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Lost: Numbers

Hurley: "She says hey."

So now the crash is Hurley's fault. How very interesting.

Hurley, a very likable character, is complex as well. He cared a lot for his family, and hated the idea that his "curse" caused him to inadvertently hurt others. And he has a lot of courage. He confronted Rousseau, a mysterious, armed woman who had captured and tortured Sayid; and he took off across the Indiana Jones rickety bridge without a moment of hesitation.

Well, either he's courageous, or he's nuts. Hurley spent time in a mental hospital, and I'm pretty sure he was a patient, even though it wasn't stated outright. He said early on that he had put his family through a lot lately, and he used to hang a lot with long time patient Lenny. And Hurley looked totally pissed when Charlie said, "You're acting like a bloody lunatic!" People can be in a mental hospital for a lot of reasons; doesn't necessarily mean he's psychotic or anything. I think Hurley is courageous, and a little nuts.

Mira Furlan was back as Rousseau, and wasn't she wonderful? Yes, she boobytrapped her former digs, but she was actually reasonable with Hurley. "Yo, French chick!" I absolutely loved him hugging her, and her allowing him to do it. And the best line of the episode was Hurley telling Sayid, "She says hey."


There was another weird pre-crash connection between the survivors. Hurley was a majority shareholder for a box company in Tustin, meaning that he was indirectly Locke's boss. (I wonder if there's a connection to the sneaker company fire in Canada?)

Lenny the lunatic said that Hurley had opened the box (symbolic of Pandora's box?), that it doesn't stop, and that Hurley had to get away from the numbers. And somehow, Hurley went right to them. Those numbers were broadcast from a radio tower by the Black Rock sixteen years ago, they were on that hatch thing, and they were the reason Rousseau's ship got wrecked. Why would anyone broadcast a series of numbers, and nothing else? It makes no sense. Gee, I'm reeling from that new situation, for sure. (That was my sarcastic voice.)

Hurley's numbers were: 4 8 15 16 23 42. Numerology is beyond me; I'm not even going to attempt finding meaning in them. But they've been mentioned before, and they were mentioned in other contexts even in this episode. Toomey had been dead for four years. The flight number was 815. Rousseau has been on the Island for 16 years, and it was the 16th week without a winner when Hurley won. I'm just surprised 47 didn't make it in there.

This was the kind of episode that made me want to go back and re-watch them all just to see the connections I missed. For example, didn't Locke tell Hurley about his job at some point? Did Hurley get the connection? I don't remember! Too many characters! Too many details!

Character bits:

Hurley worked for a fast food chicken place before he won the lottery. He has a mother named Carmen, a brother Diego whose wife Lisa left him for a waitress, and a grandfather Tito, now deceased.

Hurley is Catholic, like Charlie. Hurley's priest, Father Aguilar, was struck by lightning at Tito's funeral.

Claire still didn't remember what happened to her.

There was a sweet little subplot with Locke making Claire a cradle for the baby. Did Locke know it was her birthday? Maybe Locke isn't a bad guy. Maybe Claire isn't a pod person.

Shannon showed genuine concern for Sayid. Speaking of pod people...


Sawyer was reading another book. Couldn't see what it was.

Sawyer called Walt "Short round."

Michael and Jin were bonding while building the raft, while Kate and Sun were bonding over Sun's split with Jin.

I noticed that Jack and Sayid were very protective of Hurley. I think they feel protective about pretty much all of the survivors, but they treated Hurley like they cared a lot about him. I thought that was sweet. Or perceptive. Or both.

Bits and pieces:

— No eye opening scene for Hurley.

— Hurley said the Monster was a pissed off giraffe. I know he was kidding, but that's my favorite theory so far.

— "42", the mega number, may have been a reference to Life, the Universe, and Everything.

— We now know where Rousseau's distress signal came from.

— Sayid got Nadia's photo back, a little worse for wear.

— Michael now has a battery. All he needs is a power boat to go with it.

Quotes:

Hurley: "You awake?"
Sayid: "I was just wondering that, myself."

Mrs. Toomey: "If this weren't the middle of nowhere, I'd say you were lost."

Hurley: "Back home, I'm worth 156 million dollars."
Charlie: "Fine. Don't tell me."

Laugh out loud funny. And this show just keeps on surprising me. Four out of four polar bears,

Billie
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Billie Doux loves good television and spends way too much time writing about it.

3 comments:

  1. So, the numbers do mean something. We just don't know what.

    Enjoyed finally seeing Hurley's backstory, and it wasn't at all what I was expecting. I love watching him with the other characters. A genuinely sweet guy, he is the one they all seem to care about.

    One of the great things about such a monster cast is the ability to put different people together. This week's odd couple was Claire and Locke and I loved it. While I had assumed he was making something for her, the cradle was a lovely reveal. The baby should be here soon, right?

    I think Sawyer was reading A Wrinkle in Time, another fantastic book (and appropriate for the series).

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  2. This is one of my favorite episodes.

    I love the Hurley musical theme--just hearing the first two notes early in the episode made me laugh out loud, and nothing funny had happened yet. Way to go, Giacchino.

    And way to go, Lillian Hurst. Her portrayal of Hurley's mother is note-perfect comedy.

    I hope it's not a terrible spoiler to say that re-watching Season One has made a lot of the Hurley stuff from Season Six make more sense.

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  3. Can you love an episode and at the same time find fault with it? I hate to be that guy, but as much as I enjoyed the black comedy of a cursed lottery winner, this episode felt a little off, timing wise.

    Everything about Hurley’s motivations and actions fit the character to a T, and the way others responded to, and around him were spot on as well. But the episode feels a bit shoe-horned into this spot, mainly because the ensemble cast is so large, and so many stories need to be told, that in some ways this one seems out of place and a bit late. If Hurley truly thought he was cursed and would bring bad luck to those around him, I feel like his actions and reactions prior to this point would have been different to avoid similar fates for the other crash survivors. I guess it’s fair to say that seeing the numbers may have brought everything back but still…

    I just realized I’m doing the one thing you simply cannot do in a rewatch of this show, which is overthinking it. So with that, great episode, I do love Hurley very much!

    ReplyDelete

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