LOST: Ghosts, Wells, And Recruits

Many spoilers ahead. If you have not watched all of LOST including last night’s episode, “Everybody Loves Hugo,” you should move along. There’s nothing to see here.

There’s much to talk about this week, kiddies. Let’s begin with a quick recap. Hurley is visited by Michael who says, “Stop blowing shit up or you’ll get everyone killed!” A few minutes later, Ilana goes and gets herself killed. Say hi to Arzt for me. Personally I thought her death was premature. I mean, a few weeks ago we saw her having a bedside chat with Jacob. That appeared to be the beginning of an interesting arc. Unfortunately, we’ll never know how the two knew each other beyond that hospital visit. We won’t know why she was all burnt up and bandaged. We won’t know what she was smoking when she chose a lunkhead like Bram to be her number two guy. I thought the relationship between Jacob and Ilana needed a little more detail before she spread herself on the beach quicker than Rose did on her first night back together with Bernard. Somehow Ilana’s magic ash sack survived the explosion and Hurley grabbed it like a bag of Doritos and clutched it close to his heart. Or at least the pounds of flesh and fat which are currently constricting his heart.

In his parallel life, Hurley is a rich philanthropist, but like Desmond, Charlie, Jack and Sawyer before him, he’s without love. He’s just like everyone we’ve seen so far in LA_X timeline, except for Kate. Hurley gets set up on a date by his mom (no dad? ouch), and when he shows up at Señor Chuck E. Cheese’s to meet Rosalita we see none other than LIBBY (!) sit down across from him. “You don’t look like a Rosalita,” he says. “Voy a chupar la pinga” she says, speaking in tongues and acting like a psycho crazy slut. Hurley gets the hint, maybe they DO know each other from somewhere else…but then mean old Doctor Senator Kelly from X-MEN grabs Libby and takes her back to the institute.

Meanwhile, on the island, Hurley decides that he and Jack and Sun and Lapidus need to talk to Locke. He’s visited by Michael who says, “Hey, us dead people are the whispers you hear in the woods.” Even though at the beginning of the season at the temple when we heard the whispers someone said that they were The Others. Whatever. I’ll go back and re-watch that scene later to make sure I’m remembering it right. In the meantime, Ben, Miles and Richard go to the barracks to get more explosives. Then they’ll take an outrigger over to Hydra Island. And it will be rainy. And Juliette will shoot and kill either Lapidus or Miles. No one will care.

In sideways land, Hurley is met by Desmond who plants the seed in his mind that Hurley should go find Libby. So he meets Libby at the institute. I wanted the guy playing Connect-Four to start yelling “4 8 15 16 23 42!” and have Hurley snap out of his sideways malaise. It was not to be. Still, everywhere you looked in Hurley’s sideways life there were paintings and pictures of islands. It was like the world was screaming at him, “Abre los ojos!” (to quote Penelope Cruz in…that movie…what’s it called?). Hurley and Libby decide to make a picnic on the beach. She gets all weepy because she felt like they’d had this date before. Hurley says, “Why do you like me? I’m fat.” And she says, “Shut up I can kiss you” and she does, and then he remembers Libby.

Back on the island, Kate and Sawyer stand around like a punch of pawns waiting to be gunned down and put out of their misery (seriously, do you think that those actors even care that they have been completely useless for twelve episodes now?), while Locke goes to have a pow-wow with Desmond in the woods. Then they go for a walk. Then Locke throws Desmond down a well! What the hell?

Lastly, Desmond goes apeshit and runs the fuck over sideways LA_X cripple John Locke. It was stunning. It was hilarious. It was so….Locke. Poor guy is getting his life straightened out in this alternate timeline, with his girlfriend and his job, and he still can’t catch a break. He got RUN THE FUCK OVER. BY DESMOND. How will this affect the island/off-island characters of Desmond and Locke? We’ll find out next week.

So let’s move on to some theories, yes? First of all, I want to state that I thought it was cruel for the writers of last night’s episode to literally have Richard Alpert quiz Hurley by asking, “What is the island?” Are you kidding me!? Then he follows it up by saying something like, “…Because Jacob told me what the island is, so I’ll know if you’re telling the truth.” So the island has a literal definition!? When the hell are we going to find out what it is!? I mean, we got another huge hint last night when we learned that it acts as a kind of purgatory for souls whose actions in life have left them suspended between life and afterlife, but the fact that there is (presumably) a simple answer is maddening.

I don’t think that well Desmond is stuck in contains a frozen donkey wheel. Wasn’t that well eventually turned into the Orchid station? It also seemed a lot less deep than the one John Locke fell down before he moved the island. Oh well, I’ve read on two different websites now that the well we saw last night was the well, but it most definitely is not. I think. The new well is probably the third location circled by Zoe on the island map she was holding when she asked Jin about electromagnetic hot spots. We know it’s a hotspot because the Man In Black explicitly stated so to Desmond just before he tried to kill him. And I think Desmond is exactly where he wants to be. He was cool and collected while talking to the Man In Black, just as he was in telling Ben Linus that his son’s name was Charlie when Ben tried to trick him into revealing he was a pervert stalking schoolchildren. Locke is confused and slightly worried at Desmond being brought via submarine to the island, but Des does his best, “Why would little ol’ me be important? I’m not special!” and MIB appears to believe him.

Next week we’re going to learn the consequences for running over the Man In Black in the LA_X timeline. That is, if the John Locke in LA_X world is really the Man In Black. I’ve been hinting at this for a few weeks now, so I’m very excited to see what happens next. Did Desmond run over Locke as a result of being thrown down a well, or did he run over Locke to try and jog his memory? The answer to that question may aid us in unraveling the connections between these two distinct realities. Either way, we’re going to get to see Locke and Jack interact in both island reality and LA_X reality. It’s going to be awesome.

Here’s a quick one — everyone I’ve spoken to so far thinks that Locke is recruiting people to leave the island with him. But isn’t Desmond also recruiting people off the island in LA_X time? So when we get a teaser about next week’s episode in the title, “The Last Recruit,” are we to believe that one of either Hurley, Jack, Sun and Lapidus will be Locke’s last recruit, or will one of Sawyer, Kate, Jack or Locke be Desmond’s LA_X last recruit? Furthermore, once everybody in LA_X world has their eyes opened to their island life, what is the next step? Desmond can’t take them back to the island, because it’s underwater. Will the combined effects of their being awake for the first time suddenly destroy that reality? Will the Smoke Monster appear in the LA_X world in an attempt to stop them?

And who the hell is that little boy on the island, and why is he aging so rapidly? He looks like a young Matt Damon. Is it Jacob? Is it just one form his ghost can take, and is he now like all the other lost souls in purgatory? Is it Aaron? I hope it’s not Aaron.

Tell me what you’re thinking, LOST fans. Otherwise, I’ll see you after “The Last Recruit.”