Rewatching LOST: 5.15 “Follow the Leader”

Locke finally takes up his mantle as leader of the Others, and in doing so reveals a startling plan. In 1977, the survivors try to escape from the Dharma Initiative, but Jack becomes convinced that changing history is what they were brought back here to do.

• In 1977, Jack and Kate watch Daniel be shot and killed, but when they try to run for it, Charles Widmore shows up and captures them. Nearby at the Others’ camp, Eloise Hawking sees her own handwriting in Daniel’s notebook, and realizes that it must be true: she’s just killed her own son. Widmore brings Jack and Kate in, and Eloise orders them taken to her tent. In the tent alone, Jack asserts that Daniel was right — they have to detonate the hydrogen bomb and prevent Oceanic 815 from ever crashing, because it will erase all of the death and misery they’ve been through since first coming to the island. Kate strongly disagrees, because it will mean that none of them have ever met. Eloise comes in and asks why Daniel wanted to see the hydrogen bomb. Jack sees her regret over killing Daniel and tells her it’s true — he was her son. But he tells her Daniel doesn’t have to be dead, that they can use the bomb to change things so that none of this ever happened. Eloise agrees to take them to the bomb to try and fix things, though there’s a hitch: the Dharma Initiative built their Barracks atop the exact spot where the Others buried the bomb. As they’re being released, Eloise orders Richard to accompany them. Jack and Kate learn that Eloise and Widmore are an item, and that Eloise is pregnant — with baby Daniel.
• Sawyer is beaten to a pulp by Radzinsky, who’s wrestled control of the Dharma Initiative from Horace, at Security HQ. When Sawyer won’t talk despite the beating, Phil steps forward and punches Juliet. Sawyer promises death to Phil, but things are interrupted when another Dharma man comes in and reports that he’s found a connection between Sawyer and Juliet, and Jack, Kate, and Hurley.
• Hurley steals food supplies from the Dharma kitchen before escaping from the Barracks to meet up with Miles and Jin. Hurley wants to mount a rescue of Sawyer and Juliet, but Miles says no, there’s no hope of helping their friends when they’re so outnumbered. Unknown to Hurley, Pierre Chang followed him and catches up with the trio, where he demands to know if Daniel was telling the truth: are they really from the future? They finally admit to it, including the fact that Miles is Chang’s son. Chang asks if Daniel was right about the Incident about to happen at the Swan, and whether he should order the evacuation of the island. They say yes.
• Chang goes to Security HQ and orders the island evacuated of nonessential personnel, because he believes an accident is imminent at the Swan site. Radzinsky won’t listen, and insists that drilling is going to begin there shortly. Sawyer realizes what’s going on, and says that if he and Juliet are allowed to leave on the submarine, he’ll tell them anything they want to know. Radzinsky agrees, and orders Sawyer to draw him a map to the Others’ camp.
• In the jungle, Jack and Kate learn that there are Tunnels beneath the island, and that they lead to the place where the bomb is buried. To access them, Eloise says they’ll have to dive down into a river. Kate decides she doesn’t want to be a part of changing history, so she wants to go back for their friends, so they can convince Jack to stop. A showdown ensues between Jack and Kate, and Richard, Eloise, and a third Other. Kate is almost shot, but the third Other is killed instead — by Sayid, who suddenly emerges from the jungle. After a brief conversation where Sayid learns that his shooting of young Ben backfired, Jack tries again to convince Kate that detonating the bomb is the right thing to do — it’s the very reason they were all supposed to come back to the island. Kate angrily accuses him of sounding like Locke, and leaves.
• Eloise instructs them to jump into the river and swim under to an opening at the other side. Jack, Sawyer, Richard, and Eloise all swim down to the entrance to the Tunnels, which looks a lot like the ancient chamber Ben fell into beneath the Temple. After hiking through the Tunnels for a while, they come to a large chamber where the bomb rests, waiting. Eloise asks what they’re supposed to do next.
• Hurley, Jin, and Miles watch as the nonessential Dharma personnel are ushered onto the sub, including Miles’ mother and himself as a baby. He’s taken aback when he sees his father shouting at his mother, realizing that pretending not to want her here is the only way he can get her to leave; Chang never stopped loving his family, he just had to convince them to leave to save their lives. Meanwhile, Juliet and Sawyer are brought down into the sub as well, where Sawyer promises Juliet that they’ll live a long, happy life together back in the real world. But their celebration is interrupted when Security escorts Kate onto the sub as well, explaining that she was captured trying to reenter the Barracks, and Horace wants her off the island, too. Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate all exchange significant looks as they’re kept together, handcuffed to the same table.
• In 2007, Richard pieces together a ship in a bottle that looks an awful lot like the Black Rock. Locke arrives with a boar on his back and greets him, explaining that he has an errand for the two of them to run. Richard notes how much Locke has changed in the three years since they last saw each other, but Locke merely says that he has a purpose now, and Richard accepts him as the Others’ rightful leader. Nearby, Ben explains to Sun that Richard is “a kind of adviser” who’s had his job for a very long time. Sun takes her 1977 Dharma photo to Richard and asks if he remembers them, and he affirms that he does remember them well — because he watched them all die.
• Locke takes Richard and Ben to the beechcraft, where he arrived after his first jump through time, immediately after he was shot in the leg by Ethan Rom. He tells Richard to go talk to his past self, take the bullet out of his leg, and tell him to bring all of his friends back to the island, and that to do that, he’ll have to die. It’s all exactly what happened in “Because You Left,” only now we see that this resurrected version of Locke was responsible for sending Richard to help himself. While they watch things unfold, Locke comments to Ben that he knew all of this was happening here and now because the island told him. Ben is frustrated that the island never told him anything, and Locke intuits that Ben’s never even seen Jacob with his own eyes.
• Next Locke leads Richard and Ben back to the Others’ camp, where he announces his intention to go see Jacob. Richard tries to talk him out of it, and Ben is astonished that Locke would be so irreverent when it comes to Jacob, but Locke barrels ahead, and convinces all of the Others to come with him, even insisting on leaving immediately. Richard quietly comments to Ben that this new Locke is turning out to be trouble. Ben reveals to a stunned Richard that he killed Locke, and that it was for that very reason.
• The next morning, as everyone is trudging along the coast toward Jacob’s secret location, Locke reveals that he’s not going to see Jacob for the Others’ benefit, as he had told everyone. They’re going to see Jacob so Locke can kill him, he says, leaving Ben in a stunned silence.

• Richard Alpert is a kind of advisor who seems to work as a go-between, between Jacob and the Others.
  Question: Richard seems to hold a unique position among the Others, able to defy Ben with no repercussions. What’s the story between these two? And what’s Richard’s role defined as? 3.19
• Because Locke told Richard in the future.
  Question: How did Richard know where to find Locke, near the Pearl station? 5.01 & Question: How did Richard know so much about Locke jumping through time, including how to help him? 5.01
• Yes, the Others buried the bomb under the spot where the Dharma Initiative eventually built the Barracks.
  Question: Did the Others bury the hydrogen bomb, as Daniel suggested? If so, where? 5.03
• It was the only way he could get his wife to leave him and the island, when the Incident was about to happen at the Swan station.
  Question: If Pierre Chang really loved his wife and son so much, why did he “kick them out,” aka off the island, and never have any further contact with them? 5.13
• She and her mother were forcibly evacuated with all of the other nonessential personnel, just prior to the Incident.
  Question: If Charlotte was born on the island, why did she leave it? 4.13

• How exactly did Richard watch Jack, Kate, Hurley, Jin, Sawyer, Juliet, and Miles die?
• Is it mere coincidence that the Dharma Initiative built the Barracks over the place where the Others buried the hydrogen bomb?
• Who built the Tunnels?
• Do the Tunnels run all over (or rather, under) the island? What else do they connect to?
• Why does Locke want to kill Jacob?

• The two big takeaways we got from this episode is that #1) there are Tunnels that run underneath the island, and #2) Richard watched all of the 1977 survivors die. These are two things that you can bet that both facts are going to play very big parts of the final season.

Need more depth and detail? Read my full recap of “Follow the Leader”.

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Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 5 cast promotional image: American Broadcasting Company.