Follow the Leader: A Classic LOST Episode

I’ve suffered recently from a terrible case of blog fade, I admit it. What with school starting and all…. Ah, but I’ve managed to watch most of LOST Season 5. My report:

This season is different than the others. It starts off with a bang, and just keeps going at breakneck speed. The first several episodes seem like one long episode, and the time jumps, both literal, and flashback, are confusing but exhilarating. Even though the off-island parts following the Six left me a little cold, each episode gives us plenty to chew over. The relationship development is slowed, although the Sawyer/Juliet relationship blew me away at first. I still don’t quite buy it.

My main purpose here is to sing the praises of two of the later episodes, and in particular the last one I watched: Follow the Leader.

First, I loved Some Like it Hoth. Of course, I’m partial to Hurley, and I have developed an appreciation for his relationship with Miles. This episode gives that relationship a full airing (which the van needed at one point [yuck yuck]). I loved the scene where Miles, Hurley and Chang were in the van, and Hurley kept needling Miles to tell Chang he’s his son. [Realistically, how could Chang have not suspected? I mean, how many Chinese guys are named Miles?] But I was totally impressed by the scene after they got back to the barracks and Chang had left them, when Hurley was trying to persuade Miles to approach Chang. He used his own experiences and those of Luke Skywalker as examples. That scene was both laugh-out-loud funny, and tear-jerkingly touching AT THE SAME TIME. Quite a feat.

Now to Follow the Leader. This episode, left me gasping. It features humor, raw emotion, shocking moments, major questions answered, and gaping holey questions. We can see the season finale taking shape. At the same time we’re left wanting to know how it’s all going to come together.

Humor: (1) Hurley (of course) tries to convince Chang that they AREN’T from the future, fails miserably, gives up. “OK, Dude, we’re from the future.” (2) Sawyer sees Juliet safely into the sub, then turns around and views the panorama of the island. The audience naturally believes he will bolt and head back to the island for any number of reasons. Instead he murmurs “Good riddance” and ducks inside.

Raw emotion: (1) Kate and Jack talk about Daniel’s plan to blow up the island. Jack’s all for it, to wipe out the death and misery so many have experienced over the last three years, to bring back Charlie and Shannon and Boone and…. On his face, we can see the misery he has experienced himself, what he has felt at losing friend after friend, and yes, the sadness of knowing the implications for him and Kate. Kate’s miserable because she realizes it would mean she never meets Jack or Sawyer (not to speak of all the people who will die in the explosion). Both actors (neither particularly impressing me in the past) wring the most out of that brief scene. That scene is immediately followed by (2) Ellie talking to them, the realization coming over her that she has killed her son, then that Daniel has given her a way to wipe out that sin. This actress is awesome. (3) Miles watching Chang roughly dismissing his mother and his baby-self, finally understanding his whole life story in that one bit of a scene. (4) Kate joins Sawyer and Juliet in the sub. No words are spoken, but the emotions playing on all three faces speak volumes about their past relationships.

Shocking moments: (1) Alpert tells Sun he watched Jack, Kate, and Hurley all die 30 years ago. (2) Locke tells Sun if there’s a way for Sun and Jin to be together, “to save OUR people”, he’ll find it. (So he still considers Jin et al to be his people. Or is he lying…?) (3) Locke reveals his purpose for bringing the Others to Jacob: “I’m gonna kill him.” (4) It was LOCKE who directed Richard to go to Locke and pull the bullet out, and also relay the message from Locke, that Locke would have to die. My head spins. (5) Sun: Will this man Jacob be able to bring Jin and the rest of our friends back here? Locke: Absolutely. Richard aside to Ben: I’m beginning to think John Locke is going to be trouble. Ben: Why do you think I tried to kill him?

Questions: Did Eloise send the Six (and Locke and Ben) back (even though she knows she kills Daniel) so, ironically, they would blow up the island and thus she never shoots Daniel? Did Widmore fund Daniel’s research and recruit him for the freighter so he would go back and explode the bomb? Did Widmore recruit Miles so he could talk to the dead Daniel? Did Widmore know Miles was Chang’s kid? Tangentially, why was Charlotte recruited? And why Frank both times? Purely coincidence? We know Christian (or his manifestation) was resurrected on the island. Is that the same thing that happened to Locke? Is he real, or a manifestation? When did the Locke/Alpert/Locke bullet extracting scene happen? Obviously in 2007, but we first saw it immediately after the wheel-turning in 2004, during the mad time shifts. Does that mean that at least one of the shifts led them to the future? And how did Locke know the exact moment to set the scene in motion? “The island told me.” Again, is he the real Locke?

And the big question: Can the human variable really change the time-line as Daniel suggests, or are they destined to repeat the same history (What Happened, Happened). My guess is the latter. Evidence: Daniel knew he talked to the little-girl Charlotte and scared her by warning her about leaving the island. He was determined not to repeat that, but in the end, he had to to save her.

All in all, a wonderful episode.