Rewatching LOST: 2.24 “Live Together, Die Alone, Part 2″

Desmond becomes convinced that Locke’s plan will bring devastating consequences, while Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley come face-to-face with the leader of the Others.

• Charlie leads Eko to the place where the last two sticks of dynamite from the Black Rock are hidden, and Eko takes them back to the Swan station, where he plans to blow open the blast door that’s keeping him out of the computer room. Charlie shouts through the door to Locke, explaining Eko’s plan, but Desmond assures Locke that he’s certain the door will hold fast. Though Charlie tries to stop him, Eko quickly goes through with his plan and the dynamite creates a powerful explosion that blasts through the entire facility. In the aftermath, the dome room is undamaged just as Desmond predicted, but he wants to open the doors and see if Charlie and Eko are hurt. Still bitter about how others have treated him of late, Locke tells Desmond not to open the door.
• Sayid, Jin, and Sun arrive at the Others’ tent city, but almost immediately it’s obvious that something isn’t right. Sayid swims to shore and sneaks up on the camp, only to find it completely deserted. What’s more, the Hatch supposedly located there turns out to be a fake — a pair of double doors that lead to nothing but a rock wall.
• Out in the jungle, Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Hurley, and Michael come across a very odd sight: an enormous pile of thousands of small cylinders in a small valley, alongside a pneumatic tube that empties into this spot. (It hast to be the other end of the Pearl station’s pneumatic tube, which was supposed to lead back to Dharma HQ. If it leads here, where there’s nothing at all, then there’s only one conclusion: Locke is wrong, the claims made in the Pearl Orientation video were a lie, and the Swan station’s energy discharge protocol is the real deal after all.) As they examine the cylinders, Sawyer notes that Sayid’s signal — a pillar of dark black smoke rising into the sky — is on the horizon. Sayid has found the Others’ camp, but it’s not the destination Michael has been leading them toward. Just as Jack demands an explanation from Michael of where they’re really headed, Whispers are heard from all sides. The Others have arrived, and this has been a planned trap, all along. The survivors try to fight back and escape, but one by one they’re taken down with taser darts. Bags are placed over their heads and their capture is complete.
• As Locke and Desmond continue to wait for the countdown clock to run down, Desmond asks about the Pearl station, and Locke explains what he knows. But Desmond is horrified when he realizes it’s very possible that the Pearl Orientation film could have been a lie, and that the real psychological experiment was the Pearl itself — not the happenings at the Swan. Desmond grows increasingly agitated at this possibility, so Locke gives him the printed pages he took from the Pearl station. The pages contain an endless series of timestamps, which Desmond recognizes as a record of years and years of pushing the button and resetting the countdown timer at the Swan. Desmond suddenly pieces together a big piece of the puzzle based on something he remembers from a few months ago: a day when he almost caused a catastrophic failure of the entire Swan system and the powerful electromagnet at its core built to devastating strength. This event happened the same exact day that Oceanic 815 crashed on the island. Realizing the implication, Desmond whispers to Locke, “I think I crashed your plane.”
• Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley are marched out to the Pala Ferry by the bearded man and several of the Others, including Alex and Ms. Klugh. The bearded man’s name is revealed to be Tom when Kate points out that they know his beard is fake and he peels it off. Tom also reveals that Ms. Klugh’s first name is Bea. The small boat that Walt was kidnapped on drives up to the ferry and off steps “Henry Gale,” who the Others all defer to as their apparent leader.
• In the dome room, Desmond is convinced now that the electromagnetic discharge is real and he demands that Locke push the button. But with three minutes left, Locke refuses and destroys the computer’s monitor to force the issue. Distraught that they’re all about to die, Desmond opens the blast door and runs out to the bookcase, where he retrieves his Charles Dickens book, Our Mutual Friend. Inside is the failsafe key he took from his former partner Kelvin, after he died. Desmond returns to the dome room with the key and tells Locke that he has to get as far away from the Swan station as possible. He descends into the crawl space beneath the floor while the countdown ends and the entire system begins to fail.
• Charlie wakes up in the Swan station with his hearing damaged, but he fishes an unconscious Eko out of the wreckage, managing to wake him up just as the system fails and the electromagnet’s energy starts to build. Charlie tries to make him leave, but despite everything, Eko insists on going back for Locke. He finds Locke in the dome room, and with the Swan tearing itself apart all around them, Locke apologizes and admits that Eko was right all along.
• In the crawl space, Desmond locates the failsafe, inserts the key, and with a final proclamation of love to Penny, he turns the key. Immediately, the electromagnetic energy is discharged in a display of raw power that’s witnessed by everyone on the island. A painfully loud sound wave is followed by the sky glowing an intensely bright shade of purple. When the light and the sound finally subside, Bernard protects Claire and the baby at the beach as an object falls from the sky: it’s the Hatch door, ejected from the Swan site by the blast.
• Charlie returns to the beach, but has no idea what’s become of Locke or Eko. He’s welcomed home by an encouraging smile from Claire, who seems to be well on the road to forgiving him for recent sins. Later that night, the two even share a brief kiss.
• At the Pala Ferry, “Henry” informs Michael that he isn’t happy about the arrangement that was made between his people and Michael, but says that they “got more than we bargained for” when they took Walt, so it was working out for the best. As promised, he gave Michael the boat along with Walt, and told him to follow a bearing of exactly 325 in order to find rescue. He also notes that once he’s gone, Michael will never be able to return. He tells Michael he’s sure that Michael won’t tell anyone where he’s been all this time, because then he would have to inform them of the heinous acts he committed to free himself and his son. Henry promises not to hurt Jack, Kate, Sawyer, or Hurley, and Michael asks who the Others really are. Henry replies that they’re “the good guys.”
• Hurley is freed by Bea, who tells him to go back to his camp and tell the rest of his people that they are never to attempt to rescue his friends. Henry reveals that Jack, Kate, and Sawyer are returning “home” with the Others. Once Hurley is gone and Michael and Walt have left in the boat, the three of them have bags placed over their heads.
• Somewhere in Antarctica, two men work together inside some kind of monitoring station. They detect a powerful electromagnetic anomaly and go into panic mode. One of them grabs a phone and makes a call to a very stunned Penelope Widmore, informing her that they’ve located the island.

• One day two years into their partnership, Desmond and Kelvin hotwired the blast doors to close — a frequent diversion from the daily grind for the two of them. Kelvin then proceeded to continue work on the blast door map that seems to contain endless secrets about the island. Kelvin told Desmond that it was his former partner, Radzinsky, who first started the painting. When Desmond asked whatever happened to Radzinsky, Kelvin claimed that Radzinsky killed himself one day while Kelvin slept. Desmond repeatedly asked to be granted access to leave the station and go outside, but Kelvin always turned him down, due to “the quarantine and the Hostiles.”
• Another day not long after that, Kelvin showed Desmond a failsafe for the entire facility hidden in the craw space down beneath the dome room. Kelvin had a key to activate the failsafe, which he said would destroy the entire station. But even though it was the only way out of their situation, he could never bring himself to do it. Kelvin explained to Desmond that “the Incident” referred to in the Swan Orientation film was a leak of the geologically unique electromagnetic energy that’s located somewhere beneath the station. The Swan protocol was instituted as a way of discharging the constantly-building electromagnetic energy before it gets too big. The failsafe would end the need to keep discharging that energy forever.
• Three years after Desmond arrived on the island and was rescued by Kelvin, Kelvin left the Swan in his hazmat suit, and Desmond finally followed him to see where he went. Just outside the station, Desmond was unsurprised to see Kelvin take off his oxygen mask, proving that the supposed quarantine had been a lie all along, meant to keep Desmond inside. Desmond followed Kelvin out to the island’s cliffs, where he was shocked to discover that his sailboat was intact and anchored just offshore. The two of them had a huge confrontation, where Kelvin revealed that he’d been repairing the damage done to the boat when Desmond wrecked it on the island, but it was almost ready now. When their argument came to blows, Desmond accidentally killed Kelvin on the rocks. He took the failsafe key from around Kelvin’s neck and ran back to the Swan station, where the countdown had already run out and the entire facility was trembling, about to come apart. The electromagnet at the heart of the station nearly tore it apart, attracting everything inside that was made of metal. There was almost a catastrophic failure of the entire system, but Desmond finally managed to get the Numbers entered into the computer and the system reset itself at last.
• A few weeks later, as the reality of his situation set in as the sole remaining caretaker of the Swan station, Desmond decided to finally read his last Charles Dickens book, Our Mutual Friend. But when he opened it, a handwritten letter fell out that he had no idea was in there — and had been since before he was sent to prison. The letter was from Penny, who professed her undying love for him and promised to wait for him “always.” Despondent, he flew into a blind rage fueled by his pain and misery, but he was startled out of it by the sound of knocking, somewhere in the station. It was Locke, perched atop the Hatch, angry and crying over Boone’s death. Desmond turned on a light, and this was the light that shone out into the night from the Hatch that restored Locke’s faith. Inside, Desmond’s hope was restored as well, knowing that he was somehow not as alone on the island as he feared.

• The blast door map was drawn by Dharma Initiative members Radzinsky and Kelvin Inman.
  Question: Who drew the map of the Dharma stations? 2.17
• Kelvin was originally partnered with a man named Radzinsky. Radzinsky blew his brains out after too many years stuck inside the Swan station, leaving Kelvin all alone until Desmond showed up.
  Question: If those assigned to the Swan always work in pairs, why was Kelvin working there alone when he met Desmond? Did Kelvin have a partner, and if so, what happened to him? 2.03
• Kelvin was killed unintentionally in a fight against Desmond after Desmond realized he’d been deceived and kept on the island for three years.
  Question: How did Kelvin die? 2.03
• Oceanic 815′s crash onto the island was not a random accident. As incredible as it sounds, the plane was literally pulled out of the sky while flying in close proximity to the island when the Swan station’s powerful electromagnet nearly reached full discharge capacity on September 22, 2004.
  Question: Why did the plane crash? 1.01
• The pneumatic tube from the Pearl station carries message cylinders to the middle of nowhere on the island — a random dump site that was never monitored or used. The implication is that the messages were pointless, just part of the psychological experiment being run at the Pearl.
  Question: Where does the message tube from the Pearl station carry messages to? 2.21
• The Swan station sits atop a powerful electromagnet which continually builds with energy thanks to whatever happened during “the Incident.” The Swan and its countdown computer were established to discharge those energies safely every 108 minutes. If it isn’t pushed, the energies will build to profound levels, with unknown results.
  Question: Why does “the button” have to be pushed every 108 minutes? What happens if it isn’t? 2.03
• Jack was almost right. Dharma had an observational experiment that worked exactly as he described, it just wasn’t the Swan. It was the Pearl.
  Question: Could Jack be right — is the entire Swan station an observational experiment designed to see how long its occupants will stay down there and keep pushing the button? 2.03
• Nope. As usual, “Henry” was lying, scheming, and manipulating.
  Question: Was “Henry” telling the truth when he said that the Swan’s countdown timer eventually resets itself, and nothing happens if you don’t input the Numbers? 2.18
• Eko was correct.
  Question: Locke believed the Pearl Orientation video’s claim that the Swan was nothing but a psychological experiment, and all the button-pushing was pointless. Eko believed that the Pearl video was a lie, a test of their faith, implying that it was the observational tasks at the Pearl that were pointless. Which one of them is correct? 2.21
• The Swan station tears itself apart if the countdown goes beyond zero, and presumably its destructive effects spread even further.
  Question: What happens exactly if the countdown is allowed to go on beyond zero? 2.14
• The Hatch’s light source was a spotlight shining up from deep inside. It was activated by Desmond, who heard Locke’s emotional cries coming from outside.
  Question: What was the source of the light inside the Hatch, and why did it light up when it did? 1.19
• The bearded Other is named Tom, and he is not their leader.
  Question: Who is the bearded man? Is he the leader of the Others? 2.11
• The Others planned all along to abduct Jack, Kate, and Sawyer, for reasons yet unknown. Hurley was taken so that he could deliver a warning back to the remaining survivors not to attempt to rescue their friends.
  Question: What do the Others want with Jack, Kate, Sawyer, and Hurley? Why did they go to such great lengths to have Michael bring those four to them? 2.22

• Though it’s never explained in detail, I think it’s safe to assume that Walt’s strange appearances in the jungle, early in Season 2, can be chalked up to his unique abilities, since he clearly never left the presence of the Others during his captivity.
  Question: Was Walt really in the jungle when Shannon and Sayid saw him? Or was he some kind of island-induced manifestation or vision? 2.06

• The blast doors are very likely there in the Swan station, to be used in the event of a disastrous system failure, like the one we saw at the end of this episode. A case could also be made that the blast doors are tied into the Dharma supply drops, since they always activate whenever a drop is made.
  Question: Why is the Swan station equipped with blast doors? 2.09

• The Dharma vaccine is nothing but a placebo used as a psychological deterrent upon Swan station recruits to keep them inside the station.
  Question: Why is the Dharma vaccine meant to be administered every nine days? 2.22

• Nothing. It doesn’t appear that there has ever been an infectious agent on the island, but even if there is, the vaccine does nothing to fight it, because it does nothing at all.
  Question: What does the Dharma vaccine protect one from? 2.22

• Based on Ben’s comments at the Pala Ferry… undoubtedly.
  Question: Ms. Klugh’s final question to Michael about Walt — if he’d ever appeared in a place he wasn’t supposed to be — harkened back to Walt’s strange appearances in the jungle early in Season 2. Did the Others also witness Walt’s special abilities while he was their captive? 2.22
  

• If Kelvin Inman, who was in Iraq following the Gulf War as of February 1991, soon left the Army and joined the Dharma Initiative… Then how long did the Dharma Initiative exist? Does it still exist today, somewhere off the island?
• What happened to bring the Dharma Initiative’s work on the island to an end, and when?
• What exactly happened to the entire island when the Swan’s failsafe was activated?
• What became of the Swan station itself, and those inside it?
• Now that the failsafe has been used, does that mean that the electromagnetic pocket of energy beneath the island is gone, or perhaps dormant? Or does it still pose a threat to those living on the island?
• What’s the significance of the sea bearing 325? Why is it the only means of escaping by boat?
• Why will Michael and Walt not be able to return to the island once they’ve left it?
• How will Michael and Walt reintegrate into society without revealing anything about the crash of Oceanic 815?
• Why did the Others take Jack, Kate, and Sawyer captive?
• Did Penny ever get married?
• Does Penny know about the island? If so, how?

• “Live Together, Die Alone” is the first Desmond-centric episode of the series.
• Though it was originally shown as a single 2-hour episode, for the purposes of the “Rewatch” I am splitting this ep into two parts.
• It’s one of the most memorable moments in Lost history: when the sky turned purple as the Swan station was destroyed. The whole affair — the bright light, the loud sound wave — has never been given a sufficient explanation on the show, and I’m starting to think it might never be. We can easily assume that all of it can be chalked up to the electromagnetic discharge that had been plugged by the Swan station’s protocol, and when it finally released, the light and sounds we witnessed were the visible effects. That’s all well and good from a real-world scientific standpoint, but I still want to know more about the mechanics of it. How was the Incident “plugged” in the first place, and now that the pent-up energy has discharged, does that mean that the electromagnetic pocket beneath the island is spent, used up, no more? Daniel Faraday suggested that the energy could be destroyed by detonating the hydrogen bomb, and if an egghead like him believed that this energy pocket could be obliterated, then it’s probably safe to assume that it could happen. Whether or not the H-bomb was a success or not is still up in the air, but if it wasn’t… is it possible that the Swan failsafe accomplished what the bomb could not, and destroyed the electromagnet once and for all? What would this mean to the island’s unique properties — particularly its ability to heal, which the magnet has been named as the primary cause of. Then there’s the question of the island’s time jumps after Ben’s attempt to turn the frozen wheel got it lodged out of place — symbolically and literally dislodging the island itself in space/time. Every time one of those time jumps occurred, the survivors experienced eerily similar effects as what they experienced here: a painfully loud wave of sound along with a bright flash that lit up the entire sky. Connection? Boy oh boy, do I hope we get some answers to all of this stuff before the end.
• Did you ever realize… even after all that, we still never saw what would happen if the button didn’t get pushed. We saw the beginnings of what would happen, but thanks to Desmond’s saving the day — twice — we never got to see how it would fully play out. Given the repeated references by Swan station personnel to “saving the world,” I think we’re meant to assume that if the button wasn’t pushed and the failsafe not activated, the electromagnet would build to such profound levels that it could not only destroy the island but effect the entire world in some way. I’m still hoping for more details on this at some point.
• Another iconic moment came in that final scene when Penny’s monitoring station detected the island, after what we’re meant to assume is three years of searching (since that’s how long Desmond’s been on the island). At the time, we didn’t even know if Desmond was still alive, but just the fact that Penny had never given up on him gave fans a whole new — and very deeply romantic — pairing to root for. Who would have thought back then that just two seasons later, Desmond and Penny would be reunited? I always figured that wouldn’t happen — if at all — until the end of the show. I don’t think anyone suspected when this scene first aired that it was just a tiny hint of the off-island adventures soon to come.
• I remember how Ben seemed like such an all-knowing character at this early point when we met him, who knew everything there was to know about the island. That feeling would be reinforced next season when he presides over the captivity of Jack, Kate, and Sawyer. But we eventually learned that he wasn’t as all-knowing as he first appeared, that he was merely regurgitating the stuff he’d been told all his life, and pretty much just making up the rest.

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Image credits: “Rewatching Lost” logo by Robin Parrish. Season 2 cast promotional image and Dharma Initiative logo: American Broadcasting Company.