Remember That Time On LOST When: The US Army Had a Hydrogen Bomb On the Island?
[Remember That Time On LOST is a daily post running the entire month up until the season premiere of LOST on February 2nd. I’m going to just pick something awesome, noteworthy, or ludicrous about LOST when I wake up that morning, and hopefully get you geeks talking about it with me.]
Just when you thought that the Island couldn’t get any more dangerous, it turns out that there was a god damn hydrogen bomb on it. Don’t worry though, it’s called Jughead, which makes it really cool and non-intimidating. The whole “there’s a fucking hydrogen bomb on the Island” storyline is interesting for two reasons. First off, there’s a hydrogen bomb on the Island. And secondly, the US Army has somehow found the Island.
Maybe I’m wrong, but I always thought that the Island was pretty hard to find. It bends time and space around it, and you need an absolutely gorgeous physicist or his mother to find it. And yet, here was ole’ Uncle Sam and the Empire rolling up onto the Island ready to test a nuclear device. Seems about right, right? They find an absolutely luscious Island filled with splendor and merriment, and they want to detonate a nuclear bomb on it. Wipe it all out in the name of the Cold War!
It seems too convenient that the US Army just stumbled upon an ancient Island filled with Smoke Monsters and Ancient Statues of Gods Whose Names I Always Forget. I mean, it’s LOST, everything has to have some significance, right? Or is the US Army only significant because of what would happen later? So it raises the question, who in the US government knew about this Island? If anyone? Or did they just come across it, an unplotted Island, and decide it was the perfect place to detonate a bomb?
Maybe the US government, fresh off of losing Steve Rogers to the seas, and scared of the imminent threat of nuclear war of Godzilla, was hoping to create their own super-animal-thing by irradiating one of the wild life on the Island. Who are you going to take in a fight, an enormous lizard, or an enormous polar bear? Or boar for that matter. Everyone thinks that Godzilla is bad-ass, but I think the dude hasn’t thrown down with the rest foes. A moth? And get the fuck out of here with Robo-Godzilla. The guy had like four points of articulation, that’s no way to build a death device.
And then there’s the actual presence of the nuclear bomb. Depending on what geek you’re arguing with, Jughead is either the means via Jack for the group to reset reality and prevent Oceanic 815 from ever crashing, or it is the culprit behind the Incident that brought them down in the first place. I prefer the latter, since it fits in with them being the source behind their own misery, but I think Jack will end up being correct.
Either way, the hydrogen bomb is important as fuck to the overall arch of the story, and it is pretty bad ass. People forget amidst the Dueling Deities, and Ben and Widemore being totally at each other’s throats, that it was the US Army, with the dumb hydrogen bomb, that probably caused the mess in the first place. At least of Jack, and Kate, And the Iraqi Guy With Shitty Hair. All in the name of Super-Cow, so they could rumble with Godzilla.