While Season One of Lost spent a good amount of time leading viewers to believe the island had some sort of spiritual significance, the second season wasted very little time in letting us know the island was something very, very different. Season two opens to the sound of an alarm going off and a man moves to a computer to enter something. We follow him through a morning routine of doing dishes, brushing teeth, exercising, until he’s interrupted by a blast. It’s our Castaways blowing open the hatch. Someone is inside, and has been there for quite some time if his psyche is any indication.
The man in the hatch is Desmond and he’s been shipwrecked on the island for some number of years. He’s been pushing a button every 108 minutes to “save the world” according to him. Inside the hatch are all the comforts of life, including a stocked pantry all marked with a logo, later discovered to be the logo of the DHAMA Initiative. Locke, emissary of the Island, decides this button is his destiny, which is why the island led him there. But, while the hatch and the button are the first indicators that the island isn’t something spiritual, it certainly wouldn’t be the last, and it also wouldn’t be the first misconception cleared up by the season’s end.
As for our raft group, they are adrift. Jin has gone missing, Walt’s been kidnapped, and Michael and Sawyer are left together to bicker and place blame on one another. They are attacked by a shark. The shark is revealed to have a similar logo to the one we saw in the station on its tail.
The raft eventually drifts to the north shore of the island where we find more survivors of Oceanic Flight 815. We discover that 22 other people survived the crash. But, while the other survivors have been having spiritual experiences and running from the smoke monster, these people have been terrorized by the Others. On the first night, the Others invade the camp, kidnapping three people. Two of them are beaten to death by a new character, Mr. Eko. Later, nine other people are taken, including Zack and Emma, the two children survivors of the plane, leading people to wonder what, exactly, the Others’ obsession is with children. Emma carries a teddy bear later seen when the Others are walking through the woods, but we don’t see who’s carrying it. During the second attack, Ana-Lucia manages to kill one of them, finding a list with the names of the people who had been taken on it. How did they know their names?
Characters
New Characters
Desmond: Desmond is the man they discover in the hatch. He’s been inside the hatch pushing the button for years. We discover that Jack ran into him once a long time ago. While on a race around the world sponsored by his love’s father, Charles Widmore, his boat crashes into the island. He is rescued and put into the hatch (which he is led to believe is quarantined from the island) to push the button. Desmond is horrified when he breaks the computer after he’s discovered by the castaways and runs off only to reappear in the final episode. There, we discover that he failed to push the button on time and caused a System Failure on September 22nd. From the flashback, we see the system failure is some huge electromagnetic event and Desmond realizes he’s the reason the plane crashed on the island.
Henry Gale: Not really his name, but the name he claims when the survivors find him trapped in Danielle Rousseau’s net. Henry claims to have crashed on the island trying to fly a hot air balloon around the world. After the crash, his wife got sick and died so he buries her near the balloon. Initially, his story seems to check out. The balloon and grave are found, only Sayid doesn’t quite trust him. He digs up the grave to discover Henry Gale’s body, only Henry Gale is a black man from Minnesota. Instrumental in the story, Henry is the reason Michael is returned to the camp and turns on our Castaways. At season’s end, he appears to be the leaders of the Others currently on the island.
Penelope Widmore: The love of Desmond’s life. She has found Desmond once before after he got out of prison and she appears to be looking for him again. The end of season one, people she’s connected to detect the failsafe event and are able to track it down. They call her and tell her. Is she looking for Desmond or is she looking for the Island? Either way, how does she know what to look for?
The Tail Section Major Characters
Ana-Lucia Cortez: An ex-cop who was on the island as a bodyguard for Christian Shephard (Jack’s father). She was shot while on duty in Los Angeles and later refused to identify the man who shot her. Later, she tracked him to a bar and killed him herself. She left the force after this. Ana-Lucia has obvious trust issues after this and seems to have your typical cop attitude. Everyone is a suspect until she decides otherwise. She is the de-facto leader of the tail section people as she naturally took charge. Sadly, when she finally gets over her trust issues and hands a gun over to Michael, he uses the gun to kill her. In credit to the actress, the look of disbelief and horror on Ana-Lucia’s face as Michael turns the gun on her communicates more of Ana-Lucia’s emotion than the entire season did. While Ana-Lucia was bodyguarding Christian, we find out that he has a daughter in Australia. Since the woman he was arguing with had blonde curly hair, people have theorized that Claire and Jack are half-siblings. The DVD of Season 2 seems to support this as Claire, Jack, and Christian are said to all have a relationship with a mysterious figure.
Libby: One of the more fascinating characters on the show. We don’t know what Libby was doing in Australia or really anything about her. We know that she was in the mental institution with Hurley. We know she was married to a rich man who died. We know that she is the person who gave Desmond the boat he later crashed into the island. Just as all these stories are coming to the forefront, she walks in on Michael killing Ana-Lucia and is shot. She dies hours later unable to communicate to the group that Michael was the one who did the shooting. Libby seems like an incredibly complex and connected character and I’d be shocked if much more of her story isn’t told in flashback. Since it probably won’t be in any of the current character’s flashbacks (other than possibly Desmond) we will probably find out about her through Penelope or even one of the Others.
Mr Eko: A drug smuggler turned priest when his brother is killed. Eko was drafted by criminals at a young age, killing a man so his brother wouldn’t have to. Later in life, he strong-arms his brother into ordaining him so they can fly a shipment of drugs out of the country. We soon find out that this plane is the same plane we were introduced to in Season One, complete with the body of Eko’s brother inside. He was in Australia to investigate a miracle for the church, the miracle of Claire’s psychic’s daughter coming back to life on the autopsy table.
Cindy: A character who has a more theories surrounding her than minutes of screen time. She claims to be a stewardess who was serving passengers when the plane went down. She survives the crash (and is the tail section’s version of the pilot, telling the survivors they crashed far off course) and is instrumental in fingering the wrong person as a spy in the camp. She claims to have a photographic memory when it comes to faces and is positive the spy wasn’t on the plane. We find out later she was wrong. If she does have this photographic memory, why doesn’t she recognize Jin, Sawyer, or Michael when they later meet up? Cindy mysteriously vanishes on the walk across the island and isn’t heard from again. Was she kidnapped like the rest of the tail section survivors, or was she a second spy? Does she vanish because she doesn’t want to travel into the security system’s territory?
The Tail Section Minor Characters
Bernard Nadler: Rose’s husband, who was in the tail section’s bathroom when the plane went down. There’s really not much more useful to say about Bernard as he’s more ancillary to Rose’s story.
Nathan: We didn’t learn much about Nathan other than he liked to take long bathroom breaks in the woods. This tendency gets him marked as a spy and thrown into Ana-Lucia’s pit prison. He is eventually released and killed by Goodwin.
Goodwin: Much like Ethan, Goodwin infiltrated the tail section survivors’ camp, presumably to observe. Ana-Lucia eventually figures this out while they’re alone together. We find out that the Others have been systematically taking the strong people, and introduces a recurring phrase we hear throughout the season when we find out he killed Nathan because he wasn’t a “good person.” The children are in a better place, he tells Ana-Lucia. They eventually scuffle and he’s killed when he falls onto a spike. This seems to suggest a pattern. Both camps were infiltrated very soon after the crash by one of the Others. We don’t see Ethan after the crash, but we know Goodwin is there almost immediately. Did the Others send spies after they saw the plane come down or did they know the plane was going to come down? By the end of the season, we’re pretty sure we know at least one of these two choices isn’t right.
Developments for Last Season’s Characters
This is already starting to go long, so I’ll just cover the major developments.
Shannon: Well, we followed Shannon’s move from annoying character to saved character. When she reached her redemption, she was accidently shot and killed by Ana-Lucia. (It should also be noted, women who have sex on the island seem to be shot shortly after). Shannon was asked to take care of Vincent, Walt’s dog. She then started seeing him in the woods. Was it Shannon’s psychic ability or Walt’s? Regardless, she’s dead.
Michael and Walt: After Walt was kidnapped by the Others, Michael kind of lost his mind. Call it overcompensation for never being there before. Michael twice goes off after Walt on his own. The first time, Jin and Eko are able to coax him back. The second time, he is captured by the Others (leading to the first major confrontation). When he appears back in the camp (with orders to free Henry Gale and collect Jack, Sawyer, Kate, and Hurley) he kills Ana-Lucia and Libby while freeing Henry. He then convinces the four people to assist him in freeing his son. Sayid informs Jack that Michael is compromised and they try to plan around him. They fail, and the four are captured as the season closes.
Christian Shephard: Is connected to a ton of these characters in one way or another. He went to Australia to visit a daughter we, until then, didn’t know he had. It seems like there’s many more places to go with Dr Shephard the senior.
The Island
The Swan Hatch
When the castaways go down in the hatch, they discovered something they weren’t expecting to find. Primarily, a man named Desmond and technology straight out of the 1980s. There’s a fully stocked pantry with food supplied by the DHARMA Initiative. We discover very little about what the Initiative is, a little of which is contained on an Orientation video. The video says the computer must only be used to enter the code and reset the timer. This is done to prevent another “incident.” The incident isn’t described, but we know that the button must be pushed to prevent another one. The hatch has all the comforts of home, a geodome, and blast doors. The exits from the hatched are marked with a QUARANTINE label, another reference to the sickness that is apparent, or someone wants people to think is apparent, on the island.
Locke, assuming this is what the island wants of him, takes over Desmond’s role of main button pusher. He firsts questions this resolve when Henry Gale is imprisoned in the hatch. While Henry is imprisoned, a lockdown is somehow triggered. The blast doors come down to reveal a rough map of the island with many of the DHARMA’s other outposts around the island sketched out. The lockdown prevents Locke from pushing the button, but not Henry. Henry goes into the geodome to enter the numbers but later tells Locke the buttons are a joke. He didn’t do anything in there. Yet, after he leaves the dome, not only is the lockdown event ended, but we find out there had been a supply drop on the surface. Palettes of DHARMA Initiative food had been parachuted onto the island, but no one heard a plane. Henry would later reveal he had come to the hatch to find John Locke, because John was one of the “good” ones,
What exactly does the button prevent? All we know at first is there’s an enormous amount of magnetic energy coming from behind a ten-foot thick, concrete wall. From Desmond’s flashbacks, we find out that if the button isn’t pushed, that magnetic energy increases, drawing everything in the hatch toward the concrete wall. We also discover, via Desmond putting two and two together, that the day he waited too long to press the button was the same day the plane crashed on the island. Was the magnetic energy generated by whatever’s behind the wall enough to crash a plane in such a short amount of time? If so, what affect will all the energy released by Desmond at the end of the season have? And why does Henry, if the Others are part of the DHARMA Initiative, want the button pushing to cease?
The Arrow Hatch
This is the hatch discovered by the tail section folks where they are able to hunker down to hide from the Others. This hatch isn’t as well stocked as the Swan hatch. In fact, inside there is only a metal box. Inside is a glass eye, a bible with a piece of the Swan Orientation film in it, and a two-way radio which Bernard uses to make contact with Boone in season one right before Boone’s death. We don’t learn much about the Arrow hatch, only that it has the same Quarantine label on the door.
The Staff Hatch
They use Claire’s flashback episode in season two to fill in the two weeks she was missing in season one. Ethan took Claire to what seems to be a fully stocked medical facility where he, and a team of doctors, examined her and her baby. Apparently, the goal was to forcibly deliver Claire’s baby and then dispose of Claire. The hatch had a fully stocked nursery and a fully stocked operating room used to vaccinate Claire’s baby against something. There’s a side of Ethan that isn’t the hang a guy from a tree by the throat maniac, as he was apparently enamored with Claire. We are also introduced to Alex, who was the girl kidnapped from Danielle Rousseau all those years ago, she helps Claire escape. Which leads to the question: where did the Others keep her for all those years and, since she seems to be uncomfortable with what they’re doing, why does she stay with them?
In the same episode, Claire, Kate, and Rousseau return to the Staff Hatch only about 40 days later to find it abandoned. All the vaccine and medical equipment is gone and so is the nursery, save for a bootie Claire herself knitted. Kate finds a locker room, full of tattered clothes, a fake beard, and DHARMA Initiative brand theatrical glue; implying the Others are members of, or at least related to, the DHARMA Initiative.
The Pearl Hatch
The ? hatch, identified in another Orientation video as The Pearl. The Pearl appears to be a viewing station where people can watch what’s going on in, at least, the Swan. When Locke and Eko enter, there is a still smoking cigarette on a table and the station being watched is the Swan hatch. (Not nearly enough is made of this by the characters, in my opinion. They enter a hatch that someone has obviously been in as recently as when they opened the door, indicated by the still lit cigarette. Not only this, but whoever it was has obviously been watching what’s going on in their station”¦ which means they knew Henry Gale was in there. Not only do they never mention this to anyone else, they don’t even seem to treat it as that big a deal).
There is also a computer and printer in this station allowing people to print a log. This log records when, and at what time, the numbers were entered at the Swan (and maybe elsewhere). Desmond uses this log to coordinate his system failure with the plane crash. Also in this station is a pneumatic tube (think bank drive-thru) where the people monitoring the stations are supposed to send their observations. In the season finale, we find these capsules have all been going to a random dump, furthering Desmond’s theory that the people in the Pearl were the subject of an experiment, and not the people in the Swan. Due to the events that occurred in the season finale, that part seems right.
There is decent-sized group of people who don’t believe the giant ? on the blast-door map is the Pearl since the person who drew the map labeled CVIV as the Pearl and labeled the ? as “Designation Unknown” and “Relationship to DIHG Unknown.” I present that if it were true that the Pearl is a viewing station, the people in the Swan wouldn’t know the exact location of it. Instead, they probably found the giant ? on the ground, labeled it on their map, and marked that they had no idea what it was.
The Monster
One of the first things I noticed on the episode that recapped the first 48 days of the tail section people was they were never bothered by the Monster. Whereas the smoke monster hassles the season one folks from the first episode, the tail section people never encounter it until Eko sees it when looking for the drug plane. This makes me believe the monster only has a certain range. It also furthers the theory that the monster isn’t really even a monster, but some kind of psychic technology. We know that the Others are interested in Walt because of the psychic abilities he displays and when Eko sees the smoke monster, you see flashes of his past in it. The monster obviously operates within some kind of parameters to determine whether or not a person needs to be eliminated. The Pilot failed the test, Locke and Eko did not.
People also use the smoke monster as the source of people finding their past on the island. There is a theory that the smoke monster, as a psychic technology, can take the shape of something out of your mind. This explains how Kate saw the black horse on the island, how Walt created a polar bear, Sawyer hearing quotes from the man he killed, Hurley seeing Dave, and many of the other oddities on the island. They also use it to explain the whispers, though I believe it’s a psychic echo from the Others.
It should also be noted, in season one, the monster tried to drag Locke down a hole. If you look at where the Blast Door Map indicates the sitting location of the Black Rock. People always assumed the monster was trying to attack Locke, but I think it’s possible the monster was trying to show him something”¦ possibly CV4?
From Here?
The season closed after the failsafe event was triggered. Desmond triggered this to save everyone on the island after Locke disabled the computer, creating another incident. The failsafe event seemed to trigger a massive discharge of electromagnetic energy (detected in some far off, snowy country, by men hired by Penelope). Henry Gale seems unfazed by this and it seems to be what he’d wanted, after telling Locke the button was a joke. At the end of the season, the survival status of Locke, Eko, and Desmond is unknown. Jack, Kate, and Sawyer were all in the custody of the Others.
We have a working theory on what caused the plane crash, the magnetic event created by the system failure was powerful enough to rip the plane in half. This seems to invalidate any theories saying the people on the plane were carefully selected and brought to the island on purpose. We discovered that island not only cures paralysis, but cures cancer, too. Rose, the black woman who Jack saved with CPR in the pilot, had cancer before the crash. Now, she can feel it’s gone. Sawyer and Locke heal from a bullet wound and a blast door spike through the leg, respectively, in mere days (although, granted, this could be poetic license to get important characters off the shelf quickly).
At the end of the season we’ve discovered that the island really isn’t a spiritual place at all. Most of it appears to be a carefully controlled experiment that our castaways either interrupted or were inserted into.
This has gotten way too long, so I’m going to cut it off here. All I know, is I can’t wait for tomorrow, and I’m sure I’m not the only one.
