Lost 5.15 Follow the Leader

[selenak]

In which craziness is a matter of definition, and so is trouble.



The first episode since the start of the season where you had both time zones sharing screen time. They might go to the bomb in one of them, but the more explosive news was delivered in the other. So I'll start with the 70s goings-on first, as one should always build to a climax. *g* The interrogation scenes were somewhat pointless, other than making it obvious the audience is to feel satisfied when Razinsky and Phil meet their inevitable doom. Far more welcome was more Eloise screentime, as this fleshed her out somewhat (and also confirmed that at this point Charles Widmore is co-leading the Others with her, not leading them single-handedly; note that Richard doesn't call either of them the leader, though, which makes me think Charles and Eloise rose through the ranks mostly because Richard likes the consiglieri position better and not because the island or Jacob - more on that later - picked either of them). Of all the people currently on Team Change The Timeline, she's the one who has the best reason; if you just found out you had inadvertendly killed your son, you would have. Methinks I can see how this will lead to the diametrically opposite position Eloise will take thirty years later; she tried to change her future and found out instead that what she did ensured it would happen, which leads to her "you can't change what has happened/will happen" stance by the time she meets Desmond. (Oh, and I feel smug about correctly predicting Eloise would end up with Dan's notebook which is of course where she got her knowledge of events up to Daniel's death from.)

Jack now believing in destiny and being compared to Locke is darkly funny if you consider that the absolutely positively last thing John Locke would see as everyone's destiny or purpose on the island was to wipe out the last three years (and put him back into the wheelchair pushing papers in what he saw as a pointless existence); but I can see why Jack would find the "clean slate" concept as appealing as Sayid (who still feels way better blaming Ben for how his life went instead of facing up to the fact he has some personal responsibility there, which means without meeting Ben, chances are he might still have become a less than honorable citizen). Meanwhile, wiping out the last three years would mean landing Kate in jail, changing Sawyer back to the conman still obsessed with the man who got his parents killed, and ensuring Juliet would never leave the island at all and would have no other prospect than being Ben's minion forever, so I'm predicting that as soon as Kate tells Sawyer and Juliet what Jack is up to, they're going to get out of the handcuffs and will swim back to the island, leaving the sub to bring the Dharma families to safety as timeline-predicted.

I'm not too worried about Richard (in the present) saying he saw everyone die in the 70s; methinks what he saw was them dematerializing at the moment of the explosion that's about to come, which is when they'll end up on the present again. Also, I'm standing by the theory that the explosion will be what causes a) the smoke monster to roam irregularly through the jungle (I mean, clearly smokey did exist before, given the hieroglyphs in the temple, but it hasn't been sighed yet in the 50s or 70s, while it's already there when Danielle's team arrives in the 80s), and b) women not surviving their pregnancy if they conceive on the island (again, not a problem up to the late 70s). And of course we already know it will cause the very thing Jack thinks it will prevent, the electromagnetic irregularity which makes the button-pushing necessary.

And now for the present. (Which btw we have just found out is three years later as well, which means both Locke and Ben, who via the wheel-turning time-jumped through several months and in Locke's case years, are out of tune with everyone else's time experience.) Ben being bitter was to be expected, Richard being unsure, wrongfooted and increasingly disturbed was not; I don't think we've ever seen Richard less than self-assured. After wrapping up a plot point from early in the season (i.e. sending Richard to apply first aid to himself), Locke does two revolutionary things; first he suggests that all the Others, not just chosen leaders, should go and see Jacob, and then in his conversation with Ben at the end he drops the bombshell of declaring he wants to kill him. This immediately brought back several things. For example Locke's old theory from The Man behind the Curtain that Jacob is in fact just a pretense for Ben and/or Richard to lead, the Wizard of Oz, etc. and the still unexplained "help me". Now obviously there was something in that cabin. Something Ben communicated with (or did he?); something, which does not have to be the same thing, which asked Locke for help but which Locke did not see. On return visits, whom Locke did see in the cabin, and whom everyone else saw, was Christian Shephard (and in Locke's case also Claire), who said he wasn't Jacob "but I can speak on his behalf". Ben does not say "no" when Locke point blank says "you never saw Jacob, did you?". And some people - wee_warrior, for example - have wondered in seasons past whether Jacob does in fact speak for the Island or not.

Now, I think it's a given that the entity who told Ben in "Dead is Dead" to do what Locke tells him, choosing Alex as its avatar, is not Jacob. It could be the smoke monster or the island or the island-via-smokey. What resurrected Locke is definitely the island. (And even before resurrection, he was attuned to smokey - drawing the monster as a child (Richard saw the drawing when he visited), not being terrified by it in season 1 but experiencing it as something beautiful -; he could also predict the weather very well.) So for now, I'm going with the speculation that Locke's new "killing Jacob" idea is in fact in tune with the island, which means Jacob is either another entity, or what allows Richard and whoever is the current leader (Ben, Charles, Ellie, whoever) to be in charge. I guess we'll find out.

More speculation: Ben staging a coup with Richard and turning against Locke would be the obvious reaction, which is why I don't think it will happen. That, and the fact Ben can't be too keen on Jacob himself right now, and has a oedipal pattern of approving the killing of father figures. And orders from Mom the island. Which isn't to say that he won't try to become leader again, but I think he'll support Locke in the killing Jacob plan, see if Locke goes through with it, and then try for the top again.

However: poor Sun. When she figures out, either via Ben or otherwise, that this doesn't have anything to do with getting Jin back, she'll probably test whether Locke can be killed again.