Um, wow. Followed by, seriously, fucking wow. Then finally, what the fuck?
Episode #2.23/24, "Live Together, Die Alone"
Written by Carlton Cuse & Damon Lindelof
Directed by Jack Bender
Guest Stars: Brooke Anderson (Charlotte), Michael Bowen (Pickett), Clancy Brown (Kelvin Inman), Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond Hume), Alan Dale (Charles Widmore), Michael Emerson (Henry Gale), M.C. Gainey (Mr. Friendly/Tom), April Grace (Ms. Klugh/Bea), Tania Raymonde (Alexandra Rousseau), Sonya Walger (Penelope Widmore).
Air Date: May 24, 2006
The season two finale picks up immediately where the previous episode stopped: seeing a sailboat offshore, Jack, Sayid and Sawyer swim out and board it. The first thing one notices is that this is one sweet little boat. The second is the opera playing from below deck. The third is the bullets whizzing through the floorboards. They open the door and discover Desmond (Cusick), drunk and giggly, inside.
He explains that he tried to escape, but after being asea for two and a half weeks, he only ended up back at the island. Locke shows up and enlists the returnee to stop Eko from entering the numbers, just to see what happens. We also get to discover more of Desmond in flashbacks. We first see him in the past being dishonorably discharged from a military prison. A lance corporal in the Scottish army, his crimes are unknown. We see his personal affects, however, which include a picture of him and a woman and a copy of Charles Dickens’s “Our Mutual Friend.” Desmond explains he hasn’t read it, and will only do so when he is ready to die. We also discover Desmond’s last name—Hume—which philosophy nuts (watch out, they’re a crazy bunch!) will recognize; Scottish philosopher David Hume was a noted skeptic and agnostic and had unique ideas on free will versus predetermination.
Outside the prison, Desmond encounters Charles Widmore (Dale), the father of Desmond’s girlfriend. Widmore explains that he has withheld his daughters letters to Desmond in prison, and offers him a suitcase full of cash to stay away from her. Desmond decides to enter a Widmore-sponsored around-the-world regatta in order to (I think?) prove himself worthy to Widmore of his daughter’s affections. The boat he uses is the Elizabeth, once belonging to Libby, whom Desmond has a chance encounter with. Desmond’s story touches her so much that she lets him use it for the race. Man. I could really use a couple grand to pay off some student loans. I can make a weepy face and, if necessary, perform my weak Sean Connery impression. Any offers?
This is, of course, how Desmond ends up on the island. Once ashore, a person in a yellow haz-mat suit drags him into the Swan (now that they are numerous, going by the hatch names seems to make sense). With the suit off, we see that Desmond’s rescuer looks strikingly familiar. Kelvin Inman (Brown) introduces himself as the resident button-presser. The fact that he looks like the DIA agent who coerced Sayid into performing torture, and whose name was Joe Inman, is purely coincidental. Okay, so obviously it’s not. This means the two men are (a) twins, (b) clones or (c) the same person. If they turn out to be anything other than (c), I’ll do something really regrettable like start watching American Idol. Don’t make me.
Kelvin explains that his partner killed himself Kurt Cobain style, but only after starting the blast door map that Locke saw during the lockdown. Kelvin finishes the map and later shows Desmond a killswitch in a crawlspace beneath the living quarters of the Swan, explaining that it is a system shutoff that discharges electrical buildup on the island. He also explains that that’s what pushing the button does—every 108 minutes the electromagnetic energy builds up and must be dissipated. Whatever the source of this electromagnetism is, it is not disclosed. Kelvin tries to escape on Desmond’s boat and Desmond accidentally kills (or maims, I may be jumping to conclusions) him. He rushes back to the hatch, but the countdown has already expired. He puts the numbers in, but not before the hatch shakes and every metallic item starts flying around.
Lastly we see the other side of the door when Locke was banging on it, losing hope, right after Boone fell. You’ll recall that a brilliant light shone through the portal, giving Locke renewed faith and determination to get inside the hatch. Here we see that Desmond was also in the grip of despair, going crazy alone in the hatch, even reaching for the book he said he wouldn’t touch until he was ready to die. The sound of someone outside the hatch gave him hope to stay on. Why this didn’t encourage him to go up the ladder and invite Locke in doesn’t make much sense, but the point is that Desmond doesn’t kill himself and is alive later to make a sacrifice. More on that later.
Sayid, Sun and Jin head out on the Elizabeth to scout the Other’s camp. Along the way they discover a ruined statue, the only thing left being a four-toed foot. Sayid storms ashore and discovers that the huts and hatch were a ruse. Michael was fooled and is leading Jack, Kate, Hurley and Sawyer into a trap even he can’t understand.
Michael leads the select four to the Others, but when a vulture scares them, he discovers his gun is empty. When Kate notices they are being tracked by two Others, she and Sawyer open fire, killing one. Jack says let the other one go, the Others already know they’re coming. Here Michael confesses to everything: making a deal with the Others, letting Henry go, killing Ana and Libby. But the quintet continues on, convinced their rendezvous with Sayid will give them the upper hand in defeating the Others and/or getting Walt back. They stumble upon a pile of plastic canisters—all the past reports of the voyeurs occupying the Pearl hatch. When Sayid’s signal fire (that black smoke seem familiar?) appears miles from their location, it’s apparent that Michael has still somehow trapped them. Before they can act, Sawyer gets shot in the neck with a dart. The others scatter, but all are felled.
They are taken to a dock where Michael is given a boat with Walt inside, and a compass bearing to follow that will get him away from the island. Henry reappears and seems to be in charge. Is he the “him” he referred to earlier? Or is there still someone higher yet? The Other chain of command remains murky. But Mr. Friendly (Gainey) takes off his beard, confirming what Sayid discovered earlier: they aren’t as bad off as they appear. I doubt there’s a resort on an uncharted beach, but their scraggily clothes, fake beards and reverse-Potemkin village all indicate that they wanted to appear weak. In any case, “Tom,” “Bea” (Grace)—as we discover the “real” names of Zeke and Klugh—and the rest of the Others now have Jack, Kate and Sawyer. They decide against spit-roasting Hurley and instead release him to warn the other survivors not to come to this side of the island.
Meanwhile, Eko is trying to blast through the blast door that Locke and Desmond have locked him out of. This obviously doesn’t work and they are free to let the counter run down. Locke shows Desmond the printout from the Pearl and the date of his near miss coincides with the plane crashing. When Desmond realizes that he brought down flight 815, and that John was his savior and he his, he feels his destiny is sure. He tries to enter the numbers but Locke destroys the computer. His only option now is to go to the killswitch below. As before, when the counter runs down, everything metallic goes crazy (including forks and knives which target Charlie in one unintentionally funny scene), but as Desmond turns the switch, a brilliant white light and ultrasonic sound blanket the island. The fates of he, Locke and Eko, being so close to the blast zone, is unclear going into next season.
So. Here we are at the end of season two. This is a perilous moment for any television show, but especially a serial like Lost. Most shows struggle to find their voice through their first season (witness Star Trek: TNG, Seinfeld). The second and occasionally third seasons are when they really need to prove their stuff, sometimes writing out characters (remember the younger sister on Family Matters? Anyone?), relocating the set (Saved by the Bell, at one time, was in the Hoosier State instead of the Golden State) or anything else to make the show palatable to a larger audience. Then they hit their stride until season six or seven, when the show jumps the shark (usually with the introduction of a smartass kid or curmudgeonly grandfather) and coasts for another season or two before being cancelled. And those are the successes. Failed shows don’t make it past season three, unable to find the right balance of writing and acting, and end up being replaced by a reality show where contestants make tenuous friendships with each other and then promptly stab each other in the back for five grand in taxable winnings.
Lost, it would appear, had its shit together from the filming of the pilot. The acting is mostly spot-on (I still have my eye on you, Holloway) and the writing is taut and disciplined. Every nuance of the show, from the characters names to the books they read, resonates with underlying meaning. The plot goes in fifty directions at once, but it’s not hard to keep up. Lost has been a handcrafted masterpiece from the beginning.
But, like I said, it is in the natural cathartic period of any show’s run and the final scene of this episode bothers me. A lot. I understand that the creators want to dissuade any notions that the island is some fantasyland where actions do not have consequences. If someone dies, they want you to be sure they are dead. This is not someone’s schizoid imagination. It is not a dream. It is not purgatory. Thematically, there may be some merit to those ideas, but realistically (or as such can be said of a fictional television show), the characters are on Earth, they bleed, they die.
The final scene shows two men in an Arctic or Antarctic research station, idly playing chess. One of their instruments picks up an “electromagnetic anomaly” consistent, we are to assume, with the EMP burst from the island. This proves the island is real and gives it an epic tweak, as events their can have global consequences. This is bad enough, except one of the researchers calls Penny Widmore (Walger)—Desmond’s former love—with this information. She said earlier in the episode that with enough money and determination, anyone can be tracked. Is that her intention here? The implication is that Penny has used who knows how much money and resources to set up a listening station near one of the poles just to find her lost love whom most would assume dead. Obviously, there is more to learn next season, but moving the focus off the island is a bad move, in my opinion. I’d like to believe the writers have a purpose in mind, but I’m not crazy about this new direction.
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