Desmond travels to Oxford to find a woman who may be able to help the survivors trapped on the island stop jumping through time. Meanwhile, the survivors encounter the 1954 versions of some very familiar faces.
| Written by Elizabeth Sarnoff & Paul Zbyszewski Directed by Rod Holcomb |
- Desmond, Penny, and their young son Charlie arrive in Great Britain to follow up on Daniel’s request that Desmond track down his mother at Oxford. Penny is nervous about the fact that her wicked father also lives in England, but Desmond assures her he can get in and out without Charles Widmore ever knowing. He promises her he’ll be done with the island for good after he does this one thing.
- Desmond visits Daniel’s old lab at Oxford and finds it abandoned and sealed off. Oxford chose to conceal Daniel’s employment there after he left, due to an accident involving Daniel’s girlfriend, Teresa Spencer. Likewise, Oxford’s records department has no information about Daniel’s mother. Desmond tracks down the home of Teresa Spencer, only to find that she’s in a catatonic state due to something Daniel did with one of his experiments that went wrong. Even more troubling is the fact that all of Teresa’s hospital bills, as well as Daniel’s research into space/time, have been funded by Desmond’s old nemesis, Charles Widmore.
- Furious, Desmond storms into Widmore’s office and demands to know the location of Daniel’s mother. Widmore is surprised to see him, since he hasn’t seen Penny in three years, so he tries to bargain with Desmond for information about his daughter, but Desmond’s not interested. Widmore finally concedes and tells Desmond that Daniel’s mother is in Los Angeles, though she’s “very private” and won’t appreciate a visit from Desmond. In an unexpected moment of altruism, Widmore warns Desmond to deliver Daniel’s message and then “get out of this mess.”
- Desmond returns to his yacht home and though he tells Penny he’s not interested in pursuing this any further, she knows that he won’t be able to let it go. She promises to go with him wherever this leads.
- On the island, Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles head for the creek to meet up with Sawyer and Juliet, but instead they’re captured by a large group of people wearing Army uniforms, just like the group that grabbed Sawyer and Juliet. A young woman named Ellie is in charge, and she takes them back to her people’s camp, a large tent city in a valley. Ellie introduces them to Richard Alpert at the camp, who looks the same as he always does, even though (as they eventually find out), they’re in 1954. Richard believes them to be part of the American Army, and accuses them of attacking the Others and conducting weapons tests on the island. He asks if they’ve returned to collect a hydrogen bomb they left behind. Daniel decides to play along, saying he’s an American scientist sent to render the bomb inert. But Richard doesn’t trust him, until Daniel professes his deep, passionate love for Charlotte on the spot, promising to never let anything harm her. Richard agrees to allow Daniel to visit the bomb, and assigns Ellie to take him there. Before they leave, Richard explains that one month ago, 18 members of the U.S. Army came to the island and set up the camp that the Others are using now. Richard gave them the opportunity to leave peacefully, but when they refused, his orders from Jacob were to kill them all.
- Sawyer, Juliet, and Locke hold two of the Army men while trying to decide what to do with them. But the two men speak to each other in a language that Juliet recognizes as Latin. She tells Locke and Sawyer that these two knowing Latin can mean only one thing: they’re Others. “Jones” snaps his companion Cunningham’s neck after Cunningham reveals the location of the Others’ camp, and then Jones escapes into the jungle. Locke, Sawyer, and Juliet travel to the Others’ camp, where Locke decides to talk to Richard, who Juliet says “has always been here.” Locke wants to talk to him to convince him to reveal how to leave the island, so Locke can get the Oceanic 6 to return, but he knows it’ll be difficult because this 1954 version of Richard Alpert has never met Locke before. Sawyer and Juliet leave him to it, and go to rescue Daniel from Ellie.
- Daniel and Ellie walk across an open plain on their way to the bomb, and he can’t stop looking at her. He tells her she looks like someone he used to know. They find the hydrogen bomb, “Jughead,” hanging inside a wooden tower. Daniel discovers that the bomb is leaking radiation, so he tells Ellie to bury it, after which all will be well. She doesn’t understand how he could know this, and he reveals that he’s from the future, where the island is still around. This is how he knows the bomb will never go off. Sawyer and Juliet arrive just then and make Ellie drop her gun.
- Locke walks confidently into the Others’ camp and asks for Richard, telling him, “Jacob sent me.” Richard agrees to talk to him, but the man labeled “Jones,” who recently returned from his captivity, doesn’t believe Locke, after which Richard addresses him by his real name: “Widmore.” Locke is stunned to finally meet Charles Widmore, the man he’s heard so much about, as a young man. Later, Locke and Richard talk in private, where Locke hands over the compass that Richard gave him in the future, to convince Richard that Locke is who he says he is. He tells Richard that he’s destined to become leader of the Others in the future, but Richard has trouble swallowing this, pointing out that the Others use a very specific procedure for selecting their leaders, a procedure that starts at a young age. Richard balks when Locke asks how to get off the island, claiming that this is “very privileged information.” Another time jump starts to build up, and Locke says that he’s going to be born in two years, and that Richard should visit him. The time jump occurs, and the Others and their camp have vanished. Only the survivors are left, but Charlotte collapses, her nose gushing blood.
- About a year after Desmond escaped from the island, Penny gave birth to a baby boy while their boat was docked in the Philippines. They named the boy Charlie, in honor of Desmond’s fallen friend Charlie Pace.
- Charles Widmore once lived on the island as an Other.
Question: How does Charles Widmore know about the island? 4.06 - Most likely, Widmore wants to get back to the island, though it’s possible he could have other reasons.
Question: Why has Charles Widmore been trying to find the island? 4.06 - They were both Others, and as Juliet can attest, one rule of being an Other is that you do not kill each another.
Question: Why can’t Ben and Widmore kill each other? 4.09 - Apparently the rules preventing Others from killing each other apply to their offspring as well. Widmore gave his men clearance to kill Alex if it was necessary to get to Ben, which violated those rules, so Ben realized that with the rules broken, he was now clear to kill Widmore’s child in retribution.
Question: What did Ben mean when he said that Widmore “changed the rules”? What rules? 4.09 - Richard Alpert checked on Locke as a child because Locke himself asked him to, when Locke traveled back in time to 1954. Locke explained that it was his destiny to become leader of the Others, so Richard tested Locke as a child repeatedly to determine if this was true.
Question: What was Richard Alpert doing checking in on Locke so many times throughout his formative years? It appeared that he was trying to determine if Locke was destined to become the leader of the Others, but if that’s true, how did he know about Locke in the first place? 4.11 - The Others.
Question: Who are the people in the Army uniforms that are trying to kill the survivors on the island? 5.02 - A very young Charles Widmore.
Question: Who is the young man labeled “Jones”? 5.02 - The island was visited by a group of U.S. Army soldiers, who planned to use it to test-detonate a hydrogen bomb there, in 1954. But a conflict broke out between the Army and the Others, and the Others slaughtered them all, and then took all of their equipment and supplies to use as their own. The pocket knife very likely came from this event.
Question: Where did the Others get a U.S. military pocket knife? 2.07
- Why did Widmore fund Daniel’s research? How does he know Daniel?
- Why did Ellie remind Daniel of someone he used to know?
- Is the young woman Ellie really Eloise Hawking?
- Why did Jacob order Richard to kill the Army men?
- Widmore was once an Other living on the island, so why did he leave the island?
- Ms. Hawking likewise was once an Other on the island, so why did she leave the island?
- Did the Others bury the bomb, as Daniel suggested? If so, where?
- “Jughead” is the fourth Desmond-centric episode of the series.
- Season 5 was full of game-changing moments, and the revelation that both Charles Widmore and Eloise Hawking were once Others who lived on the island rates highly among those moments. Seen in hindsight, it’s the kind of thing that should have been obvious much sooner, but Lost’s writers are simply too skilled at mystery and misdirection. I have a feeling that many of the show’s remaining unsolved mysteries are going to be these kinds of revelations — the sort of thing that seems painfully obvious in retrospect, but which no one managed to piece together on their own.
Need more depth and detail? Read my full recap of “Jughead”.
Follow ApproachingLOST on Twitter!
Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 4 cast promotional image: American Broadcasting Company.