LOST - The Constant

I watched "The Constant" twice last night. I don't recommend this if you want to get some sleep. It was difficult to stop thinking about it.

The variety of time travel shown was not physical but mental. The conscientiousness of a person (or rat) becomes "unstuck in time". However, Faraday's experiment with the rocket earlier this season shows that physical objects can also experience a time shift, and the helicopter took off at dawn but landed in mid-day. There are at least two types of time travel in play.

Faraday tells Desmond "You can't change the future" but Charlie's story in last year's finale demonstrates, that's not quite accurate. Sure, Charlie died as Fate decreed, but with Desmond's help he lived long enough to die a heroic death, warning his friends, instead of a pointless death from lightning or an arrow through the throat. Charlie's brief conversation with Penny before he died confirmed for her that Desmond was alive and her searching had not been in vain. It also told her there was a boat, and someone named Naomi.

George Minkowski tells Desmond that his girlfriend Penny Widmore had been calling but they were under strict orders not to answer. Penny must have used the information she got from Charlie to figure out out where to call. This was pretty simple for her because...

It's her father's boat. Consider that Charles Widmore was bidding on a book from the The Black Rock , a ship now sitting in the middle of the jungle on the island. The book has been in the possession of the Hanso family. We know the Hanso Foundation sponsored the DHARMA Intiative. Alvar Hanso probably located the island and created the DHARMA Initiative based on the information in that book. Widmore, who as a sponsor has learned of DHARMA's discoveries, bought the book to help him locate the island. It took some time, but Widmore eventually succeeded. His henchman Matthew Abbadon assembled a team, put them on a boat and here we are.

So far, my Grand Unified LOST Theory is holding up very nicely!