Follow along! The episode guide for “Live Together, Die Alone” is in Finding Lost, pp. 322-338 (it’s a long one!).Watching this season 2 finale is so weird in retrospect, isn’t it? It’s hard to get into the mindset we were in when we first saw it. I remember when I first saw the notice that the finale flashback would be Desmond’s, and I thought, “What?! Why Desmond? Why not Jack or John Locke?” And then it aired, and it was the perfect choice. This was an episode of firsts (at the time) that now seem like old hat to us. The first time we hear the Others referred to as the Hostiles; the first time we see Widmore or Penny; the first time we find out Desmond’s true backstory and how he came to the island; the first sighting of the statue; the first mention of Radzinsky. It’s wild to see it now, and realize that we went a full two seasons before all of this stuff – the very stuff that seems to have taken on the greatest importance to the series overall – was even touched upon.
Fun things I noticed:
• So, they spot a boat, and the three alpha males of the island jump into the water to go to it. If it HAD been a trap and they’d all been blown up, the rest of the islanders would have been rather screwed.
• A few weeks ago a friend of ours came down with his incredibly mature and astute 14-year-old, and while the friend and my husband went out to see Elvis Costello, I hung out with the teenager, who is a big fan of Lost (when the kid was 4, he was the ringbearer in my wedding… how time flies!) I showed him the mobisodes, which he’d never seen, and he had some really insightful stuff to say about the series as a whole, season 5, and things he’d been noticing along the way. He asked me how I thought the series would end (a question I can never answer) and then said he hopes it’s not one of those crazy endings of other shows where you find out it was all a dream or something. He said, “Remember that show where it turned out that the entire series was in the head of a kid staring into a snow globe?” (spoiler alert ahead about the series that did that, in case you don’t want to know) I had COMPLETELY forgotten about this, and it immediately made me think of Desmond making the snow globe comment in this episode, and now I’m convinced it was probably a reference to that series, St. Elsewhere, which ended with an autistic boy staring into a snow globe that had the likeness of the hospital inside it. Wow. I wish I’d thought of THAT one earlier, when I was working on the book…
• Does anyone else ever think those torches are going to set the actors’ heads on fire? Man, Sayid was carrying that one close to his head!
• OK. So. I posted a post on my main blog a few months’ back showing pictures of the statue foot that Sayid sees through his binoculars here, and said it looked like a left foot. But the foot on Jacob’s home is a right foot. People looked at the photos and some agreed with me while others argued that no, the foot Sayid saw was most definitely a right foot. Well, seeing it now, it is MOST DEFINITELY a left foot. Facing the foot, the toes are biggest on our left, which means it’s a leftie, not a rightie. So I’ll take that as me being correct. (No, I’m not above gloating.)
• In the whispers you can hear the word “Elizabeth.”
• UPDATE: This was originally a point where I was talking about how I was right about Locke and Boone and Aaron's birth and all that, but as a couple of people have correctly pointed out, I've gone mad. So I'm removing it. With a plea for your sympathy that I've been extremely sick all week, have missed most of the week of work, and yet still was staying up late to try to watch these episodes and post on them while popping Benylins and drinking Nyquil. I apologize for being too much in a fog to actually make sense. Next time I'll just delay it to the following week when I'm actually coherent again. :)
• I commented in the previous episode that it was annoying Bernard and Rose weren’t at the funeral, and here we see Bernard in the very end standing next to Claire, which means they would have had to have paid him for the full ep. Weird they didn’t just put him at the funeral.
• I didn’t notice this before, but this time I noticed that when everything goes haywire in the hatch, we see the table with the pages fall over twice.
• I remember being so convinced that the guy at the end in the blizzard was actually Matthew Fox. Turns out it's someone else, but check out the resemblance!!:
Things that have new meaning:
• The army guy who checks Desmond out of the prison tells him that his idea about reading Our Mutual Friend is a nice one, “as long as you know when you’re gonna die.” Interesting that after the blast, Desmond knows when Charlie’s going to die.
• Again, I always thought of Sayid as more of a free will guy, but again he talks about fate bringing the boat to them.
• And forward with our “Libby is an Other” game, could Libby have been following Desmond to the coffee shop and set him up? Or is she genuinely shaken by her husband’s death, and while she seems to be coping with it now, losing the boat (with Desmond on it) completely destroys her and sends her to the institution? Interesting that her husband’s name was David, which is the same name as Hurley’s imaginary friend.
• Will we ever see the Hurley bird again?
• Locke: “I’m more sure of this than anything in my entire life.” Hm… that’s what Jack said just before he dropped the hydrogen bomb. Uh oh.
• Inman: “He put a shotgun in his mouth when I was asleep.” Me: HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!! I’m so glad that we’ve seen what a dick Radzinsky was, so now we can watch this and laugh merrily that he’ll meet a horrible end.
• We’ve seen the sky turn and the noise happen a few times now… did Desmond actually move the island? Or time jump the island in any way?
• I STILL don’t understand Charlie’s blasé attitude that he has after the explosion. Do we just chalk it up to shock? He says nothing happened, while people could be dying back there and he should be alerting them all to help them.
44 comments:
Nikki, regarding your statement that, following the blast, Desmond knew when Charlie was going to die, of course it was right after this that Desmond started seeing his future-flashes. But it’s not like he was able to tell Charlie, “You’ve got until 9:45 tomorrow morning.” He had seen flashes of Charlie’s death by various accidents, but all he really knew was that it was going to be SOON.
I like how Desmond, when packing for his boat race around the world, included music selections from his library. And he has eclectic taste, like me! He likes Mama Cass for his morning routine around the Swan Station, and for bobbing around in the surf and drinking heavily, Mozart. The aria that’s playing when our heroes first step aboard the Elizabeth is “Voi, che sapete” (which means, “You know the answer”) from “The Marriage of Figaro”. (I got to know it when I was a voice major in college.) To briefly analyze it (since that’s what Lost fans do), the character who sings it in the opera is a young boy, Cherubino, (always sung by a mezzo soprano) who is all confused and a-flutter with his first feelings of romantic love. Honestly, I don’t see how this relates to Desmond at all, except that he is in love with Penny. But he’s no novice at love. I’d say that the only thing he’s confused about is the extreme opposition of Charles Widmore, and how he might win him over. Anyway, here’s the English translation of the Italian lyrics that we heard in this episode: “Now I am chilly, next time aflame,/ Not for a moment am I the same./ I am pursuing some sunny ray,/ But it eludes me, try as I may./ I can’t stop sighing, hard as I try,/ And then I tremble, not knowing why./ From this dilemma I find no peace,/ And yet I want it never to cease.” There you have it.
When Penny asked Des why he never wrote to her, WHY, oh, why didn’t he tell her that her dad stole the letters?
Sayid and Jin and Sun are supposed to be sneaking up on the Others, right? I’ve never understood how Sayid expected that no unfriendly eyes would spot their large and conspicuous sailboat, or the large and conspicuous column of black smoke from their signal fire. Especially since they weren’t sure exactly where the Others were lurking.
When Inman was working on the blast door map, wouldn’t it have been easier to turn out all the lights except for the black light? Then it would be clearly visible, no guesswork about where he left off, etc.
Here’s a fun thing I noticed: When Kate is reading from the journal she picked up off the pile of pneumatic tubes, she said, “0400 SR moves ping pong table again.” SR = Stuart Radzinsky! We heard the name Radzinsky late in S2, but we didn’t find out his first name until well into S5.
Since Radzinsky’s name (OK, just his initials) is referenced in at least one of the notebooks, I think we can agree that the pneumatic tubes have been sitting out in that field for a very long time. It seems that the props department missed an opportunity to make the set look as real as possible. Vegetation would’ve grown up around AND THROUGH the pile, exposure to sun and all those frequent rains on the Island would’ve made them look faded and really, really water-spotted. As it is, it looks like a dump truck just dropped off a load of brand-new containers with notebooks inside them. Also, that heap was really spread out, far away from the curved pipe that spit them out onto the ground. It looks like someone has been pawing through them, shifting them around. And it seems to me that the containers could’ve been recycled, taken back to the Pearl so they could be used again. I guess the Dharma Initiative had unlimited funds.
Kelvin Inman might be alive today if he’d kept up on his mending. Desmond was too scared to leave the Swan until he spotted the rip in Inman’s yellow hazmat suit. Des then suspected that he was being lied to, worked up the nerve to follow Inman, confrontation on the rocky cliff, you know the rest. Let that be a lesson to all you procrastinators!
When I first saw this episode, I soon realized that Michael Giacchino was definitely in cahoots with Damon and Carlton, working to mislead the audience. Thanks to the ominous music on the Pala Ferry dock, when Henry faced Michael and said, “Let’s take care of business”, I was braced for some shooting. I was sure Michael was about to be killed. Even at the moment when Henry said, “Bon Voyage, Michael”, I was expecting the boat to blow up or something. Delicious tension!
Season 2 ended the same way it began, with something inexplicable and very un-Lost-like. When the scene cut to the arctic, with the howling wind and blowing snow, I was thinking it was the start of some other show. The truth began to dawn on me as soon as I heard more of Giacchino’s music. The beginning and ending scenes of S2 are like bookends, complementing each other in many different ways. Absolutely beautiful.
P.S. For those of you rewatching on DVD, don’t you just love the “Channel 4 UK Promo” in the bonus features?
@marebabe - how is it that the english translation rhymes?? I guess you'd have to make it rhyme, duh.
more later
@JS: The word-by-word translations never rhyme. In fact, different languages (German, for example) have very different rules of syntax, so the word-by-word translation usually sounds bizarre, sometimes bordering on nonsense. But then someone with a talent for poetry reworks the text, so you can have rhyming phrases while keeping the overall meaning of the lyrics the same.
I heard Kelvin say "Radzinsky" and then I cheered because after 3 years of waiting, we finally find out that Radzinsky is an annoying dictator of a man, and made me want to do his own future dirty work and just shoot him and get it over with.
Desmond and the writers of Lost would be proud if they knew that I'm currently reading Oliver Twist by Charles Dickens. I do admit that at first it was a little slow, but now I'm actually enjoying it!
Going back to the "one eye bigger than the other" thing that we were talking about a few weeks ago, does anyone notice that Papa Paik has one eye bigger than the other?
There was a really funny thing on a The Ack Attack! recap (I think it was for all of season 2) and the stuff that she references for the finale is HILARIOUS.
@marababe 'P.S. For those of you rewatching on DVD, don’t you just love the “Channel 4 UK Promo” in the bonus features?'
As I lived in the UK at the time I had the privilege of seeing this promo on TV when it first aired. Stylish stuff isn't it? Everyone was a bit surprised when the program was nothing like the promo!
"...so now we can watch this and laugh merrily that he’ll meet a horrible end."
Hahahaaha!
I found it really funny that Sayid and Sawyer took off their shirts when they dove into the water while Jack kept his on. Feeling a bit inadequate? ;)
I definitely was wondering if Libby set Des up to end up on the Island. Even if not I find it just plain weird that both she and her boat end up there.
O'Quinn is a brilliant actor but he cannot fake cry to save his life. They should have given that scene to Jack :P
Locke says "I found another hatch." Really John? Because I don't remember it going that way. (Oh, and I cannot hear the word hatch without remembering Nikki's astute observation that a hatch is a door, not a room or bunker)
This is where I don't think it lines up that Jack caused "the incident". The station was already set up when the incident happened. They have to have changed something.
I love Des' look when he hears that Eko was a priest. He should have said, "Small world, brutha. So was I."
Is quarantine written on the other entrance to the hatch? I don't remember seeing it. Why was it only on the upper one - the one that gets blown off?
Jack sounds very Ben-like "I always have a plan" (Which is by far my absolute favorite Benjamin Linus line.)
Why is Alex wandering the jungle with them? You'd think with all the Others available they wouldn't rely on a teenage girl, especially the boss' daughter.
If Des saw and heard John, then why, oh why did he not go out and talk to him?!
The music and intensity and everything in the Hatch reminded me very much of the events leading up to the detonation of the bomb in "The Incident". Ends with a flash of brightness too.
"We're the good guys, Michael" My exact reaction..... asdhf;asdhfohwo; fk;as
@Marebabe: I was totally waiting for the boat to blow up, too! Ben's "Bon Voyage, Michael." Supremely creepy.
Claire + Charlie = supercute
What was that all about when the guys in the snow said, "We missed it again." Again!? What were the other times? When the plane went down is my guess, but... what!?
And why is Penn-eh looking for electromagnetic anomalies? She must have had some idea where Des ended up then, especially with Widmore as a father. All very mysterious. More things I would like them to clear up.
I hate to say this, and I would only say this about a TV character not a real person, but I really really really hope we get to see Radzinsky off himself. They set him up as a character to be hated, just like Arzt and Frogurt, so we need to see him die!
Marebabe some comments on your comments: Des not telling Penny about the letters is similar to Michael covering for Bryan when Bryan didn't want to keep Walt. I think both Des and Michael did these things to keep Penny and Walt (respectively) from feeling hurt.
I loved your comparison to the first and last moments of season 2. I had never looked at them together like that before. Also, ROFL at the procrastination comment!
I'm going to put out a theory I have in light of season 5. At the beginning of The Incident, it appears that Jacob is calling or bringing a boat to the island. He has probably done the same thing to other vehicles, and I think he also brought 815 to the island. However it wasn't supposed to crash, but instead land relatively safely like 316 later did. Desmond's system failure caused the plane to crash, and maybe the miraculous number of survivors were meant to be there so that's how they survived (recalling Kate's comment from season 1 about how unlikely it was that any of them survived).
@Susan: I feel so ashamed. When I read your wish to see Radzinsky inhale a shotgun shell, I was Laughing Out Loud! I didn't realize how much I'm longing to see the same thing. Hoo-boy!
And your mention of sparing someone's feelings makes total sense. I also like your theory that, if not for the system failure, flight 815 probably would've landed at least as well as Ajira 316 did.
Couple of things I noticed:
Kate and Sawyer get mad when they realize Jack knew about Michael's betrayal, but Jack doesn't put the blame on Sayid, whose idea it is after all.
John says about the other Losties:
"They're not my friends." For most of John's time on the island, it's all about what he wants and how to get it. If he can be kind to someone without interfering with his goals, he will, otherwise, don't stand in his way.
Someone please explain. For 3 years Desmond is kept in the hatch, and Kelvin doesn't allow him to go out. It looks like there is only one hazmat suit. Desmond sees a tear in Kelvin's suit and follows him out. He uses a kerchief to cover his mouth (note he doesn't suit up himself, which suggests there was only one suit). When he sees Kelvin take off the suit, Desmond realizes its okay outside.
Jump ahead to Season 5. We see Faraday pounding on the hatch. Desmond comes out wearing a hazmat suit. Why would Desmond wear this knowing there wasn't any contamination outside the hatch?
Another query. The survivors see the boat, and 3 swim out to it. THEN they throw a luau that night?? There's a smoked boar, and it looks like everyone is helping themselves to boar and fruit. Is this like a nightly thing?
I noticed when Locke walks into the computer room to talk to Eko the counter is at 5 minutes exact. After some back and forth, the counter is seen again at 3:57. Yet the timer on my DVD player shows only 33 seconds had elapsed. Continuity error? Shooting the sequence involved too many takes from different angles, so nobody could make out an exact coverage of time? I vote for the last, but I keep thinking of Faraday's comment on how time moves on the island compared to off.
I felt really sad for Hurley, but also very angry at Michael, when Hurley realized that Michael would have shot AL and Libby even if he had had the time to think.
Back to continuity. Kelvin says Radzinsky figured out how to fake a lockdown. But didn't Radzinsky design the Swan, wouldn't he already know all this?
Locke's line to Desmond: "I just saved us all." Before the electromagnet kicks in and everything goes haywire. So much for "He who lies in the shadow of the statue." And I thought, when Locke is pounding on the hatch, Desmond "sees" him as Kelvin saw Desmond--his replacement, a chance to escape. So what if Locke wasn't the real replacement--just tell him what to do then head for the hills (run). Is that what Widmore is refering to as Desmond's dishonour? That Desmond ran from some military action?
And notice the screen goes white when Desmond turns the key. We'll see that later when Juliet detonates the trigger of Jughead.
OK. So. I posted a post on my main blog a few months’ back showing pictures of the statue foot that Sayid sees through his binoculars here, and said it looked like a left foot. But the foot on Jacob’s home is a right foot. People looked at the photos and some agreed with me while others argued that no, the foot Sayid saw was most definitely a right foot. Well, seeing it now, it is MOST DEFINITELY a left foot. Facing the foot, the toes are biggest on our left, which means it’s a rightie, not a leftie. So I’ll take that as me being correct. (No, I’m not above gloating.)
Wait... what? I'm confused.
It's a good thing you weren't gloating Nikki because you might have to eat crow.
The foot Sayid sees is most definitely a left foot, that's not in question.
The argument is that in The Incident from the perspective we see the foot is it left or right. Some people think it's right, but it's in fact a left. The foot's ankle and calf angle toward the left of frame.
If you look at the complete statue from the same perspective, the right ankle and calf angle toward the right of frame, while the left ankle and calf angle towards the left of frame as shown with the broken foot.
Two lefts don't make a right... or something like that.
Fred
Someone please explain. For 3 years Desmond is kept in the hatch, and Kelvin doesn't allow him to go out. It looks like there is only one hazmat suit. Desmond sees a tear in Kelvin's suit and follows him out. He uses a kerchief to cover his mouth (note he doesn't suit up himself, which suggests there was only one suit). When he sees Kelvin take off the suit, Desmond realizes its okay outside.
Jump ahead to Season 5. We see Faraday pounding on the hatch. Desmond comes out wearing a hazmat suit. Why would Desmond wear this knowing there wasn't any contamination outside the hatch?
This is prior the Kelvin dying, so Desmond didn't know there wasn't any contamination outside. Kelvin died the day of the 815 crash and Faraday and the rest were at a time prior to the crash.
continued...
AND… more in the “me being right” column (teehee)… back in “Do No Harm,” I pointed to the events in that episode as proof that what we saw in “The Little Prince” was inconsistent. While most of us agreed that Locke banged on the hatch a full 24 hours before Aaron was born (and therefore during that time jump the travelers in Little Prince wouldn’t have seen the two events simultaneously) a few readers said there was no proof that Locke actually went straight back to the hatch and banged that night, that instead he might have headed back there, stayed the full day and night, and the next night was so frustrated he had his breakdown. I said that was unlikely, simply because he would have been angry right now, and seems calm when he rejoins the group after Aaron is born. And sure enough, Locke says in this episode, “On the night he died I was beating my hands against the door.” Score one for those of us who saw the inconsistency!
Ok am I going crazy. I hadn't read the recap/rewatch of Do No Harm so I went back and read it and also re-read Little Prince because there is no inconsistency.
I'm glad anonymous, grubstreethack and benny have their facts straight:
Anonymous said...
In regards to the inconsistencies with the hatch light oging off and Aaron's birth, remember it is still daylight when Locke carries Boone to the caves and leaves. The mad dash to save Boone takes place that same afternoon and into the night where Locke bangs on the hatch, the light goes off, Aaron is born and Boone dies. So the end of Deus Ex Machina with Locke actually takes place after most of the events in Do No Harm.
grubstreethack said...
With regards to time differences - Locke banging on the hatch door and Claire giving birth and Boone dying definitely all happen on the same night, just across different episodes. Locke dumps him at the caves and heads back to the hatch the same evening.
Benny said...
Regarding the inconsistencies:
It actually was in The Little Prince that this happened. I remember well since I pointed out the inconsistency int the first comment.
What we had concluded was what has been said here. The race to save Boone happened through the end of that day and into the night. You can clearly see the natural light peering through the caves, so Boone was indeed dropped off during the day. At night he died, Desmond turned on the light, and Aaron was born.
It certainly plays well that way, even if Gregg confirmed it as an inconsistency.
I don't care what Gregg Nations says (I haven't seen the source) Deus Ex Machina and Do No Harm both span the same day and night(Day 41) it's just Deus Ex Machina cuts to night showing the Locke/hatch scene. But since when has Lost contained linear story telling.
Aaron is born at night, Boone dies at night the same night. Boone dies the night of the fall and in the mean time Locke has his breakdown on top of the hatch.
continued...
These are two comments left for the Little Prince write up (one your own Nikki)
edgeshat said...
Benny -
The end of Deux Ex Machina and the end of the following episode Do No Harm happen around the same time.
In Deus Ex Machina, Locke brings the injured Boone back to the caves around the late morning/afternoon. Then it jumps to that night with Locke at the Hatch. The following episode, Do No Harm, picks up right when Locke left Boone at the caves. Then it follows the rest of the days events with the other characters leading to Claire giving birth to Aaron with Kate's help. So it seems like the Left Behinders seeing these events does make sense within Season 1 continuity.
Nikki Stafford said...
Benny: I'll have to go back to the order of events and check, because when I first saw the shaft of light I thought no, that's wrong, that came after, but the more I thought about it the more I thought, no, it was right. Because Boone dies at night, the shaft of light happens at night, and Aaron is born at night. By the daytime, Claire is walking out of the jungle with Aaron, Jack's told everyone Boone is dead, and Locke shows up to say his death was the sacrifice the island needed. So I think it was actually correct. We never see the things in the same screen (and I certainly never realized they were so close together before) but I think the continuity cops really did their homework this time. :)
So you were right once, but not in recent write ups.
I came into this comment section because the potential Little Prince inconsistency had me very confused. Hasn't it always been clear that Boone died on the same night Aaron was born? These happen in the same episode, right in a row...
If that's the case, then Locke saying he was banging on the hatch when Boone died... clarifies that what happened in The Little Prince was correct, no?
I'm with R.S. on this one, but a bit confused as to where the confusion began...
R.S.: It seems like you often post just to show me up. ;) The gloating was a joke, I'm sorry people thought I was actually acting all in your face.
The rightie/leftie thing was a typo. My apologies. I've corrected it.
I also apologize for what I was saying about The Little Prince. I've been extremely sick all week, and watching these episodes in a fog half the time, and it's too bad I did so on a finale.
I'll just take it out.
Consider this me eating crow. Do you guys have any milk to go with it?
Penguin: You're absolutely right, and I was wrong. I've removed it from the post. Damn you, John Locke... ;)
Fred: Jump ahead to Season 5. We see Faraday pounding on the hatch. Desmond comes out wearing a hazmat suit. Why would Desmond wear this knowing there wasn't any contamination outside the hatch?
This is absolutely an inconsistency (I should have pointed out this one instead of the Locke/Boone non-one!) It's one I spend a lot of time talking about in my S5 book. If Desmond has never left the hatch and never worn the suit, then he wouldn't have opened the door wearing the suit and holding the gun, because he was never allowed to wear it, and Inman would have been the guy in the hatch who would have answered the door. But if it's after his death, Des wouldn't have worn the suit because he knows the air is safe. So it's definitely an inconsistency, but I can see why the writers did it anyway, because it has a LOT of impact to see Desmond freaking out and holding the gun, etc. They probably knew we'd find it, but hoped the majority of the audience wouldn't put it together. :)
@ Nikki: regarding Desmond emerging from the Hatch as opposed to Inman...perhaps ol' Kelvin was sleeping and Des was on button duty, so when he heard the pounding he decided "Wow, my chance to go outside is finally here! Never mind the fact that there's some kinda twitchy lunatic pounding on my back door, brutha."
I'd forgotten how enigmatic the character of Bea Klugh was. I wonder if we'll see any more of her before the end?
If turning the key really did move the Island in time, then I'm thinking two things:
a) where/when did it move them to, and
b) how on earth did pretty Penny manage to keep tabs on its movements? The only possible way she could have known about it was to shake some information out of her father. Do you think Charles gave her any knowledge he may have picked up from the Lamppost? Perhaps he was using her desperation for Desmond in order to re-find the Island for his own purposes. If so, then he is one COLD man.
I think I read somewhere a while ago (nice to be specific isn't it?) that Damon and Carlton stated in an interview after the end of season 4 that while Ben does move the island in time, Desmond's turning the failsafe key does not move the island in time.
Great ending to the season. I clearly remember screaming at the TV when the bags were pulled over their heads knowing how long I was going to have to wait to find out what happened.
Also when the Arctic part came on I kept thinking, has my video recorder cut the end off and it was some other programme? Then I saw Penny.
Brilliant ending.
In regards to the UK promo, I remember watching it on my TV so many years ago!!!!
There was another one as well that I think is slightly better, you can watch on Youtube, that just has cool music instead of the voices. I remember not knowing what Lost was about and thinking it was some weird dance contest on an island.
Oh how wrong I can be!
Question: In Season 3, Tom tells Jack that they have been unable to leave the island via submarine since the sky turned purple. I always assumed that this meant when Desmond turned the failsafe key. Yet, how were Michael and Walt able to find their way out of the vicinity of the island to hop a freighter to Fiji, as is referenced by Michael in Season 4? Since they were in the boat right after the sky turned purple, wouldn't the bearing have changed? Thoughts?
Lisa: That's a really excellent question. My suggestion would be that Tom was also saying the communications were all down, and maybe he means the submarine's com system had been frazzled, something it completely depends on to work. Whereas the boat's maybe wasn't as fragile? Where a sub requires sonar (is that the correct term? Any naval experts out there?) Michael could have used a simple compass to have followed that bearing.
But that's just speculation on my part. I'm sure one of my brilliant readers could probably answer this with more expertise. :) You raise an excellent point.
Thanks Nikki! This has been bugging me for so long. I've done about five full rewatches of Seasons 1-5 since the season ended (yes, I have NO LIFE, LOL!) and keep coming back to how did they leave? Even when Desmond tried to leave, he referenced being in a "bloody snowglobe". Just a point of inconsistency that never made sense to me.
Wow! I just read through the last 10 or so comments, and you all everybody sound like a learned panel of Lost scholars! It actually reminded me of the scene in "Galaxy Quest" at the convention, when the squad of geeky fanboys got to ask their burning question: "...So we were wondering just where the inconsistency lies..." Isn't this FUN?!
ROFL at Marebabe's Galaxy Quest comment!
Lisa I think I have you beat on rewatches, but it's good to know I'm not the only one who has watched Lost more than 2-3 times through. We usually bring Lost when we go on long car trips, and it makes the drive go so much more quickly when we keep Lost running!
@marebabe: thank you for a great laugh. I love the Galexy Quest comment!
@Susan: I'm so glad it's not only me!! It's so sad that I can pretty much quote every line in the series to date.
I constantly go back and forth on this, but I think this might be my favorite of the season finales (it could also be because it's the one I've watched most recently, obviously).
I like it because as much as it is the finale to season two, it's almost a season premiere for the rest of the show, introducing all those elements Nikki mentioned in her season two recap that have become so integral to the story.
Kelvin, like many of the ancillary characters (Radzinsky, Malkin, Ms. Klugh) is someone I'd love to see return and to learn more about.
I also would love to know how Penny knew to look for spikes of electromagnetism in the first place.
Regarding Desmond appearing in his safe-suit in 5.01, I've always assumed that after following Inman outside and losing his belief in what Inman has told him about the sickness and the button, Desmond instantly reverted back to believing in all of it upon returning to the hatch and finding everything going to hell.
The reason for my assumption was always the attempt to explain away Desmond's continual use of the vaccine (as seen in 2.01) even after his disillusionment outside the hatch and the manslaughter of Inman.
If it is an error in 5.01, then we'd need to call foul on Desmond vaccinating himself in 2.01 as well...
Nikki Stafford said...
R.S.: It seems like you often post just to show me up. ;)
I've been behind on the rewatch and have now caught up. At the moment I'm actually rewatching S5, my first chance to rewatch S5 since it aired. So S5 is very fresh in my head and any questions it raises.
Had I been up to date when the Do No Harm write up was first posted I'm sure I'd have brought up this issue then. I'm glad this recap brought it to light and with the help of others we've been able to set the record straight.
Like I said all this is very fresh in my head and this is a popular blog (one that I happen to like reading)I'd hate for misinformation to get out there when it isn't the truth. Fortunately most of the time your right on the money so there isn't a need to interject.
I know your comment was made in jest but i just wanted to state why 'I'm showing you up'.
The gloating was a joke, I'm sorry people thought I was actually acting all in your face.
No need to apologise you weren't gloating you were just misinformed. Had you been, as I suggested, you may have to eat crow.
The rightie/leftie thing was a typo. My apologies. I've corrected it.
That's what I figured and why I highlighted the confusion in bold.
Although you haven't addressed the issue of left vs right feet. You suggest "the foot on Jacob’s home is a right foot" which is not the case and I suggested evidence to prove it's the left foot. Although you are correct in saying the foot Sayid sees from Desmond's boat is a left foot as the toes would indicate.
I went back to your original post http://nikkistafford.blogspot.com/2009/05/statue.html to double check and I'd suggest you do the same. Unfortunately you disabled comments for that post and I wasn't going to go through the 400+ comments on the finale recap to see what conclusion was derived.
I've even created a side by side image that is going to be the closest thing to proof that the broken foot in the Incident is a left foot.
http://img44.imageshack.us/img44/1024/25431687.png
I apologise if I'm coming across as some kind of correction police, it's not the message I'm trying to convey but I can see some could see it that way.
continued...
Nikki Stafford said...
This is absolutely an inconsistency (I should have pointed out this one instead of the Locke/Boone non-one!) It's one I spend a lot of time talking about in my S5 book. If Desmond has never left the hatch and never worn the suit, then he wouldn't have opened the door wearing the suit and holding the gun, because he was never allowed to wear it, and Inman would have been the guy in the hatch who would have answered the door. But if it's after his death, Des wouldn't have worn the suit because he knows the air is safe. So it's definitely an inconsistency, but I can see why the writers did it anyway, because it has a LOT of impact to see Desmond freaking out and holding the gun, etc. They probably knew we'd find it, but hoped the majority of the audience wouldn't put it together. :)
Like I said I'm rewatching S5 at the moment and I watched this episode only a few days ago so it's very fresh in my mind. When the rewatch gets to season five I'm sure I'll have a whole lot to say about it then.
Right now I'm 50/50 on this whole scene going down and the memory Desmond has of it in 2007 or 2008 (depending on how long it took him to sail from Oxford to L.A)
But as of now I don't think we can conclude anything concrete until we are understand what Desmond being special means and what conclusion comes from that. Obviously we won't get those answers until next year. If Desmonds specialness is not elaborated on then yes this is an inconsistency and one that doesn't make sense.
I have my theory on it at the moment but it's something I can't explain, it's more of a feeling.
In saying all this The Question Mark raised a good point that I agree with. I also came to the conclusion that Kelvin was off duty/asleep (hell he could have even be drunk toying with the failsafe). Initially I thought Kelvin was off repairing the Elizabeth and Desmond was home alone, but Fred suggested there was only one suit which is possible (I'm going to check that later).
But this definitely all takes place before Kelvin's death. How do we know this? As I said Kelvin died the day of the 815 crash. So we place this before then because at this particular time there is no beach camp.
The question that remains is where's Kelvin?
Sagacious Penguin said...
Regarding Desmond appearing in his safe-suit in 5.01, I've always assumed that after following Inman outside and losing his belief in what Inman has told him about the sickness and the button, Desmond instantly reverted back to believing in all of it upon returning to the hatch and finding everything going to hell.
I really like this thought process.
lisa11171 said...
Question: In Season 3, Tom tells Jack that they have been unable to leave the island via submarine since the sky turned purple. I always assumed that this meant when Desmond turned the failsafe key. Yet, how were Michael and Walt able to find their way out of the vicinity of the island to hop a freighter to Fiji, as is referenced by Michael in Season 4? Since they were in the boat right after the sky turned purple, wouldn't the bearing have changed? Thoughts?
Yeah the failsafe killed their comms, but in S3 Ben suggests they can leave the island but not come back because the sub has no way of navigating back (in reference to Jack and Juliet getting their ticket off the island via the sub - that Locke destroys just in the nick of time), so no big deal for Michael leaving via the bearing he's given (a bearing that didn't change since the Island didn't move). Desmond being unable to leave was because he didn't have this bearing, which is why he used the snow globe analogy.
Which brings up the point, how did Tom get back after recruiting Michael to board the freighter? I'll have to check that out.
Ok, now to get some exercise then back to S5 rewatch.
In Live Together, Die Alone (the season 1 finale) we see John and Desmond talk to one another for the first time since Desmond ran off.
When they greet, I feel as if there is this assumed relationship. Are there discussions between the two we missed? When did this friendship all of the sudden develop?
An absolutely excellent season finale and a very enjoyable and insightful recap as usual, Nik! Hope you are feeling better now = and that we can all be a bit more patient with one another here on the blog. It seems to me that sometimes we can get so caught up in our eagerness to analyze and comment that we lose sight of common courtesy - critical commentary can easily come across more negatively than intended when printed in black and white!
One or two things that jumped out at me from the finale:
1) Given what we now know of Desmond's consciousness-shifting and our Losties' time-flashing in episodes to come, I found it interesting that Widmore tells Desmond in the car that "one box contains your past ... and the other, your future." Desmond will see both in a new way soon.
2) Telling, too, that Penny remarks to Desmond that "with enough money and determination, you can find anyone"!
3) New significance to Desmond's remark about the strength of the blast doors; "it would take an atom bomb". Hah!
4) Like Fred, I was struck by Locke's line, "I just saved us all". Of course, a few minutes later, he tells Eko, "I was wrong"!
Anonymous: Great observation re: Desmond and Locke not exactly being BFFs before, but acting like it after. I think the sudden mutual respect comes from the fact that Locke pushed Desmond's button and believed in it the same way Des did, but just as Des has stopped believing in it, so has John, and that's why they suddenly have something in common. That's the best I can come up with... anyone else have thoughts?
I enjoyed how Des refers to him as "Boxman." :)
humanebean: Thanks for your words, and I agree. I'm blessed on this blog that I have so many readers who, even if they disagree, do so with respect and politeness, never intending to one-up each other or take enjoyment in proving another person wrong. So when someone comes on here who acts like that, it catches me by surprise. But it seems to have worked out -- i.e. I admitted I was wrong, and the other person is happy that I'm wrong. Nyar nyar...
Great comments everyone!!
I just finished the episode, read through Nikki's post, and read through all your comments. I especially liked the Galaxy Quest reference, which is so true.
So here are my thoughts:
It's good to have Desmond back. Season 2 basically starts with the show telling us, "down in the hatch, there's this interesting guy with this weird job!" and then just as we're thinking, "Wow, I can't wait to know this guy better," he's gone. Had he not returned I would have been disappointed. Ending the season with a deluxe Desmond flashback episode was great.
It was also good to see Walt in the last couple of episodes. We'll see him again later, of course, but it's nice to get one more look at "boy" Walt, a character I really liked in the first season and missed later on.
Actually, I just mentioned to my wife that we hadn't yet seen the flashback where Walt and his friends are all eating those snacks at the kitchen table. "Is that in season 3?" I asked. "No", she replied, "you're thinking about that Anytizer commercial."
Back to this episode: I noticed the subtitles say that "Wickman" is the man in the Swan's Orientation video when Desmond watches it. I think the subtitle people got confused!
Inman's death still surprises me. That's probably because Clancy Brown doesn't seem like a guy who would die that easily. Like someone else said earlier, let's hope we see Inman again.
There were a couple parts of this episode that reminded me of a couple anime series I like.
First, when Desmond goes down below to use the key, it's like the ending of The Mysterious Cities of Gold, an incredible anime show from the 80's, where (spoiler alert!) in the final episode a prophet saves the world from a meltdown almost the same way Desmond does. Second, when the sky turns colors and the energy is released, it's like Oh My Goddess when the goddesses create the Ultimate Magic Circle (which briefly changes the animation from color to something similar to the "Take Me On" video while everyone wonders what's going on.)
Finally, I want to mention that the other day at work I was thinking of titles for the Lost finale, and I thought, "See you in another life" sounded interesting. I come home and find out it's already been posted! Well, great minds think alike.
All in all, I think season 2's finale is the worst of all the Lost season finales (just my opinion) and yet I still love it!
It seems like we just started this rewatch, and now we're on season 3 already and moving right along. I'm excited, because I haven't seen season 3 as many times as 1 and 2, and I recall that season 3 is where the show really kicks it in gear and builds momentum that will take us to season 6.
When Penny asked Des why he never wrote to her, WHY, oh, why didn’t he tell her that her dad stole the letters?
You know, part of me actually understands this. First, she's getting married to someone else, and the honorable guy doesn't want to mess this up. And second, it's such a painful question, the wounded guy doesn't want to go into it. Not answering just somehow feels intuitive to me when I put myself in Desmond's shoes - like the easy way out is to say, "I did!" and the more honorable, martyr way is to keep the pain internal.
One last thought: I thought Michael and the boat were going to blow up the first time I saw this episode, too!
This is the episode that started my disenchantment with Locke. His insistence that if he wasn't going to push the button, nobody was, really rubbed me the wrong way. (I have never liked it when one character makes decisions for all other characters regardless of what anyone else thinks.) And in this episode I realized that Locke would only be group's benelovent benefactor if it was of benefit to him or at least didn't interfere with his agenda. At least when Jack made decisions for the group, his intentions were to help the group. I thought this episode really showed Locke's deluded belief that he knew more than anyone else and his attempt at self promotion. The only thing that saved Locke for me in the episode was his stunned but humble admission the he "was wrong". Unfortunately in season 3, Locke continued down this path deciding that if he didn't want to get off the island, he would do everything in his power to keep anyone from leaving regardless of what they wanted.
@JW: I see your point about Desmond being honorable and keeping his pain to himself, rather than unnecessarily spreading it around. Susan (here on the blog) had a similar response a few days ago, talking about how Des chose to think of Penny's feelings and spare her any more pain. Des is far from perfect, having many of the most popular human failings, but I think he might well be the noblest and most virtuous person we know in the Lostverse.
@Nikki: I couldn't agree more about what a kind and civilized group you have here. I was a lurker for many years after I discovered the wonderful world of entertainment websites and fan blogs. I shopped around for a long time before I selected this group. You guys are courteous and FUNNY, and I now think of many of you as friends. God bless you all.
You guys are courteous and FUNNY, and I now think of many of you as friends.
Well, I hope Nikki doesn't mind me using her blog for this, but this leads me into something I wanted to mention: Gillian and I have just joined goodreads.com, which is a really fun site for book lovers. If any of you have accounts there, or if you join, please let us know so we can all link together.
Dana you're spot on about Locke. When Jack or anyone else tries to do something, Locke says "who are we to tell anyone what they can or can't do" but Locke does it himself all the time.
Marebabe you're spot on about the kind of people on this site. I read the blogs on Lostpedia, and some of the people there can be so mean to others (it's easy to be mean in an anonymous forum). They make fun of others for their theories, their grammar and spelling, and their opinions. If anything like that happens here, it's usually unintentional and apologies follow immediately.
@ J.W.
Thanks for that info - I've just joined Goodreads too.
@Ali Bags: Cool! If you search goodreads for J.W. Braun you can find me and my book and add me as a friend - and then Gillian.
I had a thought while watching this episode the other day. It has to do with the old question, Didn’t Desmond hear the crash of the trebuchet when it broke on the hatch? Why was it never mentioned?
WELL… In “Live Together, Die Alone” we got to see the moment when John was pounding on the hatch and screaming in despair from DESMOND’S perspective. He was awake, obviously, and the commotion from topside went on for a bit. Lots of pounding, lots of yelling. Now, WHAT IF he was sleeping when the trebuchet crashed? That was a big noise, but it was only for a moment. I was reminded of a story my husband likes to tell from when he was a naughty kid. He and his brothers liked to make their own fireworks and assorted explosives and then, of course, detonate them when no one was looking. (They were out in the country, which made it easier.) Their Mom would not approve, but they were smart enough to sneak out at night when she was sleeping to carry out their live fire experiments. They knew that they could blow up something pretty big if they didn’t get greedy and careless. One loud noise would of course wake up Mom, but she wouldn’t know WHY she was suddenly awake.
I submit this as a possible explanation for Desmond never mentioning the earth-shattering boom of the trebuchet landing on the top hatch. If he was asleep for it, he would have just found himself lying awake and wondering what woke him up. And he would never know the answer.
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