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Watching this episode, I am overcome with a sense of fatalism. Even nihilism. Whatever happens happens is such a fatalistic concept. I'm hoping that Daniel isn't dead yet but for the sake of argument, let's say his purpose was to go back to the island and get shot by his mother and die. Something happens in the next four hours, which we will find out int he following two episodes, whether or not they really detonate the bomb or not, and it convinces Eloise that the only right thing is for Daniel to fulfiul his purpose. She has with him his journal, with everything that he has written down in it. All his equations and concepts of time travel, as well as all the details of his life that he jotted down, including Theresa dying, all about Desmond and the button and his part in things. She pushes him to become a physicist, gives him the journal to start writing when he graduates, talks to Desmond so that he goes to the island to fulfil his purpose of causing the plane to crash, and finally pushes her son to go to the island, because what happens after she shoots him is far more important. There is such sadness in her eyes when she tells him to go and she is an incredibly hard woman because of all that she knows. And once Desmond leaves, she no longer can tell what's going to happen because that's where Daniel (and his journal) leaves her and now her future is uncertain.

After a whole season where the fatalism of fate has been hammered into our heads, Daniel suddenly pops up to say that it might not be true, and promptly proves his own point false by running headfirst into his fate by going guns blazing into the hostile camp. Aside from the stupidity of that action which I can only blame the writers for, the one thing that still gives us hope that things could still be changed are two things. One is Desmond. The other is what exactly Daniel said to young Charlotte. He said that he had avoided telling her until now but was going to try it anyway. I suspect they cut away from it because Daniel tried to tell her something different. Not "don't go back to the island or you will die" but something else that might change things for the better.

Desmond has already been brought up as an outside factor to fate. He's already saved Charlie's life several times, which led to Charlie drowning and started Desmond to finally get contact with Penny to save the O6. His future is completely unwritten. Daniel told him to go to his mother but Daniel had no idea what would happen if he did. It ended up causing Desmond to be shot by Ben... which could lead to Desmond doing something else which is still unknown. Desmond is still a complete variable in the equation, both from the outside perspective and from his own perspective.

As for the theme of fatalism, it is basically a reflection of the much larger philosophical question of predetermination and free will. If everything is already predetermined, can we be said to have free will? Free will implies choice and when your choices will inevitably lead to the predetermined fate, does that mean you don't have free will? Looking at the timeline from the outside, it might seem so. What happens happens. It's fatalisitic. But the hope is that something can be changed. Like what Daniel is trying to do.

We've already seen Jack refuse to help Ben because he knows what Ben becomes and inadvertantly causes Ben to become what he is. Is that what's going to happen with the bomb? Daniel's plan to dissipate the energy might accidentally cause the accident to happen. It's incredibly fatalistic to think about. And I hope that whatever Daniel told young Charlotte, it was different and it actually does affect things as well as what Desmond does after being shot.

Hope and free will on one side vs. pretermination and fate on the other. Which shall overcome the other?