"Live Together, Die Alone"

NOVEMBER 16, 2010

FOCUS: DESMOND (!)
EPISODE: 2.23
AIRED: MAY 24, 2006

Desmond!!! I love this guy so much, so giving him a flashback (in a double episode) for "Live Together, Die Alone", in retrospect, is a complete delight. I don’t mind saying that part of why I disliked the last 2 seasons (relative to the others anyway; they were still pretty good compared to something like the last 4-5 seasons of The X-Files) is that Desmond had so little screen time. And that baffles me – they DO know that “The Constant” is most folks’ favorite episode (or at least, one of their top 5), right? Why shuffle that guy to the side?

Anyway, this is a really good season finale, perfectly wrapping up certain plot threads and introducing others. But more importantly, with the (usual) exception of Claire, everyone has something important to do. Jack, Michael, Sawyer, Hurley, and Kate are off to “rescue Walt”, Sayid, Jin, and Sun are following them in a boat, and then Charlie and Eko are battling Desmond and Locke for control of the button. Lots of adventure, lots of scenery changing, lots of action (even a shootout!), and probably the last time a single episode got so much use out of the majority of the cast. Christ, for the first few episodes of the next season, we wouldn’t even SEE anyone besides whoever the episode was focusing on.

In fact, my only real issue with this episode was the totally odd ending to the Hatch storyline, with Charlie just sort of wandering back to the beach like he was high (not the best move when Claire’s finally back in your good graces, ya schmuck) and no clear indication of what happened to Locke and the others. Nor would the season premiere explain this, which just infuriated me even further.

But I recall being pretty amazed that they had revealed the cause of the plane crash so soon in the show. With so many “things happen for a reason” explanations going around, the idea that they were “brought” to the island somehow was a popular theory, so to provide a very rational and logical explanation for the crash was kind of ballsy, if you ask me. I also like that they decided that the day of the plane crash was also the date of the premiere, officially setting the show in the fall of 2004, something that would pay off very awesomely for Red Sox fans.

I’m still baffled why they had Hurley come across the island just to tell him to go back. I mean, not for nothing, but the guy’s not exactly in the best shape. Were they just trying to get him to drop another belt size? I get that they needed someone to report back, but maybe pick one of the random castaways (which would also add suspense to the proceedings) or even Charlie next time they make a dude walk across the island and back just to be like “Yo, they got our friends. Don’t try to help.”

Odd thing I noticed – Sawyer and Sayid take their shirts off to swim after Desmond’s boat, but not Jack. Way to just give up the fight for Kate, dude. He also sort of screws up with his “caught in a net” silliness, but they get distracted out of it thanks to the bird yelling Hurley’s name (WTF is that about, anyway?). And no worries, he totally boinks her in a few episodes anyway.

Hey - anyone else think the dude in the ice station looked like Matthew Fox?

So Season 2 comes to a close. It definitely improves on back to back viewings, and in fact if you haven’t watched it yet I would just skip “Fire + Water” and “The Long Con” and make good use of the “Previously, On Lost” things that they so graciously provide on the DVD to fill in any blanks. And it’s also the last time our core cast was together – next season would find them split up for a while, and then starting with S4 they’re not even on the same island (and later, time period) as one another. It’s a shame that the show’s plot kept everyone apart for so long, because there’s a lot of good chemistry among the actors that they never fully maximized the potential of, but oh well. At least now we have Desmond as a regular. Oh and Juliet. I like her, too.

Where are we?

P.S. I'm going to break protocol with the Youtube clip for this one, because there's nothing not Lost-related with this particular phrase. Also this guy's got some pipes.