One of the show’s most beloved characters finds out he has the power (he has he touch!) to control his own future and be an important part of what happens on the island. Plus, a certain love interest returns.
Scott
As perhaps the only person in the world who wasn’t bonkers about “Happily Ever After”, I am thrilled that this week’s “Everybody Loves Hugo” renewed my faith in the final stretch of a show that I’ve devoted entirely too much time and mental energy to. If “Happily” provided a (labored, hokey, frankly lazy) bridge between season 6′s two worlds, “Hugo” went hog wild with it, finding our titular hero getting in tune with his other side by kissing the girl of his dreams as Desmond plays omniscient Jiminy Cricket watching the star-cross’d lovers with a smirk and expensive shades. Then Des gets all gangsta on alt-Locke, running homeboy down in a high school parking lot! DAYUM!
On that note, while the A-story focused on the beloved Hugo, I couldn’t stop thinking about Locke tonight, and I DO mean Locke. We’ve grown used to seeing Terry O’Quinn as Smokey purposefully moving forward with a sinister glint in his eye. But when we first see him this week, he’s calmly whittling, “waiting”, and generally acting a whole lot like… John Locke. Then he comes across Desmond and asks if he knows who he is. “John Locke,” he replies, seemingly knowing the full weight of such a pronouncement. Smokey is not amused.
So why does Des pull a hit on a poor dude in a wheelchair who’s finally found the woman of his dreams and a nice job as a substitute gym teacher? My guess is he’s trying to force Locke’s consciousness back into his body, either exorcising Smokey or maybe obliterating him altogether. He’s acting very Dr. Manhattan since the closing moments of last week’s episode, unafraid of Widmore and Smokey’s threats because he knows how this song ends; he’s just got to hit the right notes.
Three final thoughts. While it was nice to see Hurley and Libby get the date they never had, this episode seems like a strange waste of Cynthia Watros’ time. I think I speak for all of human civilization when I say that I’d rather have seen how a woman goes from being in a mental hospital to being an eccentric billionaire who funds Desmond’s sailing expedition around the world. And is anybody happy with this explanation of what the whispers are? I once theorized that Smokey was a whirling vortex of all the lost souls on the island, and while I was wrong about the specifics, I was on the right track. But why can everyone hear them but not see them? And why were they used to announce the presence of the Others? It’s a bit of a half-assed explanation. Finally, Ilana’s death (can’t believe I’m discussing the season’s first big death as an afterthought) was unworthy of a great and still-mysterious character who gave this season its best scene so far: Ben’s redemption through a simple act of faith and forgiveness.
Chris
Episodes like this seriously make me wonder why the hell we were spending so much time futzing around at The Temple earlier in the season. THIS is the good stuff. THIS is what I was waiting for. All that temple stuff feels like deleted scenes – a worthless distraction. Kinda like Richard’s crusade to get rid of the plane. I don’t see the point of that story thread except as momentary distraction. But I’m really happy that they’re finally kicking the alt-timeline-merging into high gear and that’s more like the LOST I loved in Seasons 3 and 4.
Last week’s and this week’s episode feel like we’re getting to the final curtain call with all these cameos and alt-timeline hijinks. You’ve got Charlie’s bit from the previous (awesome) episode and then Michael and Libby in this one. Great to see them back, especially Libby. It’s fluffy fan service where the only real point is to move the on-island characters where they need to be but I’m loving it. Not to mention that they’re starting to pseudo-explain that Hurley’s seeing dead people that are “trapped” on the island – an interesting revelation that in my mind seems to clash with him seeing Charlie or playing chess with Mr. Eko in Season 5. Though maybe there’s a theory to that since he hasn’t seen dead-Charlie or dead-Eko on the island. Hm.
Back to Hurley/Libby. I thought their interactions in this episode were great. It was fun seeing Alt-Timeline Lucky Hugo still have the character traits that makes him such a likable character. His sheepishness around women (both his mother and in general), his giving nature, his insecurity. Their beach date (aww, just like they were supposed to have in Season 2! Fan service!) was a touching moment and a nice little wrap-up to the Libby/Hugo story. Maybe it’s not completely over for them but I feel like we’ve got a little closure with their beach-date and ghost-Michael’s apology.
Yet through all this lovey-dovey touchy-feely fun stuff there was Locke and Desmond. Was Desmond running over Locke in the Alt-World payback for pushing him down the well on the island? How cold were both of those things? Pretty amazing. I gotta say I was not expecting Alt-Des to hit and run like that. Completely awesome ending to the episode. How much does Alt-Des know about what’s happening on-island? I guess he knows that he gets pushed down a well but he only vaguely knew Hurley “from somewhere.”
One last thing. The way they got rid of Ilana felt cheap. Rushed. And like The Temple stuff suddenly I’m wondering why they had to have that story branch with her at all. I still don’t know how they’re going to wrap this whole thing up with just a few scant episodes left. It seems like there are a lot of chess pieces to get moving before things can end. But – finally, LOST is getting super-awesome again.
Armando
For me, this episode was pretty much an extension of last week’s Desmond-centric (and in my opinion, great) episode. While I am not as crazy about it as last week’s, I still thought it was very good. The two timelines are inching ever closer together and I am no longer thinking the alt-time line is the new “true” time line. (Whatever that means) Slowly all the Losties paths are crossing in the alt-verse and it looks like them coming together well may be the clashing of the time lines and what ingnites the climax of the series.
One of the saddest moments of the series for me was Libby’s death, and it was good to see Hurley and Libby together again. And speaking of death, I’m starting to wonder if dying on the island is really dying. I’m sensing a Buddhist type undertone (along with quite a few Buddhist symbols, i.e. the frozen wheel that was used to “move” the island looking like a Dharmacakra) in regards to the making of right choices and the subsequent results of Karma. I’m not sure how, but maybe dying on the island is somehow connected to reincarnation?
The whispers explanation? Meh. I guess. Hopefully this is fleshed out a bit more in the SIX HOURS OF LOST THAT ARE LEFT!!! *tear*
It was interesting to see Smocke drop Desmond and then see Desmond drop—OK, run the hell over—Locke. A little bit of the timelines connecting? Will it “knock” Locke (see what I did there?) back into his island body? Did Desmond hit Locke to get him to Jack to further along the beginning of the end of the alt-verse and LOST as we know it? Can this story be wrapped up (as much as it can at this point) in just six more hours? Hmmmm.
Dennis
Hey look, someone found a copy of Alice in Wonderland. And then Desmond fell down a well. Oh, LOST. Sometimes you have the subtlety of a Twilight movie. After wanting to marry last week’s episode (though I’m not sure if Human/TV episode has been legalized yet anywhere), I was bound to not love this episode as much.
Still, Hurley is really one of those characters I’ve grown to love over the course of the seasons, so it was nice to see another, and presumably the last Hugo showcase here. I’ve always enjoyed Cynthia Watros (from her days on the Fox sitcom Titus) and was bummed when LOST went and killed her off (and at the same time as the dreaded Ana Lucia?! Not cool!).
I was happy Sideways Libby and Sideways Hurley could come together and that their magical kiss could awaken Island Hurley memories in Sideways Hurley! Wow, this soulmate crap is starting to sound more and more like a Disney movie on crack. Well, I guess ABC is owned by the Mouse House, and if the glass slipper fits…
Robert
Of all the double-take moments I had watching “Everybody Loves Hugo” maybe the biggest and most inspired wasn’t even in the episode itself. I’m talking about the disturbing and yet so fitting promo for next week’s episode “The Last Recruit” which included voiceover taken from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. I’m sure the others here will recap many of the same points of the episode just fine (although I bet nobody mentioned how boring Sayid is now), so indulge me for a few minutes while I digress.
In that film, Gene Wilder’s charming-but-devilish Willy Wonka invites his guests for a ride in his boat (check out a video clip). “‘Round the world and home again! That’s the sailor’s way!” Wonka says as they enter a mysterious tunnel. As the boat picks up speed and trippy images flash on the walls of the tunnel, the passengers—Charlie, Grandpa Joe, Veruca Salt, Violet Beauregard, et al.—become alarmed. Some want to turn around; some get sick and want to get off. Mr. Salt claims that Wonka can’t possibly see where he’s going while Charlie and Grandpa Joe remark on how strange but fun the ride is. And amidst it all, Wonka breaks into a most telling song/tirade:
There’s no earthly way of knowing
Which direction we are going.
There’s no knowing where we’re rowing
Or which way the river’s flowing.Is it raining?
Is it snowing?
Is a hurricane a-blowing?Not a speck of light is showing
So the danger must be growing.
Are the fires of hell a-glowing?
Is the grisly reaper mowing?Yes, the danger must be growing
For the rowers keep on rowing
And they’re certainly not showing
Any signs that they are slowing!
Someone at ABC understands how much fans are willing to go on the ride but are becoming increasingly frustrated and anxious about where things are going. I’m noticing some fellow LOST fans are either confused, annoyed and/or somehow bored with the way this final season has been going. This promo tells us not-so-subtly that we are now in the final stretch where it’s going to pick up speed and get even more hectic—and it’s going to test our resolve as fans to hang on until the very end. And if you’re already having hard time, it might be best to get off the ride now.
But this is LOST, and there’s bound to be more to it than that. During that psychedelic ride in Wonka’s boat, Charlie and Grandpa Joe also see an image of Wonka’s fierce rival, Arthur Slugworth, who offers Charlie (and other golden ticket winners) a reward if he can help steal the secret formula to the Everlasting Gobstopper (cork, anyone?) during his visit to Wonka’s factory—and in effect, put an end to Wonka’s reign as candy king. In the end, it’s revealed that Slugworth actually worked for Wonka and was sent to test Charlie and the other guests’ virtues. As a reward, Wonka gives the factory to Charlie to live happily ever after in. Could Smokey be Slugworth to Jacob’s Wonka? Or is it the other way around? Who’s Charlie in this equation? Mind blown yet?
After that boat ride, maybe avid couch potato and fellow golden ticket winner Mike Teevee summed it up best when he said “Now why don’t they show stuff like that on TV?” Looks like he got his wish.
That was a pretty satisfying episode by all accounts, and with the final season of LOST now down to half a dozen episodes, how are you liking it so far?