Live Together, Die Alone

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Synopsis

The episode begins with the group of funeral-goers being distracted by the appearance of a sailboat moving towards the shore. Jack, Sawyer, and Sayid swim to the vessel and pull pistols upon boarding. Closer inspection of the cabin door is met with gunfire, apparently from within the boat itself complete with bullets punching through the wooden cabin ending with the clicking of an empty magazine. The door is opened to reveal a drunk and otherwise surly Desmond, obviously upset about ending up back at the island (seeing the survivors confirms this).

Back at the camp, it is night. Kate quizzes Jack on what has happened: the other survivors want to know. Jack tells her to tell them that Desmond's back. Jack asks Desmond why he came back, and Desmond says he was trying to sail towards Fiji, and he should have been there in a week. However, the first piece of land encountered was not Fiji-it was the island. He states bitterly, "And you know why? Because 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."

In a flashback, Desmond is released from a military prison and dishonorably discharged from the British military. Outside, in a rainstorm, he is picked up in an automobile by Charles Widmore who is the father of Desmond's estranged girlfriend, Penelope. Mr. Widmore reveals that he has intercepted all of Desmond's letters to Penelope and that Penelope is to be married to another man, and offers Desmond a large sum of money to stay away from Penelope and just run away. The flashback ends.

Sayid proposes a plan to Jack involving the use of Desmond's sailboat for a flanking maneuver on the Others' camp. Sayid will scout the area before Michael's party arrives. He will then light a signal fire with black smoke when the coast is clear. He cautions Jack not to tell Michael that they know he is lying, and not to tell the others, either.

Locke finds Eko at the button and tries to convince Eko to let the timer run down. They debate the point as the four-minute warning begins to beep, Locke saying that pushing the button is nothing but a psychological experiment and Eko insisting it is important to continue pushing the button. They eventually come to blows when Locke attempts to smash the monitor. Eko throws him out of the room.

On the beach, Jack, Kate, Michael, Sawyer and Hurley meet to organize the meeting party, and depart on their trip across the island.

Sayid meets Desmond as he prepares to launch the sailboat. Sayid says that he doesn't know how to sail it. Desmond suggests he find someone who does. Later, we see Jin approaching Sayid and Sun, who are discussing things on the beach. In Korean, Sun tells Jin Sayid wants Jin's help with sailing the boat. Jin does not want to leave her, but she tells him that she is going with them.

In another flashback, Desmond ends up in the United States. He meets Libby (with a more conservative haircut or wig) in a coffee shop when he realizes that he has no American currency on him and she kindly offers to purchase his coffee for four dollars. He jokingly asks if she has $42,000 more. They sit and have a conversation where she asks Desmond why he needs the $42,000: he says he doesn't yet have a boat. She reacts with a start, and confesses to him to have been recently widowed and oddly, she offers him her deceased husband's boat, the Elizabeth, so that he can enter a race around the world sponsored by Charles Widmore himself, explaining that David, her husband, would have wanted it that way. Desmond thanks her and says, "I shall win this race for love." The flashback ends.

Midway on their hike to the meeting with the Others, Kate stops Sawyer from triggering one of Rousseau's traps. They discuss what Sawyer knows about Kate's getting caught in the net, and Sawyer realizes that Jack and Kate were literally "caught in a net" and did not have sex. Suddenly, a large green bird swoops down and squawks the word "Hurley", which disturbs Hugo. However, Sawyer is cynical and doubts that the bird was actually saying "Hurley". Michael tries to shoot at the bird, but he notices that his gun is empty. He questions Jack about it, and Jack says that he forgot to load it. Jack gives him a loaded clip for the pistol, but Michael is already suspicious.

Elsewhere, Locke is fighting with what he thought was the faith that would pull them all through this. After seeing the Pearl station for himself he cannot believe that the island was ever what he had perceived it as. Charlie comes across Locke weeping in the jungle and informs him of Desmond's return.

Jin and Sun tell Sayid they will accompany him on the sailboat. Desmond tells Claire the vaccine is useless as she prepares to give it to Aaron. They discuss the father of Claire's baby, which triggers the third flashback.

In the flashback, Desmond is preparing to run out in the stadium. Jack runs by in the background. Penelope is there waiting for Desmond, and she tells him she hasn't set a date yet for the marriage. Penelope asks Desmond what he is running from. He evades the question, answering "I have to get my honor back...and that's what I'm running to." The flashback ends as he runs away.

Desmond is drinking at night on the beach. Locke approaches and explains his lament to him along with the conviction that NOT pushing the button will have NO effect on anything. He describes the Pearl and we see appropriate clips from the Pearl Orentation Video. Desmond says "you're lying," and Locke shows him the tape cassette, and asks him to sober up and take a walk with him. He says that tomorrow they'll find out what happens when the button doesn't get pushed.

The meeting party is in the jungle at night. Sawyer offers food to Hurley but he declines. Michael is off by himself, and is accosted by Jack. Michael thanks him for coming with Michael to get Walt back. Jack replies, "Live together, die alone" - the title of the episode.

Out on the ocean, Sayid , Jin and Sun are sailing. Sun is sick over the side of the boat. Jin arrives and says she shouldn't have come on the boat with them. She tells him it's not seasickness. Jin says he knows. Sayid is searching the shore of the island, and sees what appears to be the remnants of a statue: a giant, foot in a sandal. Sayid comments "I don't know what is more disquieting - the fact that the rest of the statue is missing, or that it has 4 toes."

Eko is working in the hatch, carving on his stick. The lights flicker and he gets up to investigate, finding that a fuse has been removed from an circuit panel and crushed on the ground. He hears the lockdown countdown from the speakers and rushes back to the comouter. He does not make it, and we see that Desmond has triggered a false lockdown by manipulating wires to keep Eko out of the control room as Eko is set on entering the numbers. Eko pleads with Locke, and the fourth flashback begins.

There is a flashback of Desmond in a storm on the boat. He descends to the cabin and pulls out Our Mutual Friend, placing it in a ziploc bag and inside his garment before running up to the deck and getting knocked out. There is a blurry montage showing him washing up on shore and the blurry images of a man in a yellow HAZMAT suit that picked him up off the beach and brought him inside the Swan Station. The man is Kelvin who, then enlists Desmond as his Swan Station partner. Kelvin shows Desmond the orientation film. Desmond asks why there are missing parts in the video, and Kelvin replies that his partner Radzinski "made some edits." Kelvin shows Desmond a vial of "vaccine" and an injector, and admonishes Demsond to inject himself every 9 days.

Back on the island, Eko climbs out of the Quarantine hatch, (seeing the wrecked hatch and reading the QUARANTINE label) and heads into the jungle. He runs to the beach where Charlie is playing guitar. Eko asks Charlie how the Quarantine door was opened, and finds out that the castaways used dynamite. Eko enlists Charlie to help him get inside the control room.

In the jungle Hurley and Sawyer discuss the possible identity of the Others. Kate spots two people following them. She and Sawyer open fire and kill one. At this point Jack loses his cool and drops the plan that he and Sayid had agreed upon- to allow Michael to continue to feel as though he is in control and not to tell Sawyer, Kate, or Hurley of Michael's plan, and demands that Michael tell the group what is going on. Michael admits that the Others already know that they are coming and that he is the reason they know this. Michael further confesses that he did indeed kill Ana Lucia and Libby as a means of persuading the group to meet with the Others and to free Henry Gale as per the Others' demands. Hurley and Sawyer wish to head back upon hearing this shocking revelation, but Jack argues that they've gone too far to turn back, and that he wouldn't have brought them here anyway without a plan. Sawyer asks what the plan is.

Jin spots the rock formation with a hole in it that marks the Others' camp, and Sayid prepares to go ashore. In the hatch, Charlie and Eko enter the hatch. Charlie tries to get Eko to reconsider, but Eko is unyielding. Charlie warns Locke that Eko is going to attempt to blow the blast door open. Desmond is sure the door will hold, saying "It would take an atom bomb, brother. Tell him not to bother."

In another flashback, Desmond triggers a fake lockdown, but blocks the door to the control room with a cart, leaving enough space to duck under and access the control room and living space. Kelvin is painting the map seen by Locke in "Lockdown" with detergent. He then tells Desmond that his partner, Radzinski, was the one who had the idea to make the map and the one who figured out how to fake a lockdown. Kelvin also reveals that Radzinski killed himself with a shotgun. When Desmond asks if he can go outside, Kelvin replies apologetically that he must stay and push the button. Desmond claims he can handle himself, as he was in the army. Kelvin replies by saying that Desmond was kicked out because he "couldn't follow orders." Desmond asks Kelvin why he left his army, and Kelvin replies that he left because "men followed my [Kelvin's] orders." He also rues having joined the Dharma Initiative, mocking the polite and friendly tone heard in the Orientation Film.

Outside the blast door, Eko rigs the dynamite as Charlie pleads with both Locke and Eko. Eko shoves Charlie against a wall, rips off Charlie's belt, and throws it against the magnetic wall, saying "Is that a joke?". The fuse is lit; Eko braces himself against a wall, and Charlie attempts to run out, as it detonates with a huge explosion.

Desmond then has a flashback about a drunk Kelvin under the floor of the control room with a key and fail-safe lock marked "Caution: System Termination". Kelvin explains that behind the wall is as a source of electromagnetism, "geologically unique", stating also that the Incident was 'a leak'. "So now the charge builds up and every time we push the button it discharges it before it gets too big." Kelvin questions whether Desmond would have the guts to blow the Hatch up.

Inside the control room, Desmond comments that "I think your friends just blew themselves up, brother." The two talk, and Desmond asks Locke if "the reason you're letting that clock there run all the way down to the very last tick -- is it because you need to look down the barrel of a gun to find out what you really believe, John?" Locke replies that he "looked down the barrel of the gun and I believed. I thought it was my destiny to get into this place. And someone died -- a kid (Boone). Because he was stupid enough to believe that I knew what I was talking about. And the night that he died for nothing, I was sitting right up there, all alone, beating my hand bloody against that stupid door -- screaming to the heavens asking what I should do. And then a light went on. I thought it was a sign. But it wasn't a sign. Probably just you going to the bathroom." As Locke describes this, Desmond apparently remembers that night, as he has a look of recoginition on his face.

Sayid climbs to the Others' camp, and searches the huts, finding them all abandoned. He proceeds to open the Others' DHARMA station, The Door,and finds only a rock wall behind.

The meeting party stops when Kate sees a large mound of plastic containers in front of a tube protruding from the ground. Upon closer inspection we see that it is actually the pneumatic tube containers with the notebooks from the Pearl Station. Clearly, there are at least 2 or 3 years worth of notebooks that ended up in the middle of nowhere being the end of the pneumatic tube. Sawyer finds Locke's copy of the Blast Door map.

Jack sees black smoke of Sayid's signal, but miles away. He realizes that Michael has been leading them in the wrong direction. He confronts Michael about it and he admits that he was told to bring them here instead. They start to hear whispers from all around, clearly uttering the name "Elizabeth," and suddenly Sawyer is shot in the neck with a dart and hits the ground in a convulsive state. Hurley freezes, Michael stares around and Kate and Jack run for it. Kate is shot and then Jack. The Others appear and take the party captive with their mouths gagged and their heads covered with hoods.

Back in the hatch, Locke is insistent on NOT pushing the button as he believes that the purpose of the Swan is nothing more than a psychological experiment. Desmond in turn asks Locke if he's sure he doesn't have the theory backwards- maybe it is the Pearl Station that is the psychological experiment, not the Swan. Locke gives Desmond the printout from the Pearl station and Desmond frantically scrutinizes the logs.

In Desmond's flashback, Desmond notices that Kelvin's "quarantine suit" has a noticable hole while Kelvin is preparing to go outside. Thinking that he is being deceived, Desmond follows Kelvin outside the hatch. Desmond follows Kelvin, and sees him going to Desmon's sailboat. Kelvin reveals that he was going outside to repair Desmond's boat to leave, using the guise of an infection on the island as an excuse for keeping Desmond in the Swan and pushing the button once Kelvin left. Desmond becomes enraged upon seeing his boat and accidentally smashes Kelvin's head against a rock, killing him. He takes the fail safe key and sprints back to the hatch where the countdown has reached zero. The hieroglyphs have locked in on the timer. Alarms are sounding with the words "SYSTEM FAILURE" heard over and over, and the same phrase appears repeatedly on the monitor. Desmond desperately struggles to input the number sequence. The entire hatch appears to being trembling as though at the center of an earthquake, and everything metal is moving or flying towards the magnet wall area. He finally is given a prompt and enters the full sequence, causing the shaking to stop and the timer to reset.

In the present, Desmond asks Locke when they arrived on the island. When Locke replies "September 22nd". Desmond finds this date on the printout, listed as "922044:16", followed by the words "SYSTEM FAILURE" repeated many times. Desmond reasons that he caused Flight 815 to crash by not entering the numbers in time and causing a system failure.

The meeting party is walked down a pier among the Others. The pier has a "Pala Ferry" sign on the roof. The four survivors are made to kneel and their hoods are removed. Kate tells Mr. Friendly (through the gag in her mouth) that she knows that the beard is fake. Mr. Friendly does not understand, so Ms. Klugh says, "She says she knows the beard is fake, Tom.", accidentally revealing Mr. Friendly's first name. A relieved Mr. Friendly takes the fake beard off and mentions that it is itchy and uncomfortable. Annoyed that Ms, Klugh revealed his name, he reciprocates by revealing Ms Klugh's name, "Bea". She remains impassive. The same boat that was involved in Walt's kidnapping pulls up and "Henry Gale" gets off, barefoot. He greets the meeting party and asks Friendly why he is not wearing his beard in an authoritative tone and seems to be the one in charge here. He says to Michael, "Alright, let's take care of business, shall we?".

Charlie regains conciousness outside the door. He finds Eko lying unconcious and bloody nearby, and tries to wake Eko up. Inside, Locke is dubious and still believes that nothing will happen when the button isn't pushed. Desmond becomes frantic as the timer gets closer to zero. He tries to input the numbers but Locke smashes the computer monitor. Desmond panics, opens the blast doors, and bolts to the bookshelf, finding his copy of Our Mutual Friend.

Desmond has a flashback on the table in the Hatch, on which is a gun and a book. He finishes a bottle of alcohol, and opens the Dickens book. Upon opening "A Mutual Friend", an envelope falls out. It's a letter from Penelope that was written before he entered prison. It explains that she has hidden the letter in "the one place you would turn to in a moment of great desperation". She also writes "All we really need to survive is one person who truly loves us. And you have her. I will wait for you. Always. So far away from her, this enrages him and he starts to tear the room apart, despondent and suicidal, when suddenly he hears someone pounding on a wall and screaming. It was Locke, pounding on the hatch asking why Boone had to be killed. He looks up to the where the hatch is and flips a switch making the hatch window light up, placating Locke, and giving Desmond hope as he presumes a replacement is on the way.

The flashback ends and Desmond is frantically looking for the same book, as the hieroglyphics lock in and another system failure starts. Upon finding the book, he removes the fail safe key and runs for the trapdoor to get to the fail safe. He explains to Locke that he now knows that it was he who was pounding that one night that he had given up on life, thus saving his life, and now it is his turn to save Locke's life. Charlie manages to get Eko on his feet, but Eko brushes him aside as he goes into the control room, leaving Charlie to try to escape on his own. A despondent Locke ackowledges his cataclysmic mistake to Eko, stating simply, "I was wrong".

Back in the Basement, we see Desmond insert the key into the Failsafe. After pausing to think of Penny and her letter he speaks under his breath, "I love you, Penny". He turns the key and the screen fades to white.

The island is engulfed in a bright white/violet glow accompanied by a loud low droning sound causing Sayid's group, everyone at the dock, and everyone at the camp to cover their ears in pain. It lasts for several seconds and then slowly fades back to normal. Henry Gale is the only person seen here that isn't surprised by the Discharge. An object falls from the sky to the beach just missing Claire, Aaron, and Bernard. It is the hatch door that says "QUARANTINE". Charlie returns to camp, still partially deaf. Bernard asks where Locke and Eko are. Charlie seems surprised that they're not back yet.

At the dock, Henry Gale explains that Michael can leave on the boat, that Walt is aboard, and that Michael will find rescue if he holds a bearing of 325 degrees. Micheal asks Henry how he doesn't know he might tell people about where he was. Henry says "Maybe you will, maybe you won't. But it won't matter. Once you leave, you'll never be able to get back here. And my hunch is you won't say a word to anybody because if you do, people will find out what you did to get your son back."

Michael asks, "Who are you people?" to which Henry Gale replies genially, "We're the good guys, Michael". Michael and Walt leave in the boat, passing by the hostages. Hurley is also told that he can leave and that his job is to tell the people from his side of the island not to ever come to theirs. Jack silently encourages Hurley to go. What's left of the meeting party is given one last (possibly meaningful) look at each other before their heads are covered with hoods again.

Later that night, Claire asks Charlie what happened "out there", but he doesn't seem to take her seriously, stating, "Nothing happened". He appears to be surprised by the Discharge. After examinging a wound on Charlie's arm, Claire proceeds to kiss him. We see the Camp of Survivors preparing for the night, unbeknownst to them the full events of the day.

The scene suddenly switches to a landscape of snowy peaks in blizzard conditions. We come to focus on two Portuguese-speaking men in a small shelter with equipment and clothes hanging from lines. When playing a game of chess, one of them suddenly notices their computer beeping and a message on screen, reading ">\ 7418880 Electromagnetic Anomaly Detected". They seem to have witnessed it before, as one of them is shouting "That's it, isn't it? We missed it again" The other guy forces him to "make the call". He picks up a yellow telephone and dials a number.

We then see a bedroom table on which is a picture of Desmond and Penny. A woman awakes and picks up the phone and the researcher says "Miss Widmore. It's us...I think we found it." Miss Widmore, who we now see is Penelope Widmore.

Notes

Notes on the Pala Ferry Creature

After careful review of the "prisoner exchange" between the Others and Jack, Kate, and Sawyer there '''IS''' a split second scene of what seems to be a shark (possibly the one w/ the DHARMA logo) at the edge of the dock. The scene is located immediatley after Michael and Walt drive away on the boat while Jack, Kate, and Saywer look at them in discontent. The creature is located on the right side of the screen in the background. If in fact this is the shark, did the Others kill it? Why? Could it become significant along with DHARMA's Arrow Station? SOMEONE PLEASE FIND A GOOD SCREENCAP OR VIDEO OF THIS SHOT, THIS CREATURE DOES EXIST, WATCH THE FINALE VIDEO.

Notes on the Listening Station & its Inhabitants

At the end of the episode, one of the technicians says "We missed it again-". What he really said in portuguese was "A gente não percebeu de novo, eles vão matar a gente", which translates to "We didn't notice it again, they're going to kill us". Later, the other one says "SHUT UP AND MAKE THE CALL!", what he really said was "Cala a boca e chama ajuda" which translates to "Shut up and call for help". The somewhat odd choice of vocabulary - such as "não percebeu" (rather than, say, "perdeu" or "não viu") for "missed", and "chama ajuda" (rather than "pede ajuda" or "liga para...") for "make the call"/"call for help" - implies that the scene might not have been written by a native speaker. The actors' odd accent also implies they are not native speakers. This may not be a clue of any kind, and simply have been due to the possible difficulty of finding native Portuguese speakers to write/translate and act the scene.
- They use Brazilian Portuguese expressions like "a gente", with a bad accent.
- The speech for the left-side scientist is also gramatically wrong. "Esta ser a última vez que você vê um torre.", when the correct should be "Esta é a última vez que você vê uma torre." (And that is the last you shall see of your rook) This is very basic Portuguese and a mistake commonly made by non-latin-language speakers. Their accent is "American", since the actors are from the US (Alex Petrovitch and Len Cordova). As noted above it might be a mistake by the writer, the actor, or a deliberate mistake.

Also, this is hard to understand: if "the signal" is for the two guys so important to notice when it starts, why on earth is it connected to a discreet tiny red light and not to a 3,000 Watt stereo amplifier playing Marilyn Manson?

The message on screen, reading ">\ 7418880 Electromagnetic Anomaly Detected" is related with the numbers : 7418880=4x8x15x16x23x42

The Text of the terminal at the end of the episode reads:

Delivery Subsystem 550 requested action taken:
> Received: by 10.48.24.11 with SMTP id m12mr1134482afg;
> Received: by 10.29.34.1 with HTTP
> Message-ID: Subject: AUTOMATED TEST
> MIME-Version: 1.0
> Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable
> Content-Disposition: inline
>
AUTOMATED TEST -

1bbybby 77111790  ****systems normal**** 76555#722#0

zzzzzz330  7711345 ****system normal**** QX10022005#311

TEST COMPLETE

****************************************************

Delivery Subsystem 550 Requested action taken:
> Sent: by 10.28.224.18 with SMTP id m11mr1134484mfg;
> Sent: to 10.49.31.1 with HTTP

Electromagnetic

These seem to be fragments SMTP mail headers with private IP addresses (10.x.x.x), however the 550 status code usually indicates a problem, rather than success.

Notes on Desmond

When Desmond realizes it's Jack on his boat, he says, "You," which is what Jack says when he recognizes Desmond in Man of Science, Man of Faith.

There is a slight discrepancy between the way Desmond, as a character, acted in the episode where we see him meeting Jack for the first time, and his state of mind in this episode.

Desmond's full name, Desmond David Hume, constitutes an undisguised and obvious reference to 18th Century Scottish philosopher David Hume (1711-1776). Hume was influenced by the works of John Locke, and also a critic of some of Locke's theories, such as the people's consent of government, man in the state of nature, etc. Hume also believed that all reality was relative and might be a figment of one's imagination.

Notes on the Episode’s Title

Live Together, Die Alone is said by Jack in the episode "White Rabbit". Kate repeats it to him in the Season 2 premiere, "Man of Science, Man of Faith". It is a recurring theme in the show

Assorted Notes

While Michael, Hurley, Kate, Jack, and Sawyer are making their way to the Others camp, a large Bird of Prey startles them. The bird squawks "Hurley" (as read from the Captions).

A brief but prominent scene cut-away just before the system failure (while Charlie is attempting to revive Eko) reveals that a small portion of the sealed passage has been blown away by Eko's dynamite blast.

Pala is the name of a fictional Island in Aldous Huxley's "Island", a "utopian foil to his dystopian Brave New World". Source: Wikipedia

Bloopers

At the Pala Ferry scene when Alex is trying to pick up Kate, who has her hands tied behind her back and is gagged, Alex accidentally grabs Kate's breasts first. She quickly removes her hands from her breasts and you can see her smiling as she readjusts her hands.

At the beginning of the episode, just after the opening LOST title, when Kate is asking Jack what to tell people about the boat, the voices in the background are reversed.
- Voice 1: "How many people?" Voice 2: "How many people can fit on the boat?"
- The same audio can be heard just before the voices are reversed.

Unanswered Questions

Although it has been established that pushing the button serves an actual purpose (preventing the magnetic field from becoming too strong), we still do not know why the values are not (cannot be?) automatically entered by a mechanical device or computer program, rather than by human beings.

Theories

Regarding the Widmores (Both Penelope and Charles)…

Charles Widmore, or maybe Widmore Labs (or some company or conglomerate owned and/or run by Charles Widmore), supports the experiments run on the island by the Dharma Initiative. Charles Widmore sponsored the race around the world so as to get Desmond to end up on the island, maybe to get Desmond permanently away from Penelope. (Or, the race around the world might be a scam, a trap to get sailors to end up on the island to become part of the experiments). Penelope, knowing this, and knowing that the experiments involve electromagnetic disturbances, has people (at least the two Portuguese-speaking men at the final scene) on the look-out for electromagnetic disturbances which may help her find Desmond (she still has a picture of him by her bed).

When Penelope receives the phone call, her local time is 3:05am. We can safely assume that the phone call is indeed made from the listening station to her, so there probably is no time gap between the technician calling and Penelope answering. But now, provided that:
- The phone call scene takes place in the post-crash timeline,
- The magnetic disturbance that was picked up in the listening station was the one created by Desmond as he triggered the failsafe, or as the timer was allowed to reach zero,
- There is no serious time gap among all the above mentioned events
(cont.) we could assume that at the time of The Discharge, the time at Penelope's location is 3:05am, which indicates that it is dark at that place of the Earth. On the contrary, at the time of the discharge, there is still daylight on the island. Following some simple speculations, we could assume that it was noon time on the island (the party set off in the morning to meet the others, so they must have reached them about noon). Two possible theories can derive from this:

Penelope is located somewhere in the US (since she met Desmond at the stadium there). The survivors are located indeed close to the Fiji islands. In this case, there is no time difference which can explain the fact that while it is dark on Penelope's location, there is daylight on the island. Perhaps this ensures the theories about the island being isolated from the rest of the world.
Penelope is located near/in Scotland, since that is her love's pressumable origin. In that case, the time difference between the two places suffices to explain the light conditions (Scotland being on GMT during winter time [which is supposed to be at the given moment in the series] and Fiji being on GMT+12 -- that would set the time on the island around 3pm, which agrees with the light condition there).

Penelope's home was in Knightsbridge, London according to the letters written by Desmond. That would square with her being in the UK, although not in Scotland.
Penelope's phone rings using a European, most likely UK, chime (two oscillating trills). The phone appears to be an old-style (ie, cheap) BT model -- which doesn't really match her profile, but would make sense in terms of the show's production values, being filmed in Hawaii.

Regarding the Listening Station…

The Portuguese-speaking men are near the South Pole. While the North Pole tends to collect most of the electrically charged particles flowing around the earth (and would thus make for a perfect spot to monitor the earth's magnetic field and electrical/ionic behavior), this episode takes place during late December (September 22 plus 90 days), a time when the Arctic experiences darkness all day. The last scene of this episode, however, starts with an establishing shot of a snowstorm seen by daylight. It is also possible that the Portuguese-speaking men are on a high-altitude location, and/or on the northern hemisphere south of the Arctic Circle.

The scene with the Portuguese-speaking technicians in The Listening Station (and Penelope on the phone) is the first non-flashback scene that takes place off the island. This seems to confirm that the outside world is still there. It might also indicate that we will see more current events in the outside world in Season 3.
- There is also the possibility that those two technicians are located on the island as well, monitoring the electromagnetic activity on it.
  - However, there is no evidence of snow and ice on the the island.
  - The technicians didn't see the "violet light" or experience any vibrations like those on the island saw. (The vibrations would have made the chess pieces fall over)

As Penelope mentions, with money, you can find anyone. It is likely while searching for Desmond, she has found out about the Island and the DHARMA Initiative and knows how to get on and off the island. Since the only established way to get there is by letting the numbers run down, Penelope hired the Portuguese men to wait for this event so that a 'window' to the island could be opened allowing her to get there.

Regarding the Others…

Henry Gale asks Mr Friendly "Where's your beard?" in an authoritative tone, which substantiates the theory that Henry Gale is the leader of the Others (possibly even "Him", though he alluded against this in a previous episode -- however, he also said "He" would kill him for failing his mission, and in the season finale he was still very much alive (However, this could just as well be another one of his lies)).

Henry's instructions to Michael will lead him and Walt into a trap, where more of the Others' group will want to further study Walt.
- Then what is the point of misleading Michael and giving him the boat? Couldn't he have been "dealt with" right away?
  - Henry may have wanted the other four castaways - Hurley in particular - to believe that Michael and Walt "got away clean".

We can assume that Fake Henry Gale wished for the survivors to discontinue pushing the button, but not in his presence, since none of the effects seen in Live Together, Die Alone occurred while Locke was trapped beneath the blast door and the timer expired. Henry's story about not pushing the button doesn't mesh with what we now know about events surrounding the timer's expiration, indicating that he pushed the button, though his story was probably designed to get Locke to stop pushing the button once Henry had escaped.

File:Busted.png

The photo to the right (of Alex 'grabbing' Kate) shows two of the others on the right of the screen. These two others look very alike...maybe they are twins/clones?

Regarding the Statue and the Island’s History…

The four-toed Colossus statue may have been originally built by an ancient civilization - possibly very different from any other known civilization. So different in fact, that they may have followed a different evolutionary path altogether.....perhaps fueled by the electromagnetic source on the island?

The statue may have been built by a group of aboriginal people of the island. Jack found Adam and Eve who could be members of this native group. Though it's possible he would have noticed only 4 toes on their skeletons.

A battle may have occured on the island between factions of the original DHARMA Initiative personnel. The "bad guys" may have lost to "The Good Guys" / "The Others". This may explain the damaged statue, missing Hatch personnel, and the reference to "hostiles".

Regarding Libby…

Libby is Liddy Wales
- It seems logical, given the theories of Libby (or Elizabeth) being Liddy Wales, a higher-up at Hanso, that she was sent by Widmore or Hanso to give the boat to Desmond in order to provide a way for him to reach the island, whic explains why Libby "knows" that Desmond isn't joking when he mentions that he needs $42,000 to buy a boat.
- The revealing of her name as Elizabeth opens that possibility. Liddy is just as valid a nickname for her as Libby.

Regarding the Island itself…

Charles Widmore has a significant role in the activities on the island. The island is a modern day Philadelphia Experiment. Desmond said it was like being in a snowglobe. No one can get out of this magnetic field unless they know where the porthole is and no one from the outside can see the island. This is why they don't care if Michael and Walt leave. If they told anyone, they would never be able to find it, unless it was during a system failure. In its invisible state, it is a very convenient place to run top secret experiments. Penelope caught wind of Desmond being there, but could not get the location out of her father.
- Alternatively, the inability to get away from the Island is impaired by the fact that all compasses would be inaccurate due to the magnetic field, rather than the space around the island being impenetrable. (Even if this is the case, when Desmond sailed "due west," he could have used the sun as a navigational aid thus overcoming any compass difficulties.)

Desmond's two and a half weeks sailing at a (conservative) average of 4 knots corresponds to a travel distance of at least 2.5 * 7 * 24 * 4 = 1,680 nautical miles or 3,111 kilometers. If we assume that the "snow globe" is a sphere and that Desmond made the longest possible journey (a circumnavigation), the snow globe effect must still be at least 990 km in diameter. That would give it almost enough cross-sectional area to cover the states of Texas and Louisiana.
- If the "snow globe" was a hypersphere then Desmond's journey would have taken the form of a route along a four dimensional warp in the sphere. As such it should have been much longer than the three dimensional part an observer could see outside of the island. It’s possible a large localised gravitational source like a micro black hole might be able to bend space in such a way.
- The island is affected by a form of noneuclidean geometry.

The island may be an alternate reality bubble of sorts, intersecting the "real world" but virtually inaccessible from it except through certain points in space and time (or via holes in it's containment membrane). From that perspective, it could be a world of it's own (hence the often mentions of "saving the world", "destroying the world" etc.), influenced by the mind-states of it's inhabitants.
- Furthermore, the objective of Dharma's experiment could be to prove that collective mind can influence the reality, by applying it to a small (more managable), enclosed, controlled and self-sustained bubble of reality.
- The "button" could be a dead man switch that keeps the "world" running as long as there's someone to control the experiment.
- The fail-safe device would either: a) disable the containment, merging the bubble-world with the real-world; or b) erect a permanent "quarantine" field and closes off the access to real-world completely.
- People with strong will and character tend to affect the reality of the "bubble" more strongly (like Walt, who is also too unstable and thus a liability to the Others - that's why he is released). "Dark" personalities influence the reality one way, "light" personalities the other.
- The serum is a psychotropic substance that keeps the observers (experiment controllers) from affecting the reality and the experiment along with it. Once they stop taking it, they become a part of it - sucked fully into the Snowglobe reality.
  - This seems highly unlikley: if the island was in a bubble of 'alternate reality' then why would the magnetic anomaly have cause the crash of flight 815, and why would it register on instruments at the listening station when both were outside the "bubble"?
    - Because the barrier "separating" the alternate reality bubble from the "really real reality" (i.e. keeping the former from affecting the latter and vice versa) is hte magnetic anomaly.

Triangulation: The South Pole is magnetic. The North Pole is Magnetic. The Island Magnet are "charged" when the button isn't pressed - and become magnetic. The way to find the island is to utilise the distance from the South Pole to the North Pole - and then monitor for abnormal the magnetic activity. Once this appears - apply standard triangulation - if the distance from the North Pole to the South Pole is known - and a third variable is unknown - using the two known variables the third can be inferred - because a triangle must be 180 degrees. This is how mobile phones are tracked - the caller - the recipient - the tracker - triangulation, location, location location. The light in the sky is a phenomenon of Electromagnetism and doesn't really add to our understanding of the island. Magnetism and light share a special relationship - I was reading about this on Wikipedia - very strong magnetic pulses could "probably" (I'm no scientist but nor are the producers) change the nature of the surrounding light for a brief time - until it was cancelled. The magnets - most likely charged the dust particles of the sky - electromagnetism is/causes static electricity - and at the massive levels induced on the island this would make sense - fatboy
- I'm sorry, but that's completely implausible from the standpoint of even elementary physics... South Pole and North Pole aren't "magnetic". They are POLES of a MAGNET, magnet being Earth. Furthermore, it's very important to know that magnetic fields DON'T actually have any poles - Earth's north and south pole are purely imaginary entities in the sense of being points where the magnetic flux intersects with the general area of geometric poles of the Earth. Magnetic fields loop! They don't have a "beginning" and "end". The only atribute they have is orientation!
- Furthermore, "triangulation" doesn't have a thing to do with the "caller", "recipient" and "tracker". Triangulation works by detecting the direction from which an EM emission or sound is coming from two viewpoints and calculating the position of the emitter by intersecting the two directions.
- One more furthermore - the babble about static electricity, electromagnetism and "nature of surrounding light" at the end just makes no sense at all... nhf...

Regarding the DHARMA hatches…

When Sawyer, Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Michael find the pile of pneumatic tube containers, Sawyer finds the piece of paper with the blast door map drawn by Locke. Jack now has the map, and may use it in Season 3.

The pneumatic tube dumping on a clearing rather than sending the reports to some headquarters strongly implies that the people in The Pearl are the subjects of the psychological experiment, not the members of The Swan.
- It could also be that reports were dumped there for later easy pickup, but the post got deserted.
- There is no reason to assume that only one station is the target of such an experiment; the experiment, if any, may involve observations of both stations and their interactions and affects upon one another.
- The tube may go to another station where the notebooks are looked through and then sent to the dump to be removed from the island.
  - If the above were true then the map that Locke sent thru the pneumatic system would not have ended up on the pile of tubes/notebooks. There is no intermediate stop.

The "fake hatch" at the fake camp may correspond to the crossed-out facility on the Blast Door Map.
- See also Theories about The Door.

After Kate and Sawyer open fire against the two Others following Jack's group, Sawyer starts to cross the river with Kate next to him. As he crosses, there is a white ? underneath the root of a tree that seems painted against some kind of black box. Perhaps this is a reference to the "?" episode or perhaps this is similar to Eko's encounter in the hatch with Yemi. Look closely to the left here.
- It could just be part of a tree's root, however.
- If not, did the Others mark certain areas with symbols? (archelogical theme in Season 3); What was the ancient history of the island and its inhabitants?

Regarding the Discharge & Electromagnetism…

It could be that the phenomena observed during the fail safe activation were part of the failsafe mechanism itself.

It could also be that the sound and light experienced by everyone on the island was caused by the buildup and terminated by The Discharge; in fact, the character of it - the rising note, the hum - would suggest it really being so.

According to the timeline, it was 9 days after Desmond left the hatch that Jack forced Locke to decide between pushing the button or letting him in to the armory to stop Sayid. This is the first time the timer runs out and we see the red characters; this may have caused Desmond's boat to turn around and head back to the island.
- Compasses, which assumingly Desmond was using one to navigate, have always been affected by the magnetic power of the island.
- However the GPS devices are under normal cicumstances not influenced by magnetic field. Boat of a size of Desmond's boat usually have GPS's aboard and it's quite obvious that the boat had electrical power since Desmond was listening to music when Jack and the boarding party found him.
- One of the stipulations of the circumnavigation race could have been that GPS devices are not allowed.
- Compasses point towards magnetic North. If Desmond were sailing "due west," as he said, and his compass was affected by the island, he would have circled the island instead of returning to it.
- Desmond, an experienced sailor, would have noticed if malfunctioning compass pointing west did not point towards the sunset, which therefore precludes magnetic interference as the sole cause of his return to the island.

Regarding the Monster…

The smoke assumed to be Sayid's smoke signal from the Others camp may actually be the black smoke of the monster, from the other side of the island. This could explain the confusion when Michael is accused of leading them to the wrong place. This could also be one of the instances that we "see the monster" but dont realize it, as per the 5/26 ABC podcast. This also works because when we see Sayid, he's still on the boat and not on the beach where he should be.

Trivia

According to the May 26th Podcast, the crew started writing Live Together, Die Alone 4 weeks before airing. The episode was shot in 17 days with 2 simultaneous crews, and was finished just 5 days before airing.