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Lost: Live Together, Die Alone

Desmond: "I think I crashed your plane."

Any episode that starts with Sayid and Sawyer taking off their shirts is okay by me. Four out of four polar bears. The end.

But seriously, folks, I'm feeling just a tad perturbed. I thought we were going to get Answers, with a capital A. Instead, we got little bitty teeny weeny answers, many of which we'd already figured out. And a buttload of yet more questions.

We guessed before, but now we know, that the Button was indeed very important. It kept the electromagnetic current from reaching a dangerous level and crashing, you know, planes. I guessed way back at the beginning of season two that the electromagnetism caused the crash of Flight 815, and am now doing an I-told-you-so dance.

And we finally got a time and date for the crash: 922044:16. September 22, 2004, at 4:16 am, if that's what the string of numbers meant. This also confirmed that the events on Lost don't take place in the future or the past... unless the Island itself is unstuck in time.

We also learned where the Island was. Or not. Desmond said, "I was sailing for two and a half weeks. Bearing due west and making nine knots. I should have been in Fiji in less than a week." Except Desmond didn't make it to Fiji. Desmond also said, "There's nothing out there, pal. This is it. This is all there is left. This ocean and this place here. We are stuck in a bloody snow globe. There's no outside world. There's no escape." What did this mean? Your basic end of the world scenario? Probably not, because the macaroni and cheese must be coming from somewhere.

Dan came up with a theory last night that I thought was brilliant. What if they are indeed stuck inside a snow globe, but the snow is outside? Dan thinks the Island is in motion, and that it's in some sort of environmental bubble caused by the electromagnetic field. If the Island, originally tropical, floated around in its environmental bubble and ended up in the Antarctic, that would explain the final scene with Penny Widmore's people (who were speaking Portuguese, by the way) finding an electromagnetic anomaly in a very arctic-looking area. That would also explain the polar bears. Maybe the polar bears think they found a great vacation spot. Except polar bears are found only in the Arctic, not the Antarctic.

The Others

I guessed earlier that Henry was the Big Cheese and he must be, since he was giving orders to Zeke. Zeke's real name was Tom. (I immediately thought of Tom Sawyer. I prefer Zeke.) And Ms. Clue's real name was Bea. Disguises and false names. And the village was definitely a stage set that they have now deserted.


Ms. Clue said that the Others couldn't get Henry back themselves, that Michael had to do it. The Others can infiltrate, they can kidnap children from helpless castaways on a raft, but they can't handle forty plus people. That's what I surmised, anyway. Meaning there aren't many Others. Or they're non-violent. Or both.

Why do the Others want Jack, Kate and Sawyer? They're all leaders and gun-toters, but that can't be it. The only thing I can think of is that the three of them are our major love triangle. But that can't be it, either. Can it?


Hurley was the one on that list that didn't fit. Now we know why; he was a non-combatant told to scare the Fusies away from the Others. Hurley, loyal to his friends as Michael is not, may try to rescue them anyway. Sayid certainly will, if he isn't also a prisoner.

What's with the vaccine? Desmond thinks the infection isn't real, but I wonder if maybe it is, and it takes a while. Maybe Michael has it, whatever it is. Michael was vomiting in the previous episode, Jack noticed Michael was ill during the jungle trek, and there was something wrong with Michael's hand. Maybe the Others deliberately infected Michael when they were giving him shots.

I thought Walt was important to the Others. Will a compass bearing of 325 truly get Michael and Walt rescued? Is Michael planning to circle back and carry out a surprise attack to help his (former) friends? (I doubt it.) Is Walt going to throw a tantrum until Michael goes back to the Fusies beach and picks up Vincent? Will Michael and Walt circle the Island for two and a half weeks and come back, like Desmond did? No, Henry said Michael wouldn't be able to find his way back. I suspect that Michael and Walt are now out of the cast.

Desmond and Penny

This season began and ended with Desmond. I like Desmond, don't get me wrong, but whose idea was it to center a two-hour finale around a guest star? Fourteen regular cast members weren't enough for them to work with?

Desmond's extreme frustration at being trapped on the Island related not only to his previous imprisonment in the service, but also to his desperate need to return to Penny Widmore. Penny said in her hidden letter that she would always wait for Desmond, but it's been, I don't know, four years by now and she was engaged to someone. But the final scene of the episode confirmed that Penny was actively searching for Desmond, and her last name was still Widmore. Her first name may be a clue that she is indeed still waiting. In the Iliad and the Odyssey, Penelope was a symbol of wifely fidelity. She waited twenty years for Odysseus to return from the Trojan War, despite constant pressure from other suitors.

Will Desmond survive the fail safe blast to become a cast member? He already got an eye scene in "Man of Science, Man of Faith," so I bet he will.

Kelvin and Radzinsky

I was so pleased that we got more of the wonderful Clancy Brown, now with a name: Kelvin Inman. Clancy Brown played the mysterious CIA guy who got Sayid to torture his superior officer in episode 2.14, "One of Them." Interestingly enough, that was the episode in which we first saw the Glyphs of Death.

Kelvin formally joined the Dharma Initiative after ten years in the CIA. (Kelvin was a volunteer. Poor Desmond was drafted.) Kelvin's partner before Desmond was named Radzinsky. I bet we'll eventually meet him in flashback, because Radzinsky created the Invisible Map on the blast door; Kelvin was just adding to it. Kelvin also said that Radzinsky was the one that "edited" the Orientation film. Maybe he was an important guy in the Dharma Initiative.

I wondered back at the beginning of season two how long Desmond pushed the Button all by himself with no one to relieve him. Since Desmond caused the crash of Flight 815 when Kelvin died, Desmond pushed the button alone for forty days. I wonder how long Kelvin did it when Radzinsky killed himself.

Libby, a.k.a. Elizabeth

So. Elizabeth was married to someone named David who died, and she gave his sailboat to Desmond. The sailboat, "Elizabeth," was registered in Newport Beach, which is in Orange County just south of Los Angeles. Which explained why Elizabeth was on Flight 815.

But why would a widow give a perfect stranger her husband's boat? She must be a Dharma plant. I think she was sending Desmond to the Island.


The name Libby is a diminutive of Elizabeth. She was a blonde on the Island, a brunette in the hospital, and here, she was a redhead. Her name reminded me of the nursery rhyme:

Elizabeth, Elspeth, Betsy and Bess
They all went together to seek a bird's nest.
They found a bird's nest with five eggs in,
They all took one, and left four in.

Is there only one Libby, who is dead? Are there multiple Libbys? Maybe her evil twin was the one in the mental hospital with Hurley. Except didn't the nurse call her Libby? Maybe she was a clone. I've been watching this show for too long.

More questions, of course

Kelvin said, "Fail safe. Just turn this key, and this all goes away." This was the most fascinating bit of info in the entire episode. Because what the hell did it mean? What happened to the Hatch?


Are Locke, Eko, and Desmond dead? Is the Swan Hatch gone? I'm not all that emotionally invested in Desmond yet and I don't care about the Hatch, but I'm going to be upset if our two beloved mystics just went up in a bunch of magnetically charged smoke. Even if ghosts do tend to show up on the Island.

What happened to Sayid, Jin, and Sun? Did the electromagnetic explosion thingy do bad things to Desmond's sailboat? Were they captured by the Others, too? Or are they still waiting for Jack on the north beach?

What will happen to our prisoners, Jack, Kate, and Sawyer? What can the Others possibly want with them? Dan thinks the Others will experiment on them, like they did Walt and Michael. I'm sure they won't kill them, since they're three of our most popular characters.

Finally, how can we possibly wait until next fall to find out?

Character bits:

Desmond's full name is Desmond David Hume. (David Hume. Another philosopher.) Desmond was a lance corporal in the Royal Scots Regiment of Her Majesty's Armed Forces. He was court martialed for not following orders. Charles Widmore called Desmond a coward. Maybe Desmond refused to go to Iraq.

Desmond was/is in love with Penelope Widmore, the daughter of Charles Widmore. We have seen the name Widmore several times already. Desmond's undelivered letters to Penny gave her address as 23 Densmore (?) Gardens, Knights Bridge, London.

Jack appeared in Desmond's backstory right before their stadium exchange.

Locke, confused man of destiny, had an emotional breakdown, complete with tears. And that was before he may have killed himself, Eko, and Desmond. If Locke survived the Hatch meltdown thingy, what will he believe in season three?

Charlie's return to the beach was weird; he told Claire nothing had happened. Was his memory affected by the blast? I thought for a moment that he was deaf, but no.

Sawyer killed one of the Others. Note that Kate just started shooting at them before she got a good look at them, which was exactly what Ana Lucia did when she accidentally killed Shannon.

Sawyer didn't think Jack actually meant he and Kate were caught literally in a net. That was cute. :)

Kelvin kept Desmond's sail boat in an area of the Island we saw only once before, a beach with volcanic rock.

Michael threw up in the previous episode. Sun threw up in this episode. For a different reason, though. I think. No, Michael isn't pregnant. But maybe Sun is infected.

After killing innocent people and betraying his friends, Michael sailed off into the sunset with Walt. Could he just stay there, please? I really don't want him back.

Bits and pieces:

— If the crash was on September 22, 2004, and it's been sixty or sixty-five days, the Lost finale took place around Thanksgiving, 2004. Maybe by the end of season three we'll get as far as Christmas.

— The most disturbing scene in this episode was Jack and the group finding that huge cache of filled pneumatic tubes. (Dan thought at first that they were bones.) They need a new cast member: an archivist to organize and catalog those notes. I volunteer.


— When Desmond left Southway Garrison, the guard gave him back a set of keys, one gold-plated pocket watch, the already famous and much dissected photograph of himself with Penny Widmore who is not Sarah, and the latest addition to the Lost reading list: Our Mutual Friend, by Charles Dickens. Amazon said it was Dickens' darkest and most convoluted work as well as his last, and that it involved a drowning and an inheritance.

— When Desmond was dragged onto the beach, he appeared to be drugged in the same way that Sawyer, Jack and Kate were drugged by the Others.

— Libby, or Elizabeth, gave Desmond four dollars for coffee. He asked her facetiously for 42 grand. The "International Open Ocean Racing Association" race was eight months away. Note Hurley's numbers.

— The greenish-looking hawk called out the name "Hurley." That also happened in the season one finale. And right before the drug darts, there were a lot of whispers.

— There were several other similarities to the first season finale. Both finales involved a trip on a raft/boat, the indiscriminate use of dynamite from the Black Rock, and the "quarantine" hatch cover blowing away and landing hard.

— The dock in the final scenes had a sign: "Pala Ferry."

— There was a third Hanso commercial for HansoCareers.com. The Others told Michael to use a compass bearing of 325. Did that have anything to do with last week's web site?

Quotes:

Eko: "Do not tell me what I can't do." He was paraphrasing what Locke said many times.

Hurley: "Did that bird just say my name?"
Sawyer: "Yeah, it did. Right before it crapped gold."

Hurley: (refusing the gun) "No way. If I take that, I'm going to kill someone." Maybe that was the only reason why Hurley didn't kill Michael outright when he learned that Michael killed Libby.

Locke: "So. What did one snowman say to the other snowman?"
Desmond: "Smells like carrots."
Snow globe, snowman. Kelvin must have eventually told Desmond the correct response.

Sayid: "I don't know what is more disquieting: the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has four toes." Maybe it was a statue of Homer Simpson.

Eko: "Charlie, do you know how they got the hatch door open?"
Charlie: "No, but if you hum it, I can probably play it."

Kelvin: "He put a shotgun in his mouth when I was asleep. The bitch of it was, I only had a hundred and eight minutes to bury the poor bastard."

Charlie: "John! Look, seriously, you're about to be detonated!"

Michael: "Who are you people?"
Henry Gale: "We're the good guys, Michael."
They keep saying that. Maybe they really are saving the world. Or they think they are.

Henry: "We got more than we bargained for when Walt joined us." What did this mean? And if so, why did the Others let Walt get away? Then again, maybe Henry does keep his word.

Kate: (reading from tube journal) "0400. S.R. moves ping-pong table again. 0415. Takes a shower." S.R? S. Radzinsky?

This episode absolutely wore me out. Four out of four polar bears.

See you in the fall,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

7 comments:

  1. Wow! Loved it, for all the reasons listed above. But, I thought the final moments were brilliant. Walt and Michael sailing off (God speed) and the other three just staring at them. Then, right before the hoods, the intense look that Kate and Jack shared and Sawyer observed. They must have a plan, right?

    For a season that was a bit chop and change, it certainly went out with a bang (pun intended). I was glued to the television for every minute of this one, which is more than I can say for a lot of season two. I'm afraid that season two was nowhere near as compelling as season one, but I have it on good authority (thanks, Josie) that it picks up again next season.

    I am still really enjoying the show and I completely understand how and why people got so caught up in it. The mythology, while dense, is fun and is more or less accessible. The story is fun, if a bit tiresome and drawn out at times. But, what raises this show so far above the norm are the characters and the actors who play them. As I've said before, I'm rooting for an incredible group of damaged, crazy people. Love it!

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  2. I love Desmond, so I love this episode. It amazes me how quickly I get invested in his relationship with Penny. Great job, Lost!

    I also want to give a shout-out to the volcanic rock. Obviously, it's just a place in Hawaii, not a stage set or anything man-made. But it's so cool looking, and just looks so geologically old, that I see why they use it so often.

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  3. Season 2 is slow and dark,the finale is brilliant.
    Desmond captures the audience.

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  4. Hurley burd, er, bird, made me birdst out laughing. I thought it was part of s1's shenanigans and forgot where it happened. And it was actually pretty useful in lowering my defenses for the "oh shit" moment of Michael firing his empty gun. I wish they played a little more with this Sayid-Jack deception, it seemed like a really cool dynamic.

    Does Jack actually have a plan in store for their confinement or was his teeth-bared nod to Kate just a general "we're gonna fuck their shit up from the inside" promise? Either way it was pretty badass, and less down-trodden than I remember it feeling the first time. Maybe it's also because it was more upsetting to see Locke be willing to throw everyone's lives into jeopardy as soon as his faith died, but by this point I have his number.

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  5. Originally during my rewatch I had hoped to post a comment on some or most episodes, but my son’s enthusiasm for the show has driven us to watch episodes so fast that we are now halfway through season 5 - so I’m just going to comment at the end of each season.

    Season grade: A-
    It’s not quite as compelling for me as the first season, it dragged at times, and the new characters were not as interesting to me as the original Losties - with the notable exception of Mr. Eko, who was always one of my favorites. The season finale is fine, but personally I think it’s one of the weaker finales in the Lost cannon.

    Favorite Episodes: The Long Con, which conned me again on the rewatch, well played. Two For the Road, so named because they couldn’t name it “S*** Hits the Fan”.

    Misfires: What Kate Did, because I was never really able to reconcile the Kate from the island from the Kate backstory. I hope it worked for some, but it didn’t for me. Fire + Water, which I respect the review and comments and understand this was about overcoming addiction but why did they have to do Charlie like that when he was becoming so likeable?

    Benjamin Linus is a superb addition, and Michael Emerson is simply top notch in every scene (side note - we’re moving on to Person of Intent after this because we love watching the actor so much— I’ve never seen it so excited for that!). The Others, on the other hand, kind of had some of the mysteriousness pulled away, and not always in a good way, this season.

    It’s still good TV, just not quite as good as the 1st season.

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  6. *Person of Interest… darn autocorrect got me! At least I caught that Losties had been corrected to Losers before I posted… 😀

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  7. DreadPirate, have you seen the TV show Evil yet? It also has Michael Emerson

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