"Follow the Leader" Review

This week featured one of Lost's "let's move all the chess pieces to their correct positions" episodes, but it was better handled and felt more complete than those episodes usually do. You could make a good argument that it was a Richard-centric episode -- he was the only one to factor into both timelines, and the camera often chose him as the landing point whenever it switched between those settings -- but there were no flashbacks, and a whopping four different plotlines going on.

The "A" Plot:

Locke arrives with Sun and Ben at the Others' camp. Richard is quite surprised to see him. Locke, Richard, and Ben go on a mini-quest involving Richard taking the bullet out of Locke's leg from the first episode of the season. Just as they return to camp, Locke says he wants to take everybody to see Jacob, which disconcerts Richard mightily but makes all the random Others happy. As everyone embarks on the trip the next morning, Locke reveals to Ben that he plans to kill Jacob.

The "B" Plot:

Jack and Kate are captured by the Others. Jack reveals his plan to blow up the Jughead, but it's in a cave underneath Dharmaville. Eloise, Richard, and a Red Shirt Other take Jack and Kate to a stream that they have to swim under to access the cavern. Kate decides she wants none of this, the Red Shirt threatens to kill her, but before he can, Sayid shows up and blasts him away. Kate leaves, Sayid takes her place, and the four remaining people dive underwater and re-emerge in a cavern that holds Jughead.

The "C" Plot:

Sawyer and Juliet are tied up; Radzinsky's power-tripping like crazy and Horace is letting him. Radzinsky beats on Sawyer for a while, but it's only after Phil punches Juliet (not cool, man) that Sawyer makes a deal: he'll tell them whatever they want if he and Juliet get to leave on the sub. They both get on the sub profess their love for each other, then Kate gets on the sub too, and then it departs.

The "D" Plot:

Hurley, Jin, and Miles are at a loss for what to do and are hiding outside of Dharmaville. Chang finds them, plays a little Jedi mind game on Hurley to trick him into admitting he's from the future. Miles says it's true and tells him to get his wife and Baby Miles out of there.

I guess the best way to do a proper recap for this episode is to see where each character stands:

Richard

A number of interesting developments occurred with Richard this episode. For the first time, he seemed to lose his calm, cool, and collected veneer when Locke showed back up on the beach circa 2007. This brings to light a few interesting points. #1: Richard has less sense of the "grand plan" than I maybe assumed he did -- he thought Locke was totally out of the picture. (And apparently thought nothing of the plane that recently crashed on the smaller island.) #2: He had no knowledge that the island disappeared and skipped ahead in time. The way he described it, in early 2005, one minute Locke was there, the next minute he wasn't. #3: What's his game plan in the future? His final line of the episode -- "I'm starting to think John Locke is going to be trouble" -- suggests that Richard could turn into an adversary, or that Richard and Jacob are not actually on good terms and may even be on different sides.

But this has always been the main problem in trying to peg down theories about Jacob: all signs would point to the idea that all of these leaders -- Ben, Widmore, Hawking, Richard -- are simply Men Behind the Curtain, leveraging power by creating "Jacob" out of thin air. And yet we know he actually exists. So on one level, we know their reverence for him is valid, but on another level, they constantly pull "the Jacob card" as a way to automatically win an argument. "Jacob wanted it done." "Jacob sent me." Etc.

Snap Theory: the Others and Jacob have never been on the same side, and he's never been their leader. To harness control of the island, the Others long ago imprisoned Jacob in the shack -- which would finally make Jacob's only spoken line so far, "Help me", make sense. But while they've restrained him, Jacob still holds power over the island, and must be appeased even in his captivity.

Except, if Locke is correct, that can't be right...

Locke

"I'm going to kill Jacob." That was his master plan at the end of the episode. Locke has found his purpose through a deeper understanding of "the island": the island told him his former self would be at that place in the jungle at that specific time, etc. And yet his plan is to kill Jacob. We've always assumed that Jacob is the physical embodiment of the island, but the way Locke sees it, there's the island and then there's Jacob: and the island is good, and Jacob deserves to be killed.

Another snap theory: Jacob is an evil spirit that the island has trapped in the shack -- and the Others' ultimate decades-spanning plan is to release Jacob from his captivity. That explains "help me" and their reverence for Jacob.

An innocent question: So we saw the Others' contemporary camp. Where are Cindy the Flight Attendant and the kidnapped Boy and Girl from the Tail Section? The last time we saw them was in Season 3, when they appeared to an in-captivity Jack; Cindy told him "we're here to watch."

Ben

Ben is still Ben. He's been tamed by the vision of Alex and is no longer plotting to kill Locke outright, but he is still constantly searching for openings and weaknesses. First it's passive-aggressively encouraging Richard to kill Locke. Then it's telling Locke that Richard was concerned over Locke's leadership. Is he trying to usurp Richard as Locke's adviser? Is he trying to get somebody else to kill Locke now that he's not allowed to? Both. And more. He's just on the lookout for trouble so he can seize power where there's power to seizing.

Kate

A.k.a. The Ultimate Third Wheel.

Jack: "Let's blow up the H bomb!"
Sayid: "Hell, why not?"
Kate: "No way, you're crazy, I'm leaving."

(later...)

Juliet: "I love you, Sawyer."
Sawyer: "I love you too, Juliet."
Kate: "Hey guys!"

Dharma Folks:

Horace: Needs to find some backbone. The guy's creepy, but he's not quite as off-the-wall nuts as Radzinsky or as Pathetic-Tagalong-with-No-Moral-Grounding as Phil.

Radzinsky: Somehow, he's destined to end up in the Swan and eventually commit suicide. It'd be nice if he was "sentenced" there for being such an incredible jerk. But how will that work?

Phil: Sawyer will kill him. He promised, and he's going to deliver. Punching Juliet? Between Locke's dad shoving him out a window and Phil punching a tied-up Juliet, frankly, Phil is the bigger douche bag.

The Dharma Initiative as a whole: Under the normal timeline, the Initiative continues to run and thrive for years until the eventual Purge. Everything feels like it's ending, but it would be wise to remember that (barring Jack's plan) this whole bit with Sawyer and Juliet is just a hiccup for them in the scheme of things.

Jack:

I'm becoming more and more invested in the arguments for and against Jack's plan.

Against: it's nuts, it'll kill people, and best case scenario, the shift in the timeline will allow all their souls to sort of revert to the new timeline with no memory of the events of the series. Worst case -- and probable -- scenario, they immediately cease to exist, and entirely different (though identical) versions of themselves appear in the new timeline.

For: Jack has failed. He was the leader, and of the sixty or so survivors of 815 (including the Tailies), only nine of them have survived (not counting possible survivors Rose, Bernard, Claire, and the aforementioned Cindy, Boy, and Girl). And Jack thinks Locke and possibly Sun are dead, so that puts it at seven (himself, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, Jin, Sayid, and Walt). If he succeeds, he may not remember it or exist anymore, but all of those people will still be alive.

The monkey wrench: Jeff Jensen puts forth the idea that since all of these people were spiritually "lost" upon landing on the island, reverting the timeline would negate everyone's personal redemption story. Disturbing.

And finally: I think it'll work. I think Jack will succeed in creating a radically altered timeline -- except it won't work out the way Jack thinks it will. It'll be something crazy.

I've talked for quite long enough, so let me speed through some other points:

Sawyer and Juliet:

It pains me to say so, but I don't think their relationship will last much longer. Which is too bad, because it's my favorite on the show to date. As for them "leaving the island", I'm going with Jensen's theory that the sub will make a pit stop at the Looking Glass hatch

Sayid:

How long was he lurking in the shadows? Has he been spying on the Others for days now?

Hurley, Miles, and Jin:

As I said before, Chang's interrogation of Hurley was one of the funniest moments on Lost, ever. At the moment, all three of them are plan-less, so it'll be interesting to see how they wrap themselves back up in the story.

Final Theory to Leave You With:

I already expounded on Richard, Jacob, and the Others, so let me leave you with something a little different: a pretty cracked-out theory about the answer to the "What lies in the shadow of the statue?" riddle.

My answer? Your soul.

Why? Because "the shadow of the statue" is the Smoke Monster. And if you look inside the Smoke Monster, like Ben did, you see your past, your flaws, your life: your soul.

Let's say the statue refers to the Four-Toed Statue. And let's say the Four-Toed Statue is of an Egyptian god. The "shadow of the statue" can be taken two ways: literally -- the Smoke Monster is literally a sentient shadow that once served as the shadow of the statue but had a sort of "awakening" when the statue crumbled -- and figuratively: the Smoke Monster is the soul of the Egyptian god.

Note that the literal and figurative explanations are not mutually exclusive.

How's that for a theory? The Smoke Monster is the soul of an Egyptian god in the form of a sentient shadow. You read it here first.

TAGS: Ben, Dharma Initiative, Everybody, Fourtoed Statue, Jacob, Juliet, Kate, Locke, Phil, Richard Alpert, Sawyer, Sayid, Smoke Monster, The Others, Timeline, What Lies In The Shadow Of The Statue
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