Hurley flashback episodes were always fun because Hurley was one of the most beloved characters on the show.  Interestingly enough, that very idea is played with during “Everybody Hates Hugo.”

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes had been given the job of taken inventory and rationing out the food found inside the Hatch, and it was a job that Hurley did not relish.

Many flashbacks are meant to mirror things that are happening on the Island, but honestly, few have had such a connection as this one did.  The off-Island scenes dealt with the hours after Hurley discovered that he had won the lottery, but before he claimed the money.  Hurley was worried that the lottery win would change things in his life, but not necessarily for the better.

I wonder if Hurley had “made his own luck” by believing in the curse when he saw how his friend Johnny turned on him when he discovered that Hurley had the winning lotto ticket.

Hurley quit his job, asked out the girl he had been crushing on, and had a day of fun because he knew that change was going to happen.

On the Island, Hurley worried over the responsibility and was scared that, just like Johnny who turned on him, the rest of the Island would hate him when he had to say no to requests for food.  Charlie, who had asked for peanut butter, was an example that seemed to support Hurley’s assumption.

It was such a concern for Hurley that he retrieved a stick of dynamite and was preparing to blow the food pantry up.  Thankfully, Rose came along to prevent Hurley from doing anything rash.  Hurley planned a big party to feed everyone at the same time so there would be no arguments.

Meanwhile, Jin, Sawyer and Michael are in the pit trying to figure out what they were going to do.  The lid was opened and a rope tossed down.  first Jin and then Michael, but they left Sawyer in the hole, to which Sawyer, in reference to Ana Lucia, said “Bitch.”

Jin and Michael convinced them that they were on the plane too and let Sawyer out.  We meet Mr. Eko (though not by name), Ana Lucia and Libby.  They take Jin, Michael and Sawyer to another Hatch where the rest of their people resided, including Rose’s husband Bernard.

The scene where Bernard asked Michael about Rose was very sweet and Bernard was very relieved by the news that his wife was fine.

As I said earlier, Hurley-centric episodes never fail, and “Everybody Hates Hugo” is just another example of a great one.

This one was great.

Episode 3 dropped a ton of mythology on us about the Dharma Initiative, and we meet Mr. Eko and his “Jesus Stick”- or at least, Sawyer met the Jesus Stick up close and personal.

There was so much going on in this episode that each scene fell perfectly in time with the last one.  In a Locke-centric flashback, we see John struggling to get through life dealing with the anger and confusion that comes when your father cons you into donating your kidney to him and then dumps you like yesterday’s garbage.  While John was dealing with that, he met Helen.

Back in Walkabout, John first mentions the name of Helen (although that is not the same Helen as we get here).  Played by the wonderful Katie Segal, Helen and John become a couple, but he just could not give up his obsession with his father.  John would go out in the night to sit in his car outside Cooper’s house.  One night, Cooper came and got in the car with John to remind us what a cold-hearted bastard Anthony Cooper was.  His dismissal of John was such a cruel scene that you cannot help but feel for him, a man who only wants to understand why his father would have done that to him.

The flashbacks end in a positive place as Helen forces John to choose between her and the obsession with his father.  Although this has a happy ending, we know where John ends up in the flashbacks, crippled and talking to a sex phone service to a woman he calls Helen.

Back in the Hatch, Kate, who has escaped her prison, gets the drop on Desmond.  During the scuffle, Desmond accidentally fires his gun and shoots the computer, causing Desmond to freak out.  “We’re all gonna die” he said.  Kate goes to get Sayid to fix the computer.  Jack seems very agitated and then Desmond appears to recognize Jack, to Locke’s surprise. Desmond then tells his story of being stranded on his race around the world in his boat, being grabbed by Kelvin and brought to the Swan station to push a button.  “Just saving the world” Desmond said, Kelvin’s words, not his.  Then, Desmond directs Jack and Locke to the bookcase where an orientation film is hidden behind the novel, Turn of the Screw.

The film is an orientation film used by a group called the Dharma Initiative to explain what the Swan Station’s purpose is.  It features a man who calls himself Dr. Marvin Candle, but we know as Dr. Pierre Chang.  He gives background on the Dharma Initiative.

John wants to watch it again.

I am not sure the reasoning behind Jack being so angry this entire episode.  He just seems so out of control, which, though Jack has been shown to be hot-tempered, this felt like a whole new level.  This, of course, continued to set up the conflict between Jack and Locke.

Sayid is brought in (with Hugo) to fix the computer as the timer continues to countdown.  Desmond takes off, leaving the Swan.  Jack departs too, which leaves John in a conundrum on what to do next.

Sayid is able to fix the computer and they enter the code into the computer which, to Hurley’s shock, is the numbers, 4 8 15 16 23 42.

This would be enough for most episodes, but we also get to see Sawyer, Jin and Michael, who had been subdued by the “Others”, tossed into a pit in the ground.  As they try to figure out what to do, a girl is dropped into the pit as well.  It is Ana Lucia, whom we met in the finale of season one.  She was on the plane, too.

When Sawyer pulls out the gun, prepared to shoot “Shaft” the next time he opened the cage, Ana Lucia disarmed Sawyer and called to be let out.  It was obvious that they dumped Ana Lucia in the pit to get information.  As she is being pulled out, Mr. Eko said “Who are they?”

Everything worked together in this episode so well, keeping tension with each second clicking off the timer.  In what could have been nothing but a big exposition dump, the show really found some creative ways to give information and still be remarkably entertaining.

I really found Jack unlikable here and I was glad that this was not the first impression I had of Jack because I would have hated him.  He was very close-minded and judgemental during these Swan scenes and even at the end, where he wound up pushing the button, Jack was on edge.

Desmond would not be seen again until the finale of season two.

“See you in another life, yeah?”

In episode two, “Adrift”, we learn what happened to Sawyer, Michael and Jin after the Others arrived and took Walt, destroying the raft in the process.

We also saw the events that led up to the ending where last episode “man of Science, Man of Faith” ended, with Desmond holding a gun on Locke as Jack recognizes him.

The story of Locke and Kate in the Hatch is told in a different POV and reveals new information about the Swan.  It is a very interesting story telling technique that allows the creators of LOST to tell the story in other ways than a simple narrative way.  I do remember being a little unsettled when the whole Hatch story ended in episode two exactly where it ended in episode one.  It was something that LOST would do on many different occasions.

On the pieces of the raft that remain, Sawyer and Michael struggle to survive while attempting to find someone to blame.  Sadly, they started by blaming each other. Michael blamed Sawyer for making him fire the flare gun and Sawyer blamed Michael because he knew this was the Others and he correctly inferred that the “child” that they were after was Walt.

The scene where Sawyer pulled the bullet from his shoulder with his bare hands was one of the most bad ass things in the history of LOST as was Sawyer’s snide remark about wanting a band-aid.

Bullet wounds and a falling apart raft was not the only trouble Sawyer and Michael faced.  There was a shark swimming around them, probably attracted by the blood from Sawyer’s bullet wound.  As you can see, the shark actually has a Dharma mark on its tail.  We see this Dharma symbol several times this episode, including in the Hatch, and on the products that Kate found in the storage room.

John manipulated Desmond to tie up Kate instead of him, and then he slipped Kate a knife.  John must have believed that she would have a better chance of escaping than he did.  Meanwhile, John tried to talk to Desmond, giving him answers to his questions and trying to keep him calm.

Then we hear the sound of beeping that takes over the Swan and Desmond forces John to type in the numbers, 4 8 15 16 23 42, into an old fashioned computer.  Once that happens, a timer on the wall resets to 108.00.

When Jack arrived, Desmond hears him, and sets up the stand-off that we see at the end of episode number one.

As this is going on, Sawyer and Michael have drifted back to the Island, and, a they come up on shore, they find, miracle beyond miracle, Jin running to meet them.  The problem?  Jin’s arms are tied and he is yelling about “Others”.  A group of mysterious people are following Jin.

We know they are not Others, as Jin mistakes them for, but that they are Tailees, survivors from the tail section of Oceanic 815.

Season two begins in a comfy home of someone we do not know going through a morning routine of exercise, eating, showering and playing “Make Your Own Kind of Music” by Mama Cass on the record player.  Then, without warning, there is an explosion.

The same explosion that blew open the Hatch at the end of season one.

So someone had been living inside the Hatch this entire time.

His name was Desmond Hume, and he will become one of the greatest characters in LOST.

We see in flashbacks that Desmond and Jack had a meeting years before as both men were running the stairs of a stadium.  Desmond was training for a race around the world and Jack was just trying to sort things out in his mind.  This was the time referenced in season one where Jack “fixes” Sarah, who had broken her back in a car wreck (which was how Shannon’s father died).  Jack was emotionally invested in Sarah’s recovery and he did not believe that there was any hope in the surgery.  He believed that he failed and that Sarah would never walk again, let alone dance at her wedding.  As he talked to Desmond about it, Desmond asked him if he did not believe in miracles?  And of course, Sarah recovered feeling in her legs and did indeed dance at her wedding— to Jack as we saw in season one.

One thought I had while watching Jack get all emotional over Sarah having feeling in her legs is “how can Jack expect to be a doctor if he is this crazed over every patient?”  His stress level would have to be sky high.

Locke and Kate climb down to the Swan station but gets caught by Desmond and he is holding Locke at gun point when Jack arrives.  Jack takes this moment to condescend to Locke about his “fate” and makes some smart remarks.  However, when Jack sees who is holding the gun on Locke, he recognizes him as the man at the stadium.  Looks like Jack might have to swallow some of that fate talk as it is at the very least a HUGE coincidence.

Greta episode to start the season, but it does not go and show us what has happened to the people on the raft.  Shannon does see a drenched Walt in the jungle as she was looking for Vincent.  Is it a psychic connection? It can’t really be Walt since he was abducted by the Others.

Season one of LOST is in the books on my great re-watch.  It makes me remember how much I loved this show by watching these wonderful episodes filled with some of the greatest characters in TV history.  Let’s look at the first season.

Best Episode:  “Pilot”.  The first two episodes together make one of the greatest pilot episodes ever.  The first fifteen minutes should hook you, and if it doesn’t, I don’t know what you want.  Runner-Up:  “Walkabout”

Best Flashback.  “Walkabout” Admittedly, some of the flashbacks are not as strong as others, but the John Locke flashbacks are consistently excellent.  And nothing was better than the “Don’t tell me what i can’t do” reveal with the wheelchair.  Runner-Up:  “Numbers”

Best Performance: Terry O’Quinn “Deus Ex Machina”.  Very little can compare to the moment when John Locke realized that his father had conned him out of his kidney and then had nothing more to do with him.  O’Quinn was one of the best actors on the Island. Runner-Up:  Josh Holloway, “Outlaws”

Biggest Jerk:  Jin.  This was a tough category because there were a lot of people who could have been considered.  However, Jin was such a jerk for most of the year that he takes this.  Runner-Up:  Sawyer

Best Death:  Boone, “Do No Harm“.  It has to be this one.  The Boone death brought tears to my eyes during the re-watch and that was an amazing emotional moment.  It was also a main actor who was killed, which was not common at the time.  Runner-Up:  Leslie Arzt.

Biggest Surprise:  Locke is paraplegic.  “Walkabout”.  Tell the truth, you had no idea this was what was going to happen.  The shock still works today as John Locke has the use of his legs back on the Island.  Runner-Up:  Leslie Arzt blows up.

Funniest Moment:  Arzt blows Up.  Exodus, Part 1.  Yeah, this is a death, but, man, I laughed so hard at this.  It is also a perfect example of irony.  Runner-Up:  Golf

Best Moment:  The Others kidnap Walt, “Exodus Part 2“.  The whole season was building toward this moment, where the Others came for the boy, leaving his father Michael yelling Walt in the water.  Runner-Up:  Boone dies/Aaron is born.

Most Character Development:  Sun.  At first, she was a put on wife. As the year moved along, she became her own woman, a strong survivor and someone who could help anyone.  Runner-Up:  John Locke

Most tense moment:  Charlie is hanged in the tree.  Oh boy, I thought Charlie was gone.  Thanks to Jack and his need to save everyone, Charlie makes it through season one.  Runner-Up:  Sayid tortures Sawyer.

Season Two and the Tail section survivors are next!

Season one of LOST came to an end with “Exodus, Part 2”, a wonderful conclusion to a season of mystery and suspense. Exodus Part 2 only laid groundwork for even more surprises in season two.

From the moment Arzt blew himself up during his lecture on the safe way to handle dynamite to the tortured screams of Michael as the Others took Walt away on their boat as the raft burned, “Exodus, Part 2” delivered drama and great character moments throughout.

When Leslie Arzt blew himself up with that dynamite, it was one of the funniest moments in the show.  Clearly, it was not as funny for Jack, Kate, Hurley and Locke since they saw one of the survivors blow up right in front of them.  However, the irony of the fact that Arzt only came along to help them safely carry the dynamite and he wound up exploding is tremendous.  Also, Hurley’s line to Jack, “You’ve got some Arzt on you”- GOLD!

Rousseau was busy as she not only led the group to the Black Rock, but also got back to the other survivors in time to kidnap poor little Aaron right from the arms of his mother.  Turnip Head finally gets his name from Claire, though there is no indication of where the name came from. Rousseau wanted to trade Aaron for Alex, but when the Others did not show, she sadly gave the baby back to Charlie.  I found Charlie’s angry rant toward Rousseau to be unnecessary and cruel.  Rousseau has been alone a long time with the memories of her own stolen child.  Charlie did not show any empathy on the moment, which might foreshadow how much of a jerk Charlie is going to be in season 2.

We got our first look at the Island’s monster, as the Black Smoke was shown going through the jungle.  Kate and Jack saw it at first, and they had a hard time believing what they saw.  Then, the Black Smoke grabbed Locke by the ankle and tried to pull him down into a hole.  Jack and Kate prevented that from happening despite Locke’s claim to let hm go.  Kate had used one of the dynamite sticks to make the Black Smoke let Locke go.  One would wonder how effective the dynamite would be on the Black Smoke.

The raft has immediate troubles when they hit a log and the rudder breaks off.  Fortunately, Sawyer is able to jump into the water and catch up to it before it sank and Michael and Jin could get a rope to it.

Yet, that would be a minor problem when compared to the arrival of the Others.  Michael finds a blip on Sayid’s radar, but he is anxious about using their one flare.  As the blip was leaving, Michael is finally convinced into using the flare, which brings them back to the raft.  The boat’s captain played it up as if he did not know anything about these four and let them get their hopes up.  Then, he said, “Only the thing is, we’re gonna have to take the boy.” After grabbing Walt, the Others torched the raft, shot Sawyer, and left Michael in the water yelling “Walt” which would become an iconic moment of the series.

We have come to the first part of the first season finale entitled “Exodus Part .”  Now, the first part was a regular episode and the Part 2 was a double length episode that, in some parts of the world, was split into Part 2 & 3.  I will be watching it as one episode.

Exodus, Part 1 was a great return to storytelling that felt on pause for the past couple of episodes.

The flashbacks featured several of the cast members arriving for their ill-fated Oceanic Flight.  We see Michael and Walt at one of the low points of their relationships, Sun and Jin together waiting for the flight, Shannon turning in Sayid as an Arab that just left his bag unattended just to show off to Boone and Jack met Ana Lucia at the bar.  Ana Lucia is from the tail section of the plane and we will learn more about her in the second season.  We see Kate being tormented by Marshal Mars.  We see Sawyer being deported for headbutting an Australia official in a bar fight.

The Raft is launched successfully, sending Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer off on their adventure.  There is joy among the survivors because they hope that this will get them rescued.

But there is fear as well as Danielle had arrived with the ominous news that the Others were coming.  Danielle tells a story about when the Others came for Alex, her own daughter years ago.  She claimed that there would be black smoke in the distance.  Soon, the smoke was seen by the survivors as well.

Three things you can do… run, hide or die- Danielle said about the Others.

The idea of opening the Hatch and hiding everyone inside was floated around and Locke came up with an idea of using explosives to blow the Hatch open.  Danielle said that the dynamite was found at the Black Rock in the Dark Territory.  Jack, Locke, Kate, Hurley, Arzt and Danielle went to retrieve the dynamite. On the way, they nearly run into the monster, what Danielle calls a “security system.”  Turns out the Black Rock was a slave ship that was somehow stranded in the jungle.

There were several excellent character moments within the episode as well.

• Sawyer told Jack about his meeting with Christian in a bar in Australia and how Christian had wished that he told Jack how much he loved him.  This was a wonderful scene and it helped to show Sawyer in a much more positive light.
• Jin and Sun reunited just before Jin left on the raft.  Jin admitted that he was on the raft because he thought he was on this Island because he was being punished.
• There was a humorous relationship between Arzt and Hurley.  Hurley could not pronounce Arzt’s name properly.
• Walt took his dog Vincent to Shannon and said that she could keep him while he was gone.  Walt told her that Vincent helped him through the death of his mother and she could tell Vincent about Boone, if she’d like.
• As everyone was wishing the raftees well, Sawyer looked for Kate, hoping that she would be there to see him off. She was not.

“Born to Run” was the second consecutive LOST episode that felt like a filler, just in place to pass the time along until the big events of the season finale could get underway.  This one focused on Kate.

I am not fond of the way the character of Kate is played here.  She seemed to be inconsistent throughout the first season.  She is either shown as a manipulative, selfish con woman or she is a brave and strong leader.  I suppose the answer is that she is both, falling in-between the two, but the show tries to change it up with whatever it needs Kate to be.

This episode deals with flashbacks to show Kate accidentally getting her childhood friend/love Tom killed as she was trying to escape from the police.  Tom was a doctor and he had set up Kate with an opportunity to see her mother, who was dying from cancer.  Kate’s mother’s reaction was not what we expected because as soon as she realized that it was “Kathryn” visiting her, she started to cry out for help.

Tom was the original owner of the toy plane that Kate had gotten out of the Halliburton case.  I also have to take exception with what Kate had told Jack.  She said that the plane was from the person that she killed.  However, the death of Tom came during her attempted escape.  While she may be inadvertently responsible for Tom’s death, to say that she “killed” him is a bit of an exaggeration.

The episode saw the debut of high school science teacher Dr. Arzt, who claimed that they were starting on the cusp of monsoon season and that they needed to get that raft they were building launched as soon as possible.  It turns out that Arzt was full of baloney as it was revealed in the LOST: Missing Pieces episode “Tropical Depression” that Arzt was lying about the monsoon season.  Arzt, of course, has a explosive fate ahead of him in the season finale.

After several strong episodes, “The Greater Good” felt like a placeholder episode that was filling in time between the arches of the season.

John Locke returned from the jungle with Boone blood all over his shirt, only to have Jack attack him and call him out as a liar. Jack, who was physically struggling from his attempted blood transfusion and lack of sleep, was not thinking straight, but Sayid certainly was.

The episode had several good dialogue scenes between Locke and Sayid, which would have been the highlights of the episode.

Maggie Grace, who is the actress playing Shannon, gave a strong performance as a grieving sister looking for revenge on the man she blamed for the death of her brother.  While the death is an accident, an argument could be made that because Locke lied about the manner of the death, Jack was not able to sufficiently aid Boone.  It is also very possible that there was simply nothing that could have been done to save Boone and blaming Locke for Boone’s accidental death is unfair.

Either way, after Shannon steals one of the guns from the Halliburton case, she goes to shoot Locke.  Sayid prevents her from killing him, causing the bullet to glance off the side of Locke’s head.  Jack did not go to look at the injured Locke, just turning away from him instead.

In a more light-hearted part of “The Greater Good,” Charlie discovers that “Turnip-Head,” which is the nickname he gave to Claire’s baby (who will be named Aaron), loves the sound of Sawyer’s voice and Charlie forces Sawyer to read to the baby to keep him from crying.  This was after a funny scene where Hurley tried to get the baby to stop crying by singing “I Feel Good” by James Brown.

The flashback took Sayid to Australia where the CIA wanted him to infiltrate his old college roommate’s terrorist cell and find some missing C4.  This is one of my least favorite flashbacks for the season because it really made Sayid look like a horrible person.

“The Greater Good” was a filler episode that will lead into a considerably stronger end to the first season as Sayid will convince Locke to finally come clean about the Hatch.

Oh boy…

This was a tough one.  I had not been connected to Boone that much, but that did not mean that his untimely death did not come with an emotional wallop, because it was very effective.

The show did a smart thing for those who may not have been as connected to Boone.  Instead of it being a Boone flashback episode, they made it about Jack.  They showed you how the dying of Boone was affecting our favorite doctor and really playing on his desire to be able to save everyone so if you were not a fan of Boone, you could still feel the pain in Jack.

The show also balanced out he death, which fits into the theme of duality on the Island by having Claire’s baby born into the world at the same time as Boone was leaving it.

Boone’s death really amped up the rivalry between Jack and Locke, even though John was not seen in this episode.  Jack sees the death as a murder, since John did not tell him that Boone had fallen inside a plane and was crushed.  John had told him that he fell off a cliff.

This was the first death of a major character (sorry Scott) on the Island and it really drove home the idea that the survivors were not safe.  I remember watching the episode for the first time in shock.  I always assumed that there would be some way to save Boone since he was one of the main cast.  This was before the Walking Dead and Game of Thrones when audiences expect cast members’ deaths.  I remember being horrified that Jack was preparing to cut off Boone’s leg, not expecting the show to go that far.  It was both a blessing and a curse when they did not, because it meant that Boone was going to die.

This was the first appearance of Jack’s wife Sarah.  We saw their wedding and the lead up to the wedding.  We learned that Jack had saved Sarah by operating on the broken back she received in an auto accident.  The show implied that Jack was more in love with the saving of Sarah than with Sarah herself.  Jack and Sarah were very sweet together and the thoughts about what would happen to break them apart was tough as well.

According to the web site Lostpedia, this episode’s title, Deus Ex Machina  “refers to a theatrical device which originated in ancient Greek theatre. This device consisted of a physical crane that lowered a character down onto the stage, the character representing a god. This god would help the characters with a sudden twist in plot. This term would come to mean any device within a plot that provided a sudden change, or solution, in plot” and that “Deus Ex Machina literally translates into “God from the machine” in Latin.”

In this John Locke specific episode, there are plenty of references to God in the Machine that you could look at literally, or you could look at the “sudden change” in plot that the phrase refers to as well.

Anthony Cooper is introduced and refers to himself as God when Locke told him that his mother had told him that he was immaculately conceived.  Cooper was later hooked up to a dialysis machine.  Cooper, John Locke’s father, is one of the most cruel and selfish characters introduced on LOST.  He returns to torment poor John (among others) across the entire run of LOST.  He is one of the worst of the worse when referencing the “Daddy issues” theme covered by the show.  Imagine, your own father conning you into giving up your kidney and then just casting you aside as if you mean nothing to him.

Of course, this allowed Terry O’Quinn some brilliant material to act out.  His scene breaking down in his car after trying to confront Cooper was heart breaking.

Of course, Locke was having a crisis of faith in the Island as well, stemming from his inability to find a way to open the Hatch.  Because of the doubt, the Island showed him a way.  Locke had a dream of an airplane that crashed on the Island.  He also had a dream of a bloody Boone talking about a nanny who accidentally broke her neck while working for Boone’s family.

Locke uses that dream to hook Boone into helping him.  Locke’s legs were also having trouble, as the paralysis seemed to be coming back.  Locke conveniently forgets to tell Boone about him being covered in blood in the dream as well.

That plane contains several crates of heroin stashed inside Virgin Mary statues.  We know there are connections to Mr. Eko with this plane from Nigeria that will be revealed in season 2.

Prior to the plane’s fall from the tree, Boone is on the radio on the plane and makes contact with someone.  Boone said that he was one of the survivors of Oceanic 815.  As the plane began falling, the response from the voice on the radio was “We’re survivors of Flight 815.”

When the plane falls from the trees with Boone inside, this certainly is a deus ex machina, changing the direction of the story.  This is the inciting incident that ignites the real rivalry/feud/war between Locke and Jack that will run for most of the series.

We also get the great scene at the end where Locke is really losing his mind, pounding on the Hatch, and a light comes on from within, shining up into the darkness.  This was so unexpected and surprising that it was a great way to end such a tragic episode.

“Deus Ex Machina” starts several storylines that will drive the remainder of the season and move into next season as well.

4 8 15 16 23 42

Hugo “Hurley” Reyes is one of my favorite characters on LOST so it was way overdue to have a flashback episode featuring him.  However, little did I expect that Hurley’s flashback would forever be so ingrained on LOST mythology because the episode introduced the numbers.

4 8 15 16 23 42 repeated several times on Rousseau’s notes surprised Hurley.  Those numbers were the same numbers that he used to win the lottery.  And they seem to have placed a curse on him and everyone around him.

Hurley picked up these numbers during his time in a mental institution from a Connect 4 player named Leonard.  Leonard worked with a guy in the military named Sam Loomis and they picked up a transmission repeating those numbers.  We find out that the transmission was coming from the Island and it is also what attracted Rousseau’s boat to the Island.

The numbers are one of the most enduring mysteries of LOST and I believe that they are the one thing that is not sufficiently answered.  I believe that they never really had a good answer for the numbers so once they started using them, they could not stop.  The riddle of the numbers is like a MacGuffin, always being chased- especially by Hurley.

The interaction between Hurley and Rousseau during this episode is one of the best moments of the show, and should be considered one of the best in the first season.  Even crazy Rousseau is put at ease with Hurley’s friendly and kind nature.  Hurley gives Rousseau a big hug as well when she agrees that the numbers are cursed.  Hurley was so happy to find someone who believed him.

The episode does a tremendous job of creating a ominous and sinister tone surrounding those numbers as we discover the terrible things that happened to Loomis after he used them and the fact that Leonard wound up in the mental institution repeating the numbers to himself.  Hurley has lots of things happen as well.  His Grandpa Tito died.  His mother breaks her ankle.  The new house Hurley bought his mother catches on fire.  Lightning strikes the preacher at his Grandpa’s funeral etc.  It is enough to make anyone wonder.

And Hurley was fresh out of the institution himself.  While we do not know why he wound up there (yet), we learn he was there.  Hurley is also fairly sensitive to anyone calling him crazy.

There have been a lot of theories about what the numbers meant over the years,but I am not sure that anything specific has ever been explained.  It might just be one of those LOST mysteries that will never be fully revealed.

Typically Sun and Jin’s flashback episodes were my least favorite of the series, mainly having to do with the need for captions at the bottom of the screen.  However, “In Translation” was a definite exception.

This episode recounted the events from “House of the Rising Sun” but from the perspective of Jin.  It showed how Jin got involved in Sun’s father’s business and how it dragged the kind-hearted man into the world of organized crime.  You understood and connected more with Jin here than you did in the previous viewing here.  The storytelling of seeing first how Sun saw these moments to be balanced how Jin saw them is a fascinating technique.

We also get the big reveal to the remainder of the survivors of Sun being able to speak English.  The raft that Michael had been working on ending up on fire and he blamed Jin.  To be fair, Jin’s hands were burned and he was acting as if he were guilty.  When Sun exclaimed for Michael to stop attacking Jin, the whole group came to a sudden halt.  Hurley dropped a funny line with “Didn’t see that coming.”

Locke came into the situation and blamed the Others for burning the raft, but he already knew who had done it.  John asked Walt later over a game of backgammon why he burned the raft.  Walt said that he liked it on the Island and he was tired of moving.

The romance of Jin and Sun goes through many ups and downs on the Island and it is one of the main story points.  They are certainly at a low point here as Jin leaves Sun alone and goes to help Michael to start rebuilding the raft.

Sun, on the other hand, feels free enough now to go to the beach in a bikini, something that Jin had reacted to negatively earlier in the episode.  Jin has always had a problem with Sun showing too much body, going as far as having her button the top button.  Sun’s freedom here is an important step to the eventual reunion between husband and wife.

The Shannon-Sayid love story started here, picking up on parts from previous episodes and, taking advice from Locke in his “wise man of the Island” act, Shannon decided that everyone gets a new life on this Island and that she would not be concerned with Boone’s thoughts.  It appeared that Boone’s revelations in “Hearts & Minds” was short lived.  Maybe John needs to tie him up in the jungle again.

This one was really good.

We dive into the past with Sawyer, aka James Ford, and what brought him to Sydney.  He had been pointed in this direction in his effort to find the man who conned his mother and father out of their money and led to his father’s murder-suicide of James’ mother.

The episode started off with a frightening scene of little James being told to hide beneath the bed by his mother as we hear pounding on the door.  Just the thought of what that little boy had to listen to and live through really humanizes the redneck asshole that Sawyer becomes.

Then, he was sent to Australia by an old accomplice, Hibbs (played by the one and only Robert Patrick).  Hibbs told Sawyer that he had found the man whom had stolen his childhood and sent an angry and vengeful Sawyer on his path.

Sawyer found the man working at a shrimp shop, but he does not kill him at first.  Sawyer winds up in a bar where he encounters Christian Shepherd, Jack’s father.  The two of them talk over drinks and Christian uses the phrase “that’s why the Red Sox will never win the series.”  Christian convinces Sawyer to stop drowning his sorrows in alcohol and to go take care of the business.

So Sawyer does.  He goes and shoots Frank (played by Jeff Perry, who would go on to be Cyrus Bean in Scandal) only to find out that Frank never went by Sawyer and that Frank owed Hibbs money.  Hibbs sent Sawyer after this guy expecting that Sawyer would kill him, which he does, but not for the reasons he thought.

Meanwhile, on the Island, Sawyer is being harassed by a boar that seems to be targeting Sawyer’s things.  Sawyer takes off after the boar, looking for revenge.  Kate tags along, hoping to get the gun back from him.

While in the jungle, Sawyer hears the whispers and they sound as if they are saying, “It’ll come back around” which was the last thing that Frank said to Sawyer before he died.

The whole Sawyer vs. the Boar Island adventure was remarkably entertaining and gave us insights into Sawyer, Kate and even Locke.  Locke showed up midway through with a sweet story about his step-mom and how she believed her dead daughter was reincarnated into a Golden Retriever.

Kate and Sawyer had played a drinking game of “I Never” which started fun and really became personal as they continued.  It was revealed in the game that both of them had killed a man, further connecting these two outsiders.

Sawyer’s story is one of the more tragic ones on LOST and the things that happened to James Ford really shaped who he would become.  But among all of the tragedy, you can see the good man inside of Sawyer and you can relate to everything he does.

To me, this episode of LOST was a tale of two parts. The Island material was tense and taut and full of excitement while the flashback felt like a waste of time and a distraction.

Ethan returned, cornering Charlie in the jungle and demanding that Charlie return Claire to him.  Ethan stated that if he did not return Claire, that Ethan would kill somebody in their camp each and ever night that she was not brought back to him.

This clearly caused tension among the group, with the survivors setting up a perimeter with guards posted to keep watch.  However, that did not keep Ethan out as he was able to enter their camp on the beach via the water and kill Scott (not Steve).

Meanwhile, flashbacks looked at Charlie, between gigs as Drive Shaft, trying to find a girl he could steal from to fund the heroin addiction.  However, Charlie fell for a girl named Lucy, and tried to make it work by getting a real job.  As I said, not as compelling as the Island adventure.

Jack broke out the guns from the Marshal’s case and he, Sayid, Kate, Sawyer and John set up a plan to capture Ethan.  They needed bait… and that would be Claire.

‘And the trap works, with Jack being able to subdue Ethan in a fight while the others surrounded them.  Unfortunately, before Ethan could answer any questions, Charlie, who had picked up Jack’s loose gun, shot Ethan multiple times in the chest in retribution for what he had done to Claire (and Charlie being hanged from a tree).

I enjoyed most of this episode, but there were a couple of things that did not go over well.

1. Claire has amnesia.  This is a tired old plot point to keep where Claire was taken secret for a longer period of time.  It is very cliche and seems like a lazy way to do what they wanted.
2. Ethan’s death itself was just a way to keep viewers from knowing information.  I didn’t hate it, but it could be frustrating to some.
3. The flashbacks were meant to show where Charlie’s feelings of being unable to protect someone came from, but it felt way too forced.  The flashbacks were a waste of time.
4. Again, the focus is on the drug problem in the flashbacks and was played for more humor than anything else.
5. Nothing is really done or mentioned about Charlie’s straight up murder of Ethan, who was subdued and captured.

Poor Scott, RIP.