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This episode of “The Transmission” takes a look at the fifteenth (penultimate!) episode of Season 5, “Follow the Leader.” We recap the story in under eight minutes, then spend some time discussing it in greater depth. Then, we turn it over to You All Everybody, our brilliant listeners and readers. Then, in the Forward Cabin, we take a quick look at the season finale.
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Segments:
- 0:00:45 Introduction
- 0:01:24 “LOST” in 8 Minutes
- 0:09:03 Sponsored by Audible.com
- 0:10:22 Discussion
- 0:35:47 You All Everybody
- 1:12:37 The Forward Cabin
- 1:14:50 Closing
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Got a comment about something mentioned in this podcast, or about the podcast itself? Have at it below. Otherwise, we encourage you to continue the main listener discussion about “The Variable” on the previous post.
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First two weeks in a row …. living in Perth has some benefits …… thanks for the podcast and all you do.
Locke is dead. He is in the metal case on the second island. At some point Locke traveled through time and appeared on the second island when the plane crashed. The lock we have been watching in Follow the Leader is a Locke from a different time line. That is why he knows so much.
Dead is dead.
Would that be Perth, WA Mark B? I’m Bathurst, NSW. We must benefit from the timezones.
So I have a couple of small comments incited by the podcast. Firstly, Ryan and Jen mentioned a couple of assumptions regarding the island that they seem to be construing as fact, but I am not so sure. Number one, Jacob and the island are the same-ish or represent similar goals. I don’t think this is proven in the show and I like the idea, also mentioned in the podcast, that perhaps Jacob is a threat to the island, hence Locke’s need to kill him. And number two assumption, that the hostiles/natives are indigenous to the island. I don’t think we can assume this. They may have been there a long time but I don’t think they are native. In fact, this could be the season ending game-changer, that the others are in fact intruders. My guess is that the natives are just like the Losties, people who accidentally crashed on the island. On what did they crash? The Black Rock of course. And over time they’ve learned about the island, brought in the occasional outsider and reproduced amongst themselves to protect the island and its power.
If this is true, then I’m guessing that Richard arrived on the Black Rock. Perhaps he was an advisor to the captain on the ship and he continues in this role. As for why he doesn’t age, I’m guessing that he is dead. Perhaps he even died in the Black Rock crash. Perhaps he doesn’t even know he is dead. He would be aware that he doesn’t age but he may not know why. The whole death/resurrection thing seems new to him.
Finally, if Jack becomes Jacob in 1977, then one explanation for the 1954 Locke comment “Jacob sent me” that Richard seems to recognise is that Richard was pretending he understood what that meant. Think about the scene. Locke strolls in all confident and knowing, looks Richard in the eye and tells him that Jacob sent him. What if it wasn’t so much the words Locke used that made Richard believe him but the confidence with which Locke spoke? If I was in that situation, I might have the wherewithal to recognise that Locke is not a threat and that he seems to have useful information. So you nod, smile politely, defend this new man to your young gungho colleague (Widmore) and ask this new man to sit down and explain some things to me. A long shot? Probably. But if we end up down the Wizard of Oz path of Jacob actually not being a real person or only being created from Jack in 1977, then this would provide a credible reason why Richard seemed to recognise the name Jacob back in 1954.
Who will go on record? The fork in the outlet will be…
Flash forward to grown up Aaron going to look for his mom.
BTW – where the heck is Claire?
@Steve in Bathurst ….. yes it’s Perth WA. Get the Transmission early but the show late … the prices we pay !
@Stefani from Mass ….. perhaps not only Aaron looking for Claire/Kate but also Ji Yeon looking for her parents as a scene right at the very end, like with the guys in the antarctic calling Penny.
However I also think that there will be gamechanger within the show proper where Richard witnesses everyone apparently dying. Of course they will be thrown “back to the future” not actualy killed but we’ll be left with the possiblity they all die.
At the end of S4 Darlton said Claire would be MIA for S5 but would be back for S6.
Hoping we find out about Hurley and his guitar case contents as well as what’s in the big metal box that Ilana has.
My theory for the finale: Jughead is the Failsafe
I think the Jughead bomb may be used to destroy the energy beneath the Swan just like Daniel Faraday planned. The catch? It won’t happen until “Live Together, Die Alone” when Desmond turns the failsafe key. After all, the energy ceased being a problem after Desmond turned the key. Maybe Desmond destroyed the energy that day, and the only method we know of to destroy it is as Daniel said, with a hydrogen bomb.
I think Jack and Co. will succeed in bringing Jughead through the tunnels to a point below the Swan, but not in detonating it. Somehow, the leak that Kelvin spoke of will occur, also known as the incident. This will stop Jack from executing his plan, and simultaneously provide the reason for the DI to set up the computer to discharge the electromagnetism every 108 minutes. As a failsafe, they will rig up Jughead so they can detonate it if someone ever fails to push the button (they’d be understandably reluctant to do so until absolutely necessary).
It could also be, that the only way to detonate the bomb without taking out the entire island is do it after the electromagnetism has built up to such a level that it would contain the blast. This might explain the Swan imploding instead of exploding when Desmond turned the key.
The Swan station’s countdown timer shows a set of hieroglyphs when it reaches zero. Damon Lindelof has stated that the hieroglyphs represent the word “underworld” (source: lostpedia). The fact that “underworld” is displayed whenever the timer reaches zero may mean it is the only safe time to turn the key and detonate Jughead, who is currently residing in the “underworld” of the tunnels. This is somewhat supported by the scene in “Live Together, Die Alone” where Desmond finds a drunk Kelvin contemplating turning the key. He’s down there just as the clock is almost down to zero but Desmond comes along to enter the numbers. Kelvin may have needed to wait for zero before turning the key (though it appears he did chicken out in the end regardless).
Genius observation from Anthony in Philly about the crater seen as we pan back in “A Tale of Two Cities.” It’s one of those innocuous details I thought was so important at the time and then it just slipped my mind.
First, there’s no doubt that it was a crater. I thought it was an impact crater (which is still plausible), perhaps bringing the exotic matter to the island from the farthest reaches of space. But it being the product of the detonation of Jughead makes just as much sense. R & J astutely point out the apparent contradiction of New Otherton situated in the center of this landmark because any blast would surely have levelled the village. But we should be aware of the immense power and strange properties of the exotic matter, especially in regards to space/time. I’m working under the assumption that the detonation of Jughead doesn’t go off as conceived. What if the interaction of the H-bomb with the energy source on the island causes the detonation and the creation of Jacob to occur at a different point on the timeline, some time in the distant past? Some cataclysmic event reduced the statue of Anubis to its current 4-toed remnant and scattered the original inhabitants whose mysteries still remain unsolved to the island’s latest guardians (Ben & others). This also could explain how a present character becomes known to the others in the past as Jacob, the voice of the island. So what lies in the shadow of the statue? The Great Fire–Jughead.
@ Steve in Bathurst
Something must have been communicated in the podcast because I had the same thought creep into my head. What if the Others are not the original inhabitants, but descendants of the Black Rock along with other misfits and castaways gathered up along the way? The statue-worshipping DI would then trace its lineage back to the people that created the much older ruins. After all, the survivors are caught up in something that’s been going on “for a very long time.” Which group traces its roots back to the beginning could be a very big deal if you accept that this proto-culture served the good of the island and had the advanced understanding that allowed them to create the time-manipulating frozen donkey wheel and the life-restoring Temple.
Defend the island.
Josh. That has to be the greatest Theory I’ve heard in a long long time. If you are right I will tip my hat to you, good sir!
I have always thought that the crater that Othersville is built in is the result of an ancient volcano exploding leaving behind a caldera. [Remember the class room where Ben and Annie (where is she in 1977 ?) were being taught about volcanoes]. This volcanic explosion destroyed the ancient civilization (and the statue) covering much of the old landscape in a thick layer of ash/lava. This may explain some of the buried buildings/tunnels we have seen. Though if one is directly below Othersville then it is unlikely it would have survived the volcanic erruption … but then look at Pompeii.
I like the asteroid idea too. The original inhabitants killed by an asteroid impact …… like the dinosaurs ? Though the dinosaurs were probably killed by a combination of an asteroid impact and resultant volcanic eruptions and dust clouds…. same could apply on our little island paradise.
I find it completely realistic that Sun is so single-minded in her search for Jin. She came back to find Jin. That’s all. She doesn’t care a whole lot about any of the other Losties. She kind of threw them out there as an afterthought (“Can Jacob help Jin…oh, yeah, and those other people…get back?”), but she wants to get Jin and get out. I’m sure she’s also missing Ji Yeon like crazy, and she knows the sooner she can collect Jin, the sooner she can get back to their daughter (though I don’t know how that’s going to happen). I’d feel the same way in her shoes.
What is more annoying than Sun’s search for Jin is Kate’s non-search for Claire. “I’m going back to find your daughter!” Yet not one word about her since she’s been on the island.
Just felt the need to stick up for Sun a little. Of course, I always stuck up for Michael, too. 😉
I have a random thought….. Everyone is talking about Jacob, and who he is. Have we forgotten about when Carl, Alex’s boyfriend was taken by Ben and placed in the that room and forced to watch that video that had parts in there that were subliminal saying “love jacob” and things like that. That would mean that Ben wants his group to believe in Jacob. I dont know where else to go with that, but just thinking about that one scene.
@Steven/Bathurst,
I can hear the Twilight Zone music because when I was listening to the podcast I also thought about the possibility of Jacob’s legend beginning when Locke mentions him in 1954. Richard did have Widmore put down his gun, but he was not willing to tell Locke how to get off the island, making me think that he didn’t know or fear Jacob, but wanted to see what kind of information he could get from Locke.
Then when Locke and the other Flashies flashed away in front of their eyes, perhaps they put the name ‘Jacob’ to whatever force is on the island that can manifest itself through corpses and/or Smokey.
We have never seen Smokey or DeadLocke or a dead corpse re-animated at the same time as another that I can recall. (Christian only appeared to Locke before he was killed, right?)
In 1954 when Faraday asks RA why they killed the soldiers he said that he answers to someone else and had to kill them, I guess referring to what is now called ‘Jacob.’
I also think it’s possible that the ‘incident’ may cause all the time travelers to be sent to a different time, and that one of them becomes this force or power even further in the past than 1954, and knowing that ‘Jacob’ is the term used to describe itself, then refers to itself as such.
Also, don’t forget DeadLocke (sorry, I just can’t resist calling him that since D is D) was a time traveler when he was killed, since he went 3 years in the future when he turned the FDW, and Ben is too since he went 9 mos in the future when he turned in the FDW. So I think either of them is game for whenever the ‘incident’ occurs.
The reason I am holding out hope for change being possible is that if it’s not possible, then whatever destiny is, it cannot be avoided because if anyone travels to the future, then it appears that part of the ‘string’ of time has already been established and therefore unalterable. Depressing!
OK, enough randoms from me, BTW, the Official LOST PODCAST – AUDIO has been issued, and they talk about the compass in detail and how it was purposely put there to illustrate some of the magic of the island, etc. I highly recommend you listen to it. This one was much more informative than most podcasts.
My guess is that at the end we will see Desmond returning to the island but who knows.
I did some searching around for a screencap of the crater that Dahrmaville is in. http://homeofthenutty.com/lost/screencaps/displayimage.php?album=1&pos=177
Could be a crater, or it could also be a caldera.