LOST: Crazy Heart

Desmond has apparently set his psychic plan into motion, with Hurley being his first target.

Let’s deal with bizarro world first:

In Universe X, Hurley is the CEO of Mr. Clucks because, ya know, he loves chicken. Am I going crazy or did he say that he won the lottery on the plane? Whatever, so he is super loaded and getting an award at a museum. Whose museum you ask? Glad you did, because it is Dr. Pierre Chang’s. So I have no idea what he is doing there because I definitely assumed he was a goner when Juliet detonated the hydrogen bomb and the island ended up at the bottom of the ocean? Oh well, my theories are shot at this point so let’s just roll with this.

The episode is called (as a mirror to the season one Hurley episode) “Everybody Loves Hugo,” except women his ma so kindly points out. So Hurley is set up on a blind date while fate would have Libby there on a fajita field trip from the loony bin at the same time. Libby sits down with Hurley because she knows she knows him, and wants to see if he remembers her too. He doesn’t, but how is Libby crazy with psychic connections? She asks if Hurley believes two people are connected like soul mates, but before they can have any more of a heart to heart, Hurley’s doctor from Universe 815 carts her off to the Santa Rosa mental hospital van, leaving Hurley rejected by a blind date and confused about this crazy person that he kind of likes. Desperation makes us all do weird things…

Depressed, Hurley goes for comfort food and who shows up at Mr. Cluck’s but Des. This is clearly post-seeing-the-light Des because he has a big ol cut on his head (I should really be a detective), and Desmond listens to Hurley’s troubles. He asks Hurley if he believed the crazy chick when she said she knew him, and H-bomb says, yeah, he kind of did. Des recommends Hurley goes with his gut, so Hurley pays a visit to Santa Rosa. The doctor says that Libby has issues with reality, and it will confuse her to see Hurley. Luckily, Hurley has a ton of money now, and can buy himself this lady visit. Hurley meets up with Libster, and she tries to explain her crazy, that she saw a commercial with Hurley in it and it was like memories came washing back from another life. She said she had a memory of Hurley being in the mental hospital too in this bizarro alternate universe, which is weird because we never saw them interacting in Hurley’s mental days at the ward, but then again maybe crazy Libby with dark hair wasn’t just staring longingly (read:creepily) at him all day. Who knows, because I sure feel like the writers just made up a bunch of stuff this time around.

Moving on: Libby and Hurley go on the date they never got to have because Michael is a terrible person and shot her when she went to get blankets for their picnic date. Hurley self-deprecatingly says that Libby only likes him because she is delusional. Oh dear. But then Libster kisses him, and a life he never knew he had comes flooding back to Hurley too. Ok, so what exactly are the qualifications for a window into the other universe? I was willing to buy Charlie and Des seeing flashes before their eyes because they both had effing near death experiences, but a peck on the beach and catching a commercial while channel surfing? Really? I love Libby and Hurley as much as the next person, but their love didn’t exactly seem like an earth shaker. But maybe it could have been if Michael hadn’t been such an ahole. Well at least Libby knows she isn’t crazy, or at least crazy alone, but she does have something in her teeth in that otherwise touching scene, unfortunately. Desmond sees his work is done for those passengers (do Libby and Hurley know they were both on Oceanic 815? Feel like that should have been something to chat about if Libster said she remembered a plane crash), he is on the move once again with some questionable sunglasses. Last stop on this leg of Desmond’s tour of destiny was Dr. Linus’s and Mr. Locke’s school. Looking like a creeper and claiming to have just moved to the neighborhood, Desmond says he is just checking things out for his son Charlie (memory? made it up?) and then drives off…into the wheelchair-bound Locke. Was this just revenge because he was pissed about the well (see below) or was he trying to make Johnny see something? TBD.

Island Time:

Michael, get out. I stopped liking you after you killed Libby and went off the deep end and you just piss me off. Michael appeared to Hurley to tell him that he has to stop the others from blowing up the plane or else everyone was going to die. Ok. So Hurley goes to the beach to lobby the group about not playing with dynamite. Ilana is confident in her decision and says that she has been training her whole life to protect them and that they need to blow up the plane so that that thing can’t leave the island because it is evil and if it does ever leave —

We will never know because Ilana pulled a Dr. Arzt. I totally called her early exit given the way she was manhandling that dynamite. In the aftermath, the beach folks gather their bearings, and Hurley finds the bag o Jacob and some Russian book. He takes the bag, leaves the book. Richard is still really into blowing up the plane, and that they have to do it or else Ilana died for nothing (what is her death going to mean for the show? Where did she come from in the first place? Why was Jman like a father to her?). So the A-Team goes to get some more dynamite, but while they are making their way to the Black Rock, Hurley tricked them and got there first (somehow) and blew up the ship and all the dynamite. Oops. Hurley tries to tell Miles that Michael told him to stop the plane from getting blown to bits (was he just manipulating him on Flocke’s behalf?) and that now Jacob says they should go talk to Locke. Richard is skeptical because Jacob never tells them what to do, and asks Hurley to ask Jacob what the island is (should have been in Latin for good measure). Hurley tells Ricardo he doesn’t have to prove anything to him, and so the team breaks into groups B and C. Richard is committing to stopping Flocke, and Miles and Ben go with him to Dharmaville to get some explosives. Richard tells the three people (danger) that Flocke needs (and Lapidus) to not get in their way and peaces out.

Speaking of that train of thought in my stream of consciousness, Flocke tells Sawyer and Kate that they need to wait. He tells them that they were able to come back to the island because they all did it together, so he needs Sun, Jack, and Hurley all now before he can leave the island. At this point in time, crazy amoral Sayid shows up and says he needs Flocke. He brings him to Desmond tied to a tree. Where are Widmore’s people? Where is Jin? Why aren’t they looking for him?

Let’s have our questions about Des segment of the program:

Does Flocke know Desmond is special? Is Des playing Flocke, saying he has nowhere to run and that he believes him to be John Locke? I don’t think he had that debriefing about how Locke is dead and this is a smoke monster? Why did he tell Flocke he was blasted with electromagnetism? Has he forgotten Widmore told him he had something important to do? Is this what he thinks it is? Who is that brown haired boy that shows up on Des and Flocke’s romp in the woods? Why isn’t this one talking like the creepy blond kid? Is the well that Flocke brings Des to the same as the Orchid Station? Are there several wells? Are people really that curious about compasses to dig to the center of the earth? When Desmond joked about Flocke reading his mind wondering how deep the well was, was that really a joke? Can Flocke read minds? Does Flocke actually think Widmore is bad the same way Ben used to? Did Flocke want Des to be afraid? Why put Des in a well with electromagnetism? How long is our mutual friend going to be stuck down there? Did he anticipate that move?

THIS IS SO LONG. Ok, back to the screwed candidates and Lapidus. Jack tells Hurley that he knows he was lying, but wants to trust him. He tells H-bomb that it is hard for him to sit back and listen to someone else tell him what to do, but maybe that is the point of all this. Jack needs to stop wanting to fix everything because now he is on a guilt trip about Juliet and wants to fix getting her killed, tomorrow he will be back to wanting to fix Jin and Sun’s separation and then he will want to fix the fact that water is wet. Then for one of the most annoying parts in all of Lost: THE WHISPERS.

I am so disappointed. On the way to Flocke’s camp, our team hears the whispers, which every fan knows and has been dying to figure out. I thought they were an intricate communication system used by the others that somehow lapsed time and space. But Hurley conveniently knows what they are, and stupid Michael is there to confirm his totally unimaginative theory. The Whispers are the people stuck on the island, the undead dead. Michael says that he, and the others who can’t move on because of what they did, are the Whispers. LET DOWN.

After that terrible reveal, I didn’t care about the end of this island episode. Hurley gets to Flocke, wants to chat without anyone getting hurt. He gets Flocke’s word (for the little it’s worth) that he won’t do anything, and Flocke gives it to him alone with his knife (the weird one?) and then the rest of the crew come into the light. So now Flocke has everything he needs. Thanks, Michael. Flocke and Jack had some intense eye contact at the end and I didn’t know if it was shock or…?

For another opinion about this episode, read Bilal Mian’s review here.

Season 6, Episode 12: Everybody Loves Hugo (Originally Aired April 13, 2010)

For more on Lost, click here.

Tuesdays, 9/8c on ABC

Photographs courtesy of ABC and Mario Perez.