5.3 Jughead

Lost just wouldn’t be Lost without perennially worried man Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) crinkling his brow as he sets out on another dodgy mission. He has decided to follow up on the dream/memory implanted by Daniel: to pursue Daniel’s mother at Oxford, despite the Widmore dangers that this may inflict. By the way, if Cusick was able to time travel, he could go back to the 1940s and become the quintessential ‘worried man’ character actor, appearing in the credits of countless films as "Worried Man………..Henry Ian Cusick". Time traveling even further to the 1980s, he could have a spinoff series called Worried Man, in which each week he is given something huge to Worry about.

Desmond could also have played Obsessed Man. Here, he is completely dedicated to fulfilling Daniel’s wish and saving everyone on the island, but he also has put a ridiculously short time limitation on it – if he can’t save everyone by the end of the day, he’ll just forget about the whole thing and go back to serenely sailing. A lot of things happen on his sojourn – he doesn’t find Daniel’s mother, but he finds a deserted lab where Daniel was conducting bizarre rat brain time travel experiments. He also finds a comatose woman, her brain ruined by one of Daniel’s experiments. The woman’s sister also tells Des that Daniel (drumroll, please) works for Widmore. Angered, Des visits Widmore and demands answers. Widmore gives Desmond the Los Angeles address of Daniel’s mother, but says she won’t be happy to see him. Back on the boat, Des keeps his promise and tells Penny that he is willing to drop it, but she knows he cannot and insists that they all go along. She doesn’t know about the dire warning that Widmore delivered to Desmond, a warning to keep his family away from this whole conflict.

Back on the island, Sawyer, Locke, Daniel, Miles, Charlotte and Juliet are in the past. The island is occupied by Others, but they are in para-military mode, engaged in a war with American troops who invaded ‘their’ island and used it for testing nuclear weapons. They left behind a big leaking bomb called Jughead. A survivor rendezvous at the creek is interrupted by another staple of latter-day Lost: big explosions. This time, they are land mines, planted by the now-dead Americans. Soon after, Locke and gang capture some Other troops; conversely, Daniel and crew are captured by Ellie, an Australian Other with a big gun. Daniel manages to keep them alive by claiming that he can disarm the nuclear device.

Meanwhile, Locke arrives in camp, demanding to speak to Richard. He assures Richard that he saved him in the future. Richard isn’t exactly willing to accept any of this, since he has no memory of it, but neither is he dismissing it. Locke asks Richard to explain how he can save everyone, but a flash occurs, and it’s off to another time. Before Locke leaves, he has a little run-in with a young, trigger-happy soldier who identifies himself as none other than a younger version of Charles Widmore.

Comments

This show completely ignores the USA-based survivors (Jack, Ben, Sayid, Kate, Aaron, Sun, and Hugo…did I leave anyone out?) and focuses instead on Desmond and family, and the people remaining on the island.

It appears that Charlotte is suffering from a reaction to all those time travel jumps – and Daniel seems to know what is happening to her. Something similar probably happened to the comatose woman that was a victim of Daniel’s experiments at Oxford.

Memorable Moments

• If you like explosions, you’ll enjoy land mines blowing up anonymous survivors in the background, while Daniel, Charlotte and Miles scatter

Nits

I’m not a big fan of time travel as a plot contrivance, and here’s why. Let us look at how time travel has been used in Lost. Daniel travels three years into the past and tells Desmond to contact Daniel’s mother at Oxford. Three years from when this happened, we see Desmond wake up, seemingly suddenly possessing this ‘memory’. It’s as if these two points in time (‘three years ago’ and ‘today’) are all important and somehow interconnected. But what is so important about ‘today’? Today is only important so far as it is when we are watching Desmond. If Daniel truly did travel back along the timeline and change the past, then Desmond should have had the experience and memory of what happened immediately after it happened, not three years later. To prove this point, let’s take a look at another timeline intersection. John Locke travels back in time and demands to see Richard. Among other things, he tells Richard that Richard saved his life in the future. Locke then flashes and disappears. Richard is still there. Richard has just had this experience, and it is now part of his memory – immediately, not at some arbitrary unimportant point three years later.

Quotable Quotes

Cunningham: That idiot shouted out 'Meet at the creek'. We knew exactly where they were headed. Sent a group after them.
Sawyer: Maybe I should've said it in my secret language.

Locke: And because I'm your leader.
Richard: You're my leader?
Locke: That's what you told me.
Richard: Well, look, I certainly don't want to contradict myself.

"Look, right out there, beyond where you can see, there’s an island, and it's a very special island. I left it a long time ago -  never thought I'd see it again. It’s called...Great Britain."
- Desmond

Richard: How do I know you weren't sent here on some suicide mission? That I'll take you out to the bomb, and you'll just detonate it?
Faraday: Because... I'm in love with the woman sitting next to me. And I would never... I would never do anything to hurt her.
Richard: Alright. Take care of your bomb, but if you try anything else, you will hurt her.