"Jughead"

JANUARY 5, 2011

FOCUS: DESMOND
EPISODE: 5.3
AIRED: JANUARY 28, 2009

Leave it to Season 5 to make a Desmond episode that I don’t like. Luckily, my boy isn’t the problem with “Jughead” – it’s the eponymous bomb that Daniel is hellbent on deactivating, a worthless storyline for this episode because a hydrogen bomb exploding is something that is best saved for a season finale. So like last season’s "The Other Woman", the episode is based on preventing something that we know isn’t going to happen; it’s like basing an episode of 24 around the possibility that Jack Bauer would die (oh wait, they did that like a dozen times).

The funny thing about this episode is that if you haven’t been keeping up with the show since Season 2, you not only won’t know what’s going on, you won’t even know who the hell you’re looking at. Not only do Kate and Jack not appear, but neither does pretty much anyone else from Oceanic 815. Sawyer and Locke are the only “classic” characters, the rest of the episode focuses on the Freighter Folk, the Others, and Desmond. Luckily for Lost, they had pretty few casual viewers who would do such a thing; even the big finale didn’t attract a lot of curiosity beyond the folks like me who watched every episode, unlike say Seinfeld or whatever.

Actually it’s not too bad; the Desmond stuff is quite good in fact. I love that they named their kid Charlie – not only is it sweet (and the only time anyone on the show displayed any signs of remembering the poor bastard), but it also made me realize for the first time that the show had two “Charlies” – the other being Widmore, who went by Charles. I would have liked to have seen the awkward moment where one proposed the name to the other. “After Widmore? Are you mad?” “No, Charlie the guy who saved– oh, wow, never thought of that.” And I like that Desmond and Widmore finally saw eye to eye on something; it’s the most respect we’ve ever seen the guy show his son-in-law. His description of “an island” is also pretty sweet – in fact he should have mentioned the monsters before he revealed he was actually talking about England, would have been even funnier.

And while I don’t care much for Charlotte, I loved Daniel’s “reveal” that he was in love with her. The freighter folk had largely been used for exposition and comic relief (in Myles’ case) so it was good to see them have a genuine human moment for once. It makes up for a rather inane character blunder on the part of Richard – this guy doesn’t age, and yet he’s incredulous that someone could be from the future? If I was immortal, I’d give the benefit of the doubt to folks claiming equally fantastical things.

Speaking of inconsistencies – how is it that we are just learning now that Widmore was actually on the island (how/why they were there in the first place is an even bigger mystery)? You’d think Ben would have mentioned this to Locke at least. It’s a fairly stupid plot point to boot – I liked the idea that he was just a greedy man who somehow heard about this place and had to have it. That he was there before Ben makes Ben’s actions and attitude toward him more villainous, if you ask me. They’re going out of their way to make Ben sympathetic and now we reveal Widmore has more of a right to be there than him, if you’re going by seniority?

Oh and I should correct myself from yesterday’s writeup – they hadn’t killed off all of the “socks” yet, I forgot about the two background survivors that got blown up in this one. I swear this show has a higher body count than Murder, She Wrote.

Tomorrow – the most frustrating moment in the show’s history! And yes, I'm including the many TV-PG Evangeline Lilly shower scenes!

Where are we?