Lost: Hugo Gets His Wish

By Dan Birlew | Posted April 15, 2010 in Television | 9 Comments »

Nobody hates Hugo in the sideways universe; everybody loves Hugo! Such as Dr. Pierre Chang, for instance. In the 1970′s Chang was the head administrator and scientist of the mysterious organization called the Dharma Initiative. He rescued his wife and son, Miles, from an island shortly before it sank into the ocean. Back then, he wasn’t such a fan of Hugo (who is better known as “Hurley”), he forced him to admit that Miles and his friends were from the future. But in the sideways universe, Dr. Chang doesn’t seem to recollect any of this. He’s just happy that lottery winner and owner of international food chain Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Hugo Reyes is donating to his museum. And another note about Dr. Chang: he injured his arm during a cataclysmic accident on the Island known as “The Incident.” The injury was so bad that he seemed to lose the use of his arm, and became nicknamed “Dr. Deadarm.” But in the sideways universe, he’s waving it around just fine as he commemorates Hugo Reyes for his contributions to the museum. He then presents Hurley with an award shaped like a Tyrannosaurus Rex, which is what Island Hurley thought the Monster might be.

What more proof do you need that the sideways universe is a “false” reality, an evil dream?

Sideways world may not seem so false at first; after all, the heroes are finally getting everything they were denied by the Island. Take Hurley for instance; in the Island universe his luck seemed more like a curse. He won the lottery by using “The Numbers” (4 8 15 16 23 42) which he’d heard from another inmate while he was a patient in the Santa Rosa Mental Hospital. Hurley interred himself there voluntarily because he was standing on a deck that collapsed, killing 23 people. Believing the accident was his fault, he became depressed. While in the hospital he became friends with a man named Dave, who seemed to always want to get Hurley in trouble. Hurley’s psychiatrist, Dr. Douglas Brooks, took a photo of Hurley with Dave and then showed it to him. But in the photo, Hurley was alone. Turns out Dave wasn’t real. Either that, or he was another one of the dead people Hurley was seeing. This convinced Hurley to shut Dave out of his life and deal with his other issues.

After Hurley got out of the asylum he got a job at Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack, during which time he used The Numbers to win the lottery. When he came forward to collect his winnings and talk to the press, his grandfather died of a heart attack. During the funeral, the priest was struck by lightning. He used his winnings to buy his mom a house and to buy himself a Hummer. But a fire broke out in the house and Hurley was mistaken by the cops as a drug dealer.

Trying to move on, Hurley bought factories and businesses, such as a box company in Tustin, California (where John Locke found a job) and Mr. Cluck’s. But on the day of Mr. Cluck’s grand reopening, a meteor fell on the building and destroyed it, killing a reporter named Tricia Tanaka and her cameraman inside. Hurley determined that he must find the source of The Numbers to end the curse. He’d heard The Numbers from an inmate named Leonard who’d heard them from an Australian named Sam Toomey. So Hurley went to Australia to find Toomey, only to learn that he’d committed suicide 4 years ago. Hurley boarded Flight 815 to return to Los Angeles, and wound up crashing on the Island. It was on the Island that he met fellow survivor Libby and started to fall in love. But when Libby went to the Swan station to get a blanket for their first big date, Michael Dawson shot and killed her.

None of this matters to sideways Hurley, however. In the sideways universe he’s got what he always wanted, to be the luckiest man on earth. As he said to James Ford (known in the Island universe as “Sawyer”) in this season’s opening episode, “Dude, I’m the luckiest man alive, nothing bad ever happens to me.”

Sideways Hurley’s only problem is women. That’s where his mom hopes to intervene. She sets him up on a date with a neighborhood girl named Rosalita. But Rosalita never shows up for their date. Instead, someone unexpected joins Hurley at his table; Libby. She’s a mental patient at Santa Rosa, released temporarily under the care of Dr. Douglas Brooks for a dinner outing. It seems that Libby has had a recent break from “reality,” and remembers her time with Hurley in the Island universe. Only he doesn’t.

Upset by the encounter, Hurley walks into one of his Mr. Cluck’s locations and falls off the wagon, by ordering a bucket of chicken. Owning the world’s largest chicken fast food chain probably isn’t good for an overeater. Waiting for his order in the restaurant is a man-on-a-mission, Desmond Hume. In sideways universe, Desmond works for Mr. Charles Widmore. After a recent epiphany during which he recovered his memories of the Island, Desmond has decided to track down the other passengers of Flight 815 and try to get them to remember as well. So Desmond is probably not at the restaurant by accident. But how Desmond would have known that Hurley would eat at that particular Mr. Clucks on that particular day remains something of a mystery. Either that, or in true Widmore style, Desmond has had private investigators collect extensive files on every Flight 815 passenger, from which he might have learned that whenever Hurley gets depressed he goes to that particular Mr. Cluck’s to chow down. Or maybe he’s just following Hurley everywhere, like a stalker. Desmond lets on that he knows Hurley from Flight 815 and asks why Hurley is overeating. Hurley explains the situation with Libby. Either Desmond remembers that Hurley and Libby were close on the Island, or he suspects they might have been close and just don’t remember. Whichever the case, he convinces Hurley to pursue the relationship.

At first Dr. Brooks is reluctant to let Hurley see Libby. After all, he doesn’t really know Hurley, because Hurley was never a mental patient at Santa Rosa. But a big fat donation check clears the way. After Libby explains that she has memories of Hurley from another life, he asks her to sign herself out to go on a date.

So like a lot of other characters in the sideways universe, Hurley is getting everything that he wants; no curse, and a beach picnic date with Libby. During that beach picnic they finally kiss, an act which triggers all of Hurley’s memories of the Island. Suddenly he doesn’t think Libby is so crazy. Watching Hurley’s awakening is Desmond, spying on them from his car nearby. Obvious from his smile is that he knows he’s triggered a change in Hurley. Now he has a new job, to go and try to kill wheelchair-bound John Locke.

There is only one thing missing from Hurley’s sideways universe story: a prolonged, distracted stare at himself in a mirror. Many of the other sideways universe characters have experienced this: Jack stared at himself in the mirror and became confused by a strange new cut on his neck; Kate stared into a mirror and changed her mind about leaving Claire stranded on the roadside; Locke stared into a mirror while he was shaving and then decided not to call Dr. Jack Shephard about his paralysis; Sayid stared at his own reflection in Nadia’s front door; Ben stared at himself in a microwave oven; Sawyer smashed his own reflection in a locker room mirror; Sun stared in a hotel mirror at her ring-less finger; Desmond stared at himself reflected in the luggage pickup chart for a long moment after disembarking Flight 815. Hurley is the only character this season who hasn’t had a long, confused moment while looking into a mirror. Of course, there was the scene where he was in Mr. Cluck’s surrounded by his own promotional posters. But this fast-food hall of mirrors didn’t seem to bother him. He was already bothered, so perhaps that distracted him from being distracted. Who knows, maybe the reflection motif has been a MacGuffin all along.

In Island universe, the most interesting thing that happened to Hurley was that he saw Michael Dawson, who died three years ago trying to prevent the freighter from blowing up. Michael is basically the last dead person Hurley wanted to see, especially since he’s never seen Libby after her death. Michael was actually supposed to blow up the freighter before it got to the Island, but then he heard The Whispers and Libby appeared. She warned Michael not to do it, and so he didn’t. When Michael’s efforts to stop the freighter from exploding failed, the Smoke Monster as Christian Shephard appeared in his prisoner uniform and told him, “You can go now, Michael,” after which the freighter exploded. It seemed those words released Michael from the Island’s hold, since previously he’d tried to kill himself but couldn’t because “the Island wasn’t done with him yet.” But now Michael is one of the dead people trapped on the Island, who can’t move on. Hurley has finally answered one of the Island’s prevailing mysteries; The Whispers always occur just before a dead person appears, or before the Smoke Monster appears as either smoke or a dead person. The Whispers are those who died on the Island and can’t move on, probably because of what they did. We also have to wonder now if these undead spirits are the source of other supernatural phenomena on the Island, such as helping to bring the candidates to the Island.

Ilana’s sudden death by mishandling dynamite and Michael’s appearances convinced Island Hurley that he needed to prevent Jack and the others from trying to blow up Ajira Flight 316, which crashed-landed on Hydra Island. He destroyed the Black Rock and the cache of dynamite stored there, which almost felt like he was bringing closure to a centuries-old storyline. Richard didn’t get all sentimental and misty-eyed over the destruction of his former slave quarters. Instead, he divided the heroes in half, taking Ben and Miles with him to go get more guns and explosives apparently stashed at the old Dharma barracks. Meanwhile Hurley convinced Jack, Sun and the others to go try to make peace with the Man in Black. Now we must wait with teeth clenched for a whole week to see if that was a mistake or not.

Meanwhile, another appearance by the Mysterious Boy adds to my previous theory that he might be a representation of the true John Locke. The Man in Black saw the boy while trekking to the well with Desmond, who also saw the kid. I really believe it’s the same kid because he’s dressed the same. Otherwise the kid is taller, older, and his blond hair has turned brown. Anyone remember a season 4 episode called “Cabin Fever,” in which a young John Locke was visited by Richard Alpert in foster care? Remember how sandy blond Locke’s hair was? During the same episode, we saw that Locke’s hair turned brown as he got older. This happens to a lot of people: I myself was born with bright blond hair which quickly darkened. Anyway, I believe that the Mysterious Boy is a supernatural version of John Locke, birthed by the Island somehow and growing up at an accelerated rate, like Spock in the Star Trek movies. Why do I think it’s Locke? Because the Man in Black is starting to take on more and more qualities of Locke, even though he’s merely imitating the man. He evidenced these qualities by telling Sawyer that he didn’t know what the stick he was carving was going to be until it was done, and during the previous episode “The Substitute” when he told the Mysterious Boy, “Don’t tell me what I can’t do!” And John Locke was a survivalist; he could survive on his own in the jungle for days. Even if the boy is not Locke, I believe his accelerated growth represents some kind of “countdown timer” for the Man in Black; he must complete his plan and escape from the Island before the Mysterious Boy reaches full maturity, or he won’t be able to maintain Locke’s form. If that happens, he has to go back to being Smoke, and a prisoner once more.

As for Desmond’s fate on the Island, I don’t think we have anything to worry about. His recent change of heart about Widmore and the Island was finally explained when he said to the Man in Black, “What’s the point in being afraid?” After all, he survived a massive blast of electromagnetic energy, not once but twice, and lived. That could easily make a man lose a good deal of his fear. And previously, Desmond was a man often defeated by his own fears. But the Man in Black didn’t care either way; he took Desmond out to the well to throw him into it, so that Widmore couldn’t use Desmond against him. I don’t think the Man in Black fully understands the concept of electromagnetism. After all, if he did, he probably wouldn’t have thrown Desmond into a well dug by people who found a strong electromagnetic source in that area. As seen on the previews, the fall into the well won’t kill Desmond precisely because of that.

Tags: Lost

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