On the Island, Hurley took initially uncertain but eventually resolute steps toward leadership, a move that is either going to be fatal or absolutely brilliant, as he has ushered almost all of Jacob's candidates into the camp of Team Smokey, where said creature is closer to getting all those he needs to get off the Island.
"Everybody Loves Hugo" intermixed absolutely tender moments, especially as Hurley meets Libby Smith again, with sudden eruptions of death and injury, more in the style of something on The Sopranos.
I still remember J.K. Rowling saying, as her Harry Potter series drew to an end, that readers should expect more deaths, including fan favorites, as the final good versus evil match approached. The death last night wasn't one of the core people, but I am guessing it is the beginning of a string of bucket kicks that may upset viewers, ending with whoever wins and takes possession of the Island.
Death and destruction were constantly in the shadows, both figuratively and literally, with the return of Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau).
Hurley, enjoying a tender moment alone with Libby, lays a bromeliad cutting on her grave. He tells his girl that he can talk to the dead and wishes she would appear. He hears those whispers that have echoed in castaway ears since Season 1. Instead he gets Michael.
When Hurley demands to know why Michael is there, he says, "I'm here to stop you from getting everyone killed!"
Hurley asks why should he trust the murderer of Libby, his beloved, and Ana-Lucia.
Michael: "People listen to you now."
In Sideways Los Angeles, Hurley is better known as Hugo and, like the others in this time track, has everything he had wanted -- wealth, good luck, esteem from the community.
Or so it seems. Even as he opens the Hugo Reyes Paleontology Wing of the Golden State Museum of Natural History and gets a nifty acrylic T-rex award -- from Dr. Pierre Chang! -- his mom scolds him later: "Another trophy. Every loves Hugo -- except women!"
Her solution? A blind date with Rosalita, the girl next door. Hurley consents and later waits and waits not at a Mr. Cluck's, but at a Mexican place called Spanish Johnny's. Rosalita never shows. Instead, Libby(Cynthia Watros) sits down at his table and introduces herself. It is obvious they feel a connection. She asks Hugo if she tells him something, will he think she's crazy. He gives her a chance, and Libby asks if he believes that two people could be connected, like soul mates.
"I guess," is his simple answer.
She looks at him strongly with recognition, which only puzzles him further. "You don't remember me, do you?" Libby says. And Hugo does not.
Dr. Brooks (Bruce Davidson), the psychiatrist from Santa Rosa Mental Institute, tells Hugo that Libby "just wandered off" and needs to go now.
"Everything I said, I meant it," she stresses. He watches as Libby is loaded with other patients into the Santa Rosa van to go back to the "bin."
Back on the Island at Camp Jacob, Richard and Ilana get organized to go to Hydra Island by nightfall, along with four sticks of dynamite Ilana fetched from the Black Rock. To Hurley, dynamite just is not a good idea.
"I have been training my entire life for this!" Ilana says.
"To blow stuff up?" says Hurley.
"To protect you."
"How is blowing up the plane protecting us?"
"With that plane gone, that thing won't be able to leave the Island."
Hurley logic back at her: "Neither will we, and we won't be able to leave, and we'll be stuck here with it, and it'll be mad at us."
Ilana repeats that she would follow Richard's counsel, and he said to blow up the plane. Just as she's ready to go, it's an abrupt exit that conjures up the last moments of Dr. Leslie Arzt in Season 1. With a bang and boom, Ilana is blown to bits by her backpack. Setback #1 of the night for Team Jacob.
(Later there is a Book Moment when Hurley rummages through Ilana's bag. I couldn't read the title, but other recaps indicate it was Fyodor Dostoyevsky's Notes from Underground, which is basically a rant or monologue by a retired Russian civil servant against western philosophy, and a look at free will versus determinism, which are exactly the two opposing views Jacob and the Man in Black have debated.)
At Camp Smokey, said monster in John Locke form carves a stick. An edgy Sawyer demands to know if the Smoke Man is going to do anything about getting Jin away from Team Widmore. Smokey brushes him aside and tells Kate and anyone else nearby that Priority One is to wait for Hugo, Sun and Jack to come.
Sayid returns to camp and asks for Smokey's ear in private. He takes him a short way into the jungle and to a tree, to which is tied one Desmond David Hume.
Back at Camp Jacob, Jack speculates that maybe Ilana died to teach everyone "to stay the hell away from dynamite." He repeats his vow to get Sun off the Island. Hurley seems to concede, and that right now Richard is right, going to Hydra is the only option they have.
In Sideways L.A., Hugo is at one of his own Mr. Cluck's and is customer number 38 (Lost Numbers 15 + 23 = 38). Though the cashier (Samm Levine of Freaks and Geeks) is exicited by the CEO himself showing up, Hugo is blase and asks for a family bucket to go and munch alone, as he eats when he is depressed.
Desmond shows up and and asks Hugo, "Have I seen you before?"
"Yeah, I own the place. ... Want a Cluckateer keychain?"
Desmond says he knows him from Flight 815 and joins him at the table. Hugo confesses that he met a girl on a blind date and "she's totally awesome, except for one thing -- she's crazy."
Desmond asks if he believes that, to which Hugo says, "Kind of." Desmond's advice: "Go with your gut. Try to find where you think you knew her from."
Desmond's number is called. "Number 42. That's me, brother. Nice bumping into you." (Another Lost Number, of course.)
Near Camp Smokey, the Man Monster apologizes to Desmond for tying him up, but they feared he might flee. "I have nowhere to run to, brother," the mellow Scot says.
"Well, if that's not the best argument against captivity I've ever heard, I don't know what is," says Smokey, cutting the man loose. He asks why Widmore brought him back to the Island.
Desmond recounts the kidnapping and the electromagnetic blasting in a shack between two doughnut coils. Smokey asks if he knows who he is, and Des says, "Of course, you're John Locke." Smokey orders Sayid back to camp and tells Desmond he wants to show him something.
Team Jacob is hiking along to the Black Rock to get more boom gear. Ben muses about Ilana: "There she was, hand picked by Jacob, trained to come and protect you candidates. No sooner does she tell you who you are, she was blown up. The Island was done with her. Makes me wonder what's going to happen when it's done with us."
As the high and dry slave ship comes into view, Richard says he will go alone, and only he will handle the dynamite. The others in Team Jacob notice that Hurley is missing, and originally he was at the front of the group.
"Go! Run! Run! Run!" screams the fastest moving full figured man you'll see on TV for some time, as he reappears. And for the second time in the episode, something blows up real good, as the aged ship goes up in a massive fireball and rains timbers down on all the fleeing folk. Setback #2 of the day for Team Jacob.
"Why the hell did you do that!" Richard cries at Hurley.
"I'm protecting you," he answers.
Richard is still stewing after the commercial break. Miles adds his own two cents: "A warning would have been nice, Hugo!"
"I did say, 'Run,' " he points out.
Miles wants to know for himself why Hurley destroyed the Black Rock. He explains that "dead people yell at him," and Michael yelled at him to get rid of the dynamite. At times he finds the dead more reliable than the living.
In Sideways L.A., Hugo goes to Santa Rosa, where Dr. Brooks thinks it is not a good idea for him to visit Libby, due to her delusions. What about visits from family, asks Hurley. Or maybe a generous donation?
He opens his checkbook. "The rec room looked pretty gnarly when I came in. I wonder what 100K might buy."
In the same gnarly rec room, patients are wandering about, and one is playing with a Connect Four game (which was Leonard the inmate's favorite in the Island timeline). Libby tells Hugo when she saw him in a Mr. Cluck's TV commercial, it "was like I was hit over the head, all these memories came back." They were memories from another life, one involving a plane crash and an Island, and Hugo was there too. She also remembered being at Santa Rosa, and Hugo was a patient.
He still can't remember her, but he concedes, "We all got something, right? I mean, it takes a lot of guts to go up to a total stranger and tell them you know them from some bizarro alternate universe. I'm too shy to even go up and talk to a girl."
Libby is voluntarily committed, so Hugo asks her to get a day pass, so they can go on a date.
Back on the Island, Team Jacob is about to fracture. Ben and Miles decide to join Richard and go to Dharmaville to get more explosives. Hurley is resolute they must go and talk to the Smoke Man, and that Jacob told him he must do so. Richard challenges him -- if Jacob is there, ask him and repeat the answer to "Why are we on the Island?"
"I don't have to prove anything to you, Richard," Hurley says. "Either you can come with me, or you can keep trying to blow stuff up. Your call, dude."
Jack, Frank and Sun decide to go with Hurley to parley with the Smoke Man. While traipsing through the jungle, Jack says he chose the new Team Hurley, because he has been trying to fix things since Juiet died. He realizes now that he cannot fix things and wonders if maybe he should let go. Hugo says, what if letting go would get them all killed. Hurley confesses that was bluffing with Richard, and Jacob wasn't really there, but he needed to get everyone's attention and support to get to Smokey.
The whisper of voices echo again through the greenery. Michael appears and answers another Lost Question for fans: the whispers are ghosts of people on the Island who can't move on. He points out the firelight at Camp Smokey.
"Is there anything I can do to help you?" Hurley says.
"Don't get yourself killed ... If you ever see Libby again, tell her I'm very sorry."
"I'll be sure and do that, dude."
In Sideways L.A. Hugo has a beachfront picnic with Libby, along with six different kinds of cheese. Libby confesses that being with him is like the date they never had. (Indeed it was: had not Michael shot Ana-Lucia and her, they were supposed to go have lunch on the Island beach.) She wants to know why he wants to be with her, and to Hugo it's simple -- he likes her.
Libby kisses Hugo, and -- flashes of them having good times on the Island together, his Moment of Revelation. Hugo's eyes go all wide. "I think I'm remembering stuff," he says, genuinely amazed. He tells Libby that he doesn't think she is crazy after all.
Desmond has been watching the entire time from his car and quietly drives away. Mission accomplished -- Hugo knows about his Island life...
As the Smoke Man and Des hike through the jungle, young Kenton Duty reappears as the mysterious Boy of the Jungle (alias Jacob Junior?). Desmond wants to know who he is, and Smokey gruffly says to just ignore him. As the Scot and the disgruntled monster turn to go, the Boy grins widely at them.
On the Island, Smokey takes Desmond to a well and asks him how deep it is. He tosses a torch in to show that it goes quite far down into the earth. He next asks Des how old he thinks the well is, to which the Scot says, "Very old."
Smokey says that is correct, and the well is so old that it had to be excavated entirely by hand. The ancient people weren't digging for water, but for answers. The Island was one of a number of places on earth where compass needles spin, so they dug to find out why.
In contrast, says the Smoke Man, Charles Widmore is not after answers but power. The well is not the only one on the Island.
"Why aren't you afraid?" Smokey demands. "You're out here in the middle of the jungle with me, and not a person on earth knows you're here. Why aren't you afraid?"
"What is the point of being afraid?" Desmond says.
Smokey responds by grabbing Desmond and hurling him down the the Deep Well of Answers, a move as sudden as when poor John Locke was grasped and tossed out a penthouse apartment window by his own father.
Smokey returns to camp, where Sayid asks how Desmond is. The Man Monster says they won't have to worry about him anymore. Sawyer wants to know the creature's whereabouts, to which he says, "I went for a walk, James."
Sawyer starts to question him again, only interrupt himself with his characteristic "Son of a bitch!" to a startling new situation.
Hurley strolls into Camp Smokey with a torch. "Um, hey."
"Hello, Hugo," greets the Smoke Man.
"I don't know who you are or what you want, but we have to talk to you." Hurley says he comes in peace, nothing wanting anyone to do anything, and suggests a setting aside of weapons to avoid anyone getting hurt or killed.
Smokey hands his knife to Hurley and says, "You have my word." A quick shot of Team Smokey shows just about everyone with a gun.
Frank, Sun and Jack are invited into the camp, and Smokey particularly addresses his greeting to a stunned Jack.
In Sideways L.A., Desmond is parked and watching John Locke wheel himself across the parking lot at the high school where he's a substitute. Ben Linus knocks on the car window and wants to know why he's been sitting there for so long watching the kids. Desmond claims he just moved to the neighborhood and was checking out schools for his kid.
When Ben wants to know the child's name, Des says "Charlie." The bespectacled European history teacher says he can vouch for the excellence of the the school and walks away.
Desmond again looks at Locke's labors to get to his van. He puts the sedan into gear, speeds up -- and plows right into Locke, who flies out of his wheelchair and clear over the top of Desmond's car and onto the pavement. The Scot takes off and leaves the bloodied Locke.
Ben cries out for someone to call 911. He asks Locke if he can hear him, but the substitute looks oddly dreamy eyed and happy ... as if he is in another world.
Boom sound, fade to black with white LOST title.
End notes...
--Well, it looks as if in Sideways Los Angeles that the St. Sebastian Hospital is going to be a hotbed of characters' lives intersecting, probably in the next couple weeks. Claire is getting care for her pregnancy. Kate was hurt in her flight from Sawyer and the other cops and needs treatment. Sun was gut shot, and Jin has rushed her there. John is a hit and run victim via Desmond and will probably be accompanied by Ben as he is sent there. Not to mention that Jack will attend to John, Evan Goodspeed and possibly Juliet Burke, are assigned to Claire. Interesting to find out how other characters may end up at the place.
The Golden State Museum will mean other character connections as Charlotte Lewis and Pierre Chang work there, and Daniel has a crush on Charlotte. Also Sawyer will be there, for some reason.
Rose already has shown up as a job counselor to John, and Bernard will be back in a dental way
--In previews for Episode 13, "The Last Recruit," there seems to be evidence that Desmond did not die in that tumble down the well. At least two shots showed him sitting up and looking at people.
The accompanying music was familiar, and at first I couldn't identify it, but then memories of 1972 came flooding back of a 10-year-old me and my mom at a second-run movie theater watching Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, released a year earlier. I plugged the song lyrics into Google, and found out the preview music was "The Wondrous Boat Song," sung by Gene Wilder, as the Golden Ticket owners and guardians enter a psychedelic tunnel on Wonka's little boat, powered by Oopma Loompas:
There's no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going
There's no knowing where we're rowing
Or which way the river's flowing
Is it raining, is it snowing
Is a hurricane a-blowing
Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing
Are the fires of Hell a-glowing
Is the grisly reaper mowing
Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they're certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing
--I don't normally notice the ads, but one had Evangeline Lilly, that sometimes reviled-by-fans Kate, hawking L'Oreal Everstrong shampoo.
Also, comic book legend Stan Lee (Spider-Man, X-Men, etc.) is known to have cameos in movies based on his characters, or in films by comic fanboys like Kevin Smith. Old Stan did it again, but on the little screen in a Dr Pepper tie-in for Iron Man 2. He and a younger guy are janitors at Stark Industries and are cleaning Tony's office. The corporate computer thinks the young man is Tony, and asks what he desires. "Suit me up?" the boys says, and Lee watches without a word as the kid gets encased not in an Iron Man suit, but a Dr Pepper vending machine. At first the kid is upset, but then opens a can inside and says, "I'm good." Stan quietly dusts Iron Man suits in the background.
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