Major spoilers. Some people consider time-travel a storytelling "cheat", but there's no other way to explain half the events that occur on Lost, and it's always been part of the agenda. Season 5 is inexorably linked to temporal oddities, now that the island (or its inhabitants, at least) are leapfrogging around the timeline. The sublime "Jughead" is a mutual story for off-island Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) and on-island Daniel (Jeremy Davies), and easily one of the most enlightening episodes in a very long time...It's confirmed here that Daniel's alteration of history in last week's "The Lie" (asking past-Desmond to find his Oxford-based mother once he escapes the island), has burned a fresh memory into Desmond's present-day mind -- compelling him to sail his boat back to Britain and carry out Daniel's instruction, even though girlfriend Penny (Sonya Walger) is worried her villainous father Charles (Alan Dale) will be waiting in the wings.
On the island; physicist Daniel, sick Charlotte (Rebecca Mader) and psychic Miles (Ken Leung) arrive at the creek rendezvous, having surviving an attack on their party by unseen assailants armed with flaming arrows. Said attackers reveal themselves to be British soldiers, led by a brusque, rifle-toting young woman called Ellie (Alexandra Krosney), who capture Dan's party and take them back to their camp.
Elsewhere, bare-chested Sawyer (Josh Holloway), Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) and Locke (Terry O'Quinn) debate what to do with the two English soldiers they've managed to capture. The Brits share Juliet's fluency in Latin -- a known trait of anyone recruited to become an "Other", apparently. One of the men, Jones (Tom Connolly), escapes after snapping the neck of his loquacious partner, and rushes back to the Others' camp, unaware Locke has the skills to track his movements...
With both parties converged on the Others' militaristic camp for very different reasons, it's revealed that their leader is none other than forever-youthful Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell), who believes Daniel's group are US military -- currently embroiled in skirmishes with the Others. Daniel goes along with the mistaken identity, offering to help the Others with a particular problem: disarming a damaged hydrogen bomb nicknamed "Jughead", currently hanging from a suspension tower, leaking radiation.
Meanwhile, Desmond (whom we learn fathered a child with Penny three years ago, and named the tot Charlie after his dead friend), arrives at Oxford University, but there's no record of a Daniel Faraday having worked there. Still, as he leaves, Desmond stumbles upon the physics lab he remembers meeting Daniel in (see: "The Constant", when twitchy Dan was trying to make a rat called Eloise's consciousness travel through time), and finds all the equipment has been mothballed.
Then, a mysterious custodian arrives and inadvertently reveals why Faraday parted company with the university -- he performed an unethical experiment on a human guinea pig called Theresa Spencer (Sarah Farooqui). Desmond tracks Theresa down at her house; discovering she's now a bedridden woman in a constant trance, her consciousness "unstuck" in time. Theresa's sister warns Desmond that Daniel abandoned Theresa after his experiment failed so disastrously, and that her round-the-clock care is being paid for by Daniel's research benefactor... Charles Widmore!
Ostensibly a Daniel/Desmond story, there's still a fascinating subplot for Locke, who arrives in the Others' camp ahead of Sawyer and Juliet to speak to his friend Richard -- who, in this era (1954), hasn't met Locke yet. Fortunately, future-Richard gave Locke his compass to act as proof of his incredible story, and the instrument certainly persuades Richard to hear Locke's tale. Locke even suggests Richard visit him when he's born in a few year's time, which neatly explains Richard's incongruous appearance at baby Locke's crib in "Cabin Fever".
It must also feed into why Richard "tested" Locke as a young boy, by asking him to indicate which of five objects (that included said compass) "already belonged" to him... but that's still too mind-bending to get a firm grasp on. Is there a chance Locke's consciousness will become unstuck in time one day soon (just like Theresa and Desmond's), so Richard thought adult-Locke would be in boy-Locke's body at that time-period? Remember, the boy was doodling smoke monsters.
The whole scenario also gives us a sense of why Locke's considered so important to the Others: he's an almost mythical time-traveller who appeared out of thin air in '54 to prophesize his destiny as the their great leader, given Jacob's blessing. This puts a whole new spin on why Richard's been so fascinated by Locke, and why Ben views Locke with a seething jealousy -- Locke's the legendary leader Richard and the Others have been waiting fifty years to see again, and Ben was always a stop-gap keeping his throne warm. It's even more remarkable that you can re-watch episodes made over a year ago (when the actors didn't know the full extent of their inter-relationships) and yet it all clicks. See, the writers really do have a masterplan!
Episodes like "Jughead" are often in danger of drowning the characters in a sea of narrative surprises and twists. The episode falls prey to that criticism slightly, but the damage was controlled by utilizing two of its better, humane characters -- Desmond and Daniel. The former's romance with Penny continues to eclipse the Jack/Kate/Sawyer love-triangle with consummate ease, despite the fact the parted lovebirds appeared to get their "happily ever after" last season. Here, Desmond can't turn his back on those he believes survived the island's perceived destruction/disappearance, even though Penny would prefer he forget all about that infernal place. Plus, he now has a son to consider.
And we also have kooky Daniel; whose status as the fidgety, sensitive nice-guy (finally admitting to Charlotte that he loves her, trying to defuse the H-bomb) is now tainted by knowledge he experimented on his own girlfriend, abandoned her to catatonia when it all went wrong, and assumedly fled to America. Maybe Dan had a good reason for treating Theresa this way and maybe he genuinely regrets the whole thing, but is he still on evil Widmore's payroll?
Oh yes, Charles Widmore. In one of the episode's bigger surprises, we learn that the supercilious Jones is actually a young Charles Widmore, confirming suspicions that Widmore has a personal attachment to the island. Indeed, as an Other existing in the '50s, his investment predates his opponent Ben's (who arrived on the island as a little boy with DHARMA), and half-explains Widmore's cutting remark to Ben during "The Shape Of Things To Come" ("that island is mine... always has been, and will be again.") Of course, more questions thus arise: when, how and why did Widmore leave the island? Was he born there? How old is he, given the fact he looked in his thirties back in 1954? Do you age slower on the island?
Question Roundup
- What happened to the hydrogen bomb "Jughead"? If it was successfully buried in 1954 by the Others, will it one day explode and destroy the whole island? Is that what the series finale has in store for us?
- Why does Daniel recognize Ellie? Is it because Ellie is his mother? If so (and he named his rat Eloise in her honour), is her last name Hawking -- making her the white-haired lady currently helping Ben?
- How did the US military get to the island? Wasn't it hidden from the outside world 50 years ago? Does this mean the modern-day US government are aware of the island's existence?
- What has happened to Rose, Bernard, and the rest of the survivors?
- What is happening to Charlotte, and why is she the only person feeling the repercussions of temporal displacement? Is it because she was born on the island?
- How, why and when did young Widmore leave the island? And does this mean the present-day Widmore has always remembered meeting Daniel, Locke, Juliet and Sawyer in the past? Or will those memories now emerge for him, as Desmond's did when Daniel altered the timeline?
- Why do the Others speak Latin? Is this something to do with why writing on the blast-door map in season 2 was covered in Latin? And why, with the exception of Richard Alpert, do all the old-Others have English accents?
- Who are the other people the custodian mentions to Desmond, who came to snoop around Daniel's lab?
1 February 2009
Sky1, 9pm
Writers: Elizabeth Sarnoff & Paul Zbyszewski
Director: Rod Holcomb
Cast: Ken Leung (Miles), Rebecca Mader (Charlotte), Elizabeth Mitchell (Juliet), Josh Holloway (Sawyer), Terry O'Quinn (Locke), Jeremy Davies (Daniel), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond), Alan Dale (Charles Widmore), Sonya Walger (Penny), Nestor Carbonell (Richard Alpert), Tom Connolly (Jones), Alexandra Krosney (Ellie), Imelda Corcoran (Abigail), Matthew Alan (Cunningham), Dan Hildebrand (Custodian), Mary Ann Taheny (Moira), Raymond Ma (Efren Salonga), Sarah Farooqui (Theresa) & Tuli Roy-Kirwan (Secretary)
