And, if by chance you can see Star Trek in the interrum, it makes the week long wait to the finale that much more palatable.
I'm done saying that 'Such and such was the best episode ever', but I am ready and able to accept this latest offering and happily digest it while I try to keep myself off spoiler sites for the next 5 days.
As far as spoilers go, I'm a Title Man. I like to get the title in advance and ponder it's meaning, dissecting the few words and reading the entrails. With Follow the Leader, the immediate question was 'Well, who is the Leader to be followed?'
Dead is Dead seemed to indicate that man was John Locke, and while the episode didn't exactly disagree with that assertion, it also threw up a lot of alternatives. Put simply, Follow the Leader was lousy with leaders.
There were new leaders (Radzinsky), old leaders (Widmore), ageless leaders (Richard), resurrected leaders (Locke), 'redeemed' leaders (Jack) deposed leaders (Ben & Horace); it seemed in fact, that everyone but Hurley was calling the shots. Or trying to. Even Miles had a plan and they were sticking to it.
When leaders abound, whom do you follow?
This guy?
This guy?
Not this guy, surely:
Wait. Maybe this guy:
Sorry, wrong show (and yet, I can't somehow wonder how Tom Zerrick would do as an Other. Look out, Widmore!).
But I digress.
Follow the Leader was an episode without flashbacks, which are pretty well my favourite kind. The story featured 4 primary arcs - Jack's retarded quest to detonate a hydrogen bomb, Sawyer getting the Jack Bauer treatment from Radzinsky, Hurley and company planning their great escape (and spilling the beans to Chang), and finally, John Locke and his Other friends.
First things first: I was really glad that somebody was not on board with the whole "nuke the Swan" plan, even if that happened to be Kate. I fear that in Jack's brief stint as a janitor he may have inhaled a few of the chemicals. As happy as I was to hear Kate's dissent, I was even happier to see this:
Sayid has spent the last few days hanging out in the jungle waiting for someone to kill, apparently, and I believe that's all the explanation we are ever likely to get. Whatever. He's back, he's in black (I hated that purple shirt soooo much) and he's kickin' ass. He is also, unfortunately, lending his not inconsiderable talents to Team Jack and it's mad quest, which causes me no small amount of distress. But I think whereas Jack is talking out his ass and living out his ultimate 'Fixing Things' fantasy, Sayid has actually thought this through.
There's this wonderful little moment that occurs after he learns that his own plans to change the future were unravelled by none other than Kate, and before he says his wonderfully nuanced line: "Why did you do that?"
You can practically see the wheels turning inside his brain as he sees the timeline course-correcting. I believe Sayid is accompanying Jack precisely because he believes his plan will fail. I think Sayid just wants to see how.
Of course, it's equally plausible that his inability to change the future has given Sayid a bleak and nihilistic viewpoint, as evidenced by the line: "Well if this works you may just save us all. And if it doesn't, at least you'll put us out of our misery."
I'm betting the former, and let's hope I'm right because we left Jack, Sayid, Richard and Ellie standing in a tunnel before the bomb. Cue: Season Finale.
Meanwhile in Dharmaville, Sawyer spent much of the episode paying for his stupidity in the two previous ones; the capricious Gods of Lost deemed he would pay for his sins by being repeatedly punched in the face and it was so. What struck me about this scene was how Phil turned out to be so much more of a dick than Radzinsky. Phil, we've got a finale coming up here; it is not a wise time to be replacing Radzinsky as the most hated character on the show (remember Keamy?). Also, you shouldn't hit girls.
Sawyer made his deal with the Devil(s) and bought himself a ticket on the submarine. I guess I wasn't surprised to see Sawyer taken in by the whole 'sub scam', but shouldn't Juliet know better? The whole 'strike a bargain with fel powers in exchange for exit by sub' plan never works.
Also, and we will discover the validity of this statement very soon, but I still don't think that sub is how Dharma gets too and from the Island. Something very fishy about the sub. Just when James and Juliet appeared to be sailing off into an underwater sunset for their Happily Ever After, Kate came back and ruined everything. Cue season finale.
Miles, Hurley and Jin, meanwhile, were splitting back to the beach as was the original plan before Sawyer blew it. Hurley had some problems with this, which is so Hurley. Man, what's with that guy and caring about people? Claire last year and now Sawyer and Juliet? That kind of group minded thinking will never get him anywhere on Lost.
In addition to the hilarious exchange between Chang and Hurley, we also got to see Miles come to terms with his Daddy Issues. Seeing his father put him and his mother on the sub, realizing the lie he's labored under. "It's the only way he can get her to leave," he says, and you can hear the forgiveness, the understanding in his voice. Warning Miles: the episode before the season finale is not, repeat not the best time to resolve your issues. You're a dead man, dude.
This episode was also great because we got so much Richard Alpert. We got Richard in the past with Team Jack, and we also got Richard in the present with Team Locke. In fact, if this episode was 'centric' to anyone, it was Richard Alpert. By far the coolest bit here was the re-play of the Richard & Locke scene from 'Because you Left'. Just the way this story folds back on itself sometimes is just so brilliant. Also, we recieved a little (very little) bit of clarification regarding Richard's status with the Others. He's a kind of... advisor. Which, of course, tells us nothing that we couldn't already have surmised. The real question is, why? Why all these puppet regimes? Why wield power from behind the throne? I find it hard to believe that it's because he doesn't believe in himself. At no point have we seen Richard Alpert suffering from any sort of self-esteem issues.
No doubt this is another one of the 'rules' of Lost; one that can't be broken. If we were to run with my own half-baked purgatory/rebel angels theory, it would make sense that Richard can only influence, he can't overtly lead people into damnation or salvation.
It was interesting to see the lengths that John was willing to go to protect the time line. Again, he and Jack are on the opposite ends of the spectrum here. While Jack is trying to undo the past 3 years, Locke goes out of his way to prevent paradox. He tells Richard to tell his past self to bring everybody back to the Island; though he will later admit to Ben that he has no interest in helping his friends. He's playing for bigger stakes now, and truth be told, he has been since as far back as 'the Brig', when he told Sawyer he was on his own path.
Only now, he's got a whole bunch of people following him, the Leader.
Next week: the Death of Jacob, the Bomb drops and Lost is gone forever.
Can't wait.
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