Hurley episodes are always great. They are hilarious and also dark at the same time. I don't know how Lost does it. But Hurley is one of the amazing things about the show. Up until now. Hugo "Hurley" Reyes has been comedic relief. We don't know much about him. This episode opens us up to him and what brings him to the island. We also get out first glance at those pesky numbers.
I am going to go ahead and get this out of the way. Locke is creepy in this episode. How did he know it was Claire's birthday? And why does he decide to make a cradle for her? Locke is just getting more and more ambiguous as the episodes continue. And this whole scenario is just weird. This episode is the beginning of Locke acting like Claire's creepy uncle. And I don't know if MIB wanted Claire to start trusting Locke (for reasons I still haven't figured out) or if Locke was just being a nice guy. I just don't get him.
This episode begins some heavy mythology with the numbers. Before I was watching Lost, I heard them discussing the numbers on the radio. They were taking calls from fans of the show asking them what they thought of the numbers. Many people thought they were coordinates of where the island was. And so when I first watched the show, I thought that could be what they were. I thought transmission of the numbers and them being etched on the hatch was a way for them to almost keep track of where the island was. I never, ever thought that the numbers were going to correlate to people.
It makes sense though. In line with the show and the ARG they had explaining that the numbers are from an equation that predicts the end of humanity, it makes sense to me if MIB was really going to leave the island and destroy the world. These numbers were the core values of this equation and if the numbers are attached to these people that are the last ones left to stop the world from MIB. It kind of makes sense to me. I don't know if they had all of that planned out but it is pretty cool to think about.
I think that Hurley using these numbers opened something up for them to all get to the island. I tend to think that Hurley, as the leader of the island went back in time (before Jacob time even) and manipulated things to get these people, including himself, there. And I think these numbers are part of this. They aren't cursed, but they are the thing that Hurley is holding onto. Like Sawyer and his letter and Kate and her toy airplane.
My favorite scene in this episode was the trek into the jungle by Hurley, Jack, Sayid and Charlie to go see Rousseau. It was so old fashioned Lost. This episode was so great in so many ways. The way they portrayed Hurley in the dark and light. It was just completely awesome.
