Today's screencap of last night's "Lost"

In which we confirm that each and every episode should be about Desmond:

Validation

Though my jaw was still scraping the floor following the Lost season finale last week, I was able to post a brief theory on the thrilling notion that love and Mr. Desmond David Hume were the true center of the vast Lost world.

And, lo, someone at Entertainment Weekly seems to agree with me:

Call it corny, but I'm nutty for the idea. And I think I'm right. With its season finale, Lost revealed its true identity: It's actually a gloriously old-fashioned, ridiculously idealistic romantic epic. But the Romeo and Juliet of this love story aren't Jack and Kate (but I did love their non-verbal Han/Leia ''I love you''/''I know'' nod-and-blink exchange — a
fittingly coy way to end the show's bad-guy-triumphant Empire Strikes Back season), or Charlie and Claire (that kiss — an abrupt turnabout in their relationship, don't you think?), or Jin and Sun (even though their relationship is Lost's main source of human grounding).

No: The star-crossed lovers of Lost are Desmond and Penelope Widmore, the English heiress whose powerful and possibly Dharma Initiative-connected father Arthur Widmore...seems determined to make sure that his daughter and the lovelorn hatchman will never, ever be together.

I don't know which is more exciting: that someone whose job it is to theorize about Lost has developed a similar view on the subject or that, for the sake of the story's narrative arc (not my own ego), my Desmond-centric theory might actually be true. Like Fox Mulder, I want to believe. I want it to be true that the love between Desmond and Penelope is the show's reason for being.

So if such a theory has enough merit to appear within the hallowed pages of EW, well, hell, my little romantic heart is aflutter.

See you in another life, brother

I am absolutely in love with the fact that Lost seems to have made Desmond the prime mover within the show's fantastically woven web of existential, six-degrees-of-separation drama. It is an utter stroke of genius that a character who didn't even appear until the series' second season -- and only had a part in a few episodes, at that -- has been revealed as the potential cause of both the fall and redemption of our flawed band of protagonists. (That is, if Desmond's failed button-pushing indeed caused flight 815 to crash, and if his turning the electromagnetic key indeed sent a signal to the outside world that will save them all.)

And how brilliant and simple the whole of Desmond's motivation: love. Astounding. Just when you think Lost is trapped under the weight of the elaborate Dharma Initiative mythology and the us vs. them conflict and the mysterious sicknesses/vaccines/smoke monsters -- boom: L O V E. It really is about human relationships after all.

(My awe is aided by the indisputable truth that clean-cut, post-prison, pre-race-around-the-world Desmond is smokin'. I just think it needs to be said.)

It is going to be a long, painful summer.