5 X 03: Jughead
Saturday, January 31st, 2009Most of what I wanted to say, I said initially. I had to go back on Wednesday and watch again even though I was dead tired at work the next day. Probably in my top 10 favorite episodes.
1. The title “Jughead.” We know that the bomb was called “Jughead” but there has to be more significance. I still think that the leaking radiation has something to do with why women can’t carry babies to term. Maybe Dan, Charlotte and Miles are the last babies conceived on the island so they are special. Since we know that the island has healing qualities, we have wondered how Ben got a tumor on his spine. He was probably working too close to Jughead and was exposed to small quantities of the radiation. If Dan hadn’t have shown up and told them what to do with it, what would they have done with the bomb? Maybe all of this has happened before and Jughead represents a serious problem that could not have been fixed without Dan so all of the events must happen this way. And unless all of the events (starting with the plane crash) happened then the island may not have been been there.
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2. The American government is coming in 1954 to the island. Why do they want to kill the “Hostiles?” Couldn’t they have just rounded them up and put them in a prison camp? Are we sure it’s the government or perhaps ex military? Keemy and the gang looked to be military also but weren’t working for the government. Maybe it’s a “Hatfield and McCoy” scuffle that has been going on for hundreds of years and not just Ben Vs. Widmore.
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3. So it’s Oxford University and in the 10 – 20 years in between when Des met Dan on campus and now they haven’t cleaned up the office for other use? Or, did Dan *just* abandon the office right before he left for the island and it hasn’t been long enough to get it cleaned out? If that’s the case, there must have been an incredible offer to just leave all of his time travel research like that. Maybe *someone* convinced him to leave (like, say, Widmore)? From the state of the office I’d say he left in a big hurry.
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4. Dan tells Miles and Charlotte that they just have to hang tight until everything disappears but can’t predict when. What if it’s every 108 minutes that they travel? I’m thinking that the numbers might come in play here as to how the time shift works.
5. Watching back, Juliet doesn’t know how far in the past they are so how does she know to ask if Richard is at the camp? I just don’t want to believe that he’s really, truthfully “very” old but how else would she know he’d be there?
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6. Locke can’t shoot “Jones” because he’s one of his people. Remember that Juliet was branded for killing Pickett (the guy who was going to kill Sawyer and Kate) so it must be against their rules to kill one of your own. Keemy also broke the rules when he killed Alex.
7. It does look like Teresa is the same girl that is in the picture, but the picture is old (check out Dan’s mullet). Dan doesn’t seem the type to leave someone behind that he cared for so again, something must have happened to make him just take off and then Widmore to take care of Teresa in his absence.
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8. I can’t make up my mind about Ellie. Dan is walking with her and she tells him to quit looking at her to which he apologizes and tells her she looks just like someone he used to know. She does look like Teresa (see picture above) but it also could be because he realizes he’s talking to his mom.
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9. Widmore was on the island as a young man (at least probably about age 18 if not younger). He probably thinks as well as he knows the island that he’s the one that’s going to take over as the leader. Then along comes Ben. Ben is groomed to be the leader. I’m guessing somewhere along the way Widmore is exiled from the island. Now he holds a grudge against Ben for that and because Widmore is obviously a hot head (breaking the neck of his colleague who tells Juliet where the camp is). But he hasn’t been to the island in at least 20 years so I wonder if at some point he had come back after his younger days as a solider. Perhaps he stayed for quite a while. Maybe Ellie was the love of Ben and Widmore and that had something to do with it (we know how Ben falls madly in love with women and wants them all to himself). I think this all speaks to where the rivalry between Ben and Widmore started for the island.
10. I found this arrow theory from Doc Jensen very intriguing and something I had not caught:
My “Arrow” Theory. Adam mentioned this in his recap. Have you noticed the recurring arrow symbolism this season? Episode 1: Pierre Chang produces the orientation film for a Dharma station called “The Arrow.” Episode 2: The Left Behinders are attacked by flaming arrows. And now, Episode 3: Arrows everywhere, in the text (see: the Others’ archery brigade) and the subtext. A leaking or missing hydrogen bomb is known as a “Broken Arrow” event in military parlance. In physics, the “Arrow of Time” is the name of a body of theories pertaining to the nature of time; the term “broken arrow” is used to characterize an idea like time loops. Google “broken arrow” and you’ll get any number of movies, TV shows and songs about Native Americans… and wouldn’t you know, “Jughead” was a peek into the past of the Island’s indigenous peeps, the Others. But the coolest arrow connection comes via the Other cutie with the shot gun, British accent, and terse line readings: Ellie. Short for Eleanor, which is French for “the Other.” (Or so wikipedia tells me; I don’t speak it. Me stupid American.) On a whim, I combined “Ellie” and “Eleanor” and “Arrow,” and came back with an awesome connection: Ellie Arroway, the heroine of Carl Sagan’s novel Contact, which was adapted into the Jodie Foster film of the same name. I’m going to leave it to you to explore the significance, but Sagan’s story certainly resonates with Lost themes, and perhaps functions as a clue to wormhole theory. Link to the whole article here