Lost Re-view: Everybody Hates Hugo

The first three episodes of Lost's second season played out a bit like a trilogy, in that they were primarily about setting up the story of the Swan station, and shared repeated content in each episode. This fourth episode thus felt like the first "stand-alone" episode of the season (to whatever degree Lost can manage such a thing.) It was written by staff writers and regular collaborators Edward Kitsis and Adam Horowitz. Alan Taylor directed, working on the series for this one and only time.

It's a Hurley-centric story that serves up flashbacks about his lottery winnings. They're a parallel for the on-Island discovery of a massive food stash he's tasked with "guarding" from the group. In principle, it's not a bad allegory: on the Island, one can of food is as valuable as millions in the "real world." But in practice, this comparison isn't quite perfect.

First of all, Hurley has never been portrayed as stingy with anything to this point in the show. He's forthcoming with his thoughts, his feelings, his support, his money... everything. So now we're asked to assimilate retroactively that he had a hard time with his lottery winnings (beyond the curse of the numbers) -- that once-friends were coming to him for money, and that this changed everything. The same Hurley that talked about using the money to help his sick grandfather, who bought a house for his mother, and seemed in no danger of exhausting his $160 million windfall. That's a tough sell.

What's tougher still is that this idea isn't really what the flashbacks in this episode show us. The scenes from Hurley's past pick up at the moment he finds out he won, and carry through over the next 24 hour period. He quits his job at the Chicken Shack and has a "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" kind of day with his best buddy. He finally asks a girl out that he's been crushing on for ages. He specifically voices the concern that things will change once he reveals his lottery winnings... but none of that has actually happened yet.

Now given Hurley's behavior on the Island in this episode, we can assume that everything he feared did come to pass. People did treat him differently because of the money. He did lose his best friend. But wouldn't a more effective set of flashbacks have shown us all these problems in his life rather than the possibility that it would happen?

Despite these flaws, the flashbacks are at least entertaining. For starters, they're centered on Hurley, always a very likeable and entertaining character (ironic episode title notwithstanding). DJ Qualls gives a fun performance as his friend. And we get a couple of fun connections in the pasts of the characters -- one when Hurley and his friend mock the Drive Shaft CD they discover in the "One Hit Wonders" section of a local music store; the other when the overbearing boss that torments Hurley at the Chicken Shack turns out to be Randy, the very same man who would later become Locke's supervisor at the box company. (The man loves picking on the obese and paraplegics. What a guy!)

One last observation about the flashbacks before I move on. The series tries out a new technique in presenting them for the very first time. (At the moment, I can't recall if it was ever repeated later.) After following the typical "scene in the present / scene in the past" structure for most of the hour, the dramatic climax of the episode (which has Hurley breaking down in the Swan pantry to Rose) is intercut with Hurley's final flashback (his friend learning about the lottery win) all within the same scene. One camera cut is the present, the next the past. Dialogue that Hurley is speaking to Rose plays over the slow-motion silence of Hurley's past. It works fairly well, though is a little more "on the nose" than Lost usually tends to be about its storytelling.

So, about that Island story. It makes good use of Hurley. He's the character who normally has an easygoing and fun relationship with nearly all the other characters, and this episode puts him in lots of short scenes with most of them. With Kate, he's uncertain and depressed about the button-pushing, and she takes on his typical "bright side" role, noting that it's just good to have a job again. With Charlie, we see the friction in a normally care-free relationship, as Hurley tries to keep the secret of what's inside the hatch. With Locke, he has an argument about whether change itself is a good or bad thing, showing just how tormented Hurley is by his predicament. Hurley even gets a scene (sort of) with Jin, a bizarre dream at the top of the hour where Jin speaks English and Hurley speaks Korean.

But the meatiest interaction of the episode is between Hurley and Rose. Putting Rose in this episode surely began of narrative necessity -- her husband Bernard is confirmed to be alive at the end of it. And yet from that necessity came a series of great scenes. After a fight with Charlie over the secrets of the hatch, Hurley winds up talking to Rose. Oddly, her complete disinterest in what's inside the hatch persuades Hurley to spill the beans. (Which does make sense, really. He needs to tell someone, and a "safe" choice is the person who doesn't seem to care.)

Soon, Hurley is chosen by Jack to be "in charge" of the food in the Swan pantry, and Rose offers her help in taking an inventory. Hurley expresses his fear this will end with everyone wanting to "hang him," which Rose sweetly shrugs off. He's the one person on the Island that everybody loves, she says. (And if you stop and think about it, that truth makes his fate at the end of the series all the more appropriate!)

But sure enough, things start to go just as Hurley fears. Kate comes to swipe shampoo while they're still tallying the stock. Later, when Charlie learns about the hatch from Locke, he tries to shake down Hurley for a jar of peanut butter. Hurley is ready to use extra dynamite from the Black Rock to blow up the pantry and everything in it before Rose talks him off the ledge, and he then comes up with an alternative plan -- give all the food away in one grand gesture. (Interestingly, in another moment that seems appropriate in light of the series end, he runs the plan by Jack for approval... but ultimately tells Jack that this is what's going to happen. Hurley consults the "leader" while actually being leader himself.)

This interesting episode for Hurley, peppered with moments that resonate with the final season, also crams in three significant subplots. The first is the continuing saga of the tailies, and the captivity of Jin, Michael, and Sawyer. We finally get to meet Libby and Bernard, get the first hints that the tailies' existence since the plane crash has been far tougher than that of their counterparts, and see the inside of a second (but far less interesting) hatch, the Arrow.

The second plot concerns the "primary" hatch, the Swan, and follows Jack and Sayid as they explore the strange electromagnetism in the place and speculate about its significance. Sayid notes that a huge amount of concrete has been poured around the source, reminding him of the way Chernobyl was dealt with. He's basically right on the money.

While those two subplots tease the mind, the third is meant to appeal to the heart. Claire (displaying startling weight loss so soon after her pregnancy) is taking in the surf when she discovers the bottle full of messages that was supposed to have been on the raft. She fears that it may mean something bad happened, but wants Sun -- as the person with a loved one actually on the raft -- to decide what to do with the knowledge. Ultimately, Sun decides to keep it a secret and keep hope alive for the survivors; she finds a secluded spot in the jungle and buries the bottle.

A lot of parts of this episode work well. A few are a little off the mark. The whole fits together fairly well, but is perhaps just a little overstuffed. Overall, I'd call the hour a B+.

One last bit of business here, though -- another one of the "Missing Pieces" episodes needs to be evaluated. According to one source I located, the events of the installment "Room 23" take place after the events of this episode. I have no idea how this was pinpointed, though it is certainly clear the mobisode has to take place before Ben makes his first appearance in the series proper (because in this mobisode, he's still with his people).

"Room 23" is a conversation between Ben and Juliet, following some unspecified crisis that set off warning sirens in the "Others" compound. Lots of ominous talk about the problems "the boy" (Walt) is causing, and a shot of a bunch of dead birds (echoing what was shown in a first season Walt flashback).

As much as I love the work Michael Emerson and Elizabeth Mitchell did on Lost, "Room 23" is a complete waste of time. You certainly can't watch it at the point it actually occurs in the timeline (as I just did) -- it has no context when the two characters haven't been properly introduced, so it makes no sense to a first time viewer. And to a repeat viewer, it just picks at the scab of an issue that is never properly resolved, the "specialness" of Walt. Juliet is completely convinced in this mobisode that Walt is doing some kind of psychic voodoo that is a serious threat. Certainly, something unnatural is going on, caused by Walt or otherwise. But it's never resolved, we get no real clues on which to provide our own private answers, and so the thing is best ignored.