoted to maintaining the natural timeline that they willingly sent their son to the island, knowing full well what his fate was – and the role they would play in his fate. It was also a rare instance in which the typically villainous Widmore seemed to show compassion for somebody.
Right off the bat, the episode confirmed what we had all suspected, that Eloise Hawking and Ellie – the Other who held him at gunpoint in the 1950’s – are one in the same. And, in a fun little tidbit, Daniel was aware of this the entire time. And I actually enjoyed the rather straight forward and simplistic explanation of how Eloise is so aware of events that had not yet transpired. Following his death in 1977 (which occurred after the events of 2005), Eloise attained Daniel’s journal, and within those pages lied information about who eventually ends up on the island. So when she was confronted by a now-aware Desmond in 1996, she knows full well that he’s destined to end up on the island, no matter what he does (due to the “whatever happened, happened” rule). And her line at the conclusion of the episode (I’m paraphrasing) that, for the first time she has no idea what’s going to happen next, was rather poignant and powerful.
This episode also tied in to “the incident,” a mysterious and catastrophic event first mentioned all the way back in season two. It also gave birth to the fun little debate of whether their actions prevents or causes the incident. This was icing on the cake for all of those who believed that the castaways were actually responsible for all of the obstacles they would face later (earlier?) on the island.
Above all else, I appreciated the way “The Variable” alluded to past events while setting the course for what was to come. Daniel’s dangerous plot hinged on what had transpired during “Jughead,” an episode that had aired 11 weeks earlier. And it was this episode that not only set forth the excitement of the finale, but was also the beginning of the end of Sawyer and Juliet’s happy little life in Dharmaville. And finally, “The Variable” reminded us that any character – no matter how lovable or seemingly important – could be killed without any warning. Sure, Daniel wasn’t one of the original cast members, but he was arguably the glue the held the first half of the season together. If his character wasn’t so well liked, I don’t think fans would have reacted so favorably to the explicit Sci-Fi nature of the first several episodes of season six. Actually, I might go as far as saying that without him, the addition of the freighter folks (Miles, Charlotte, and Frank) would not have been so seamless.
As an aside, Entertainment Weekly awarded “The Life and Death of Jeremy Bentham” as the best episode of this season. And as I said, this is the only season five episode that will appear on this list. So why didn’t the Locke-centric episode get the nod? To be honest, the episode just didn’t resonate with me because it was so incredibly far off from what we were led to believe happened during Locke’s visit. Don’t get me wrong, the murder scene is chilling – even more so when you consider that Locke legitimately died – but overall it felt like we were seeing an abridged version of what happened. Before Locke was revealed as Jeremy Bentham, everybody was referring to him by his alias. Yet he didn’t even introduce himself as such when he met each character. And Locke’s visit and death were supposed to completely knock Jack off his rocker. Yet when the two came together, he seemed more annoyed and agitated than anything else. Was it a great episode? Yeah, I’d say so. But the timeline and interactions just didn’t seem to match up with what we were told.
Click here for my original review of the episode
Matt Basilo has been writing for Inside Pulse since April 2005, providing his insight into popular television shows such as Lost, 24, Heroes, and Smallville. Be sure to visit his blog at [a case of the blog] and follow him on Twitter.
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