TV Geek Out 125: Lost, "The Variable"

As TVGO continues on with our coverage of season 5 of Lost, we discuss the moving Daniel Faraday episode "The Variable." Faraday has just returned to the island (in the '70s, of course) with some radical new ideas on how the Losties can influence their destinies. You read that right -- Daniel "Whatever Happened, Happened" Faraday now thinks that they CAN change their "futures" if they take into account the variable, rather than the constant, in the equation. Naturally, this means they should detonate the hydrogen bomb (Jughead) at the Swan construction site, because what problem can't be solved by blowing stuff up? Okay, so it's not quite that simple, but it's also highly theoretical and risky. Everyone reacts differently to this plan, but Faraday gets through to former leader Jack, so the scientist is making progress. Flashbacks follow Faraday's sad upbringing with his emotionally distant mother, his graduation from university, and his reasons for joining up for the freighter mission that brought him to the island with Charlotte and Miles. Elsewhere, Hawking visits the hospital to check up on Desmond, where she speaks with Penny and runs into Widmore. Listen in as TV geeks Heather, Dana, and Perry rejoice at the return of our favorite twitchy scientist, and get out your hankies as we mourn his tragic death at the hands of his own mother. Check it all out here.