'Lost': Everybody Hates Hugo

Well, we've now got a button to push, a hatch to investigate, food to distribute, and most important, a shower to take! Yes, it's the follow-up to "Orientation," in which those involved with the inaugural Lostaway button pushing ceremony figure out how to keep as much information as possible from the rest of the survivors. I suppose this is to prevent forty-odd people from calling shotgun on top bunk while running madly through the jungle, but it's a touch shady all the same, Lost fans.

Feeling the burden of this secrecy the most? One Hugo Reyes, a.k.a. Hurley, i.e. a man who knows what can happen when one is suddenly entrusted with newly found fortune.

Everyone Hates Hugo

4) In Short

"You all (eat), everybody!"

8) On the Island

Oh great, a slow-mo of Hurley sexually aroused by the Swan's pantry. This bodes poorly. He takes a few bites of everything in sight, until he's confronted by, of all people, Jin. A Jin that speaks perfect English. Oh yea, dream sequence, my bad. Jin appears alongside a man in a chicken suit, and tells Hurley that, "Everything will change." He then tells Hugo to have, "...a cluckety cluck cluck day," one of the greatest Lost lines ever. Hurley then gets woken up by Kate and the hatch beeping, and enters the numbers into the computer.

Back in the Ditch of Despair, the three captives plot their escape. Again. But while bickering, Alpha Male lowers the rope down and asks them to come up one by one as Ana Lucia holds them all at gunpoint. Let's just say this is the most awkward Outward Bound exercise ever. While Sawyer continues to give "Rambina" sass, she closes the makeshift gate on him.

On the beach, Charlie wants to know what's inside the hatch. Hurley plays dumb, given only the most basic description of the edifice. Charlie gets mad about his friend's lies and storms off with Aaron. Hugo catches sight of Rose folding laundry. Oh, I've missed Rose. He's curious why she's the only one uninterested in what happened in the jungle. She simply feels whatever it is won't help her do laundry. Well, Dharma Maytag says otherwise, honey.

Hurley takes Rose into the Swan. Jack's mad at Hurley for bringing an outsider into their private fort. I mean, private hatch. When Hurley vouches for Rose's ability to keep a secret, Rose declares that she wouldn't even know what to say. They all go into the pantry, where Jack reiterates Hurley's responsibility: inventory the goods, figure out how to make it last, and give no one anything until that point.

Rose helps Hurley on inventory duty, where they talk about Bernard's sweet tooth. We get the "my husband's alive even though I have no rational reason for believing that" story once again, with Hurley playing the role of Jack in this case. Hurley confesses that he's worried everyone will hate him for rationing out the goods. While expressing this concern, Kate snags a bottle Dharma Dove shampoo and makes off with it. "This is how it starts," Hurley mutters.

In the jungle, Locke loudly announces that he knows Charlie has been following him. Turns out Charlie's sick of being at the "children's table" concerning what's been going on since he went after Rousseau. Locke acquiesces, and catches Charlie up on The Story of Des. We also learn Locke's job: to set up 2-person shifts for button duty. Oh, and then, cuz he's slick like that, he tells Charlie that his best bud's in charge of the food.

Sayid's examining the concrete door in the Swan. He reckons it's eight to ten feet thick and made of solid concrete. Going through is impossible, but going under is a possibility, and shows Jack a nearby vent. The two make their way through a series of subterranean gridwork, where they find an equal amount of poured concrete. Sayid's best guess? A "geothermal generator," which is what I personally use to power New Butterton (a.k.a., my media room). Sayid mentions that the last time he heard about concrete being poured in this way, it was after the Chernobyl meltdown.

The pipes start going haywire while they are down there, leading Jack and Sayid to scurry back up the hatch proper. Turns out, it was only due to Kate taking a freakin' shower. "Had to see if it worked," she says, and there's this semi-ridiculous scene where Jack's motivation appears to be, "Don't stare, don't stare, don't stare."

In the Ditch, Sawyer sits and stews, unwilling to take the rope now lowered to him. Then Michael appears next to Alpha Male. Turns out they had a powwow, and they believe the trio to be Oceanic 815 survivors. Ana Lucia then unloads a can of whup ass on Sawyer, trying to break his spirit. One imagines she left him in the ditch the longest because she felt the other two were more trustworthy. She then leads the small group out into the jungle.

Hurley's alone on the beach. OK, not for long, as Charlie confronts him about the food. His main interest? Peanut butter, which makes sense given his discussion with Claire back in Season 1. Hugo says no go, which prompts the ex-junkie to call him "the man." He storms off, AGAIN.

The tailies are walking through the jungle, where tentative introductions are made. One woman's name is Libby, who mentions that 23 people survived from the tail section. They stop in the middle of seemingly nowhere, only to have Ana Lucia reveal yet another hatch in the jungle. If you're keeping track at home, it's now Oceanic Survivors 2, Rousseau 0 in the World Series of Finding Dharma Stations. A grizzled man opens the door for them. They all walk down a long, dingy path into the Arrow Station, where a whole lot less than 23 people currently reside. Ruh row.

Back on the beach, Claire finds the message in a bottle that went on the raft. Eeek. She and Shannon visit Sun in her garden, and show the bottle to her. They ask Sun to decide what to do.

Hurley verbally attacks Locke in the hatch, wondering why John told Charlie about the food. Hurley wants to quit; Locke insists that he can't. So he does the next logical thing: gets the sweaty dynamite used to blow up the Hatch. Rose catches him in the act. He says he can't let "it" happen again. He insists everything was fine before all the food was discovered, but now it's a veritable Pandora's box. He doesn't know how to stop everyone from hating him.

Turns out, he makes a breakthrough: one mega-party for everyone. The stash apparently wouldn't have sustained everyone long-term anyways, so he essentially conducts a fire sale, handing out all the food to everyone at once. Everyone's happy, especially Claire: she finally gets her peanut butter. Well, almost everyone's happy: as Sun sequesters herself from the group to bury the bottle in the sand.

Back in The Arrow Station, the grizzled man who let them in asks the trio about Rose. OMG. It's Bernard. And here come the waterworks again. Sweet Jeebus this was a beautiful moment. Oh, and now we see Rose saving him a candy bar. Not fair! Not fair! Damn you, Lost.

15) Off the Island

We're revisiting the moment in which Hurley passes out upon learning he's won the lottery. His mom wakes him up via a series of slaps. She wants to know why he fell, but Hurley's reticent to tell her about the lottery. He insists it must have been something he ate. She wants him to change his life, either by the power of Jesus Christ or the power of the treadmill. Hurley insists he doesn't want his life to change.

We're at Mr. Cluck's Chicken Shack. Hurley's manager is on his case about stealing eight pieces of dark meat chicken. Hurley can't take the abuse and quits. Looks like it's a big day for quitting, as his friend Johnny quits soon after.

Johnny and Hugo are in a record store, singing "You All Everybody," off-key. Hurley eventually makes his way over to Starla, his mega-crush. Seeing this duo messes up her world-view, man. Hurley's, like, her rock and stuff, you dig? Well, Hurley digs, and asks her out to a concert that weekend. This is Hurley's version of Opposite George from Seinfeld. Johnny's impressed, but Hurley merely wanted to get that out of the way before announcing his winnings.

That night, the dynamic duo spell out "Cluck You" on their former boss' lawn with stolen garden gnomes. Rebels, these guys. After celebrating their victory, Hurley asks that no matter what happens, that their friendship stay intact, that they will never change. Johnny's groovy with that plan. Yea, that shouldn't last long. They soon pull over to a convenience store, where there's a film crew outside. The owner of the store (the same man in the chicken suit in his dream earlier) identifies Hurley in the van, and sure enough, Johnny gets his "I hate you" look on something fierce.

16) The Mythology

The biggest piece of mythology introduced into the show was the discovery of the Arrow, the second of what we felt would be six eventually stations spread across the Island. (The number 6 comes from the Swan orientation film.) Of course, in the meantime, we've discovered a vast number of extra buildings spread across (and off) the Island as well. Then again, the Dharma Initiative is nothing if not sneaky. It took "need to know" to the extreme.

Much like the Dharma Initiative, the show largely abandoned the Arrow after a few episodes in Season 2. If the Lost hatches were members of the Brady Bunch, I'm pretty sure that the Arrow would be that snot-nosed Cousin Oliver. A few characters have insinuated that the Arrow functioned primarily as a storage facility, although Horace Goodspeed (a mathematician) wore an Arrow uniform in "Cabin Fever." I'll get to the contents of the box within this hatch when we get to "The Other 48 Days." But those contents don't give any indication as to the function of this particular hatch, so I don't feel too bad ignoring them now.

One can only hope that Season 5 sheds some light onto the purpose of this mysterious building.

23) The Moment

How can you not go with the reveal of Bernard? I mean, c'mon. Have a heart, y'all.

42) In Retrospect

Here's my bold prediction for Season 5: we are finally going to see the Incident.

I lost all hope of ever learning about it once the Swan implodes at the end of this season. (Oops. Um, spoiler alert, I guess.) I just figured that part of the mythology was over, and we were moving onto issues of time and space. But really, electromagnetism are intimately related to the space/time oddities of the Island, so the narrative potential inherent in having Daniel Faraday travel back to the time of the Dharma Initiatives' heyday means that we could actually see the Incident happen.

Moreover, if they go this route, I'll further wager that showing the Incident that caused all the concrete examined by Sayid and Jack this week will have a fundamental impact on the struggle between Widmore and Linus. Perhaps this, alongside the Purge, are the 1-2 punch that started this iteration of the long-standing war over the Island.

108) In Summary

Aside from the Chernobyl imagery and the wonderful, wonderful last moments, a let down of an ep, especially after the mind-blowing nature of "Orientation." When a major dramatic moment is built around the taking of a shower, you know you have a slight clunker (or clucker) on your hands.

But we at least move past the Ditch of Despair and start the slow, agonizing process of learning about the Tailies. But don't worry, at least these are characters with long-lasting narrative value. Oh, wait. Maybe not.

Leave your thoughts about this episode below!

Ryan also posts every 108 minutes over at Boob Tube Dude, then peruses Zap2It's Guide to Lost Facebook group.