Summary: Flashbacks take us to right after Hurley learns he won the lottery. Hurley quits his job and has a really fun day with his friend Johnny. Hurley is happy and doesn't want everything to change, but it inevitably does after Johnny learns that Hurley won the lottery. On the island, Hurley is put in charge of the food and begins to cave under the pressure of everyone hating him because he doesn't give them food. He tries to get out of the job but is unable to. Pushed to the limit after an argument with Charlie, Hurley tries to blow up the food with dynamite but Rose talks him out of it. Hurley then decides to give away all of the food to everybody. On the other side of the island, Sawyer, Michael and Jin are freed by Ana Lucia's group who are also survivors of flight 815 from the tail section of the plane. The tailies have also found a Dharma station and the 5 of them who survived are living there. One of them is Bernard, Rose's husband.
The Good: The tailies storyline is the redeeming quality of this episode. These characters are all so mysterious so it's fascinating to learn about them and what they've been through. The scenes with the tailies were all excellent and there were numerous good moments that effectively utilized comedy, tension, suspense and mystery to create good television, like Sawyer's interactions with Ana Lucia and the reveal that there "were" twenty-three of them. There were a few other little things I liked. Sayid investigating the magnetic wall makes perfect sense and it enriches the mystery of The Swan. Seeing Rose again is always nice, and it was a welcome surprise to run into Bernard in the tailies group. There was a funny transition from Charlie yelling at Hurley on the island to Hurley mocking Drive Shaft in the flashbacks. Lastly, I liked the return of Locke's boss Randy who is Hurley's boss in the flashbacks. It's a nice little easter egg. The Bad: Unfortunately this was an atrocious episode that did almost everything wrong. The Hurley storyline was a complete bust and it felt like a waste of time. Following up on recent events, you would expect Hurley to get an episode focused on the numbers and his fear about what their appearance on the island might mean. Instead we get an episode showcasing Hurley's fear of people not liking him. This comes right out of nowhere and it never feels like an important story. Furthermore, there is no fascinating character development that occurs in this episode, stripping "Lost" of one of its best qualities. Hurley's character arc is written so poorly. I can understand that Hurley wants people to like him and is afraid of being hated, but that is never the focal point of the episode. Instead the episode chooses to make Hurley believe that all change is bad because it makes people hate him. That's such a nonsensical belief. Judging by the stories both on and off the island, surely Hurley should believe that secrets are the problem, not change. Hurley kept a secret from Johnny and lost a friend, while on the island people are getting angry with Hurley because he is keeping secrets. Instead, the writers don't even address this, and that really hurts the episode. The resolution of this story is somehow even worse. A logical conclusion would be for Hurley to accept that change needs to happen and move forwards as a more mature person. Instead the show takes a perplexing route and seemingly enforces that Hurley was right all along. Giving away all of the food means that Hurley still rejects change and never learns anything from his experience. That's awful writing. Why create this story is Hurley doesn't grow or change from his experiences? It's all so pointless from a character perspective. The flashbacks are also quite bad. The tone is all over the place and there never seems to be a consistent story being told. Rather than focusing on a specific character arc for Hurley, the show gives us a bunch of random scenes with a loose thematic attachment, and then the show hopes that everything would just gel together and make something worthwhile. It didn't work. And then we get to Hurley's decision to blow up the food with dynamite. Oh dear. First of all, it's impossible to believe that Hurley would get to the point where he would decide that blowing up the food would solve all of his problems. The episode never makes me buy into his mindset. Even more ridiculous though is the thought that Hurley would even get dynamite in the first place. This is the same Hurley who was too horrified to even touch the dynamite in "Exodus", the same Hurley that was horrified after he witnessed Arzt explode handling dynamite. Hurley is the last person I would ever expect to grab the dynamite, so you can imagine how livid I was when I realized what Hurley was about to do. I can't believe that the writers decided that Hurley would logically try to blow up the food. Sadly I'm only just beginning to scratch the surface as to how nonsensical the writing was in this episode. I thought the decision to keep everything in The Swan a secret was baffling. Everyone in the camp knows there was a hatch, so how do they plan to keep everything secret? People will want answers! They will want to see what was in the hatch, they will want to know why Locke and Jack go out in the jungle and rarely come back, they will want to know everything because that's how humans behave. The idea that Locke and Jack wouldn't want to tell anybody is just absurd and I can't understand why they would make that decision. It gets worse when later in the episode, Locke casually tells Charlie about everything inside The Swan. What the hell!? This contradicts everything we had just learned about keeping The Swan a secret. What makes this all the more egregious is the fact that the whole episode is centered around Hurley's frustrations at keeping The Swan secret. Just tell everybody about it! It's not hard. Let them know that there is food but that they are organizing it and handing it out very soon. People will understand, and it seems like a far better idea than just telling everyone nothing. The communication between everybody in this episode is just horrible. We have no idea what the group discussed to do about The Swan, which is made worse when the writing contradicts itself. Without any context surrounding the decision to tell people about The Swan, there is no drama and it's hard to understand the characters when we skip over important conversations that they must have regarding The Swan. One key aspect that made me groan in disbelief is the idea that Hurley is in charge of the food. Why on Earth would only one person be in charge of food? Surely Jack and Locke and Sayid would want to have extensive discussions about what to do with the food. I mean, it's food and they need it to survive! Why would they pawn it off to Hurley and instead focus on some button which can be easily taken care off? This gets even more frustrating when Hurley goes to Locke in an attempt to give somebody else the job. But Locke tells him he's not allowed to quit. Um, why? There are 40+ other people on the island, just get one of them to do the job! Why make poor Hurley suffer needlessly? At least get the man some help! But apparently Locke is too busy organizing shifts for the button, a job that should be considered far less important than organizing the food. Locke is a total asshole here for no reason whatsoever. Then we get to the end of the episode where Hurley simply gives away all of the food in a single day. Why would everyone allow this? Boar, fruit and fish will surely run out so shouldn't there be a back-up supply of food just in case? Why is nobody mentioning this? Even Jack just accepts Hurley's decision because "well Hurley's in charge of the food". Well he really shouldn't be in charge of the food if he makes idiotic decisions like this! It's unbelievable that nobody had any interest in the food and helping Hurley figure out what to do with it. Also, what happened to keeping everything secret? You can't just give everyone packaged food without explaining where it came from. The fact that nobody else in the survivors' group has gone to check out the hatch is completely unrealistic. Showing Charlie following Locke to get answers isn't enough. Everyone should be following Locke to get answers. Charlie is a prick in this episode. He says mean things to Hurley over and over again, and he gets angry for virtually no reason. He's impossible to like in this episode. Of course it's all made worse when you realize that Hurley could have simply told him he's organizing the food and that he will give him the peanut butter once he's done. They're friends so Charlie would understand. But then there would be no drama, so of course we need to include another frustrating case where characters are inept at communicating with each other. The scene of Jack walking in on Kate in the bathroom was so awkward. I have no idea what the point of that scene was. It was just weird and the character interactions were incredibly awkward. Maybe that was the point of the scene, but I can't imagine why. It didn't further Jack and Kate's relationship and it wasn't funny. It just made Jack look extremely creepy. Lastly, that dream sequence was random and in no way relevant to anything. It felt like a poor attempt to start off the episode in an interesting way. Instead, the dream only adds to the tonal inconsistencies present throughout the episode. The Unknown: What is under all of that concrete? Why did the Dharma Initiative need to put so much concrete there? What happened to the tailies? There were 23 of them but now there are 5. Did the others attack them? What's in their Dharma station? Which station is it? What's its purpose? Best Moment: The feast at the end was nice. These montages are more effective now that we have come to love these characters, and seeing all of them be happy was emotionally satisfying. I particularly loved the detail of Rose pocketing an Apollo bar, presumably to give to Bernard when she sees him again. A shame that this came right at the end of the episode, too little, too late. Character of the Episode: Rose. Conclusion: What a frustrating episode. There isn't much to enjoy here, and when you start digging through the details, nothing makes sense. This was a horrible way to follow up on one of the biggest episodes of the show yet. This season has been really inconsistent so far. Hopefully it can hit a more consistent stride soon because I don't want any more episodes like this pile of trash. Score: 36
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Aaron DhillonJust a university student who loves to watch TV. And analyze it way too much. Archives
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