Jughead - Lost

"You just couldn't stay away, could you?"

Last night's episode of Lost was awesome. While the first two episodes of the season ("Because You Left" and "The Lie") set up the framework for what's to come, the third episode really started to reveal some of the great mysteries of the island and its inhabitants. At least I think it did. With Lost, I can never really be too sure.

Time travel, The Others, and Desmond were at the heart of "Jughead," - oh, and Charles Widmore, but I'll get to that in a moment. We saw nothing of the Oceanic 6, who waited in the wings as the plot thickened in the jungle.

The episode opened with a flashback: Desmond frantically searching for a doctor for Penny, who is about to give birth to their son, Charlie. Sweet, huh? Naming the baby Charlie, I mean, not that whole bloody birth thing. We then flash forward to 2007 to Penny, Desmond, and little Charlie sailing into London. Desmond heads to Oxford to find Faraday's mother in the hopes of saving his friends left behind on the island.

Sporting Sayid-like hair, John Lennon glasses, and an overly colorful scarf, he pokes around Faraday's old lab at Oxford, a lab no one wants to acknowledge ever existed. And why would they when so much went wrong there? Like Theresa Spencer, a woman Faraday knew and, from the looks of it, turned into a vegetable. Desmond visits her and finds she's being kept alive with the support of Faraday's benefactor...wait for it...Charles Widmore.

Time for Desmond to pay a visit to Daddy-in-Law dearest, who tells him that Faraday's mommy is in Los Angeles. Now we know how Ben managed to get to her so quickly, assuming that the cloaked woman with the doomsday pronouncements was Mrs. Faraday. So Penny and Des decide that LA will be their next stop.

Meanwhile (though who can really say - time being such a flimsy construct and all), Sawyer, Juliet, John, Miles, Charlotte and Daniel continue to battle time and rouge elements back on the island. The gang is plunged back to 1954. Dan, Charlotte, and Miles are taken by The Others, inciting Dan to professes his love to Charlotte, who seems to be experiencing the affects of time travel. Could she be headed for the same fate as Theresa?

Richard Alpert rises again - eyeliner or no eyeliner, we'll never be sure - but this time doesn't remember John Locke, "his leader." We learn what the title of the episode refers to. "Jughead," is the name of the hydrogen bomb left on the island by the U.S. Military, who invaded the island for "experimental purposes," but were exterminated by The Others. I've been waiting for the military to make an appearance on Lost for years! It was just a matter of time.

Speaking of time, here's what else we learned last night:

- According to Juliet, Richard has always been on the island. How old is this dude, anyway?

- There were at least four U.S. soldiers who were killed in 1954, if Miles' supernatural powers are to be believed.

- Jughead, the hydrogen bomb installed by the U.S. Military, was successfully buried on the island. I spent an inordinate amount of time trying to figure out why the producers named the bomb Jughead. Check out this rundown of all the possible explanations, if you're into that kind of thing.

- The Others speak Latin. This was one of the funniest moments of last night's episode, only to be outdone by the term "Others 101."

- Richard is convinced to visit child John Locke by adult John Locke, leading to a whole chicken and the egg scenario that was too much for my brain to handle.

- And, the biggest reveal of the episode, and maybe one of the biggest reveals of the show: Charles Widmore was an Other! This adds so much complexity to Widmore's motivation to get back to the island, and so much fuel for his feud with Ben.

I can't wait for next week! Check out this preview of Episode Four, "The Little Prince."