Uncharted Island

So this is going to be a trippy episode.  Is this going to be an episode with no flashbacks? Only Desmond’s, for lack of a better word, flash forwards? Nothing like totally messing with my sense of time.

Ah, there we are. Desmond in the brig. Er… Desmond in a monastery?  There’s our weekly fake-out. He was a monk? Pardon me while I scratch my head and say WHAT?

“You want me to make you a mixtape?” Now there’s a great island pick-up line.  Smooth one, Sawyer. Real smooth.

Desmond wants to make sure his flashes come true, so he can see Penny again. Does that mean he wants to knowingly lead Charlie to his death?  It would appear so, since he just lied to Charlie when he asked point blank about him dying. Arrow to the throat.  I’m going to take a leap here and say that Desmond’s flashes might be chronologically challenged, he didn’t see what he think he saw with Penny.

Moriah Vineyards.  I wonder what Brutha Desmond did to deserve a walk-by punch in the nose.

Kate jumped Sawyer. Go Kate! That explains the “S” in the episode’s “TV-14 SV” rating.

Jin telling a Korean ghost story holding the flashlight under his chin.  Hilarious. Did Hurley actually understand him?  He had that funky dream sequence in the Swan pantry where he thought Jin was speaking English, but Jin told him he was speaking Korean.

Ruth. There’s another Biblical name.  Desmond’s former fiancee. Ouch.  At least we know where he got his cowardice complex from.  His first jilted lady love.

Was there actually a person in that helicopter?  Maybe it was an unmanned craft delivering a care package for Desmond.  Unless, of course, we find a parachuter to go with the book, the bobble-hip hula doll, and the photograph.

A Phil Collins tape. Swiped from Bernard. Can we please stop the alternate-timeline theory about Nikki and Paulo replacing Rose and Bernard?  The actors just aren’t in Hawaii right now or something for the filming.

Desmond saved Charlie in the end.  I didn’t think he could really let him die.  But every week has to have its Charlie near-death moment, I guess.

That’s not Penny hanging in the jungle.  It can’t be.

But it is a woman.  Have we seen her before?  The promo called her a survivor, so wiill she be telling us anything next week?  Hmm.

Desmond had to break off his engagement to enter the monastery in order to meet Penny… but was Penny also just a step along the path?  Was he meant to enter the boat race to gain a sense of honor to make him worthy of her so that he would end up on the island and save the world?  Too many questions.