Subject: LOST 5, ep. 15 "Follow the Leader"
1. Peter Pan: The episode title ''Follow The Leader'' is a direct nod to J.M. Barrie's Peter Pan. Connections: magical island inhabited by peculiar tribes of people working at cross-purposes, death and resurrection, ticking bombs, lost boys, never-aging enchanted beings. Peter Pan gives us ''The Peter Pan Complex,'' describing maturity-challenged adults who can't deal with reality and so try to change it (Jack), not to mention ''The Tinker Bell Effect,'' which according to Wikipedia ''describes those things that exist only because people believe in them''... things like ''a rule of law'' (see: Horace Goodspeed, ''We have a rule of law!'') and ''deities'' (Jacob).
LOST typically cites literature like this at the end of the season (Season 3, Alice in Wonderland; Season 4, The Wizard of Oz), so it's not too farfetched to consider the prospect that Peter Pan might hold a clue about how Season 5 will end. A clue in Chapter 5, entitled ''The Island Come True,'' in which Tinker Bell plays 'follow the leader' with Wendy, and guides her to a relatively safe part of Neverland following an attack by Captain Hook...where she betrays Wendy horribly by setting her up to be killed by the Lost Boys. (Tink was intensely jealous of the hold Wendy had on Peter's heart. Sounds like Juliet!) And so, of the many things that ''Follow The Leader'' put into motion for next week's finale, consider the possibility that a brutal and bloody betrayal might be one of them.
2. Richard Alpert: We saw him building a ship in a bottle. The moment will surely feed the theory that Alpert is either a descendant of the Black Rock castaways, if not a miraculously death-challenged survivor of the slave ship's crew. Or perhaps it's merely a metaphor for himself: something ancient, trapped inside the timeless bottle that is the Island.
Also, Richard told Sun that he remembers seeing them all (Hurley, Kate, Jack, etc) die in 1977. Was he lying? Was that the "original past" that he experienced? How is Jack's current 1977 going to affect/ change Richard's current 2007?
3. Richard to Ben: I'm starting to think John Locke is going to be trouble. BEN: Why do you think I tried to kill him?
Which time is Ben referring to? The time that he shot Locke at the Dharma grave? The time that he actually strangled Locke?
Richard has every right to fear Locke... after all, being direct is not a skill the Others ever managed to acquire, but with Locke's new found purpose it looks like that's going to change.
4. Radzinsky: His vehement assertion that the Swan station needs to stay on schedule seemed to indicate he's operating under a different set of orders. This was made even more clear by how easily he seized control away from Horace. So why are the bosses at Ann Arbor so obsessed with getting the Swan done? From what we know so far, its only purpose is to study a magnetic anomaly.
5. Widmore talks with Eloise at the Others' camp: We see him place his hand on her stomach, so we can assume she's already pregnant with Daniel at this time.
6. Irony: ''Follow The Leader'' gave us one arc in which Jack in the past schemes to produce paradox, and also gives us another arc in which John hustles to prevent paradox from occurring. Specifically, Locke was trying to avoid what is known as a ''bootstrap paradox,'' involving the acquisition and replacement of objects (the compass) and the receiving and imparting of information from future to past to future again. We could ask ourselves... where did the compass originate? Who knows. Locke gave it to Richard in 1954. Richard gave it to Locke in 2007. So, where and when did the compass come to be (get manufactured)??? It's a brain-twister.
7. Locke rallying the Others: Locke said. ''And to be honest with all of you, if there is a man telling us what to do, I want to know who he is.'' What a role reversal for Locke... aka Mr. Faith, I don't need to see it to believe it. Locke's rhetoric is that of the rational skeptic, demanding empirical proof. Jack is now the man of faith; Locke is now the man of science.
8. Locke wants to kill Jacob: Remember the ash surrounding Jacob's cabin? If the ash around his cabin is a means of keeping him trapped... then killing Jacob is a means to release him from whatever trap he's caught in. Also, perhaps there's a reason the cabin can't be found so easily. Maybe it's booby trapped so that it can't be found and thus, Jacob cannot be helped. I think Locke wants to help Jacob by killing him.
9. Faraday's notebook: The inscription from Eloise is different the 2 times we see it. See attached. Probably just a duplicate prop to look older but I wanted to mention it anyway since someone went to the trouble to point out the differences.
10. Ben: I think Ben's not half as stupid as he acts this episode. Michael Emerson is an amazing actor, which is why you can tell when he's intentionally over-acting. The reason for this is that Ben's slow-playing the island. He intentionally wants the island (acting through Locke) to think he's stupid, that way it doesn't perceive him as a threat. Thinking back to Alex tossing him around that Egyptian chamber and calling him out on his murderous thoughts, Ben is attempting to keep the island out of his head. Acting dumb is the best way he can think of to accomplish this right now.
11. If Jack succeeds, are they really better off? If Oceanic 815 arrived in LA safely, and never crashed, let's consider the situations our Losties would be in:
a) Kate would be on her way to jail
b) Jack would bury his father, Christian
c) Sawyer would go back to being a con man and may have ended up getting caught for killing the man in Australia
d) Locke would still be miserable in a wheelchair
e) Sayid would have probably been killed by the CIA or whoever he was working with
f) Hurley would still be rich but paranoid about being unlucky
g) Charlie would still be a drug addict
h) Claire would have given Aaron away to strangers
i) Sun would have left Jin and been on her own
j) rose would die of cancer
12. Attached is a theory that I liked by a blogger. He claims that Hurley is the game-changer. See attached, if interested.