'Lost' Untangled: Follow the Leader

*Warning, spoilers from the recent episode of Lost ahead*

The new Lost episode -- "Follow the Leader" -- was one of those head-scratchers that made me feel confused and clueless, even though I've seen every episode of this show -- multiple times -- and frequent blogs with vigorous Lost fan bases.

Maybe I was tired when I was watching. There ARE two Boston teams in sports playoffs (Celtics, Bruins), plus I was also trying to simultaneously watch the Red Sox. I was also cranky, had a precariously low level of caffeine in my system and truly wasn't in the mood to be required to think this hard.

Now that I've had time to think about the episode, I'm trying to make sense of it. Let me get this straight:

-- Jack wants to carry on dead Daniel's work as outlined in Daniel's notebook which was given to Daniel by his mother who wound up killing him. Jack thinks that by blowing up "Jughead" (the hydrogen bomb buried under Dharmaville -- maybe THAT'S why women couldn't bear children), he'll be restoring the natural order to their lives, putting everything where it should be. The original Oceanic 815 crash will not happen in 2004 because the pent-up electromagnetic energy on the island will have already been released due to the bomb's detonation.

As I pondered this, I kept thinking of the phrase, "Dead is dead." If Jack, Kate, Eloise, Charles W., Hurley, Sayid, Sawyer/LaFleur, Kate, Miles and Juliet are all blown up how could they still be living in the future? Say only a couple of them are blown up, like Jack and Sayid if they happen to be close to the bomb. They'd be dead. They wouldn't be able to be on the plane in the future would they? Unless of course the island heals them, post-blast . . . Could they possibly head off the construction of The Swan and the infamous button?

-- Kate now thinks Jack's a suicidal maniac and prefers to face the Dharma mania to Jack's . . . and winds up on the sub that's evacuating the women and children off the island, along with Sawyer (who, circa 1977, wants to invest in Microsoft and become rich) and Juliet (who's less than thrilled that Kate has joined them). However ABC ruined the suspense for next week by showing a clip of Sawyer back on the island so we know their time on the sub plotting to relaunch their lives is short-lived.

-- Locke impersonates Moses by leading his tribe of followers down an island beach in search of "Jacob," after having provided them with fresh meat (in the form of a freshly killed, sacrificial boar). He tells them that when he finds Jacob -- who asked Locke to help him during last season -- he plans on killing him. Huh? Is Jacob alive and needs to be killed (like Locke "needed" to be killed by Ben) in order to live forever? Is Christian -- whose last name IS Shepherd -- Jacob, or are they separate?

-- There's been a large amount of chatter online speculating about whether Richard Alpert first came to the island on that Black Rock ship that crashed on the island (Richard was working on a ship in a bottle) or is some kind of ancient Egyptian (hence his eyeliner and the hieroglyphics in the Temple) who has been resurrected (hence he never ages). What really threw me during the last episode was that Richard, who always seemed so self-assured, seemed baffled when Locke told him to go meet a time-traveling version of Locke and assist with removing a bullet from his thigh. When Richard asked Locke how he knew that the time-traveling Locke would would be there, Locke replied that the island told him.

-- Which brings us to the question is "the island" Jacob? Does the island have its own spirit and intentions separate and distinct from Jacob and from Christian, who seems to be playing a pivotal role in guiding the time traveling Losties, like giving Sun the photo of the 1977 Dharma recruits?

The ONLY thing that's clear -- other than the fact that Miles' daddy didn't really leave Miles and his mother but was seeking to protect them, hence his picking a fight to make his wife leave -- is that "The Incident" will likely be the focus of the season finale next week, which will likely leave us on a life or death cliffhanger.

Meanwhile, the latest Lost Untangled video (link here) made me laugh with the comical images of Jack & Co. swimming through the tunnels, Sayid's "I am not a killer" line and Locke's grandiose presentation of the dead boar.

What did you think of the latest installment? What are you hoping to see in the season finale?