FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES

Or, Dez Does The Timewarp Again

[Originally Aired February 14, 2007]

Charlie is ransacking Sawyer's tent, telling Hurley that's what Sawyer would want. Hurley isn't buying it. (Because he's not a douche, unlike Charlie.) Desmond shows up and asks them to come with him. He leads them into the jungle and to Locke. Locke tells them the island killed Eko and to remain calm so as to not panic the rest of the survivors. Charlie wants to know what the fuck "the island killed Eko" means, and Locke tells him not to be a douche, he knows what it means. While they're all there marvelling at Charlie's doucheyosity Desmond starts spacing out, like he's having some sort of E flashback, and everyone wonders what the fuck is up until he snaps out of it and runs off. They follow and see him jump into the ocean and swim toward Claire's lifeless body. He pulls her to shore and performs CPR on her. She sputters awake and Desmond carries her to her tent. As they walk away Charlie asks how Dez knew she was drowning. "I'll tell you how he knew: that guy sees the future, dude." Charlie doesn't believe that, so he plans to get Dez drunk and force him to spill the beans. "You do realize he's going to know your plan before you even come up with it, dude," says Hurley. I love Hurley, by the way. So, blah blah blah, Dez, Hurley and Charlie get drunk on 60 year old scotch (and jebus, how much is that bottle worth?) and then Charlie and Dez fight when Charlie demands to know what happened in the hatch. "You don't want to know! And I don't want to know!" screams Dez before he's sucked into his flashback. Dez is in the hatch, he says good-bye to Locke and heads to the failsafe. "I love you, Penny." He turns the key, and... flash, bang ...just like before. Dez wakes up covered in blood. The camera pulls back and reveals he's not in the jungle, but on his apartment floor. It's not blood, it's paint. He fell off a ladder painting the room. Penny helps him up. Dez is disoriented, unsure exactly where he is or what is going on, as if he's in a flashback that's not quite right. Later Dez is putting on a snazzy tie, he glances at the clock, 1:08, and he is unsettled again. Penny helps him with his tie and the two are pleased she has moved in with him. Penny tells him he doesn't really need to see her father about a job, but Dez says it's more than about getting a job, it's about earning her father's respect. The hatch's alarm goes off and Dez almost panics, until Penny turns off the microwave. She asks him if he's okay. "Déjà vu." At the office Dez introduces himself to the receptionist, just as someone delivers a package for 815. Déjà vu again. Dez meets with Penny's dad and, surprise surprise, he's kind of a douche. In his office is a model of a sail boat and the Old Man mentions the race he sponsors. Déjà vu. The Old Man offers him a job but Dez tells him he really didn't come here for a job, he came to ask for his daughter's hand in marriage. The Old Man admires his nobility and grabs a bottle of sixty year old scotch and pours a glass of it. Blah blah blah the Old Man goes on about how the guy who made the scotch was a great man. "This swallow is worth more than you could make in a month." See? I knew that shit was expensive! "You're not worthy of drinking my whiskey. How could you ever be worthy of my daughter?" Ouch. Dez walks out of the building and Charlie is there playing "Wonderwall" and more déjà vu as Dez asks him how he knows him. You're Charlie, he says. Duh, Charlie points to the sign in his guitar case. Dez tells Charlie he was in the hatch, on the island, but Charlie just thinks he's a loon, even when Dez says this all happened before, right before it started to rain, right before it starts to rain. Later Dez meets his physicist pal Donovan and asks him if it is possible he's travelled back in time and is living his life over again. Donovan scoffs and asks him what happens next. Dez says the football team on the telly makes a big comeback and some bruiser comes through the door of the pub and smacks the barkeep with a cricket bat for owing him some money. But the football team doesn't make a comeback and the bruiser never shows up to beat on the man behind the bar. Dez heads home and tells Penny he didn't get the job. Oh well, no big deal, she says. The next day Dez visits and antiques shop in search of a wedding ring. The woman behind the counter shows him a beauty and he decides to buy it, much to her surprise. She demands it back, and Dez is confused. She tells him he has second thoughts and leaves without the ring. What is she on about? "You don't buy the ring, Desmond." He's still not getting the hang of this flashback thing. "How do you know my name?" "Well, I know your name as well as I know that you that don't ask Penny to marry you. In fact, you break her heart. Well, breaking her heart is, of course, what drives you in a few short years from now to enter that sailing race, to prove her father wrong, which brings you to the island where you spend the next three years of your life entering numbers into the computer until you are forced to turn that failsafe key. And if you don't do those things, Desmond David Hume, every single one of us is dead. So give me that sodding ring." He refuses. She takes him outside and points out a man in red shoes. Who's that, he asks. No one. The two argue over what is real and what isn't and suddenly a scaffolding collapses and the man in the red shoes is killed. Dez asks why she didn't tell him if she knew he was going to die. Because, he was meant to die. If she warned him about the scaffolding, then he would have been killed by a taxi, or he would have slipped in the shower. You can't escape your fate, it seems, no matter what. She tells him his fate is to push the button, that it is the only great thing he will ever do. Later Dez meets Penny, and the two get their picture taken together. Then Dez breaks up with Penny before tossing the ring into the Thames. He then visits the pub. On the telly, the football team makes a big comeback, and that goon walks in through the door with a cricket bat. Dez realizes he had the wrong night. He tells the barkeep to duck and accidentally gets hit in the head instead. Dez wakes. He's in the jungle. He looks at the crater from the hatch implosion. He cries and asks to go back so he can do it right this time. Cut to Charlie asking Dez how he knew Claire was drowning. "When I turned that key my life flashed before my eyes. And then I was back in the jungle and still on this bloody island. But those flashes didn't stop." That's how you knew to save her, asks Charlie. Dez confesses, "I wasn't saving Claire, I was saving you. You were supposed to be hit by lightning. You were supposed to drown. But I can't stop it forever. I'm sorry because no matter what I try to do you're going to die, Charlie."