Lost 5.15 "Follow the Leader"

Alpert: “There’s something different about you.”
Locke: “I have a purpose now.”

WOW. What an episode. I loved it; it definitely created the bridge between the second half of the season and the finale (which, if we go by the show’s history, promises to be pretty mindblowing). From the focus shifting back to Locke to Richard Alpert appearing in all of the timelines to the Jack/Kate/Sawyer/Juliet quadrangle to Ben to Jacob to SAYID!!, I loved it.

“He’s kind of an... advisor. And he’s had that job for a very, very long time.”
Oh, Richard. How I love you. We almost lost the guy in season 4 when he starred in “Cane,” but now he’s back, and he’s been a major character all season. In this episode (which is one of many this season that will be sure to drive more casual fans batty with confusion) he appears in 1977 and 2007, looking EXACTLY THE SAME. Love him. I still can’t figure out why he looked different with the shaggy hair in “The Man Behind the Curtain,” but I’m starting to wonder if the writers hadn’t quite figured out that Richard would not only stay the same age forever, but he would go through all of time with the same haircut, same blue shirt with rolled sleeves, same black pants. Well... unless he’s showing up at John Locke’s foster mom’s house or trying to recruit Juliet. Then he throws on a suit jacket.

This episode is the first to suggest outright that Alpert is not a leader, but an advisor (which in Shakespeare usually makes him smarter than the leader, but certainly not as powerful). Richard is clearly not omnipotent. He was Widmore’s advisor, lost faith in him; became Ben’s advisor, lost faith in him; now he’s Locke’s, and he’s losing faith in him after only a few minutes. I loved that we got to see him approach Locke in the jungle, and it finally explains his weird response, “You told me... well, you WILL tell me.”

“All the misery that we’ve been through... we’d just wipe it clean.”
The scene between Kate and bloody-nose Jack in the tent was brilliant. You know, I make fun of Jack a lot (yes, I was super-gleeful when his aptitude test showed he was best suited for janitorial work) and I’ve accused him of being a blowhard know-it-all holier-than-thou SHUT UP JACK... ahem. Sorry. BUT, Jack has always been an extremely complex character, and a lot of that stems from the way Matthew Fox plays him. Fox’s performances often get hidden by the stellar acting of Michael Emerson, Terry O’Quinn, and Jeremy Davies, but Fox has been amazing on this series from season 1. The scene between Jack and Kate is filled with pain, and the way his face lights up with the fact that he could fix things, he could bring everyone on Flight 815 back to life if he could just do this one thing and make it all go away... was heartbreaking. Kate looks at him in shock that he would give up his life with her to do it. Last week when we saw a clip of him saying this in the preview, we, too, were shocked, knowing that so many bad things would have happened if the crash never occurred: Hurley would believe he was cursed; Charlie would be a heroin addict; Claire would give up Aaron; Kate would be arrested; Jin and Sun would be miserable; Jack would have to face his mother, who half-blamed him for Christian’s death; Locke would be a paraplegic; Nikki and Paulo would still be alive. By living through all of this, they’ve become different people; by most accounts, better people. Earlier in the season, Locke argues that he wouldn’t go to his former self banging away at the hatch door and screaming, because he needed to live through that confusion and anger to become the person he is today. But on the flip side, there were 324 people aboard that plane. Of those, 71 survived the crash. By 2007, the only Oceanic people still alive are the 6 who leave on the helicopter, and Sawyer and Locke on the island. Rose, Bernard, and the redshirts have all disappeared. Is it not worth sacrificing the personal growth of a handful of characters to bring back all those people?

Not that Kate is thinking about any of this. Her only response is, “Oh my god, you would give up our amazing whirlwind romance that has meant the world to me to bring hundreds of people back to LIFE?!” (Ok, I’m paraphrasing.) But the truth is, there really is no “you and me” when it comes to her and Jack. She slept with Sawyer. Jack saw it and his heart was ripped in two. He tried to get over it. Every time he thought he’d made a step forward with Kate, he moved back again when she went to Sawyer. So he fell for Juliet, but he really still loved Kate. (Sawyer similarly never knew where he stood with Kate, so don’t worry, I’m not taking a Skate point-of-view on this one.) Off the island, he tried to make a go of it, but fell apart again when his addictions took over, and his paranoia stepped in. Even from the island, he felt that Sawyer had edged in on his relationship with Kate. Since the crash, he’s had his heart broken over and over; he’s been forced into a leadership role that he didn’t want, only to be questioned again and again; he’s lost most of his people he vowed to save; he got off the island but his demons followed him; he’s been miserable and addicted and obsessed and depressed ever since. Things haven’t exactly been a walk in the park for Jack. Having to deal with his mother’s disdain when he lands safely on Oceanic 815 pales in comparison to what he’s been through as a result of the crash.

But even then, at the heart of Jack’s actions is his need to fix things, to fix people, to fix situations. My heart went out to him in this scene, and I really felt for him.

Kate, on the other hand, seems completely shocked at Jack’s words, and when he says, “enough of it was” misery, she sits back, eyes welling up, and silent. Has it only NOW occurred to her how difficult Jack’s life has been for the past 3 years?

Highlights:
• Ben muttering on the beach in anger. “Afraid I’ll stage a COUP??”
• Sawyer, while Radzinsky is beating him: “I want my lawyer.”
• The entire exchange between Chang and Hurley. I was in stitches. “Chang: What year were you born? Hurley: 19...31. Chang: You’re 46? Hurley: Yes. Yes I am. Chang: You fought in the Korean War? Hurley: There’s... no such thing.” That line was priceless. It’s as if Hurley always thought M*A*S*H was based on a made-up war. (Even better was the way Miles glanced at Jin -- the Korean -- and Jin looked at Hurley with disdain.)
• Ben, watching Locke watch himself: “This must be quite the out-of-body experience.” Locke: “Something like that.”
• SAYID!!! (I could hear redeem cheering from here...)
• Sawyer telling Juliet they’re going to invest in Microsoft and then bet on the Cowboys in the 78 Super Bowl. FINALLY someone is using this time travel thing to their advantage!
• The smug look on Ben’s face when he tells Richard that he tried to kill Locke.
• Sawyer calling the guy on the sub “Nemo.”

Did You Notice?:
• Jeremy Davies plays dead REALLY well. The guy doesn’t even flinch. Every time they showed his body it made me sad...
• Eloise asks if Jack and Kate came there with Daniel, and Jack says, “yes.” Look at Kate’s face when he says that. It’s like she’s screaming, “oh my GOD, shut UP!” on the inside.
• When they first showed Richard Alpert putting together the ship in a bottle, he appeared to be in the same tent where Ben had breakfast with Kate on the beach before putting her in a bear cage.
• I mentioned in a DocArzt post a few weeks back that Locke was definitely different since he returned to the island. There was almost unanimous disagreement among those who commented, saying he was no different than he was in season 1. I beg to differ, and apparently Richard Alpert agrees with me. I think Alpert and I would make great buds. We could sit around discussing how different John Locke is... he could lend me his eyeliner... I could learn more about Ancient Egypt, firsthand...
• I was going to say that one thing I’ve always loved about Terry O’Quinn, in any show I’ve ever seen him in, is that smile. It’s so warm and sincere, and he smiles with his entire face, with his eyes squinting up. He’s so fatherly and protective to Sun... and then, by the end of the episode, we realize maybe Locke just LOOKS sincere, but he’s as good an actor as O’Quinn.
• Kate has a cute little wrench on her Dharma symbol that I didn’t notice before. Jack has nothing.
• Ellie tells Jack about walking Daniel to a spot where he told her he was from the future. I watched Jughead again the other night, and there’s a TON of stuff in there that was referenced last week and again this week. Definitely watch it again if you still have it on your PVR or VCR.
• I KNEW the journal Ellie gave to Daniel in the restaurant was the same one he carried around!
• Between Jack and Sawyer, they had to use a ton of red sticky syrup in this episode.
• I don’t mean to be cruel to the guy playing Chang, but I get the impression that they hired the guy back in season 2 to do the orientation videos, and didn’t realize they were going to use the actor in such a big way later on. I don’t think he’s a very good actor. He’s so stiff and overly gruff and “what the hell?!”-like.
• Widmore wonders why Daniel looks familiar to him. Interesting that Ellie knows that Daniel was the guy she marched to the bomb, but he only looks vaguely familiar to Widmore. That’s because by the time Widmore got back to the camp, Daniel was already on his way out of the camp with Ellie at gunpoint. Widmore asked Richard about him, wanting to know why they were letting him go, but he was probably in Dan’s presence for less than 5 minutes.
• Ben doesn’t actually serve any purpose on the trip into the jungle for Alpert to find gunshot-in-the-leg Locke. Locke clearly only wanted Ben to tag along so he could see proof of the island telling Locke things. Burn.
• The scene of Alpert tending to Locke’s wound is mostly taken from “Because You Left.” The only difference I could see was the angle from which Locke first sees Alpert approach (we only see his torso through a hole in the trees) and when Alpert first gets to him, he stops, smiles, and says, “Hey, John.” They remove that line from this episode, to make Alpert look a little more unsure of himself. But all the rest of the scene is simply taken from that episode. I wonder how much the writers tell the actors? Was Carbonell told that he had to look unsure of himself, but would know exactly what to do at the same time? Or do they give a little more specific information than that?
• Man, I cannot WAIT to see the reunion between Locke and Jack, now that Jack’s Mr. Destiny Guy.
“Jack? Good to see you.”
“Hey, Locke, um... you were r-r-r-...gack!”
“I’m sorry, Jack, what’s wrong with you?”
“Sorry. Ahem. You were r-r-r-cough!cough!”
“Jack, are you sick?”
“NO! I need to get this out. You were r-r-r-...”
Locke, smiling. “I know.”
• When Miles sees Sawyer through the binoculars, he calls him Jim. It makes sense; he’s known him as Jim for 3 years; he knew him as Sawyer for about a week.
• I SO thought that Sawyer was going to let Juliet get into the sub and was then going to chicken out. Whew.
• Sayid seems to be all for Oceanic not crashing, for if the plane had landed, he may have found Nadia quicker, and she would still be alive.
• I actually thought Juliet and Sawyer seemed sweet when they first got on the sub. Kate felt like a fifth wheel.
• That sub dive was SO CGI, right down to the ripples in its wake. I guess unless you’re filming U-571, it’s a little expensive to get a sub on your set. (Or maybe the water was simply too shallow to dive a sub there?)
• Dan told them they had to put lead in the leak on the side of Jughead, but the leak still looked open.
• I’ve always REALLY disliked the expedition music that plays at least once a season when everyone heads off on a trek.
• This episode was very cleverly titled. Jack has seemed to regain his leader status, and is being followed by Ellie, Sayid, and Alpert. Kate refuses to follow him, and returns to Sawyer, but he’s no longer a leader. Meanwhile, 30 years later, Locke is also a leader, but his authority is being undermined by Alpert and Ben, grumbling behind him. And Jacob is somehow leading all of them, but how can you follow someone you’ve never seen? Radzinsky usurps Horace as leader, and everyone seems to switch over to him without question. Chang is also a leader, leading the people off the island.

Hurley’s numbers:
The hydrogen bomb is 12 feet long (8+4).

So Many Questions...
• Is the ship in a bottle significant of something bigger? That the island really is inside a snowglobe, as Desmond famously claimed in “Live Together, Die Alone”? The ship could represent the Black Rock, which is on the centre of the island. We still need an explanation for why that got there. I’m thinking many of the things that have happened on the island stem from that incident, though now that we’ve seen so much of the Egyptian mythology, it suggests it goes back WAY earlier than a 19th century slave ship.
• Richard pulls out the compass and says it’s a little rusty, but it still points north. Yet, back in season 1, I believe it was, Sayid uses a compass that John Locke fashions for him and says the point is always off, that it never quite points north. The suggestion at the time was that the electromagnetic energy from the hatch was throwing it off, yet Richard says his compass works just fine. Why? Is it because Desmond turned the key? Because Richard never makes it seem like there was ever a time when it DIDN’T work, and Locke gave that to him in 1954.
• Was Richard telling the truth about watching everyone die?
• Last week many people (myself included) thought Eloise was the epitome of Worst Mother of the Century for shaping her son’s entire life so he’d be killed by her hand. But now, Jack is telling her that if she follows everything written in that journal, they could change things so she WOULDN'T kill Dan. Is it possible Eloise shaped his entire life to the point where she thought she could CHANGE him being killed? Why not just steer him away from the island? And why does she look so heartbroken all the time when she looks at him? (Speaking of which, last week I also kept saying I thought Ellie would find out Dan’s life from the journal, and many people said Nik, you’re wrong, because in the preview Jack’s holding it, not Eloise. But in this episode, Eloise was holding it the entire time.)
• Anyone else think weaselly little Phil’s eventually going to get his?
• If the Swan station is some sort of top secret lab, why does Radzinsky have a Swan logo on his jumpsuit, for all the world to see?
• Speaking of jumpsuits, I find it strange that Hugo’s says “Hurley” on it. The name on the suit is based on how you’re registered, and the Dharma sub manifest says Hugo Reyes. Would he have been able to convince them to put his nickname on there instead?
• Is Locke correct? Has Ben never seen Jacob? It was certainly one of the theories we all put forward a couple of seasons ago, suggesting that the scene in the cabin was all smoke and mirrors, with Ben talking to Jacob like he’s some child, when in fact he had no idea where he was. However, that means Ben’s a REALLY good guesser, since he guessed Jacob was in the chair and addressed the chair the entire time. Maybe he’s seen the chair move before and knew he was in it.
• Radzinsky says they’re supposed to break ground on the Swan in 20 (8+8+4) hours, but haven’t we already seen them starting to dig the hole for the Swan when Hurley and Miles go there?
• At first I thought Jack and Co were in the same place where Ben was judged, but it’s clearly not. Is it connected? They refer to it as the tunnels, but if Jughead is under there, the place where Ben was judged must be far away in the tunnels, because Ellie said Jughead is currently under Dharmaville. The place of judgment, on the other hand, was under the wall surrounding the Temple, which was still intact in 2007.
• What’s up with Locke lying to Sun? If you die and then resurrect on the island, does something happen to your sense of morality? The earlier Locke followed through on his promise to Jin, and didn’t tell Sun that Jin was alive. This one just walks right past her when he returns to the camp, and looks her in the eye and lies to her about Jacob helping them find Jin.
• Was Ben lying when he said that he tried to kill Locke because he was becoming a problem? I hope not... he’s going to prove me WRONG. And I HATE when that happens! (Ben. DUDE. I'm trying to prove that you're essentially a good guy. Sigh... cooperate with me here.)
• So... they beat Sawyer to a pulp screaming about how they need to know where Kate is. Then she comes wandering back into the camp and they stick her on a sub, rather than interrogate her to find out where the hostiles are?! Something’s wrong here.
• The columns in the place where Jughead was buried were Greek or Roman, not Egyptian. What was that place?
• Why is Locke going to kill Jacob? Is it because he asked for help? Is it to help him resurrect as a better person, the way Locke did? Is he trapped in some way and only death can save him?

Next week: The finale. I’m heartbroken. I can’t believe it’s almost over!! But I cannot wait to discuss it with you guys. I know we’ll have a LOT to say. But for now, let's chat about this one!



UPDATE: My DocArzt post is now up.

UPDATE #2: It has come to my attention that people are posting spoilers for next week's episode in the comments section of my DocArzt post, so I'm warning you now not to scroll down to the comments if you don't want to be spoiled. Please come back here and leave a comment on the article if you'd like to talk about it but don't want to risk the spoilage. (Thanks for the heads up, batcabbage!)