Lost 6.12 "Everybody Loves Hugo"

“It takes a lot of guts to walk up to a stranger and tell him you know him from some bizarro alternate universe.”

Hugo-centric, Mr. Cluck’s, the return of Libby, the end of Ilana AND the Black Rock... and the answer to what those friggin’ whispers are. Not one of the episodes that had me floating in its epicness, but still awesome. I loved it.

So the BIG reveal of the episode was that the whispers are actually the ghosts of people who are stuck on the island and are unable to move on to Heaven because of something they did. Which means... THE ISLAND IS A PURGATORY. Not for those on the plane, but it’s a purgatory nonetheless. So big kudos to everyone who ever thought at any time that the purgatory idea was a good one, and yet those who argued the survivors aren’t actually in purgatory were correct, too. I’m sure a lot of fans will complain that they hate this explanation because it seemed so obvious and that we’d figured it out long ago, but... isn’t that why we’re doing all of this speculating? I was happy with that one. And it was interesting that Michael – perhaps the only person Hurley has ever hated on the island – is the one to appear to him, and when Hurley finds out that he’s basically doing time... for eternity... he actually feels sorry for the guy. I love you, Hurley.

Just as Daniel and Charlie knew the other world existed the moment they saw Charlotte and Claire respectively, and Desmond saw the other universe when he touched Penny’s hand, Hurley sees it when he locks lips with Libby. I posted something last night about how so much of Lost comes down to love, but I also believe that entwined with the notion of love is the idea of connection, as I said in that post. Connections are so vital to Lost – the connections people had before they go on the plane; connections to each other on the island that they created there; connections that they failed to actually make because they didn’t talk to one another; connections that were lost when the groups split up – and it’s when these four men have a real, definite connection to the other person that they’re able to break through.


Highlights:
• Pierre Chang is still a speaker, but he’s introducing philanthropists rather than trying to confuse viewers of Dharma videos.
• During the video presentation about Hugo, seeing the bizarrely-located Mr. Cluck’s restaurants next to the Himalayas and Pyramids made me laugh out loud. Haha!!
• In the screen still where Hugo is wearing the t-shirt that says "Humane" on it, Jorge Garcia is holding Nunu, his real-life dog and the star of his blog.
• The T-Rex statue. LOL!!
• “She will love you. And if she doesn’t... WE WILL FIND SOMEONE WHO DOES.” Smack! Hahaha!! Everyone talks about spinoffs they’d love to see... I’d just love to see the Hurley and Carmen show.
• Hurley talking to Libby at her grave again. We’ve seen this a couple of times and it’s always sad and lovely.
• LIBBY!!!!!
• OMGWTF ILANA BLEW UP??!! I couldn’t believe when this happened... it was as shocking (and less funny) as when it happened to Arzt. But why did she make the dumbass move of just tossing her bag on the ground? The women seemed to have healed from severe facial burns when she was in the hospital and now she does this? She just seemed smarter than that. I was surprised... but I’m hoping the final episode gives us the background of Jacob and that she’ll factor into that somehow. I don’t think this is the last we’ll see of her.
• Neal Schweiber from Freaks and Geeks works at Mr. Cluck’s now!!
• Ah. Desmond. How I love that you’re back and a regular on the show again.
• Desmond to Hugo: “That is a LOT of chicken.”
• “All women are a little bit crazy, bruthah.” Haha!
• “How do you break the ice with the smoke monster?”
• “Clearly she was well enough for a... fajita field trip.”
• I love when Alpert asks if anyone wants to join him so he can do something totally insane and counter-productive to what everyone else wants, and Ben is the first person to stand up and join him. Ha!
• The look on Jack’s face when he finally sees John Locke. I have been waiting for that moment ALL SEASON!!
• Ben Linus going all To Catch a Predator on Desmond. HIGH-larious!!!
• OMGWTF did Desmond just run over John Locke with a frickin’ CAR?!

Answers:
• The whispers are the dead people whose ghosts are stuck on the island because of bad things they did.

The Numbers:
Desmond’s chicken is meal order 42. Ilana grabbed 4 sticks of dynamite.

Did You Notice?:
• Pierre Chang mentions the museum, and if you think back to “Recon,” Miles had mentioned to Sawyer that his father worked at the museum. So Chang is still his father in this reality... once again begging the question, why is Miles’ last name Straume?
• Speaking of which, now Miles, Charlotte, and Daniel are all connected to the museum. Will it actually play a role in anything in this sideways world? Will we have an episode where we actually see this museum? Will there be any ancient relics of anything like, oh, I don’t know, a Tawaret statue?
• During the video presentation, you could see the Mr. Cluck’s chicken mascot over and over again. This reminded me of the opening of this episode’s prequel, “Everybody Hates Hugo,” which opened with a dream sequence of English-speaking Jin standing next to a man in the chicken suit who said, “Have a cluckity cluck cluck day.”
• I was a little disappointed to not see Carmen puffed up like a peacock at the kudos her son was getting. In our universe she would have been standing on her chair cheering and yelling, “More applause for my ’Ugo!!”
• The blind date that Carmen is sending Hugo on is with Rosalita... in the other world, he was in Santa Rosa.
• Looks like in every reality, Senator Robert Kelly is going to be a doctor at Santa Rosa. Nice to see some consistencies over here.
• Again, Libby – someone who is dead in the other universe – can see through to the other side, just like Daniel and Charlie.
• Smokey is becoming more and more like Locke every day. His “oh, this old piece of wood? Why... I’m just a-gonna whittle this baby until it speaks to me and tells me if I need to make a spear or a tiny wooden ornament of an old lady in a rocking chair that I can put on my mantle” was something Locke would have said.
• Empty Sayid wears his hair quite distinctively pushed off to one side all of the time.
• Despite Jack having the fitting last name, Desmond seems to have become the shepherd for the other side, helping people see this timeline and realize they’re in the wrong one.
• With the end of the Black Rock, Crazy Arms Richard returns. I can understand why he’s upset, though... not only did he remove their greatest chance at getting rid of the plane, but the Black Rock was the last place where he physically saw Isabella, and it probably holds a lot of resonance for him.
• In the doctor’s office, he has the exact same picture of the island that we saw in “Everybody Hates Hugo.”
• In the rec room, there’s a chalkboard and on it someone has drawn an island with a shark in the water, and a turtle, fish, a giant alligator hovering over it, and what looks like the silhouette of a swan in the water (for the Swan station? Where Libby died, perhaps?) In the corner of the picture there is what appears to be a baby buggy with a butterfly floating out of it. Butterflies in mental hospitals seem to be a mainstay no matter what reality you’re in. Perhaps encouraging patients to see the metamorphosis they could undergo with treatment?
• One of the inmates was playing Connect Four, which Hugo played obsessively when he was at Santa Rosa.
• Oh no!! The great team of Miles and Hurley have been split up for good! Say it ain’t so...
• Jack says maybe he’s supposed to let go... this stems all the way back to the beginning of season 3 when he heard Christian’s voice over the intercom of the aquarium cage he was being held in and Christian was saying, “Let it go, Jack.” But interestingly, last season in the DI Jack seemed content to let other people run the show and tell him what to do, as if he was relieved to let someone else take over.
• So... if the whispers happen and the dead person appears (just like Michael standing nearby when they heard them) does that mean Harper, Goodwin’s wife who appeared to Juliet in the jungle in the rain right after the whispers... is dead? What terrible thing did she do to get stuck there? Is she the one who told Ben about the affair between Goodwin and Juliet that led to Goodwin’s death?
• In the sideways world, Hurley remembers the blanket. :::sniff:::
• I thought for a second that the well where Smokey takes Desmond was the one with the FDW, but it clearly wasn’t.
• Just before Smokey pushes Desmond down the well (deep breaths, Nikki, DEEP BREATHS) Desmond asks him what the point of being afraid is, and you see Smokey begin to open his mouth and then close it, as if he’s stumped.
• I do not believe that Desmond is dead. I am like Rose and her faith in Bernard. He is fine. He is fine. I heard water when Smokey dropped the torch. He’ll be just fine. I mean... you can high-dive into five inches of water without anything bad happening to you. Right? Am I right?!
• When Smokey returns to the camp and tells everyone that they don’t need to worry about Desmond anymore, you can hear the Locke motif in the music... something we haven’t heard used with Smokey yet, I don’t think. AGAIN a suggestion that he’s actually Locke again.
• Sun coming through the jungle and scanning every person in that camp for Jin’s face was heartbreaking...
• I think I said this a few episodes ago but I’ve noticed that Hurley is never called Hurley in the sideways world, and I wonder if we’ll ever find out what that nickname refers to in this world?

So Many Questions...
• Did anyone know what that Russian book was that Hurley picked up? I wrote down the lettering and tried it through a translator, and I think I wrote it down wrong because all but one word was a jumble, and the one that wasn’t was “law.” Could it have been the paperback Russian edition of the Book of Law? (Har.)
• Who was the other boy that Smokey saw in the jungle with Des? It’s interesting that both Sawyer and Desmond have also seen the boys with him. Could THAT one be the Man in Black when he was a kid, and the blonde one was Jacob? Or vice versa? Smokey tried to chase down the blonde one, but just waved this one off with a dismissive flick of his hand, which was interesting.
• How did Hurley know immediately that those were ashes in Ilana’s pouch? He seems to know whatever is in there is important, when it probably looked just like the sand to him.
• Does Desmond get it wrong when he says Smokey is John Locke... or is it not a coincidence that he’s seeming more and more like John? Could the John inside of him be coming through and controlling Smokey more than the evil that’s inside him?
• Richard, testing Hugo, tells him that a while ago Jacob told him what the island was, so ask him. So why didn’t Jack or ANYONE jump up and say, “Oh really?? Then WTF is this island??!!”
• Michael tells Hurley not to get himself killed in response to Hurley asking if there’s anything he can do for him. It seems like a formality for him to say that, but maybe there was something more to it: maybe he really DOES need Hurley and the gang to stay alive and if they can, they might help those ghosts trapped on the island to finally move on.
• So why did Desmond hit Locke with a car? On the rewatch I’ve noticed just how much Smokey seems like Locke, and now I’m wondering... is it possible that the Man in Black was able to switch places with alterna-universe Locke? Could it be that Locke is actually the man we see on the island, and Smokey is the one who looks like Locke in the sideways world? Was Desmond trying to eradicate Smokey? OR... is poor Locke doomed in every reality to bring people together based on his demise? Does Desmond think that somehow he will round up the troops he needs if he causes some major rift in things like this?

Me tomorrow:
I’ve joined Facebook! Come and find me. I am here. :)

Tomorrow listen in to Marshall and Forbes on The Ocean 98.5 in Victoria, BC at 6 a.m. local time, 9 a.m. EST. Go here and click on the Listen Now button if you’re out of the listening area.

And tomorrow at noon I will once again be participating in the Globe and Mail Lost chat from noon to 1pm EST. Go here to ask questions and comment. See you there!

And finally, listen to KEX 1190 at 6:20 p.m. PST, 9:20 p.m. EST where I’ll be on the Mark & Dave show (and they’re big Lost fans so it’s always fun). Go here and click the Listen Now button.

Next week: (Get a load of the creepy music from the Gene Wilder Charlie and the Chocolate Factory... did anyone else ever have nightmares from that movie?!)