Jughead

I'm pretty sure it's going to be my nose that starts bleeding soon. This show makes my brain hurt...

But oh, what a show it was! In typical fashion, LOST packed a one-two punch, answered (or at least alluded to) a few WTFs. and raised a few more. The Desmond-centric eppy featured our favorite Scot on a mission to heed the words of Daniel Faraday, gleaned from a memory/dream in which he was instructed to make his way back to Oxford University and find Dan's mother. Except, only one glitch: the university has no record of a Daniel Faraday ever teaching or attending Oxford. Well, that won't stop Desmond. He snoops around, and eventually finds Daniel's old lab, (was it just me, or did the forbidden entrance/fumigation excuse remind you of the "quarantine" claim stamped on the inside of the hatch?) complete with rat maze, brainwave monitor/zapper thing, and various other time traveling paraphenelia. After being busted by a maintenance man who seemed rather let down that someone finally figured out that they haven't, in fact, been fumigating for the better part of a few years, he warned Desmond to tell his "mates" that he found nothing in that lab other than the "rubbish left behind by a madman." Why do they think he was insane in the membrane? Well, remember that picture Des found of Daniel and some woman? That some woman was apparently given the time travel blues by Daniel, who then took off for the states, leaving her in a vegetable-like stupor for the rest of her days. Or so Dezzie finds out from Theresa's (Veggie Woman's name) sister when he visits. Sister also thanks her lucky starts for a man like Charles Widmore, who funded Daniel's work for so long, and is now footing the long-term care bill for Theresa.

Say WHAAAAAT?

So, what you're saying is...Charles Widmore is connected to everything. Got it.

And so it would seem. Back on the island, Sawyer, Juliet, and Locke run into a couple of native Others, one of whom turns out to be the Chuckster himself. He's still not quite a warm-fuzzy kind of guy, noted as he snapped the neck of one of his own who was about to spill some serious info, then took off running into the jungle. Turns out, he's sprinting off toward Richard and the other Others, who have captured the other group, consisting of CharChar, Miles, and Daniel.

Daniel, it must be noted, has a bit of verbal diarrhea. Why, for the love of Jack Shepherd, would you tell ARMED MEN holding you AT GUNPOINT that you love the woman sitting next to you? Don't you think that's more of a hazard than it is helpful? If he really DOES love her, he probably just put her in a heap of trouble by admitting that, since now The Others have something to hold against him. Or, alternatively, is he saying it for exactly the opposite reason: he DOESN'T love her, but is trying to save her life nonetheless? (Which, as indicated by her face plant at the end of the episode, didn't seem to work out so much.) It seems a bit of a stretch to me that ageless Richard Alpert takes that excuse at face value, and allows Dan to be led off by Ellie (more on her later) to dismantle the atomic bomb (a shaded U2 reference?) currently kickin' it on the island.

Speaking of Jughead, she seems to be a bit worse for wear. After examining the H-bomb, Dan notices that it's leaking, requests a large amount of concrete and lead, and demands that the thing be buried in order to diffuse it. Ok, now, stick with me here, it's getting sticky...

My theory is that The Others took this advice, buried the H-bomb in a huge amount of concrete and lead... and developed a system to relieve the electromagnetic charge charge that built to a boiling point every 108 minutes. Yes, I believe that the h-bomb is what is buried in the hatch, and is what caused Desmond to become unstuck in time, what with his prolonged exposure to the radiation that the bomb emitted. As Sayid noted in (I think) season 2 upon his examining the infastructure of the hatch, he hadn't seen anything constructed like that since the Cold War, which occured in the 1950s and 60s, and since we found out last night that the year in which the bomb was on the island was 1954. It makes sense.

Which is more than I can say about some things on this show...

On to Ellie, a.k.a, the rifle-wielding Other in charge of taking Daniel out to the bomb. When we first encounter her, she and her band of merry men come upon the freighter folk in a blaze of glory. Literally. After a couple of red shirts set off a trip wire and ultimately blow themselves up, Ellie and her arrow-wielding men run out of the jungle and take the freighter folk prisoner. She then proceeds to comment that Daniel "just couldn't stay away," which ultimately ends up being a red herring. No, Daniel has not previously met this woman, she just seems to think that he and Miles and Charlotte are members of the U.S. military, whom the Others have been fighting recently. She orders them to their feet, binds their hands, and walks them through the jungle to their camp, where they meet up with Richard, who assumes, like Ellie, that they've come back for their bomb. Uh, well, no, not so much, but Daniel thinks he can diffuse it. When Ellie leads him to the bomb, Daniel can't seem to shake the feeling that she "looks like someone I know." All the watercooler chatter this morning has cast Ellie in the role of Theresa's (Veggie Woman) mom, but NB at ADM offers this theory: Daniel has met his mother. Apparently, the enhanced notes of last week's "The Lie" noted that Mrs. Hawking's first name (as well as Daniel's favorite pet rat) is Eloise. "Ellie," then, is a nickname for "Eloise," and there. You. Go.

So, with that information, why is Mrs. Hawking now working (supposedly) with Ben, Charles' sworn nemesis? And, now to think about it, why are Ben and Charles enemies? We know he killed his daughter, but what was the ORIGINAL beef they had with each other? My theory is that somehow, some way, Charles left the island, perhaps unwillingly as punishment for an act of subordination, and becomes the benefactor/funder of the Dharma Initiative. Along comes Ben, who kills off the Initiative in a mass genocide, and teams up with Richard, who probably kicked Charles off the island in the first place.

A few other notes, in no particular order:

• Charles Widmore, though not as entirely ageless as Richard Alpert, looks pretty good for his age. Homeboy was probably what, 18? 20? back in 1954. That would put him in his mid 70s in the flashforwards. Or the present, if that's what the flashforwards are now being called. Whatever. You know what I mean.
  
• Radiation- As they were walking through the jungle, Miles told Daniel that they had just walked over the fresh graves of U.S. military personnel, one of whom had died of radiation poisoning. Other people who have had exposure to high levels of radiation include Desmond, Daniel, Theresa, and apparently, Charlotte. If you remember, when Lapidus was taking Desmond and Sayid back to the freighter, he was warned by Daniel to keep a strict adherence to the bearings he was given, otherwise, they would slip into some sort of time warp, and people who had been exposed to this radiation would experience the "adverse effects" of time travel.
  
• Charlie. I'm assuming Des and Penny named their tow-headed toddler after the rock-god, smack-addicted, Clarie-lovin' martyr, and not the kid's grandfather.
• Arrows. Some of my research recently noted the continuing significance of arrow imagery and allusions this season. There's a Dharma station called The Arrow, Richard's Others' weapons of choice are arrows (sometimes flaming, sometimes now), and now in "Jughead," we have what is referred to as a "Broken Arrow" by the U.S. military: a missing or leaking hydrogen bomb. We'll see if this theme continues over the course of this season.
• Rules! Breaking! All! Over! The! Place! OK, so when Dan laid out the Rules 'O Time Traveling, he made specific mention that they could not alter past events. But isn't that what they're doing ALL THE TIME? Did they alter a past event so significantly that when they travel (assumbly forward) in time at the end of the episode, Charlotte immediately kicks it? WHAT DID THEY DO?!

Things to watch out for in next week's "The Little Prince:" Jin makes a comeback, though whether or not he's alive is still TBD. I can't wait!

So, dear readers, what do you think? Please post in the comments, and help me figure out this crazy frakkin' show!!