"
Follow the Leader" is the fifteenth television episode of the
fifth season of
ABC's
Lost.[sup]
[1][/sup] The 101st episode of the show overall, "Follow the Leader" aired on May 6, 2009 on ABC in the United States. The episode was written by Paul Zbyszewski &
Elizabeth Sarnoff and directed by
Stephen Williams.
In 1977, following the events of the previous episode "
The Variable",
Jack Shephard (
Matthew Fox) and
Kate Austen (
Evangeline Lilly) witness Eloise Hawking (
Alice Evans) kill her son
Daniel Faraday (
Jeremy Davies) in the
Others' camp. As Jack and Kate debate whether they should follow through with Faraday's plan to detonate a hydrogen bomb in order to change their past, they are attacked and captured by
Charles Widmore (David S. Lee). Eloise believes they are from the future and decides to take Jack's advice to detonate the bomb. They travel with
Richard Alpert (
Nestor Carbonell) to a lake, which serves as an entry to a series of tunnels in which the bomb is stored, which happens to be directly underneath the
Dharma Initiative's barracks. Kate decides that she does not want to take part in Jack's plan and leaves; however, the Others refuse to let her go, prompting an unseen
Sayid Jarrah (
Naveen Andrews) to ambush the Others. Sayid agrees with Jack's plan, but Kate still does not and compares Jack to
John Locke (
Terry O'Quinn). She leaves for the Barracks and the others enter the tunnels.
At the Dharma Initiative's barracks,
James "Sawyer" Ford (
Josh Holloway) and
Juliet Burke (
Elizabeth Mitchell) are being held captive by Horace (
Doug Hutchison), Radzinsky (Eric Lange), and Phil (
Patrick Fischler). Sawyer does not answer any of Radzinsky's questions, even after he is severely beaten and witnesses Phil strike Juliet. Meanwhile, Dr. Pierre Chang (
François Chau) confronts
Hugo "Hurley" Reyes (
Jorge Garcia),
Miles Straume (
Ken Leung), and
Jin-Soo Kwon (
Daniel Dae Kim) as they are leaving the area. He wants confirmation of Faraday's claims, getting Hurley to admit to it by asking questions which confuse his sense of the present. Miles confirms that he is Chang's son, and supports Faraday's assertion that the island needs to be evacuated. Chang informs Horace and Radzinsky of this, and Sawyer makes a deal to leave the island on the submarine in exchange for telling them what they want to hear. Sawyer, Juliet, and Kate board the submarine and apparently leave the island.
In 2007, following the events of the episode "
Dead is Dead", Locke meets with Richard at the Others' camp and tells him that he now has a purpose. Locke, Richard, and Ben travel to the location that the time-jumping Locke will appear, so that Richard can remove the bullet from his leg and tell him what needs to be done (as seen in "
Because You Left"). They return to camp, where Locke speaks to the Others and tells them that they are going on a trip to see Jacob, from whom they take orders but have never met. Locke tells
Sun-Hwa Kwon (
Yunjin Kim) that Jacob will know how to reunite her with her husband Jin, who is in the past. The next morning, while starting the journey to Jacob's cabin, Locke tells Ben that he lied to Sun and that he plans to kill Jacob.
