Rewatching LOST: 5.14 “The Variable”

Daniel returns to the island with an urgent, daring plan to get all of the castaways back to where they belong — a plan that divides the survivors.

• Daniel Faraday returns to the island on the sub and explains to Miles that he came back because he saw a copy of the “Class of 1977″ Dharma Initiative photo with Jack, Kate, and Hurley in it. Miles takes Dan to see Jack, and Dan tells Jack that he’s been in Ann Arbor, Michigan, at Dharma HQ, conducting some research. He asserts that his mother, Eloise Hawking, was wrong to send Jack and the others back to the island, because they don’t belong here.
• Before Daniel will explain further, he has Miles rush him off to the Orchid, so he can intercept Pierre Chang. There, things play out just as we saw in the season premiere, with Chang visiting the Orchid after an accident caused a man’s death and Chang ordered the workers not to drill any further. After Dan bumps into him, he runs back and talks to Chang, trying to convince him to evacuate the island. Dan claims that in just six hours, “the Incident” will occur that releases catastrophic levels of electromagnetic energy, placing everyone on the island in danger. Chang doesn’t believe him, so Daniel reveals that he knows all about this because he’s from the future. Still Chang isn’t convinced, so when they reach the surface again and catch up with Miles, Daniel tells Chang that Miles is his son, also from the future. Miles denies it, and Chang warns Daniel to stay away. Daniel later tells a confused, outraged Miles that Daniel was just ensuring that Chang would do what he was supposed to do.
• Sawyer gathers all of his friends together at his house and tells them about Phil tied up in the closet, and that the situation means that all of them are going to have to leave the Dharma Initiative, as soon as possible. No one wants to leave the island at this point, so they all vote to return to the beach where Oceanic 815 crashed and start over. Daniel and Miles arrive just then, and Dan asks if anyone can point him in the direction of the Others — because his mother is one of them, and she’s the only person that can help all of them get back to where they belong. Sawyer doesn’t want to help Daniel, but Jack does if it means getting them back to 2007. He appeals to Kate for her help, since she recently visited the Others and knows where to find them. Sawyer tries to convince Kate not to go, and even calls her “Freckles,” a move that rankles Juliet into defying Sawyer by revealing the code for the sonic fence and telling Jack and Kate to help Daniel. Sawyer concedes defeat but says he’s taking everyone else to the beach if and when Jack, Kate, and Daniel can join them.
• Jack, Kate, and Daniel make plans to steal a Dharma van, but before they leave, Dan spots young Charlotte and speaks to her, alone, delivering the message that she would remember as an adult: that she has to leave the island and never come back. He also promises that he’s going to try and change things for all of them, for the better.
• At the motor pool, Jack and Kate steal some guns from a weapons locker, but soon Radzinsky arrives with some of his goons and attacks them, having guessed that none of them are who they claim to be. After a big firefight, Jack, Kate, and Daniel manage to escape in a jeep and make a mad dash toward Others territory. Radzinsky sounds the Barracks alarm.
• While Sawyer and Juliet hastily pack some bags, Sawyer acknowledges that he should have listened to Juliet when Jack and the others first arrived, and she said it was all over for them here. But she’s despondent and preoccupied with Sawyer’s earlier flirtation with Kate. Radzinsky barges in and demands to know why Sawyer isn’t doing his job when they’ve been infiltrated, and although Sawyer tries to cool him down, Radzinsky hears Phil tied up in the closet, and the jig is up. Sawyer and Juliet are arrested.
• After they pass the sonic fence, Jack, Kate, and Daniel set off on foot into the jungle. When they stop for a break, Daniel takes the opportunity to explain his plan to Jack and Kate. He says that although all of his life’s studies have told him that the past can never be changed, he finally realized that maybe it can, because human beings always have free will. He explains that when the Incident occurs at the Swan station construction site, it will set into motion all of the events that will eventually lead to Oceanic 815 crashing on the island, as well as the freighter arriving there as well, and all of the people who have died because of those events — including Daniel’s love, Charlotte. His plan is to change history by destroying the pocket of energy beneath the Swan station before the Incident can occur — by setting off the hydrogen bomb Jughead that’s been on the island since the ’50s.
• In 2007, Desmond is rushed to the hospital after being shot by Ben at the pier. While waiting for word from the doctors, Penny is visited by Eloise Hawking, who apologizes for her son, Daniel Faraday, putting Desmond in this position. Desmond, she says, has become a victim to a conflict that’s “bigger than any of us.” But though she wants to reassure Penny that Desmond will be alright, she admits that “for the first time in a long time, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.” The doctor suddenly arrives and tells her that Desmond is going to be just fine. As Penny reunites with her husband in the recovery room, Eloise is met on her way out of the hospital by an old friend: Charles Widmore. Widmore asks about Desmond and if he’ll recover, and she tells him he will. When she recommends that he go inside and say hello to his daughter, he points out that his relationship with Penny is something he had to sacrifice. Eloise becomes outraged that she would use the word “sacrifice” when speaking to her, reminding him that she sent Daniel to the island, knowing what would happen. When Charles points out that Daniel is his son too, she smacks him and leaves.
• Back in 1977, as they near the Others’ camp, Jack is warming to Daniel’s plan, while Kate is frustrated at the thought of rewriting history so that none of them ever meet. Daniel strides off into the camp with a gun, leaving his friends behind, and finds Richard, demanding to speak to Eloise. When Richard is unhelpful, he threatens to shoot his gun unless he’s taken to Eloise, but suddenly Dan is shot instead, from behind. When he falls to the ground, he sees that the shooter was none other than his own mother, Eloise Hawking, who was a middle-aged adult in the 70s. “You knew this was going to happen, and you sent me here anyway,” Daniel whispers in horror. Eloise asks who he is, and as he breathes his final breath, he says, “I’m your son.”

• All his life, even from his childhood as a young boy, Daniel was pushed hard by his mother to realize the full potential of his gifted mind. After he graduated from Oxford as the youngest person ever to receive his doctorate there, his mother pushed him again, this time to abandon personal relationships so that he can pursue his research. Daniel informed her that he had just received a grant from someone he didn’t know named Charles Widmore. She was pleased, but he finally lashed out at the constant pressure she’d placed on him all his life. She gave him the journal he would later bring to the island, and left him alone.
• Years later, Daniel’s mind was damaged by his time travel experiments that utilized high levels of radiation. Shortly after he cried at the footage of the faked wreckage of Oceanic 815, Daniel was visited by Charles Widmore, who offered him a job on the freighter he was sending to the island. He promised Daniel that the island could heal his mind, and left Daniel to consider the offer.
• A few days later, Daniel was visited by his mother, who encouraged him to take Widmore’s offer. Though she was clearly conflicted about her actions, she hid her emotions from her injured son and told him it would make her proud if he went to the island. On that condition, he agreed to go.

• After being reduced to a near-childlike state because of the damage his experiments did to his mind, Daniel was moved to tears over the wreckage at the thought of how many people had died onboard.
  Question: Why did Daniel Faraday cry when he saw the television footage of Oceanic 815 found in the Sunda Trench? 4.02
• At Oxford, Daniel used his expertise in the physics of space/time to conduct experiments in sending a person’s consciousness back and forth through time. After his girlfriend Teresa was affected by these experiments, Daniel suffered the same fate himself, with his mind becoming damaged.
  Question: What happened to Daniel’s mental stability in the past? 4.02 & Question: What happened to Daniel’s mind? Why does he have trouble remembering things? 4.04
• Daniel was personally invited to join the crew by Charles Widmore, who promised him that if he went to the island, the island would heal his mind.
  Question: How did Daniel join the freighter’s crew? 4.02
• This is exactly why Daniel came to the island — so his mind could be healed. And it worked.
  Question: Daniel and Charlotte spoke of “progress” with his memory problems. Is this the reason Daniel came to the island? Was he hoping to be healed? 4.04 & Question: Why is Daniel Faraday so interested in the island? 4.02
• The same way his friends did — their random jostling through time came to an end when they were deposited in 1974, and they were unable to get back to the present.
  Question: How did Daniel wind up in the 1970s as part of the Dharma Initiative? 5.01
• Charles Widmore is Daniel Faraday’s father!
  Question: Why did Widmore fund Daniel’s research? How does he know Daniel? 5.03
• Because she was his mother.
  Question: Why did Ellie remind Daniel of someone he used to know? 5.03
• Yes, Ellie is short for Eloise.
  Question: Is the young woman Ellie really Eloise Hawking? 5.03
• Eloise knew since the day she shot and killed her own son on the island in 1977 that it was his destiny to end up on the island as an adult, and to die there. She seems to have been determined to keep the course of history intact, despite the pain it would one day cause her. She wasn’t concerned when Desmond delivered Daniel’s urgent message because she already knew how the story would end.
  Question: Why wasn’t Eloise more concerned about her son Daniel when Desmond asked her to help him? 5.06
• After he and his friends wound up in 1974, Daniel left the island to do some scientific research at Dharma Initiative headquarters in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
  Question: What’s become of Daniel Faraday in 1977? 5.09

• Why would Eloise Hawking send her son to the island, knowing that he would die at her own hands? What could be so vitally important to the fate the island that Eloise would sacrifice her own son to see it done?
• Eloise Hawking said to Penny, “For the first time in a long time, I don’t know what’s going to happen next.” Since she seems to be able to see the future, why is it that as of this episode, she’s lost that ability?
• Is it possible, as Daniel believes, to change history after all?
• What will happen to the island if the hydrogen bomb is detonated in 1977? Will the blast destroy the island?

• “The Variable” is the first (and presumably last) Daniel-centric episode of the series.

Need more depth and detail? Read my full recap of “The Variable”.

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Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 5 cast promotional image: American Broadcasting Company.