Quick Take: Lost, "Everybody Loves Hugo"
"Wow, what a coincidence." – Hurley
Review: Lost, "Everybody Loves Hugo"
(S0611) Welcome to a live blogging version of this week's dynamite (get it?) episode of Lost:
I've genuinely enjoyed most of the flash sideways storylines thus far, Jin and Sun's semi-yawn-y adventure in Los Angeles being the notable exception. I've even bought into most of the ironic/outlandish turns our characters have taken, from Ben Linus and Locke as teachers, to Miles and Sawyer as cops. But Hurley/Hugo (Jorge Garcia) as a McDonald's-level CEO world renowned for his philanthropy? I know his numbers are super lucky (or evil, depending), but the Hurley we know and love has been a generally happy go lucky-to-lazy dude.
Man, we haven't seen anything about the Hurley / Libby storyline in ages. Seemed like ancient Lost history by now.
Here comes Michael (Harold Perrineau) for the first time in ages! "I'm trying to stop you from getting everyone killed, he tells Hurley. It seems like a lot of characters are working through the Hurley bottleneck/conduit, Jacob among them, to get some biz on the island accomplished!
It's a little weird too that Hurley is some bigshot CEO but goes to a casual dining establishment such as "Spanish Johnny's" for a blind date.
Libby showing up to establish that he and Hurley have a "connection" hearkens to the breakthrough we're starting to see between the alternate storylines / realities, as with Charlie-Desmond-Daniel Faraday in "Happily Ever After." Libby's return too signals once again that dead characters can find new life of sorts on Lost. I'd have to posit right here too that Libby's return signals that the alternate reality will somehow "win out" and become the "real" storyline by the end of the series. If this is not so, it would be a ruthlessly cruel story to deprive Hurley once again of what may be his true "soul mate." I'm not saying this can't happen, just that it would be awfully messed up!
Speaking of dead characters with love interests amongst the core group of Losties… we're going to see Juliet (Elizabeth Mitchell) again in flash sideways land, right?
That rascally unstable dynamite, always taking out characters and loose story threads with it when least expected!
"Is there something you can do? How about anything!" – Sawyer (Josh Holloway) to Not Locke/Smoke Monster. Man, you could fill a book with the hilarious lines Sawyer has dropped throughout Lost's run.
So, we see Sayid (Naveen Andrews) return to the Not Locke/Smoke Monster (Terry O'Quinn) with Desmond (Henry Ian Cusick) in tow. We know Desmond is "the package" that can cross through to the alternate reality via massive electromagnetic event. That's the easy thing to understand. What I'm fuzzy on is who he's really looking out for: himself, Charles Widmore (Alan Dale), Sayid, Penny? He seemed to cheerfully go along with Sayid at the end of "Happily Ever After" so…
Hurley binge eating a family style bucket of chicken at the fast food joint he owns. Hey, we've all been there, right?
"Wow, what a coincidence." – Hurley to Desmond in flash sideways-land on the coincidence of meeting up post-Oceanic Flight 815.
Even though we didn't see a lot of Ben (Michael Emerson) this week, I love seeing the progress of his existential crisis. "What will the island do when it's done with us?" he muses. Perhaps "the island" could be a stand in for "fate" or "the universe" or even "god." A show makes the ascent from good to great, from entertainment to art, when it moves you to think about that sort of thing, I suppose.
Desmond tells Not Locke/Smoke Monster that he believes him to be John Locke. There's a high stakes game being played here, that's for sure.
Hurley's playing a high stakes game of his own, literally, in blowing up the good old Black Rock ship of yore! Amongst the reasons that Richard Alpert (Nestor Carbonell) has to be super pissed (be believes that the dynamite on board is the key to stopping Smokey from escaping from the island), perhaps one is the nostalgia of seeing the vessel that carried him to the island destroyed?
Hurley, back in the flash sideways, pays out $100k to buy his way into seeing Libby (Cynthia Watros) at the mental institution. Now that's the power move of a top tier CEO! With Connect 4 going on in the background, it's as touching a scene as we've seen on Lost, these two star crossed characters getting to know each other all over again.
I love being reminded that Desmond was in a hatch for three years "pushing a button." That concept alone is enough to get and keep me watching.
I feel like I should kind of remember who the young boy is taunting Not Locke/Smokey in the jungle, but I don't. "Just ignore him," NL/S says in a huff.
Speaking of Hurley and power moves, his assertion (bluff?) that Jacob has ordered the group to speak to "Locke" is as aggressive as we've him during the entire show. Miles (Ken Leung) wonders at one point why Hurley listens to the dead people who "scream" at him. They're more reliable than the living, Hurley replies.
We learn what the whispers are, at last! Lostie ghosties in purgatory who "can't move on."
Hurley remembers something during his flash sideways date with Libby. It was in the kiss!
If we needed any further proof that Not Locke/Smokey was a very Not Nice Entity of Some Sort, he tosses Desmond into a "very old" and very deep well. Not so nice.
And in a "retaliation" if we could call it that, Desmond – now making the rounds in flash sideways land to encourage our heroes to embrace the "connections" to the other reality – takes out a wheelchair bound "real" John Locke!
We might theorize that Desmond is trying to "prevent" Locke from one day once again becoming Smokey? We'll have to tune in next week to see another spin of the good wheel Lost.
Video: Lost, "Everybody Loves Hugo"
We'll post the full episode from Hulu when available.
Recap: Lost, "Everybody Loves Hugo"
On the island: Locke's group:
- Sayid returns and takes Locke to Desmond
- Locke is surprised to see him and asks why Widmore brought Desmond back; Desmond doesn't know
- Locke takes Desmond to a hand-dug well
- He explains the area made compass needles spin, and people dug the well to find out why
- Locke says Widmore didn't bring Desmond back for answers; Widmore brought him back to help him find what he's looking for, which is power
More at ABC.com.
From Around the Web: Lost, "Everybody Loves Hugo"
TV with Alan Sepinwall: Though some of the early sideways stories were entertaining through the sheer force of personality of the actors/characters being spotlighted (Locke, Ben), there was nothing all that interesting about the sideways world itself until last week. By making Desmond aware of the wrongness of the world - and introducing other characters like Charlie and Faraday who also recognized this - we finally tied that world to the one we care about, and created some urgency to our visits to LA.
Daemon's TV: T he last scene where Desmond runs Locke over in a wheel-chair was cold blooded but also made total sense. Why you ask? Remember at the beginning of the season, Jack gave Locke his card so that he can look into helping him walk again; Locke foolishly tore up that card. Now that Locke is being rushed to the hospital, can you guess what is going to happen? Jack is going to operate on him and Locke will be able to walk again. Yes that is speculation but come on, it's very likely to happen.
TV Overmind: I'm starting to think that these Island memory bleeds might actually be the Man in Black's method of escape. After all, it was him that pushed Desmond into the well, and it's presumably that push that led Desmond to run over Locke in the sideways timeline. So, by extension, the Man in Black's influence has already "escaped" the Island, and has begun spreading in the real world.
About the author
Eric is the publisher and revered leader of TV Geek Army… at least in his own mind. TV Geek Army is a place for serious TV reviews and news for serious fans of great television. Contact: eric-[at]-tvgeekarmy.com
