Lost Spoilers, Clues and Eggs from Flashes Before Your Eyes

(Desmond helps Charlie postpone his destiny)

This is a companion post to my Lost Clues blog at LostExposed.com. You should go there to read my summary of the clues in this Lost episode. Here I will expand on the spoilers - y items, after all this is the Lost Spoilers blog.

A lot of Lost fans are thinking this episode should have been placed as episode 1 for season 3, since it provided some sort of explanation for what happened when the hatch blew up, or imploded. This is a spoilers blog and the answer is: Desmond was fulfilling his destiny.

The title was “Flashes Before Your Eyes”, but it could have been, Finally Locke, Sayid, Charlie, Hurley and Desmond get some face time. Not really. "Flashes Before Your Eyes " was nicely tied to that theme, as the flashback was in flashes before Desmond’s eye, and also relates to the thought process going on at the moment of destiny. This Lost episode could have also been called, Desmond is the key. After all Desmond is the only Lostie to escape from the island and come back to talk about it. We need now to go back and look at all the statements Desmond has made about inevitable destiny and view them with a new respect.

Big spoilers are in why Desmond needed to return to turn the key. We have all the facts and just need to add them up. The missing portion of his back story is how Desmond got in the army, into jail, and then to make a decision to enter evil Charles Widmore’s boat race taking him to his destiny on the island. And, what did he tell the lovely Penny about the plan? The spoilers are that Penny knew to look for the magnetic anomaly (or whatever it was) that would occur when Desmond finally fulfilled his destiny and turned the key. That would be her clue as to his location or the timing of his eventual return.

The Desmond flashback was an undecipherable mixture of actual past events with an overlay of the reflections of present day island Desmond – as his life flashes before his eyes. One spoiler we know for sure is that when Desmond says, it is impossible to escape, he means, for the person he is talking to, the destiny is to remain on the island. And, if they do escape, time will correct that error.

For Charlie that means Charlie has been cheating death, with Desmond’s help, but that streak of luck is bound to end. The example in this episode is Desmond's rescue of Claire. His aggressive shooing away of Charlie is depicted in the picture above (thanks Lostpedia). It seemed odd at the time, but Desmond needed to keep Charlie away to avoid risks to Charlie's life.

If the Charlie's street performance flashback was 100% true, Charlie probably would have remembered the confrontation with Desmond on the street in London. The only explanations are, either the confrontation did not occur, or heroin wiped away Charlie’s brain cells. The spoilers are that the flashback was a dream by Desmond induced by the hatch ex - implosion, and in the dream Desmond mixed the actual event - meeting Charlie on the street, with the overlay of his present friendship with Charlie.

Desmond tried to escape, but his destiny was to come back to turn the key. He sailed away but time corrected that error and took him back at the end of Season 2 of Lost.

Then there was Charles Widmore – the mysterious man of many insults:

• “This swallow is worth more than you could make in a month” … maybe.


• “You will never be a great man” … wrong, Desmond turned out to be great, since pushing the button and turning the key would be great things he accomplished. We do not know why they were great, although the leading explanation is those events are his test of worth leading to his reunion with the lovely Penny Widmore. Oh, also he saved humanity from destruction.

This episode brought back the Lost clues, Easter eggs and spoilers hints Lost fans love … in droves:

• Beginning flashback song, “Building A Mystery”


• Beep on microwave, same as the eerie warning to push the hatch button


• Microwave numbers, 1:08


• Parcel delivery for (4) suite 8-15 at the Widmore Industries office.


• In Charles “whisky” Widmore’s office, the old broken down boat – the Black Rock (Black Rock spoilers to come), a polar bear painting and the word “namaste” backwards on the wall.


• Charlie on the street performing Oasis’ “Wonderwall” – following the wall theme.


• Ads in the soccer game on TV in the bar: Apollo Candy, The Hanso Foundation, Oceanic Airlines, Hurley's Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack, Gannon Car Rentals (mysteriously appearing in Heroes the same week!)


• Song in the bar – same song Desmond played on button-pushing duty.


• The diamond lady Ms. Hawking – like “M” from James Bond fame, and like the Oracle in the Matrix trilogy, an all knowing seer of the future and past. Second of the Hawking-based spoilers in two weeks, the first being his book being read by the Other guarding Karl's Room 23 brainwashing session.