LOST character of the week

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Ah, Desmond. Everyone’s favorite freak-in-the-hatch turned boyfriend. Let’s start at the beginning, shall we? Once upon a time there was a very attractive man named Desmond Hume (cue harp music)...

Desmond is originally from Glasgow, Scotland (love Scotland!). He was engaged to some chick named Ruth for awhile, but he decided that he would rather join a monastery than marry her. Talk about a blow to your self esteem. A simple, “I have cold feet,” would have worked, Des. Des completes his vow of silence and is promptly beaten to a pulp by Ruth’s brother. Can’t say he didn’t deserve it. My brother probably would have done the same thing because he’s fearsome protective. Desmond solves his problem the only way people on this show know how to. He breaks into the wine cellar and drowns his sorrows. The head monk finds him and kicks him out of the order because they can’t have drunk monks stumbling around. That would just be embarrassing. While he’s leaving, though, the head monk asks him if he’ll help a lady load some wine in her car. The wino lady is Penny and it’s true love at first site, y’all!

The next time we see Des, he’s being released from military prison and being given a dishonorable discharge. A chap in a truck picks him up. It turns out to be Charles Widmore, aka everyone’s daddy. He shows Desmond a box of letters from him to Penny. Desmond calls him a bad name. Then he shows him a box full of money; a bribe to stay away from Penny. Then Widmore calls him a coward. I would like to find this man’s mom and spit in her face because she obviously didn’t hug him enough.

Cut to Desmond in a coffee shop. He orders a coffee and can’t pay for it, but it’s red-haired Libby to the rescue! She buys his coffee and listens to his desires to sail around the world in a race sponsored by Charles Widmore so he can get some of Daddy Warbuck’s money. He reveals that he didn’t take CW’s bribe to stay away from Penny but CW still managed to separate them. Libby gives him her dead husband’s boat. Desmond promises her that he will win the race “for love.”

Desmond’s running bleachers in the stadium because that’s what hardcore sailors do, yo! He has his cryptic conversation with Jack and then Penny runs up, crying and practically throwing herself at him. He pushes her away and tells her to stand back because he’s gotta do his thing. Or something like that. I stopped paying attention for a minute.

Des crashes on the beach on the island and a man in a yellow biohazard suit drags him to the hatch. Not a good sign. The man is Kelvin Inman and he teaches Desmond a riddle about a snowman. They are best buds in the making! Kelvin types in the numbers and calmly explains to Desmond that this is now his job and if he doesn’t do it, the world will explode. He shows Desmond the Orientation film. When Desmond mentions the missing parts, Kelvin says….wait for it….wait for it…..”RADSINSKI MADE SOME EDITS!” Poor man’s Paul Giamatti. Kelvin goes on to say that Radsinski used to be his partner. Zoinks!

Kelvin tells Desmond that he can’t go outside without a biohazard suit or a shot of yellow Kool-Aid in the arm or he’ll get infected. With Danielle’s cooties. We also learn that Radsinski was the one painting the invisible map on the hatch door and Radsinski killed himself in the hatch. Desmond finds out that Kelvin is trying to escape on his sailboat. They get in a slapfight and Kelvin hits his head on some rocks and it’s lights out for him. Desmond goes back to the hatch and the place is going nuts! Hierogyphics and furniture flying everywhere! He calms the hatch back down by entering the numbers then sits down to have a pity party. He’s decided there’s nothing left to live for when he hears Locke banging on the door of the hatch.

In short, he meets the survivors, makes friends with them, and teaches Locke about the numbers. Locke is all about the number. If it were a person, he would marry it. Then the summer love vibe wears off and Locke resents the number for never taking him out on Friday nights so he decides to see what happens when he ignores the number. What happened was that the sky turned freaking purple and someone blew an extra loud dog whistle, only humans could hear it. Maybe it was a human whistle. Anyway, bad stuff happens. The kind of stuff that would make Scooby and Shaggy hide in a mummy’s tomb with a Dagwood sandwich. But it’s Des to the rescue! He climbs under the hatch and turns the failsafe key, keeping the horrible thing from continuing. Then, a treat for us, the hatch explodes and not only blows Desmond into the middle of the jungle, it blows his clothes off in the process. Bonus! After being exploded by the purple light in the hatch, Desmond realizes he can see into the future. He goes into full on Alice catatonic states where he sees horrible things happening to the island hobbit, Charlie. He devotes himself to saving Charlie, but after awhile he realizes that he can’t stop the inevitable and tells Charlie as much. They swim to the looking glass station together to contact the freighter. Desmond occupies himself with killing Mikhail while Charlie locks himself in a watery cell, complements of Mikhail. Before he dies, he writes Des a message on his hand that it is not Penny’s boat. Desmond flies to the freighter but keeps time traveling. Faraday tells him he has to find a constant and he picks Penny. Aww. Warm fuzzies all around . He and Sayid confront Michael in the engine room of the freighter and he tells him he’s about to drop the bomb on that boat. Des and Sayid jump on the chopper right before the freighter explodes and Des finds himself back in the arms of his beloved Penny. He and Penny live on a boat and have a cute little munchkin named Charlie. Later Ben shows up and shoots Des, but it doesn’t get past Des’ awesome grocery bag and Desmond beats the doo doo out of Ben and throws him in the ocean. Yay! The last we saw of Desmond, he was recovering nicely in a hospital.

Sawyer nicknames: Scottie

Off Island Connections: He met jack while running in the stadium. He spent three years in the hatch with Kelvin Inman. Kelvin was Sayid’s commanding officer. He meets Libby and she gives him her husband’s boat. He sees Charlie playing his guitar on the street in one of his time travel flashbacks.

Sources: Lostpedia, Wikipedia, lost.about.com, Season 2 and 3, my brain and memory