As the episode fades up, we watch a couple of beers go up to the top deck of the Searcher with Frank, where the discussions about their future is being had by the O6 three years in the past. Almost everyone seems in agreement about what they need to do; even Frank. The one hold out is Hurley who really doesn’t think they should lie. If they back each other up, he figures, they won’t sound crazy. Sayid still thinks this is their only choice. Hurley scowls and tells him that if ever he needs his help someday, he wont give it. Flash forward to Hurley helping Sayid to safety after they were jumped in the safe house.
(Wasn’t that at night? And now it’s daytime? How long do those tranqs last?) Hurley drives erratically, knocking over garbage cans, and he hears sirens behind him. He pulls over because he doesn’t know what else to do. An officer approaches the car and Holy Ghost of DUI’s Past, it’s Ana Lucia, who yells at him for pulling over because he needs to avoid getting arrested, not waltz right into the arms of the police. She also gives him three very specific instructions.
Ana Lucia’s Instructions From The Grave #1: Get new clothes. Hurley has pulled into a gas station that sells t-shirts. He passes over the one that says “I [heart] My Wirehaired,” to the chagrin of Jack Bender’s dog, I’m sure, and grabs one that says “I [heart] My Shih Tzu”. He is recognized by the cashier. She knows he’s an O6 but not that he’s a triple murder suspect. He tries to lie, poorly of course, and ends up running out the door. As he pulls out of the gas station, Kate actually pulls in to the same gas station to try to figure out where to go next. She thinks about calling Jack, but she gets a call from someone she knows but is unidentified to us. Apparently, she can’t believe this person is in LA. She agrees to meet them right away.
Ben has something mysterious stashed in the vent in the hotel room which he is packing up. He notices Jack looking for something. Ben tells him he flushed his pills. Jack lies about having the same plan. Ben tells him he has six hours to pack what he wants from this life because they are leaving and never coming back. Jack says, “Good.” Ben leaves, as he has a corpse to put on ice.
Ana Lucia’s Instructions From The Grave #2: Go somewhere safe. Hurley goes to his parent’s house, where his dad is eating a sandwich and settling in to watch the Lost voiceover guy’s new gig saying “Previously On…” for the show Exposé. Hurley carries in Sayid and dumps him on the couch as he fills in his dad on their adventure. He explains they are in danger but when pressed, doesn’t actually know from whom. The cops arrive and his dad gets rid of them or at least gets them to go back to their stakeout. Dad insists they need a doctor, and that gives Hurley an idea.
Ben walks into a butcher shop and pulls a number (342, naturally) and waits to talk to Jill, the butcher lady, who Ben apparently knows quite well. She doesn’t even have to guess that he has a dead guy for her. Apparently, we learn, Gabriel and Jeffrey have checked in and “everything” is going per schedule. Also, if Jill doesn’t keep the body safe then everything they are about to do “won’t matter at all.”
Meanwhile the bickering has started on the beach over fire. Bernard can’t start one and Rose is standing over him criticizing him as only a wife can. She tells him he has too much wood. I didn’t realize that could be a, um, problem. Neil Frogurt is there and he’s whining and complaining. Get used to this, at least for now. Unfortunately, he also gives Sawyer a shirt. Frogurt isn’t making any friends in this audience. The beach fire brigade is finally successful, for a second. Neil continues to whine about it some more. Down the beach a ways, Daniel is looking at the stars when Charlotte offers him her mangoes. Get your mind out of the gutter. Also, she has a headache. This worries Dan. She also admits she has been forgetting things, like her mom’s maiden name. She asks him if he knows what’s wrong with her. He says she’ll be fine soon. She knows when he’s lying (who doesn’t, really?) but he is saved by the bell when Miles returns with a dead boar that he found in the jungle and knows to be only dead for 3 hours. He fails to elaborate. To bad there’s no fire to cook it on… maybe. Neil gets one more chance to be a total sarcastic jerk, when right on cue (“we cant even get FIRE!” he screams) he gets hit square in the chest with a flaming arrow. So the frozen yogurt guy meets his end by being set on fire? Awesome! Sawyer and Juliet don’t see the irony, they just see a wall of flaming arrows raining down on them and everyone on the beach panics. It is total chaos as redshirts catch on fire left and right. Even Vincent is scared. Juliet tries to help a victim but Sawyer pulls her away and saves her from being next.
Meanwhile Kate is arriving at the mystery caller’s fancy hotel with Aaron in tow. They get on the elevator and Aaron wants to push the button. I’m surprised it isn’t floor 23 or 42. At least we know Aaron is good at pushing buttons. He’ll need that skill when he gets back to the island. By the way, the mystery caller is Sun. The ladies sit down to a nice cup o’ tea and talk kids for a few minutes. Sun shows Kate a picture of Ji Yeon as a baby. Although she should be just a little younger than Aaron. I wonder why she doesn’t have a more recent picture of her? Kate is clearly worried, but not about the picture. Kate admits that someone is on to them. Sun hears her story and proposes that whoever is ordering the tests just wants Aaron; if they really wanted to expose them they would have gone to the media. She creepily challenges Kate to “take care of” the people threatening her in order to save Aaron. Kate is hilariously offended by the implication that she, a woman who has murdered and robbed in the past, could be so cold-hearted. Sun tells her she knows she can do what she has to do, and the scene with Jin’s death is shown again, with the emphasis on Kate promising to get Jin and then returning to the helicopter without him. Sun tells Kate she doesn’t blame her for her husband’s death, but she looks precisely like she feels the opposite.
Ana Lucia’s Instructions From The Grave #3: Take Sayid to someone he trusts. Hurley and Cheech get Sayid in a car and Cheech drives away to deliver him to Jack in a parking garage. This is like the worst HMO I have ever seen. Jack insists on taking Sayid to the hospital even though Cheech emphatically says not to, for all their safety’s sake. Jack doesn’t listen of course, so Cheech tells him that when all this is over, he needs to stay away from his son, since he doesn’t appear to have Hurley’s best interests in his heart. Jack squirms in affirmation. Jack drives away and calls Ben to fill him in. Back at the house Hurley is freaking out. His mother is trying to talk to him. Hurley tries to defend Sayid as a good guy but his mother speaks for his conscience; a good guy doesn’t kill people. She looks him in the eye and says, “Tell your mother the truth.” He spills it. He explains four seasons in 60 seconds, which is hard. I’ve tried, and it always sounds crazy. Hurley sounds crazier. His mom lets all the information sink in, and says, “I believe you. I don’t understand you, but I believe you.” Hurley is relieved, but still worried. Jack and Ben say that the bad things are happening because they left, but Hurley feels the bad things are happening because they lied.
Juliet and Sawyer have been separated from the other beachies and are heading to the creek when Sawyer steps on one humungoid thorn. It’s gross. I look away as he yanks it out. A moment later they hear something in the woods. In a S2 Jin/Mr. Eko-like move, they hide themselves and watch as three sets of feet walk slowly by in the woods, this time in shoes and uniforms. When they’ve gone past Sawyer and Juliet start whispering to each other which is a big mistake. They are jumped from behind and captured. One of the men, the name “Jones” stenciled on his uniform, says with a British accent, “What are you doing on our island?”
In LA, luckily, Jack knows a back door to the hospital where he’s able to just stick an unconscious dude on a stretcher and rifle through the medicines with absolutely nobody noticing or asking him, “Hey, what are you doing?” He gives Sayid a shot of adrenaline and while checking his pupils, Sayid wakes up in kill-mode. He almost chokes Jack to death before realizing what was going on. When he lets go, Jack fills him in. Sayid wants to know where Hurley is, and more importantly if anyone knows he’s there. We all see the word “Ben” written across Jack’s face. Back at home the writers have Hurley eating yet again because there’s still a few of us unaware that he’s fat, I guess. He is heating up a Hot Pocket in the microwave. Ben appears out of nowhere and, panicking, Hurley throws his small microwaveable frozen meal (…of DEATH!) at him. He’s lucky he missed, those fillings can really scald a person. Ben isn’t there for a late night snack, however, he’s there to reassure Hurley that he can get him out of there, and take him to Sayid. The same way Ben manipulated Jack’s guilty conscience, and Sayid’s pain and anger, he now attempts with Hurley’s honest streak. He tells Hurley to come with him, back to the island where they can stop all the deception. Ben promises he will never have to lie again. Hurley looks relieved. He looks ready to go. He looks like he remembered what Sayid said about never believing Ben and takes off out the door. He joyfully gives himself up to the cops for the relative safety of a holding cell.
Sawyer and Juliet are also in custody, but with the British guys. Jones says if they don’t give them info they will cut off Juliet’s other hand. Because, fyi, they are going to cut one off anyway to illustrate their seriousness. Despite Sawyer’s insistence that he will tell them everything, they still plan to slice her up. Suddenly out of nowhere, rocks are thrown and the soldiers go down. Juliet takes command of the gun. Just as the first guy to get knocked out comes to and starts to sneak up on them, he gets an expertly thrown knife in the gut. “Whoever could have thrown that” we don’t bother asking, because it can only be Locke.
Somewhere in a creepy, dark lair, a hooded figure is doing complicated mathematical equations on a chalkboard as a Foucault’s Pendulum swings in the middle of the room. An old Dharma-hatch-like computer shows a map of the Pacific and the words “Event Window Determined” flash across the screen. The figure goes through a very Dharma-hatchy door and goes upstairs to a church where it is revealed that she is Mrs. Hawking and she is meeting with Ben. She tells him she has had some luck with something. She also tells him he has 70 hours to get everyone together. When Ben asks what happens if he can’t get them all in time, her answer is a chilling and mysterious “Then God help us all.”
I will freely admit that I love all the Hurley episodes, he is my favorite character. This one was especially good. It is an aptly named episode for one thing, as lies cropped up left and right. Some were told well, some were told horribly. There was almost as many ironies as there were lies! I loved seeing Ana Lucia helping out, Frogurt getting the best death moment since Edmund Burke got hit by a bus, and Sayid playing the majority of the episode as a prop. What would be even funnier is if he got an Emmy for this. Also of interest is the scene with Ben and Mrs. Hawking. Based on the screen in the lab, it looks like she is trying to locate the island, either in space or time. I hope this means that this ‘getting back’ story will take only 70 hours, as opposed to 70 days, since I don’t think I can take an entire season of the island hitting 88 miles an hour every ten minutes.
Well, I gotta go now. I can’t wait to try this new recipe for a lettuce, cheese, pepperoni and caviar sandwich. Yum!
Follow Us
