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Last night’s episode of LOST, entitled “Jughead”, was a real treat. After 4 seasons of questions and teases and answers to questions that simply yield even more questions, we’re at the point in the series where the answers are starting to become more plentiful. “Jughead” was chock full of answers and revelations. We’ll get right down to it in bullet fashion:

• Perhaps the biggest moment of the night for me was the revelation that Widmore was a lowly Other back in 1954. Didn’t see that one coming. We still don’t know how Widmore rose to power, how Ben overtook him, how / why he had to leave the Island, etc. But his back story is starting to take shape. Finally.

• The other biggie was Locke’s convo with Richard. His presentation of the compass seems to convince Richard of his identity. And here we see why Richard was present at Locke’s birth 2 years later and why he comes to visit John as a young child.

• Juliet confirms for us that Richard doesn’t age. She doesn’t seem the least bit surprised to find him looking as young as ever. Interesting. And is it just me, or does Richard always look like he’s wearing eye-liner. I mean, whose eyelashes are that dark? Seriously.

• It was a cool to find out that Desmond & Penny have a son, and his name is “Charlie”. Obviously, this is a nod to Dominic Monaghan’s character from Seasons 1-3, the guy who gave up his life to save Des and warned the survivors that the freighter was “Not Penny’s Boat”. But the name is also cool because there’s a subtle connection to the child’s grandfather, Charles Widmore. Interesting…

• I still have a feeling Desmond and Penny end up being the Island’s “Adam & Eve” that were found in the caves in Season 1.

• It seems that Widmore does have a softer side, as demonstrated by his question to Desmond re: Penny’s safety. This simply reinforces how powerful / dangerous Benjamin Linus really is.

• I have a feeling that Ellie, the Other who keeps a gun on Farraday while he inspects the bomb, could be a younger version of our Eloise Hawking, a.k.a. the lady in the Snuggie that desperately needs to upgrade her computer, a.k.a. Daniel Farraday’s mum. Is it possible that she and Widmore become romantically involved after he assumes a leadership position on the Island? Could it be that they have to leave the Island because Ellie / Eloise is pregnant with Daniel and pregnant women die on the Island? Does Widmore fund Farraday’s scientific research for 10 years because he’s his father? All of this might be a stretch, but if Elle is Farraday’s mommy, that helps explain his comment to her (“You look familiar,” or something to that effect).

• Who is Richard’s superior in 1954? At first I thought Richard was the leader of the Others at that time, but he clearly indicates he reports to somebody. Who could that be?

• Could it be that the Jughead bomb was buried in the ground behind the concrete wall where our Season 2 hatch was? Did Desmond have to push the button every 108 minutes to discharge some of the radiation or energy or whatever? I’m thinking so.

• Is Charlotte really dead? (I’m pretty sure I saw her in the previews for next week’s episode.)

So I just finished watching the first two hours of the new season of LOST. We knew this was coming based on last season’s finale, but the show is taking a decided turn toward science fiction with these episodes. Not that I consider that a bad thing; in fact, I can’t believe this kind of stuff is actually airing in prime time on a major network program. Where else on network television can you weave time travel, quantum physics and theories of electromagnetism?

As season premieres go, though, this was perhaps my least favorite, simply because it was so different. I imagine I’ll give it multiple views before making my final assessment, but I’m hoping the constant “shifting” of the Island is a feature we’ll see less of now that we’ve been exposed to it. I don’t know, all the constant “where / when are we” stuff could get old real quick. That said, this was still a great way to kick off the new season. Honestly, I’d forgotten that tonight was a two-hour premiere, so I was pleasantly surprised when I turned on the DVR.

The opening scene was an interesting one. We learn Candle / Haliwax’s real surname: Chang. We see (for the second time) that he’s a father. Are we supposed to assume that the child is Miles Straume? Or someone else? The opening scene gave us a look at Dharma in its heyday. It also confirms that at least some in the Dharma Initiative are fully aware of the capability of the Island’s energy. The scene closes with Chang bumping into Dharma worker Daniel Farraday. Very interesting.

Off the Island, we saw plenty of Sayid and Hurley, which was good. Hurley’s scenes provided some comic relief and gave my brain time to relax a little. And Michael Emerson is just awesome. It’s still hard to believe that he wasn’t introduced until about 40 episodes in. As always, Ben has something up his sleeve. It was interesting that when Jack asked about Locke, “He’s dead, isn’t he?”, that Ben refused to answer the question. Hmm. And how about the appearance of Ms. Hawking at the end? Any chance that she’s Farraday’s mother?

I imagine we’ll see plenty of old faces popping up in odd places this season; Ana Lucia and Ethan are probably just the beginning. I was really excited to see Penny and Desmond so early in the season. I’m still curious as to why Walt doesn’t “have to go back”, but the others who left the Island do.

My favorite moment, though (morbid as it may be), was when the Brits with weapons used their fire arrows to flambe Neil. Frogurt, we hardly knew ye. A second favorite moment was Locke’s emergence onto the scene to save Juliet from losing a major appendage. I’m really interested to see Locke’s storyline over these next few episodes.