5.15 - Follow the Leader

Title’s significance: A lot of leadership roles change hands in this episode – Dharma leader, Others leader, Hostiles leader, survivors leader.

Recap: After Daniel is shot, Widmore takes Jack and Kate hostage, and Eloise realizes that Faraday really was her son. Jack tells Kate he plans to complete Daniel’s plan, and Eloise agrees to bring them to Jughead. Radzinsky and Phil rough up Juliet to get Sawyer to rat on Kate, which he does; Hurley bolts from the camp, but Dr. Chang follows him to Miles and Jin, revealing that he’s willing to help by evacuating the island. Chang warns that there’s a “cataclysmic” incident coming, and Sawyer agrees to spill the beans in exchange for a seat on the submarine. As Eloise is about to kill Kate for trying to run, Sayid saunters out of the jungle and agrees to join Jack’s plan, but Kate still refuses to help; Jack, Richard, Eloise, and Sayid swim to Jughead, buried in an underwater cavern. Kate makes it to the sub, which departs the island with Sawyer and Juliet aboard, too. In 2007, Richard builds a model ship when Locke and Ben return to camp with Sun in tow, but Richard reveals that the survivors in 1977 are all dead. Locke promises Sun he’ll find the rest of their people, but first he brings Richard and Ben out into the jungle. Locke reveals that he wants to meet with Jacob; while there, Locke directs Richard to help a wounded man in the jungle – himself, when the island was time-skipping. Upon returning, Locke addresses his people, saying he thinks they deserve to meet Jacob, but Locke reveals that his master plan is actually to kill Jacob.

Thoughts: When I first heard this was a Richard-centric episode, I thought, “Oh, boy! I can hardly wait – answers on the most enigmatic man on the island!” But no, Richard’s just the “constant” that holds the two timelines together. Fortunately, the episode does hang together, even though there are two vastly different plotlines, each heading toward its own inexorable ending. One thing to watch out for is how ‘involved’ Locke is all of a sudden. Hmm…

Favorite moment: Hurley tries to disprove that he’s from the future by telling Dr. Chang that “There’s no such thing” as the Korean War. Either that, Sawyer’s get-rich off-island scheme, or the revelation of the truth of Locke’s encounter with Richard.

Characters introduced (in order):

• MITCH, Dharma security fellow

What we learned:

• Ben calls Richard “a kind of advisor.”
• Eloise was pregnant with Daniel when she killed Daniel.
• Richard helped Locke back in “Because You Left” at Future Locke’s insistence.
• The compass is caught in a time loop.

Questions:

• Are the survivors in 1977 dead? If so, how?
• Has Ben ever seen Jacob?
• What’s the function of The Tunnels?
• Why does Locke want Jacob dead?

Things that are going to be important in Season Six:

• Richard notices that there’s something different about Locke, and we all know what that means…
• Richard tells Sun that the survivors are all dead in 1977. Was this the effect of the Jughead plan, is he lying, or has time not reset yet?