Lost – Jughead instant reactions

For the first 50 minutes I was totally disappointed with this episode. We then find out that Widmore was on the island and it instantly makes it an awesome episode for me.  Here are the things I am pondering.

• Why did that little blond firecracker act like she had seen Faraday before but it was never mentioned again?
• Is that same soldier girl the same person Desmond visited that was working with Faraday who was sick (radiation poisoning)?
• An episode without Kate or Jack? Has that happened before?
• The whole thing with the compass, Locke, and Richard has some kind of weird timeline that just doesn’t make sense to me. The only thing I do know is Richard visits Locke 6 or 7 years after Locke gives him the compass to test to see if Locke was telling the truth.
• I know there was talk in episodes a long time ago (Swan hatch era) in which there was a big lead deposit. Is the Swan Hatch the storage place of the H Bomb? Is that why they had to press the numbers in the old PC? Didn’t it look like the bomb was hanging over a hatch?
• The present time of this episode had to be 7 or 8 years (at least) from when they got off the island. Penny said they Desmond was off the island 3 years while pregnant and their kid had to be 4 or 5. This seems to supplement my theory (along with everyone else) that the island and the real world operate on different times. There is no way they could go back to the island 10 years later.
• Shout out to naming the kid Charlie.
• Why was it such a big deal to go back to LA for Penny and Desmond?

Update 1:  The crazy army lady is Faraday’s mom along with the current day Mrs Hawking in LA. All the things were tied together between this episode and the enhanced previous episode (with added text … he named his rat after his mom?). We will find out that Mrs Hawking first name is Ellie.

Update 2: This comment is just crazy but it could be true “I think Charlie (Desmond’s baby) is actually Charles Widmore, and Des & Pen are Adam & Eve (from the cave in Season 1)! Charlie and Ellie are Daniel’s parents, so D&P are his grandparents…” I was wondering why Desmond didn’t tell Widmore that Penny just had a baby. Maybe it would mess up the whole space time continuum ala Back to the Future.