Lost... In Translation pt.2

Well, folks, it's Wednesday night, so as you should all know, it's time for the second installment of my weekly summary, review and insights into the new season of Lost and damn was this episode... mysterious.

The episode last week ended suspensefully, with Ben being given a time limit on getting the Oceanic Six to return to the island. No small feat, considering the only one who wants to go is our drunk doctor friend, Iron Jack. Kate wants to protect Aaron, and refuses to go back, while Sun wants to kill Ben, and Hurley turns himself in for a triple homicide just to get away. Sadly, this episode did absolutely nothing to alleviate that suspense. The Oceanic Six were not shown even once in this episode. Instead it was all about this drunk bastard










Desmond had been living comfortably off of the island for three years, aboard his boat with his wife, Penny, and his new son (whom he named Charlie. Awwwwwwww). In fact, the episode begins with Penny giving birth to the little runt. Soon after his son is born, Desmond decides to risk his whole family's life to try to get in touch with Daniel Faraday's mother, even going back to Great Britain, where Penny's dad and overall evil jerk Charles Widmore could find him. However, Dessy soon discovers that finding ol' Ms. Faraday isn't as easy as looking for the nearest 70 year old lady stumbling over her words and killing innocent little rats, brother.

While Desmond's searching, we get to see what the islanders are up to. The way we left off, Sawyer and Juliet were captured by several unknown others, until Locke rescued them, whereas the team led by Faraday made their way to the rendezvous point. I'd like to take a moment to point out that when this guy is your best choice for 'leader' it might be time to pick up a copy of The Art of War, but hey what do I know?

Anyways, As Daniel's team heads toward the aforementioned rendezvous, Charlotte states that she is feeling even worse, and despite the fact it's obvious Daniel knows what's wrong, even to her, he ain't telling. She doesn't have much time to press him for info, because a moment later, two no-namers get blowed up by landmines. Almost immediately, the unknown others burst out of the woods, taking Daniel and co. hostage. The boss of this group of others is a young girl named 'Ellie', who most likely has some sort of connection to 'Eloise'... and cryptically stating 'You just can't stay away, can you?' (paraphrased) before taking the whole group hostage.

Meanwhile, Locke's group has taken two surviving others hostage, and are leading them to the creek rendezvous place, when they start speaking to each other in Latin, at which point, Juliet starts conversing with them, also in Latin. She explains that learning Latin is 'Others 101'. By speaking to the two men, she manages to convince one of them (Helpful Hostile) to take the group to Richard Alpert, otherwise known as Count Dracula. At this point it's more or less confirmed these 'others' are the original natives of the island, or rather, 'The Hostiles'. Helpful Hostile's buddy (Hostile Hostile) disagrees with the idea of leading Locke's team to Richard, so he does... something... seemingly lethal... to his helpful brethren before running off.

At about the same time, Daniel's group is in the opposite situation, being held hostage and forcefully brought to Richard. On their way there, Miles chats with some dead American soldiers in the ground, and we learn that there is some serious motha-fuckin' radioactive poisoning happening. Eventually the group is delivered to Richard, who assumes Daniel is a U.S. soldier, and has come for his bomb. After much negotiation, Daniel finally manages to convince Richard to let him try to disarm the bomb, by claiming to be a military scientist, and confessing his love for Charlotte. Richard gives him the go-ahead, and Danny-boy goes trotting off into the jungle with Ellie, who's there to make sure he doesn't try anything funny. During this excursion, he mentions that Ellie reminds him very much of someone he used to know. He could be talking about a couple of people, but for my theory see the 'Theories' section at the bottom of the post.

Back in our time on our world, Desmond has gone to Oxford, seeking out Faraday's mother, and coming up short. There are apparently no records of any 'Faraday' ever being staffed there, so Desmond decides to explore on his own, looking in Daniel's old lab, where he finds nothing but abandoned equipment, and some creepy foreigner who tells Desmond that Daniel's records were stricken from the school 'because of what he did to that girl.', which of course, is never clearly explained to us. What we do find out, however, is that the girl's name is Theresa Spencer, and she's now a vegetable. According to her sister, Abigail, Daniel abandoned her like that, and (dundundun) Charles Widmore was taking care of her... oh, and (dundundun) he was also funding Daniel's research before that.

Meanwhile, back on the island, the other who was being held hostage by Locke's team (Hostile Hostile) returns to his camp to report to Richard, who bitches him out for possibly leading his pursuers back to the base. As the kid dismisses these charges as ridiculous, we see Locke and his posse spying on the camp. Sawyer and Juliet decide to go try to rescue Daniel, while Locke chooses the subtle approach of strutting into the camp yelling 'RICHARD!! HEY RICHARD ALPERT!! I WANNA TALK TO YOU RICHARD!! WHERE'S RICHARD?!'

At this point, Daniel and Ellie are approaching the aforementioned hydrogen bomb, which is in fact, a big ass hydrogen bomb just hanging out in the field. Daniel inspects it, (The bomb has the name 'Jughead' written on the side, thus the name of this episode.) and then runs back to Ellie, and explains that he's from the future, and that burying this hydrogen bomb is an awesome idea. (He says it needs to be sealed in lead and concrete... So the true purpose of The Swan station may very well have been just to contain this hydrogen bomb. Thus, the fail-safe Desmond pulls later, and the huge white light and all that, was actually just the H-Bomb going off.) He explains to her that he knows that the island will be fine, because he's a time traveler and since the island is fine in fifty years, that the bomb's not really a threat. Ellie doesn't even have time to be confused before Sawyer hops in and holds her up at gunpoint.

Meanwhile, back in present time, on real Earth, Desmond (in an extremely unpredictable maneuver) storms into Charles Widmore's office, and basically gives him what for, brother. He squeezes Widmore for info as to the whereabouts of Faraday's mother, and Widmore spills like a two year old with a glass of milk. He warns Desmond that she is a private lady and will not like being disturbed, as well as begging him to go back into hiding, his hatred for Desmond being replaced by his fear for Penny after Ben has promised to kill her. However, Desmond isn't good at letting things go, so he brushes off the warning, and after promising Penny to call off his search, he continues his search, further imperiling his wife and son.

The big shocking reveal of this episode comes towards the very end, as usual. As Locke and Richard are becoming reacquainted through time, Richard reprimands the young man who escaped from Locke for being so foolish. In this exchange, Richard calls the kid 'Widmore'. As in, Charles Widmore. (See why this is important in the theories section towards the bottom.)

Anyways, in the end, Locke fails to convince Richard completely of who he is, and suddenly time shifts again, this time leaving only Locke, Sawyer, Juliet, Daniel, Charlotte, and Miles behind, with no more clues on where to go or how. The last thing we see is Charlotte's nose beginning to spurt blood before she collapses, and Daniel rushing to her side...

Theories:

First off, the easy one. Charles Widmore was apparently one of The Hostiles, as we now know. My guess is that he was in line to become The Leader (A long process that starts at a young age, according to Dracula) but was replaced when Richard found Ben Linus. Perhaps Widmore even had to move the island at some point in the past, same as Ben, and that's why Widmore is incapable of getting back to the island, and why he left to begin with. This would also explain Widmore's accusations that Ben stole everything from him.

The other theory I have kind of vaguely formed is that Ellie is Daniel Faraday's mother, and that she is also Ms. Hawking. It would make sense for Ms. Hawking to be Daniel's mother, considering they tend to work in a lot of the same fields, and the ages sort of match. Also, Daniel's rat is named Eloise, and it would make sense for him to name it after his mother. Ellie=Eloise Hawking. What do you guys think? This would also explain the mystery currently surrounding Daniel's mother in the Desmond storyline, and Widmore's warning.

And this isn't really a theory, but I just noticed tonight a lot of correlations (or homages) being made with Daniel Faraday/Ms. Hawking with the world famous physicist Dr. Stephen Hawking. The naming being only the first connection, other important ones include:

-Daniel was a professor at Oxford, and Stephen Hawking was born in Oxford.
-Stephen Hawkings book A Brief History of Time has been shown on Lost a couple of times, and it has a lot to do with time travel
-Almost all of Stephen Hawkings' work has been with mathematics, time-space theory, and pretty much everything else Lost is about.

I'm seeing all of this more as an homage than an actual clue or plot-point, but I just figured it was worth mentioning.

Well, that pretty much wraps up this week's Lost stuff. Overall, the episode was pretty good, although I would have liked to see some of the Oceanic Six. I like the characters on the island, but I kind of tune out when it comes to time travel stuff, so overall I'm definitely enjoying things much more on the other side of the world. I'm hoping next episode will give me my fill of single, continuous time lines, and judging by the preview, it should.

Catch you guys next week.

-Justin