"The Variable" (Season 5, Episode 14)

Love him or hate him, you've got to appreciate that President Obama made sure his "First 100 Days" news conference didn't run long and delay the 100th episode of Lost. And with Mother's Day just around the corner, what an appropriate show to appreciate that - hopefully - your own mother isn't as manipulative as Eloise Hawking and wouldn't (knowingly?) shoot you if you time traveled to see her.

Best Line

• "Good Lord, no." Eloise's response to Penny mistakenly believing she is the mother of Benjamin Linus.
  

Did You Notice?

• I couldn't identify it but I feel that the show playing on the hospital waiting room's wall-mounted television was an Easter Egg. Maybe an episode of "Expose".
  
• The song both young and older Faraday were playing on the piano was "I'm Always Chasing Rainbows", a melancholy song about elusive dreams.
• Was Eloise crying when she walked in on young Daniel because she knew that she would shoot him on the island? When asked by Penny if Desmond was going to die, Eloise told her that for the first time in a long time, she didn't know what was going to happen next. So perhaps up until then, Eloise did know events in advance.
• Another perfect casting choice with the actress who played the middle-aged Eloise.
• On second viewing, the conversation between young Daniel and his mother ("I could make time." "If only you could.") is very significant.
• The scene in the underground mine with Dr. Chang and the foreman is the same from this season's first episode but from Daniel's point of view.
  
• The catastrophic accident that Faraday speaks of to Dr. Chang is no doubt the "incident" that the doctor later mentioned in the Season 2 orientation film.
• Theresa the lab assistant who Eloise so bluntly dismissed is the woman hospitalized at home that Desmond visited earlier this season.
• Eloise told Daniel in the restaurant that the women (plural) in his life will be terribly hurt. Does she know Charlotte's destiny at this point?
• Again, re-watching this episode adds impact to Eloise's inscription in Daniel's journal: "No matter what, remember, I will always love you."
  
• The woman with Faraday when he is watching the news report on Oceanic 815 was Caroline, his caregiver.
• The magazine that Widmore moves was the 2003 issue of Wired — ''The Super-Powers Issue'' — featuring articles on the plausible science behind far-fetched stuff like invisibility, X-ray vision, and time travel. The cover headline read: ''The Impossible Gets Real!''
• Did you see the look Juliet gave Sawyer when he once again called Kate by her nickname "Freckles"?
  
• Young Charlotte's comment that she wasn't allowed to have chocolate before dinner was also one of the last things adult Charlotte said before she died.
• Faraday's comments about people's choices changing their destiny reminded me of something I had said in one of my early e-mails (pre-blog) when the series first started. I had written that the characters had ended up in their current lives because of choices they had made and Locke was helping each one of them resolve their issues (Jack's conflict with his father, Sawyer's vengeful anger, Boone's love for his step sister).
• Could the hydrogen bomb be what lies in the shadow of the statue?
  
• Charles Widmore is Faraday's father! Add this to the long list of daddy issues seemingly every character on the show has. So this makes Daniel and Penny half-brother and -sister, unless Eloise is Penny's mother, too! And was Daniel conceived on the island? Is this why he is special?
  
• Richard Alpert apparently doesn't recognize Faraday from when he visited him in the 1950's. Crazy theory #1: There is more than one Richard Alpert. Crazy theory #2: Each time Richard is about to die, he goes into the temple and is reborn but has no memory (like when young Ben was healed of his gunshot wound).
• Is Faraday's one of the deaths predicted for this season? He is a well-liked "major-ish" character as the on-line comments referred.
  

The Numbers - 2 3 4 5 6 8 10 15 16 23 42 108

• Penny told Eloise that Charlie is 2 years old.
  
• Young Faraday stated that there were 864 metronome beats.
• Jack asked Sawyer what he was busy with at 6 o'clock in the morning.
• Faraday told Miles he will be back in 10 minutes.
• Faraday explained to Chang that the Swan site would have an accident in 6 hours.
  
• Sawyer said they only have 2 options now that they were exposed.
  
• Sawyer noted that there were 2 votes for going back to Square One.
• Faraday had received a 1.5 million pound research grant.
  
• Faraday warned Jack that there will be an accident at the Swan Station in 4 hours.
  

Previews - I had read that next week's penultimate episode, "Follow the Leader", will feature flashbacks for Richard Alpert. Then on May 13, the two-hour finale, "The Incident", the Muppet Babies theme will continue with a young Kate, a young Juliet, and a young Sawyer and a mysterious individual observing each of them.