In-Laws Are Such Pains in the Asses

For many people, having in-laws means awkward holidays, hearing stories about your spouse's exes, and long extended visits at your house. For Desmond Hume, it means needing to sneak back into the country because god forbid your crazy ass father in-law finds you because he'll probably try to interrogate you about the crazy ass island you escaped from three years ago because all he wants to do is get back there. Back there you say? Yeah, Widmore was on the island 50 years ago. Even better, WIDMORE WAS AN OTHER. What does that mean? Well, boys and girls, I think that will be our first question for the evening:

1. What are the implications of Widmore being an Other? I know I should have asked "How did Widmore become an Other?", but I'm assuming that will be revealed. Here's what we know. Widmore was on the island once, and reported to ageless other Richard Alpert. Current Widmore only wants to get back to the island. I'm guessing in the intervening time, Widmore does something to get himself banished, either killing one of his own people (we've seen him display quite the penchant for violence), or revealing some secret about the island. It's hard to be sure. I'm also betting the guy gains some knowledge of the future before he leaves (heck, it may even be the thing that gets him thrown off), which is why he's probably so rich in the 2004 time period.
   
2. Where is Faraday's mother? There are three possibilities: (1) Faraday's mother is the woman lying in the bed and Widmore is lying. (2) Faraday's mother is not the woman lying in the bed and Widmore is telling the truth and she's in Los Angeles. (3) Faraday's mother is neither the woman in the bed or in Los Angeles and as such here whereabouts are unknown. If scenario 1 is true, the questions becomes why Widmore would lie to Desmond, which is easy to answer: he either wants him out of the way, like he said, or he's planted a woman in Los Angeles and is going to use Desmond as a way to get back to the island, which kind of seems like something he would do. If scenario 2 is true, then the question is who is the woman in the bed and where did she come from and why are people pretending she is Faraday's mother? In this case, I'm betting they are part of the same group as Crazy Old White Haired Lady, a.k.a. Mrs. Hawking. The question then becomes why would they try to pretend she is Faraday's mom, to which I do not yet have a good answer. If scenario 3 is true, then why are both groups lying and where is the real Mrs. Faraday? What does she know that would force her to need to disappear? Is she even alive? And why would both groups pretend she is? I still have a sneaking feeling that Faraday is somehow related to Mrs. Hawking, even if he isn't her son. Additionally, what made Desmond think that the people at the house were lying? Did I miss something? Also, WHY WOULD DESMOND GO STRAIGHT TO WIDMORE AFTER PENNY TOLD HIM TO AVOID HIM? Thankfully Desmond did not mention the child.
   
3. Why does the 1954 version of Alpert not know Locke? The other version of Alpert did seem to know him last week, although we do know that that time period was much later on than this one. (Btw, it's getting really hard to keep the "this" and "that" straight with all of the time changes.) We know that Jacob is some kind of god/prophet to the Others, but why? And why does Alpert take Locke at his word? The other interesting thing here is that we may have just seen Locke create his own time loop, since he tells Alpert to visit him as a child after he's born, which we know he does. Which JUST REMINDED ME OF SOMETHING: Alpert forced young Locke to pick between a few items when he visits him as child (Season 4 episode "Cabin Fever"). The compass, which Alpert gave him last week and Locke gave back to him this week, is one of the items (Lostpedia just confirmed that for me). When Alpert visited young John, he asked him to pick up the item that was already his, which I thought was a weird question at the time, but now makes more sense, since Alpert is just giving Locke back his own compass again. I have a feeling these compass exchanges are going to happen more often. What does the compass mean though? Where did it come from? And is Locke the one telling Alpert to test his young self? I have soooooo many more questions now.
   
4. How did the US Army find the island? I thought the island had protections against detection. I'd imagine that the Army would have carefully selected it's test site for the H-bomb and would have made sure to know where it was. Additionally, does anyone else think that perhaps leaked energy from the H-bomb gives the island some of its unique characteristics? Or maybe even it's the reason the women can't carry babies to full term? (The children are dying of radiation posioning in utero).
   
5. Why do the Others have to learn Latin? I don't buy the answer Juliet gave, but I bet it totally has something to with Alpert and how old he is. I know the show has entered time travel sci-fi land, but what if perhaps there's also a fantasy element as well and Alpert is actually some deity from Mount Olympus banished to live among the people. Or he could be some kind of long-lived alien here to shepherd the human race along (similar to the First Ones in Babylon 5--yes I watched it, and not you can't judge me) by teaching small groups of them, and he makes them all learn Latin since it's the best thing he thinks they can know. Juliet did call it Others 101 after all. I'm a little hesitant to believe my own alien hypothesis because the show seems so Earth and Island centric, but who knows?
6. Why is Faraday all of the sudden the new Jack? I don't like him being a main character. He's a little annoying. And if he did do some crazy thing to some girl at Oxford like that janitor (who may not even actually be a janitor, but instead part of the Widmore-Hawking conspiracy) said, then I certainly don't like him. Even more, I don't trust him. I want to see more of what's in his journal, because I think he knows way more about what's going on than he is letting on.
7. Why did Penny and Desmond name the baby Charlie? Well this is an easy one---because of poor, dearly departed Charlie--but it does give me the opportunity to talk about how much I love Penny and Desmond. I love that she totally knew he was lying at the end and that the easiest thing to do would just be to have them do it together. Thank you, show, for giving us more of them.
8. Where did the next jump take us? Well I guess we're all just going to have to tune in next week to find out, won't we? And with that I leave you.