If This Works, You Might Just Save Us All... If It Doesn't, At Least You'll Put Us Out of Our Misery: Lost Recapped

I'll be honest: for a penultimate episode of Lost, I was expecting more. But then again, "Follow the Leader" felt like a perfect encapsulation of season five--there were dead spots, time travel, awesome reveals and total head scratchers--so maybe it was an ideal penultimate episode after all.

That's not to say I didn't "like" the episode. It's just that this season of Lost has yet to find a compelling narrative footing. There have been no "we have to go back!" or "we have to get off the Island!" overriding objectives--a singular push of momentum to force everything along. Instead, season five has, at times, felt listless and, worse, bizarrely inert. We're heading into the finale and yet, to me, it seems like things have just started. And maybe that's because Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse used this season as a bridge between season four and six; an excuse to produce a bunch of high quality filler episodes, or, what amounts to a Director's Cut-version of a weekly television show. Sure there have been great moments and stand alone episodes that I've been floored by, but on the whole so much of what has happened hasn't moved me in the least.

And the reason for that ennui is simple: we have never been given a credible reason as to why everyone had to come back to the Island. As it turns out, nothing really bad happened after the Oceanic Six left, after all: a bunch of red shirts died, Rose and Bernard went M.I.A. and Claire got forgotten about. Everyone else either ended up living the high life in the Dharma Initiative, or, in Locke's case, turned into mythical god-like man with the powers of reincarnation. If the "we have to change everything back to the way it was before the crash!" motivation had been revealed much earlier, perhaps I would be feeling a bit differently.

Instead, what we've been left with then are a bunch of half-cocked narrative strands that continue to be too diffuse. Locke is leading the Others/Sun/Ben to see Jacob and kill him; Jack, Richard, Sayid and Ellie are working on Daniel's plan to detonate the bomb; Sawyer, Juliet and Kate are, hilariously, locked inside a submarine and headed off to buy stock in Microsoft; Hurley, Miles and Jin are talking about the future and confused about who the president was in 1977; and the Dharma Initiative is now being lead by Radzinsky, for no other reason than to give the audience someone at which to direct their intense hatred. (Seriously, if I saw Eric Lange--the actor playing Radzinsky--on the street, I'd slap him across his stupid f'n face.)

What are we supposed to care about here? That Jack is going to set off the bomb and erase the series? Alright, I guess--but putting aside the sheer absurdity of that, doesn't it seem lazy to have Jack not even mention the fact that doing so will most likely just make things happen the way they happened?

And Locke, marching off with a bunch of extras to find Jacob, is now going to kill the man, even though when they encountered each other in season three, Jacob told Locke, to "help" him?

It's stuff like this that has bothered me throughout. Maybe they have a grand ol' plan; maybe things aren't anywhere close to what they seem; maybe it'll all make sense when the series ends this time next year; but the fact remains that season five, as it's own entity, has been a swing-and-miss. Sorry, there's just no way around that statement.

And the sad part about it all is that "Follow the Leader" was loaded with awesome moments (which I'll get to)... but I just couldn't help but feel that none of it was going anywhere. My heart wasn't in it because Lost never really gave my heart a reason to get involved.

Anyway, plenty to dissect! Onto the lightning round--you know the drill!

1.) OK, let's talk about the Two Marty McFly's moment: Locke sees Locke! Normally, I'd be all over this scene something fierce, but I kinda loved every second. In the grand scheme of things, it made total sense (for Lost) and it allowed us to finally see how Richard knew exactly where to find Locke earlier in the season. And that Ben actually ASKED what I was thinking--that is, how the hell did Locke do this?--made it all the more satisfying. Paradoxes be damned, that was pretty awesome.

2.) It also leads me to believe that Jacob is actually one of our heroes. I've been loath to even contemplate who the master manipulator at the center of so much of this conflict was, but after seeing Locke (x2), it seems pretty obvious that they'll make Jacob a regular. Of course, the scent was thrown off when Michael Ausiello reported that Dexter star Mark Pelligrino had been signed on for the season finale as someone named "Man #1"--presumably the thought was that he would be Jacob--but I have my doubts to the veracity of that claim. So then, who do I think Jacob turns out to be? How about Sawyer? Clearly everyone is going to think Jacob = Locke, but maybe Sawyer winds up being the man behind the curtain.

3.) Speaking of Sawyer: I loved that he was finally allowed to fully embrace his inner Han Solo tonight. The scene with Juliet on the dock was literally ripped out of Empire Strikes Back, and while his "I love you back" wasn't as badass as "I know," it still got me to hop up and down, laughing-out-loud like a crazy person. Well done Josh Holloway!

3a.) Also: how LOL-funny was it when Kate interrupted Sawyer and Juliet on the sub? A-w-k-w-a-r-d.

3b.) The coming attractions for the finale showed that Kate, Sawyer and Juliet were all back on the Island--does this mean we can expect some submarine hijacking at the beginning of next week? I sure hope so!

4.) Can we talk about Locke for a second? How many times am I going to have to hear him talk about "the Island" making him do something or telling him something? It's exhausting. Doesn't Locke realize there's a very good chance he's being played for the millionth-and-first time in the course of this series?

4a.) Along the same lines, say hello to Jack! How does Jack not realize that by detonating the bomb he will just be making sure his plane crashes 30 years later? Oh, that's right: because he's a total self-centered asshole, and I love him for it.

5.) Yunjin Kim, congratulations. You win the award for Worst Line Reading in the History of the Show: "This man--Jacob?--can he tell us how to bring Jin and the rest of our people back here?" Um, Sun, this isn't an infomercial. Get worse.

6.) I'm not all that sure I like Ben when he isn't putting the screws to someone, but kudos to Michael Emerson for making Ben's blank stare at the close of the episode so utterly hilarious/compelling. It was a mix of confusion and "why didn't I think of that?" disappointment. Simply, perfection.

6a.) A close second would have to be Sayid's reaction to finding out that Kate didn't let Young Ben die. Priceless.

Next week: The season finale! Two hours of hopefully awesome reveals that will springboard us into the series' final 17 episodes next year. As Sayid said: "if this works, you might just save us all... and if it doesn't, at least you'll put us out of our misery." Amen, Sayid. Amen.