5 Minutes or 5,000 Years

I have a feeling things’ll get a bit simpler, timewise, as this season moves along, but for now things are whizzing past our heads with alarming alacrity. I’ll do my best to keep things straight for us. I don’t have an overarching theme or plot thread to talk about at length as I usually do to open these posts. Rather, as this episode seemed to be composed of disparate puzzle pieces we can now fit in to help clarify the larger picture, I think it’s best I assemble this post in much the same fashion. (Simply said, time for my patented, lazy use of bullet points!)

Quick Hits

• The big reveal, as it were, of the episode was the soldier “JONES” is actually none other than a young Charles Widmore. We’ve always had good reason to suspect it was the case, but now we have tacit confirmation that Widmore was once on the Island.

  

  The young Widmore certainly didn’t display the coolest of heads in the couple episodes we’ve seen him thus far, a character flaw that might’ve eventually led to his banishment from the Island. Based on the present relationship and familiarity between Ben and the aged Charles, it stands to reason they did meet at some point on the Island, and likely battled for control of the Others.

• Desmond and Penny have apparently been hiding out in the Philippines, onboard their yacht. And they haven’t been sitting around on their laurels while doing so either, as Desmond’s frantic search for a doctor (“Efren Salonga!”) leads us to the reveal of Penny delivering a brand new baby boy (touchingly named for the dearly departed Charlie Pace).

  

  Being nine months pregnant and living in a boat in the Philippines is a clear indicator of how intent they are on hiding from Charles Widmore (or whomever else might be hunting them — Ben, for instance).

• How’d I know it was the Philippines? The clear shot of the “MUBUHAY” sign at the docks makes it so. “Mabuhay is…the name of a Philippine municipality, located in Zamboanga Sibugay, as well as the name of the official magazine of Philippine Airlines and the name of the official mascot of the 1991 South East Asian Games held in Manila.” [Wikipedia]

  

  The word “mabuhay,” incidentally, has a meaning all its own:

  Mabuhay (pronunciation: mah-BOO-hahy) is a word derived from the Tagalog language of the Philippines. It is used to express “Welcome”, “Hello”, or “Greetings”. It is also used to exclaim “long live” or the Filipino version of live long and prosper. Comparable to the Romance language expression “Vive, Viva”, This expression is most often used at toasts during gatherings and parties. It is also an expression used in welcoming guests and a way of showing hospitality by Filipinos.
  
  The root word buhay means 1. life 2. alive 3. live; become alive. [Wikipedia]

  Seems an appropriate word to welcome a newborn into the world, eh?

• Faraday’s insistence that “Jughead” must be buried immediately evoked thoughts of the Swan station in my mind, and whatever once lay behind that barricaded wall down there. More likely something unique to the Island lay there, but I’m going to throw out the possibility that the H-bomb was behind that wall. Perhaps the radiation leak combined with whatever electromagnetic “anomaly” lies underground can result in something very bad every 108 minutes.

  

  A reach, yes, but I’ve never let unlikeliness stop me before.

• Jughead, as I’m sure you already know, was a character from the “wildly” popular (I’m just assuming they were wildly popular) Archie & Jughead Comics from the 1940’s and 50’s.

  

  Jughead is typically seen as lazy and obsessed with food, especially hamburgers. Unlike his other male counterparts, he also demonstrates very little interest in girls, claiming to like food better. He generally has a very unperturbed and easygoing demeanor, often accompanied by his characteristic wry and sarcastic sense of humor. He is considered a bit of an oddity, but prefers his nonconformism. [Wikipedia]

  I can think of no more appropriate description of a hydrogen bomb than a lazy, hamburger-obsessed nonconformist, can you?

• Okay, but seriously, here’s some more interesting information about ole’ “Jughead:”
  

  It is often incorrectly stated that the Mk-17 was the first US hydrogen bomb stockpiled. This is not correct. Five examples of the EC14 “Alarm Clock” prepared for possible use starting in February 1954. There were also 5 examples of the EC16 “Jughead” cryogenic bomb, a direct development of the “Mike” device produced, starting in January 1954, before the EC17/24 bombs. [Wikipedia]

  So, to translate, the “Jughead” bomb was one of the first hydrogen bombs produced and stockpiled. Whatever the case, I think we may be seeing Jugs in the future again…or the past…or…let’s just go with “sometime.”

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