Initial Thoughts: "Jughead"

I looked over my Random Initial Thoughts on the two-hour premiere a few days ago, and for some reason I was surprised to realize they were basically a stream-of-consciousness mess that often didn't make sense. So this week, I sat on my thoughts overnight and now hope to bring you some slightly less random musings on last night's episode, "Jughead":

-I wonder if the show will settle into a "one island time period per episode" format this season. This time, it was 1954, which means we were cast into the middle of a conflict between the Others and the U.S. Military, which Faraday luckily knew tested H-bombs in the South Pacific in the '50s -- roughly 20 years before Dharma showed up.

-They're really killing off all the extras -- I think this episode they got rid of the last couple. This was always somewhat expected, but when you think about it, it's really tragic: the Oceanic 6's story has almost become legitimate, at least concerning the death toll. The only survivors of Flight 815 left on the island are Sawyer and Locke -- give or take Claire's ghost and the possibility of Jin floating in the water somewhere. Bizarre.

-It's finally confirmed that Richard is just really old. All signs pointed to that, but in my mind there was still a small possibility he was just time-hopping all over the place. Juliet doesn't seem to think anything of it, though. Somebody needs to pick her brain.

-A major answer tonight: we finally know exactly why Alpert was at Locke's birth, and why he gave Locke the "test" as a kid. Suddenly, the question "which item belongs to you already?" makes perfect sense: Alpert wanted Locke to pick the compass, because 50-year-old Locke had given Alpert the compass two years prior.

-Let's look more closely at that, though: In the premiere, Future Alpert gave Locke the compass to give to past Alpert, so Past Alpert could then administer the test to Young Locke. (I love that I just wrote that sentence.) But Young Locke failed the test and Alpert apparently gave up on him until fate brought Locke back to the island -- and eventually we get back to Future Alpert giving Locke the compass. My question: what's the point? It's a time loop -- Alpert gave Locke the compass because he knew he was supposed to, because in 1954, Locke gave Alpert the compass first. But Locke wouldn't have had to bother to give Alpert the compass if Future Alpert hadn't given Locke the compass. You see where I'm going with this? Either Alpert has a very specific plan that we don't know, or he's just following the rules of Time because he's afraid to see what would happen if he didn't: he "always" gave Locke the compass, therefore he must give Locke the compass. The second option is actually more interesting, because it's a major philosophical question: does Alpert do things because Fate dooms him to repeat the same actions, or does he do those things simply because he assumes Fate is forcing his hand? I think the whole point is that we're not supposed to know.

-Another great reveal was that the punk British kid you wanted to slap was no other than Charles Widmore -- and our amusement by this revelation was mirrored on Locke's face. So Widmore was indeed an Other. Did he ever become leader of the Others? Was he leader of the Others when Ben enacted the Purge, and Ben usurped him? My girlfriend puts forth the theory that he never was in a leadership position -- and his bitterness at that fact was what led him, many years later once he was rich, to send the freighter to the island to destroy it and kill Ben Linus. We're tantalizingly close to learning pivotal island history.

-"Jughead," the title of the episode, was named after the H-bomb hanging out on the island. The expression on Faraday's face when he realized the bomb was leaking was priceless. But here's something: remember way back in Season 2, when Sayid was searching through the lower pits of the hatch and could only get so far because something massive was encased in concrete (Sayid likened it to Chernobyl)? Might that be where the Others eventually buried the bomb under the instruction of Faraday? (Since I don't know much about H-bombs, I'll stop there instead of formulating some theory about how the H-bomb was tied to the computer and the 108 minutes and the hatch implosion.)

-Best line of the night goes to Sawyer, after the Other girl asks Faraday if he was one of his time-traveling friends: "You told her?"

-Jumping to Great Britain circa three years later...the big story is that Mrs. Hawking is all but confirmed to be Faraday's mother. The implications of that, however, are dire: Penny finished the episode by declaring to Desmond she's going with him...to L.A. Where Ben is hanging out. Who promised to murder her. No wonder Widmore was surprisingly cool with Desmond, telling him just to go away again and stay hidden. (On a pure writing note, I thought the way the Desmond/Penny scene was constructed was entirely unnecessary -- it didn't make sense for Desmond to up and say he's giving up on finding Faraday's mother after explaining how important it was to find her in the beginning of the episode.)

-It was a curious decision to open the episode with a flashback to Penny giving birth to their kid -- although that certainly took on added significance when it was revealed almost as a throwaway that the kid's name is Charlie, which may have been my favorite moment in the episode. (Too bad that's the kid's grandfather's name, too.)

-Let me get the factions straight, here: Charles Widmore financed all of Faraday's scientific studies and later sent him on the freighter. But Faraday's own mother is the leader of the group Ben is working for in Los Angeles. No conclusion here, I guess -- just an observation.

-As the episode ended with Charlotte in time-travel nose-bleeding peril, I suppose it's as good a point as any to leave on. Desmond found out that Faraday had another girl who got the time travel disease, whom Faraday had completely abandoned. Now the same thing seems to be happening with Charlotte. First thing: what exactly did happen to the first girl? Apparently she had gotten "unstuck in time," but if so, why was she still alive? You die unless you find a Constant, at which point you get better, right? And second thing: what exactly is happening to Charlotte? Is she getting unstuck, or -- as evidenced by her comment last week about forgetting her mother's maiden name -- is she slowly ceasing to exist? The end of last season hinted that Charlotte was born on the island -- perhaps the Locke, Sawyer et al have unwittingly done something that erases her from the time line altogether.

I guess we'll soon find out...

TAGS: Charles Widmore, Charlie, Desmond, Faraday, Jughead, Penny, Recaps, Season 5
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