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Thursday’s ‘Lost’ debate: What’s Penny’s island connection?

February

Tonight’s episode, “The Constant,” is centered around Desmond, in which we’ll see some more of his lady love, Penny Widmore. (Her nasty gazillionaire dad, Charles, shows up, too.)

So I thought it would be appropriate to discuss Penny in this week’s “Lost” debate: How is she connected to the island?

Desmond’s there, of course. But she didn’t seem to know that until Charlie spilled the beans in the Looking Glass station during last season’s finale.

If you recall, after Charlie turns off the Others’ jamming mechanism, the station immediately gets an incoming transmission from Penny.

Clearly, she’s had some kind of contact with the island—or she’s assuming she will at some point. Has she been communicating with Ben without knowing that Desmond has been there for years?

And the big rift among the castaways right now—split between those who want to leave (Team Jack) and those who want to stay (Team Locke)—hinges in large part on Charlie’s conversation with Penny. He asks if she’s on the boat; Penny says what boat? And who’s Naomi?

Charlie takes this to mean that Naomi’s been lying, and writes the final message “Not Penny’s Boat” on his hand before drowning.

Yet some fans are wondering: What if Charlie made a mistake? Naomi did say that she’d never met Penny, so could Penny have hired her company (or that scary Mr. Abbadon) without knowing who Naomi was?

Something fishy is up, because Naomi had a copy of that photo of Desmond and Penny.

Is one of them lying? Probably. At least partially. But maybe some of it was just a terrible misunderstanding on Charlie’s part?

Either way, Penny has some other connections to the island.

Remember way back at the end of Season 2? We learned that Penny had been tracking electromagnetic disturbances, presumably as a way of finding Desmond. (Remember? Those Portuguese dudes called her in the middle of the night…)

But we haven’t yet found out why she was doing this. Does Penny know about the DHARMA experiments on the island? Did she suspect that Desmond somehow became involved in one?

Here’s what else we know: Penny’s dad, Charles Widmore, is up to his beady little eyes in DHARMA connections.

In Desmond’s previous time-traveling episode, we saw a few telling pictures in Charles’ office: one of a polar bear, another of a Buddha with the word, “Namaste,” the greeting that DHARMA folks gives newcomers (like young Ben) to the island.

And Daddy’s company manufactured the pregnancy tests used by Kate, Sun and Juliet’s sister, Rachel. Plus, the name Widmore appears on the side of the hot air balloon used by the real Henry Gale (whose name Ben took as an alias).

So, Lost-philes, what do all these Widmore connections mean?

Penny wasn’t too fond of her dad back in the day, and she didn’t seem to have a lot to do with the family business. So even if her father is somehow linked to DHARMA, how has she been drawn in?

Sounds like we’ll learn more tonight. But for now, discuss the possibilities below—and then come back again tomorrow to fill in any blanks!

(Photos courtesy of Lost-Media.com)

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 28th, 2008 at 9:30 am by Heather Salerno.
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5 Responses to “Thursday’s ‘Lost’ debate: What’s Penny’s island connection?”

Ted Mann February 28th, 2008 at 10:06 am
Two thoughts:
As one of the few suckers who actually went out, bought, and read the Lost book “Bad Twin,” I sure as hell hope something comes of all this Widmore stuff. The whole book revolved around the Widmores and—well, if they’re no more relevant to the plot than Nikki and Paolo I’ll be pissed. All that time wasted on a friggin worthless book.

Second thing: Am I the only one hoping that when Penny (played by Sonya Walger) is reunited with Desmond, it’ll be something like the actress’s performances on HBO’s “Tell Me You Love Me”? A gratuitous, borderline pornographic flash-forward—Awesome!
Chuck February 28th, 2008 at 11:37 am
I believe that Penny somehow found out that her father was using Desmond in his quest to find the island (while also hoping to dispose of the guy). Penny did a little intrafamily espionage on daddy and found out what she needed to look for—electromagnetic anomolies, of course—and hired her own people to look for Desmond/the island.

Daddy’s freighter beat her to the island, but she is one step behind…
Sean from Suffern February 28th, 2008 at 11:56 pm
My brain exploded after watching tonight’s episode.
Heather Salerno February 29th, 2008 at 9:29 am
Chuck, dude, I like the way you think. I can’t imagine Penny is sinister, but her dad certainly could be. The Widmores are definitely a big part of this, especially after watching 2/28’s Desmond episode. And Sean, brain matter is seeping out of my ears, too…

Click on the link below to discuss that brain-busting episode a little more:
http://remote.lohudblogs.com/2008/02/29/lost-recap-desmond-does-the-time-warp-again/
Steph February 29th, 2008 at 1:45 pm
The episode was amazing! And now we can see more connections with the Widmores and DHARMA than ever before. Penny’s dad bought the journal that was on the Black Rock. Just who was selling the journal? And why did Widmore know to get it? The people on the freighter were instructed not to answer Penny’s calls… Crazy stuff.

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