SPOILER ALERT!

A Desmond episode – yay! Well, we didn’t get many answers – again – but we did get a new perspective on the Sideways world. A few thoughts:

• Desmond was whisked to Sideways world through an electromagnetic thingamababob.  Des also saw flashes of his other life while in a MRI, which also involves magnets.  Not sure why this is significant, but there seems to be a connection.  Also, as Widmore pointed out, Desmond has survived a previous catastrophic electromagnetic event; the hatch imploding, after which Desmond was able to see into the future and his consciousness could travel in time.  So, in other words, Desmond + electromagnetism = funky mind tripping.
• Right before Juliet died, she thought “It worked.”  As Charlie’s life flashed before his eyes as he gagged on a bag of heroin, he saw the love he shared with, presumably, Claire.  As Desmond’s lungs were filling with water, he got a mental image of Charlies “NOT PENNYS BOAT” message.  So do you get a glimpse of your other life as a sort of near-death experience?  So hypothetically, before Keamy dies in the restaurant, did he have visions in his head of killing Alex on the Island?  Daniel Faraday (actually, Widmore) got a glimpse of his feelings for Charlotte just from seeing her, so that confuses the whole near-death theory, but I still think there’s something there.
• And what is up with Eloise?  What does she know?  Her interaction with Desmond was eerily similar to the one in Flashes Before Your Eyes, where she told Des that he would not be proposing to Penny, because it was not his destiny.  At least in that timeline, she was a little nicer about it.  But the question in both timelines remains the same: How does she know so much?
• On to Daniel’s notebook.  I freeze-framed the shot, and there is a line in there that says “Real space, imaginary time.”  Any physicists out there care to interpret that for us?  That, coupled with the line from Desmond that “none of this is real” makes me wonder more just about what the Sideways world is.  It can’t be *totally* bogus, right?  What would be the point of it then?  I was hoping for more of a connection between the two timelines, but now we see Sideways Desmond on a mission to inform the other 815′ers with what he knows.  How will he convince them – nearly killing them all?
• Oh, and Island Desmond – when someone says he is going to explain things, please, LET HIM!  Even if you don’t care, just let him have a go, it would mean so very much to those of us at home.  And what is that Des up to?  Does he really trust Widmore?  Why?  And if he does, why would he just go along with Sayid so willingly?

Did everyone see not one but TWO of Desmond’s reflections; one in the arrival screen at LAX, and the other as he walked into the police station? Oh, and I have to admit that I knew that George the driver looked familiar, but I couldn’t place him where he was from in the Lost universe.  (I just remembered him from Short Circuit 2…)  But Courtney insisted we’d seen him on Lost before, and she was right – he was George Minkowski, the freighter’s communications man who had his own flashes of time travel and died without having a constant.  Next week, we get a Hurley episode – about time!