L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episode 3 (Jughead)

First, start with Doc Jenson's review.

____________________________

JJ Started Us Off Again:

Widmore.


hey everyone. last nights ep was kind of boring for me through some of it and i was kind of expecting a bit more to happen really. it was a Desmond ep, which are almost always the best ones and Jensen teased it up pretty good, so i was really wanting a lot of heavy mental fixation. well, it lagged for me in those areas, until the end and then my brained melted. WIDMORE.

So, most of the episode felt a lot like distraction: John needing to speak with Richard, the dudes they captured speaking Latin, the focus on Faraday and Charlotte and Miles on the island, Desmond trying to locate Faraday's mom, and of course the "Jughead" A-bomb. all of it was rendered totally as nothing more than set up or truly as distraction once two things happen: first that Richard refers to the young soldier (soldier costumes - trick #1) with "Jones" on his shirt (Trick #2) as WIDMORE. well this changes about a dozen things that we have discussed here on our emails. We have been presuming for a long time that Widmore was Dharma and his war with Ben is over Benry killing all the Dharma peeps. at least i did! well, if we see Widmore as an Other when he is young in 1954, then that chnages EVERYTHING on that front.... when we see Widmore in this episode, is he the chosen one for Jacob at that time and Richard is training him up to be top dog? does Widmore take over later and then BENRY is chosen in his place, starting their fued -- like first Widmore is Jacob's boy, then Benry replaces him and then Locke replaces Benry? does this set up some sort of chain of accepted as special, but then rejected later recurring history of embittered fallen leaders on the island, all of whom want their place and the island back? or does Widmore wish he had been chosen by Jacob, thought he was going to be (like Locke) but wasn't, and now he is bitter? was Penny born on the island, and if so how? when did Widmore leave the island and why? since Widmore was once an Other, how in the world did he have a Dharma 2nd Protocol directive to have ready for Keamy on the frieghter? i am wondering if Widmore was an other, was kicked out of the others and then started the Dharma Initiative as a Trojan Horse to find it again, control it and wipe out the Others for exiling him... but who knows.


mind scrambler number two: Locke telling Richard about himself and when he's born.... is John really special or chosen at all? did this exchange actually propel Richard forward to seeking out Locke when he never would have at all if not for this conversation? why does John look so old if he's only 48 years old? and here's an even bigger one: Widmore interacted with Juliet, Sawyer, Miles, Charlotte, Faraday, and Locke in this episode. once Charles Widmore is off the island, does he use this knowledge to track all of these people and in their pre-Flight 815 lives to see WHEN they crash on the island and he is ready to kick things into action right then to sink the fake plane, and ready the frieghter to locate it? has he been watching the Losties since before any of them were born because of the interactions that happened in this episode? all of that is so crazy if that's the case.... are the Others and the the Losties one different strings in time that overlap, so they can changed one another's paths, but not their own, i wonder...


and finally, Desmond and Penny named their son Charles aka Charlie.... after both Charles Widmore and Charlie Pace... or is little Charlie Hume really old Charles Widmore as a boy and he'll end up on the island with Des and Penny in the past as the island loops in time and then grow up there like Ben among the Others. maybe we could guess that Penny is not his daughter, but maybe he learns that she's his mother and he's been protecting and steering his own mother all his life and making sure Desmond meets her and they fall in love, but also that he makes it to the island first before truly ending up with her, so he will then father Charles and take him to the island as a boy to grow up into the Charles Widmore we have been seeing. ha! wrap your head around that!!!

New L-O-S-T Tonight

First off, from last week, check out J Wood's take on the first two episodes.

JJ:

new L O S T episode tonight at 8pm central. (last weeks "The Lie" episode will re-air before it at 7pm)

if anyone wants to, Doc Jensen has a tease article for tonight's ep on ew.com, but i warn you, it was pretty complicated. i didn't understand a quarter of it. talk with you kids tomorrow!

Niel:

Jay and Jack Lost Podcast have once again seen tonights episode before us and have claimed it is one of Jay's favorites.

L-O-S-T, Season 5, Episodes 1 and 2 ("Because You Left"/"The Lie")

First off, take a look at Doc Jensen's recap article on EW, then check out the second episode's recap from Doc Jensen.

________________________________

JJ Started Season 5's beginning discussion:

one word:

Wow. The Writer's are STILL surprising me. I didn't see the Time skipping thing coming at all and think it's an absolutely brilliant tactic, not only as a reason to get the O'6 back to the island, but also to explore the island's past...

First of all, i'm not confused. no, i'm not confused at all. I am worried that this is a very big risk storytelling-wise for the show... the flashforwards and flashbacks were easy to grasp with the "whooosh" sound as our queue and being able to follow that easily, but the complexity of the sheer number of points in time to follow now might be too much for your average L O S T audience member, who is not all into following all the details, and they might think it's just too confusing or too hard to keep up with and tune out... i hope not, but i can see it happening. i think it's brilliant and daring on their part, but they are taking a big risk.

ok, anyway, let's start with "Because You Left." i'm thrilled we don't have to endure a "weekend at Bernie's" with them carting Locke's body everywhere they go. that would be silly. and it's totally fascinating how Benry has people ALL OVER THE WORLD who know him and will drop everything to do exactly what he says... was all this part of his PLAN that he mentions to Locke in the season 4 finale before they head into the Orchid? did he intend for the island to skip in time and use it against the Losties to get them all to stay there/bring them back, etc. and put all the people in place ahead of time? maybe. Ben is a total psycho genius.... Then seeing that Sayid is NO LONGER Ben's errand boy was another cool twist. how about that fight at the safe house? i don't think i've ever seen a dude actually hit the pavement before in a fall (tv OR movies!) and then body slamming that other dude on the knives. quite a fight scene. and to have Hurley being the fall guy just because he's with Sayid, clever, clever. he is "crazy" after all.... now he's a rich lunatic killing people all over LA. another great storyline to suck us in quickly. Hurley's scenes in both eps had me laughing out loud all night. Then The Widmore and Sun exchange was very interesting. He is a lot more than she bargained for already. is Sun up for really being as hard core as she is seeming to come off right now? we'll see... and i am SURE that Sun is the source of the legal action for the blood test against Kate/Aaron.

Opening Scence: harkening back to the reveal of Desmond in the hatch in season 2, we got to see old Doctor Candle/Wickmond/Halliwax wake up and do his morning routine and then doing a classic Dharma film. and for the Arrow! and the Arrow being a military strategy station! interesting... and then he's off to the Orchid to deal with an unforseen problem, we get a peak that they have detected the frozen donkey wheel during construction, but don't access it by The Dr.'s orders... and then FARADAY SHOWS UP. absoute mind blower.... so is Faraday there because of the island/them is/are skipping in time right now? or was Faraday part of Dharma at one time in the past and that was part of his time travel research? hmmmm. Plus, Faraday dropping a new super important memory into Desmond's head was great. we heard that Desmond is unique in all the time hopping craziness. so i fear greatly now for he and Penny, and not because Ben wants to kill her... i think that Mrs. Hawking is Faraday's mom, by the way....

then the time jumping with the island... again, genius. i've been speculating on when the island would have moved to and hoping that we'd see the Dharma Inititive again, or maybe Adam and Eve from the caves, or perhaps the Others worshipping the four-toed statue, or how about the arrival of the Black Rock. well NOW we might get to see all of those things flashing at us in quick succession! awesome. and this way they could use it to answer TONS of questions very quickly. will they? i sooo hope so, but we shall see. having Faraday there to tell us what's happening is another ingenius set up for his character. he is now the smartest, most important guy on the show and we as the audience as well as the Losties are now counting on him to be our constant and keep us all from going totally crazy trying to follow everything.... tricky and risky, but very good stuff. plus Locke's exchanges with Richard were fascinating. during their scene, i realized that Locke never got the chance, and therefore WE never got the chance to learn all the island's mysteries from Richard telling them all to Locke once he took Ben's place, because turning the wheel jacked everything up. well now Locke is told he must leave the island and die or they'll be stuck that way for good. Locke never got to be leader, never got any answers, never learned anything about the island that heals him and changes his life, yet he STILL will leave it and die for it. what is the story with Locke? why has he already lost his place we thought he was intended for all this time?

"The Lie" had me laughing out loud and loving Hurley more than ever. First, his acting was superb throughout. when he stars down Sayid on Penny's boat and tells him a day will come when he needs his help and he won't give it because Sayid didn't back him up on NOT lying to everyone was excellent. he looked totally different. something in his eyes became someone else, someone not Hurley to me. not the Hurley we know, and i got chills. THen we he confessed everything to his mom and he was so wracked with guilt and despair and fear. outstanding performance. Give Jorge Garcia his Emmy now, please. plus he was still funny and through a hot pocket and totally stuck it to Benry. awesome and hysterical.

seeing the meeting on Penny's boat about The Lie was great, and seeing Lapidus, too. good to see that people are not being forgotten. plus we got a fun and entertaining episode with Hurley trying to be on the run, care for incapacitated Sayid, fight and hedge with his parents, confront Benry, AND have a visit from Ana Lucia. that was awesome. i new she was going to appear in this episode due to casting news that was leaked, but i expected to see her in her old island attire with bloody bullet riddled chest and say something cryptic. i didn't expect to see her be all hard ass cop again and give Hurley get away instructions. awesome. plus a shout out to Libby for Hugo. nice. this has me thinking that we could literally see any character at any moment... we have undead ghosts off the island, we have undead ghosts on the island, we have time freaking out all over the place so anyone from the past could show up and be alive and well any second. welcome to L O S T totally blasting the rules of storytelling completely out of the water..

finally we saw Mr's Hawking frantically doing calculations and marking points on the earth and playing with chalk-tipped pendulums. Benry comes to see her, surprise surprise, and she gives us all a deadline... L OS T is back everyone. I could not have asked for more to try and wrap my brain around, and i'm so glad we got more than one episode last night. just seeing the first one by itself without the second one would have had us so frustrated. they were brilliant to pair them up and keep us enthralled. let's get talking....

L-O-S-T and 24

Julia got us started on the prep for the LOST talk and threw in some 24 to boot!

My note: Also read J Wood's Powells Pre-Season 5 Post

___________
Julia:
In prep for the long-awaited LOST season premiere next week, Doc Jensen has a column on ew.com that doesn’t have spoilers, but does pose a very interesting theory about next season…and I think I might agree with him. Please read when you can and let’s discuss. I can’t wait to get our little group talking about tv again!

Speaking of that, have any of you watched the first 4 hours of 24? I caught up on it all last night and I am cautiously optimistic that the show is returning to it’s former glory…if not as good as the early seasons, then at least a vast improvement over season 6.
___________

Doc Jensen's article refers to 5 clue-filled episodes and a ComicCon video, I'll refer you to links from our past discussions on these where I can:
1) THERE'S NO PLACE LIKE HOME, PART 2 and PART 3
and
2) This is from the episode before if you are having trouble remembering the build up.
3) ''THE CONSTANT''"
4) FLASHES BEFORE YOUR EYES (Our discussion group didn't track this far back)... but Doc Jensen had a theory at the time.
5) ''CABIN FEVER''
**THE PIERRE CHANG COMIC-CON VIDEO