Review: Lost 5.15: Follow The Leader

Richard is a little weirded out by Flocke.

With the stupidity of The Variable, Lost is well on its way to Season Six's self-destruction. Follow The Leader was exciting and tense, but at the same time it was infected with the very thing that poisoned The Variable against me. Notably, it's the point at which those who hadn't already watched Season Six got a clue that something was up with this new Locke, and that we were going to meet Jacob very soon. Luckily there were a few genuinely interesting sci-fi moments, but the majority of it was just following on from last week's incompetance.
     In 1977, Jack manages to convince Richard Alpert and now-traumatised Eloise Hawking that he's from the future, and that by detonating a Hydrogen Bomb they can change the future and prevent Daniel's death. He admits to Kate that he really doesn't care about how other people feel about their experiences over the past three years, and that he's gonna do it anyway. Finished with his weekly dose of stupid, they head for the Bomb and are joined by Sayid. Kate decides that Jack is crazy, and so heads back to DHARMA. Under the island's tunnels, they unearth the Bomb. Back at Dharma, Pierre Chang finds Miles, Hurley and Jin trying to escape to the Beach, and based on the advice of his son he proceeds to evacuate all women and children from the island. Radzinsky, taking over from Horace, does a deal with Sawyer - he'll put Juliet and him on the Submarine with the evacuees for information on The Others. The two get on the Sub and it sets off. It's almost like Juliet won't die in two weeks.
     The storyline only continued to show how much of a selfish asshole Jack Shepherd is. His quest, based on logic that a five-year-old could repute convincingly, is one that he will undertake without any consideration for the desires and rights of other people. He is prepared to eradicate everything that has happened over the past three years - Desmond escaping the island and finding the love of his life, Saywer becoming a reformed man, John learning to walk again, Kate becoming a mother. He doesn't give a damn, and yet we're supposed to like this bastard.

Jughead, unearthed after 23 years.

     In the Present, The Man In Black arrived at The Others' camp and stirred them together. Ignoring Richard's questions about his change of personality, the MIB faciliates his own existence by setting up the events of Jughead, persuading his younger self to bring people back to the Island. The following morning, he organises the Others together to go and meet Jacob for the first time. Flocke admits to Ben that he doesn't just want Jacob's help - he wants to kill him. You can really tell that Terry O'Quinn is enjoying playing the Man In Black, and despite my reservations about the character and the way that he is treated, I really loved this part of the storyline.
      The parts of Follow The Leader that focused more on the show's burgeoning mythology (that's gonna get one hell of a burgeon soon) were much more concentrated than their 1977 counterparts. It's just that I find that section of the plot completely ridiculous - a shallow, unlikeable character walking through the world and ruining everything around him for the sake of his own depressive episodes. Richard Alpert should have been the star in this story, but he was overshadowed by characters both much better and much, much worse.

Thanks.

NEXT WEEK: Brother Jacob, Brother Jacob, end the series, end the series.