Live Together, Die Alone

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"Live Together, Die Alone"
B.B. King
Production code223 & 224
Original air dateMay 24, 2006 (2006-05-24)
Running time84 minutes[1]
Guest appearances
Henry Ian Cusick as Desmond Hume
Clancy Brown as Kelvin Inman
M. C. Gainey as Tom
Sam Anderson as Bernard Nadler
Tania Raymonde as Alex
Michael Bowen as Danny Pickett
April Grace as Bea Klugh
Alan Dale as Charles Widmore
Sonya Walger as Penny Widmore
Michael Emerson as Henry Gale
Stephen Page as Master Sergeant
Len Cordova as Mathias
Alex Petrovitch as Henrik
Teddy Wells as Ivan
Dustin Geiger as Matthew
Dustin Gomes as Barista
Episode chronology
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"A Tale of Two Cities"
Lost season 2
List of episodes

"Live Together, Die Alone" is the

television series Lost, consisting of the 23rd and 24th episodes of the second season. It is also the 48th and 49th episodes overall. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, and directed by Jack Bender. It first aired in the United States on May 24, 2006, on the American Broadcasting Company
. The episode was watched by 17.84 million people and received positive reviews.

In the episode, flashbacks reveal how Desmond came to the island. In realtime, Desmond unintentionally returns to the beach and is enlisted by Locke to help him stop the button in the hatch from being pushed. Meanwhile, several castaways head off to rescue Michael's son, Walt, from

the Others
.

Plot

Flashbacks

Kelvin Inman (Clancy Brown) (who also is the American intelligence officer that releases Sayid in one of his flashbacks) who takes him to the Dharma Initiative Swan Station and shows him the Orientation film. He explains that it was edited by Stuart Radzinsky, his former partner who faked a lockdown event and created an invisible map on the blast doors with him and then took his own life while Inman was asleep. Inman also explains that the incident was a "leak" of electromagnetic energy from the Swan that builds up and has to be discharged by pushing the button unless someone accesses a fail-safe and "blows the dam." Desmond lives together with Kelvin for three years before he finds out that Inman is secretly planning on escaping the island using Desmond's boat. Desmond violently confronts Inman about this, accidentally killing him in the process. After almost letting the countdown timer run down and causing a "System Failure", Desmond starts drinking liquor and a few days later, contemplates suicide. Before he shoots himself however, he hears John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) banging on the hatch door
, and turns on a light. Desmond then realizes that there is still hope and decides not to kill himself.

On the island

While at the funeral for Ana Lucia Cortez (Michelle Rodriguez) and Libby, a boat comes into view out at sea. Jack, Sayid, and Sawyer swim out to it and climb onto the boat. They hear music coming from inside it. Shots are fired from inside the boat through the boat hatch entrance. After breaking the hatch open, they find a drunken Desmond piloting the boat. The next day, after Mr. Eko (Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje) prevents Locke from destroying the computer that controls the timer, Locke enlists Desmond's help in letting the timer run down to zero. Desmond hotwires the blast doors shut, locking Eko outside the computer room and Desmond and Locke inside of it. Eko, distraught, seeks Charlie Pace's (Dominic Monaghan) help. The two attempt to use dynamite to blow the blast door open, but the blast doors are unscathed, while they are both injured.

Meanwhile, Desmond and Locke discuss the purpose of the stations and discover that when Desmond accidentally caused the "System Failure", the magnetic force pulled Oceanic Flight 815 toward the island, thus causing the crash. Locke continues to doubt that the timer has any meaning, but Desmond assures him that it is all real. As the timer passes zero, causing another "System Failure", Desmond retrieves the failsafe key he obtained from Inman and crawls underneath the hatch, saying he will "blow the dam". After he turns the key in the system termination switch, a shrill humming noise and violet-white light envelops the entire island, causing the Oceanic 815 survivors and

the Others alike on opposite sides of the island to bend in apparent pain. That night, Charlie is the only person to return from the hatch; the whereabouts of Desmond, Eko, and Locke are not revealed. Charlie reconnects with Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin
), and they kiss as they sit among their fellow plane survivors.

A local dock in Hawaii, as seen in "Live Together, Die Alone".

The survivors split up into two groups to head to the Others' camp.

monitoring hatch discovered in the episode "?" had never been read. Shortly after the discovery of the tube pile, they hear whispers, and suddenly Sawyer, Kate, and Jack are incapacitated by electric darts. The hostages, bound and gagged, are brought to a dock, where it appears that the Others are led by Henry Gale (Michael Emerson). Gale keeps his bargain with Michael, returning his son, Walt Lloyd (Malcolm David Kelley
), to him and giving them an old fishing boat with instructions to sail on a heading of 325 degrees until they are rescued. Michael threatens Henry that he could tell the outside world of the island's location. Henry responds by telling him that it wouldn't matter as they would not be able to find the island, should they return. He also gives Michael a counter-threat: if he did tell people of the island's location, people would know what he did to get his son back. Michael reluctantly accepts but asks who Henry and his people are, to which Henry responds "We're the good guys, Michael". Michael uses the boat to get him and Walt off the island. Hurley is then released and sent back to the other survivors with a message that they are to stay away from the Others' part of the island. As Hurley is let go, the other three captives are taken away.

Epilogue

The scene shifts to a cramped research station somewhere far from the island, in a polar climate; two Portuguese-speaking men who are playing chess are interrupted by an alert on a monitor displaying the message ">/ 7418880 Electromagnetic Anomaly Detected" (the number 7,418,880 being the product of the numbers, 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42). One of the men makes a frantic phone call that wakes up Penelope in the middle of the night, telling her, "I think we've found it."

Production

Michael Emerson was originally cast for three episodes, but his contract was later extended for five more episodes.

"Live Together, Die Alone" was the thirteenth episode of the series directed by Jack Bender. The episode was written by Damon Lindelof and Carlton Cuse, the ninth episode that the two had written together.

Due to being two hours long, more time went into shooting "Live Together, Die Alone" than most episodes. It was shot in 17 days by two separate crews. Several scenes had to be shortened or cut due to time constraints. One scene that was cut was: after it is revealed that Michael was a traitor, Sawyer wanted to go back to the camp, because he thought it would be stupid to keep following someone who lied to him.[2] In the past, Lost has had an issue with spoilers being leaked from the set, so for the production of "Live Together, Die Alone", the crew took extra steps to ensure secrecy of pivotal scenes. Alex Petrovitch, who played Henrik, recalled that when auditioning for his part "names, places, and circumstances (of his scene) were shifted so that you couldn’t link the scene to the show." Even other cast members were not told about Petrovitch's scene. Another measure used by the cast and crew to limit the release of spoilers was calling the final scene by the code name "Challah" instead of referencing anything in the scene.[2] However, the attempts to cover up the flashback scenes were less successful and a call sheet was leaked by Lost fan Ryan Ozawa onto the internet, detailing the full plotlines of Desmond's flashbacks, about a month before the episode aired.[3] It is in this episode that it is revealed that Henry Gale is in fact the leader of the Others.

Reception

"Live Together, Die Alone" received a 7.6 in the ages 18–49 demographic in the

Nielsen ratings. The episode was watched by 17.84 million viewers.[4]

"Live Together, Die Alone" has been generally well received. IGN's Eric Goldman praised actor Henry Ian Cusick (Desmond Hume) for giving "a likable, sympathetic performance". Goldman went on to say that the episode "was a much better finale than last season", and that it contained one of the "more interesting flashbacks of the entire season".[5] Entertainment Weekly writer Scott Brown described his viewing experience as "I was up, I was down, I was frustrated, I was thrilled, and finally I was...well, a bit numb."[6] Brown criticized the way Charlie reacted to the hatch explosion, stating that he felt the writers were trying to "get us to hate Charlie".[6]

Deathcore band, Veil of Maya have a song named "Namaste", in which the song's chorus has the lyric "Live together, die alone" referencing the episode. The song's breakdowns are also actually written in-key the series' mythic numbers (4 8 15 16 23 42).[7]

References

  1. ^ "Lost - Netflix". Netflix. Archived from the original on 8 March 2021. Retrieved 24 November 2017.
  2. ^
    About.com
    . Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  3. ^ Gibson, Brian (2006-04-24). "Spoiler Included". The Oregon Herald. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  4. ^ "LOST's Lost Viewers : (". TV by the Numbers. Archived from the original on 2008-07-03. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  5. ^ Goldman, Eric (2006-05-25). "Lost". IGN. Archived from the original on 2008-12-11. Retrieved 2008-07-25.
  6. ^ a b Brown, Scott (2006-05-25). "Live Together, Die Alone, Part 1 #223". Entertainment Weekly. Retrieved 2008-08-11.
  7. ^ "VEIL OF MAYA New Song based on LOST". Metal Injection. Archived from the original on 15 March 2012. Retrieved 23 March 2012.

External links

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