Episode Report Card LTG: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Can't Keep A Dead Hobbit Down
By LTG | Season 4 | Episode 1 | Aired on 01.30.2008
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.We start this episode in another flash forward. That's right, kids -- it wasn't just a gimmick for the finale. This one involves Hurley freaking out, leading the police in a high-speed chase through L.A., murdering a helpless pile of papayas and begging the police to throw him in back in the nuthouse (while also telling them, and us, that he's one of the "Oceanic Six"). A creepy dude visits him in the nuthouse, pretending to be a lawyer for Oceanic, but actually trying to find out if "they" are still alive. And a while later, Charlie visits him, or Charlie's ghost, or Charlie's surprisingly well-preserved zombie, and tries to get him to acknowledge that "they" need him. Another creepy dude then visits him, except this time it's just Jack. He's apparently there to see if Hurley is going to tell...someone about something. Hurley thinks that "it" wants them back, but Jack thinks they'll never go back.
Back on the island, so much shit happens, I can't even tell you. But here's a small sample: at the radio tower, Naomi's corpse has disappeared, and Jack (with Rousseau and Ben in tow) tries to track her down. Kate steals the satellite phone and takes off on what she's sure is the real trail. She's right, of course, and finds Naomi, who promptly holds a knife to her throat. But Naomi relents, and fixes the phone so the ship can track them down.
On the beach, our victorious warriors celebrate their victory -- at least until Desmond shows up and passes on Charlie's dying message about the boat. They decide to meet up with the rest of the Lostaways and pass on the warning. On the way, Hurley gets lost and finds Jacob's cabin. He appropriately freaks out and runs away, only to run into Locke, who convinces him that they really don't want to be rescued by the people on the boat. Everyone comes together, and after Jack tries to kill Locke (unsuccessfully, alas), the Lostaways end up splitting into two groups, with a bunch going off to the Barracks with Locke. (This group includes Claire, Hurley, Ben, and Sawyer, among others). At the very end, a helicopter drops off a parachutist, who asks Jack if he's...Jack. The answer to which is apparently enough to be a cliffhanger. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
Previously on Lost, Charlie died after warning Desmond that the boat approaching the island was not Penny's boat, Jack led Naomi and a group of Lostaways (including prisoner Ben) to the transmitter so they could get a signal through to that boat, and Sayid led a successful defense against an attack by the Others. Oh, and Locke went even more batshit crazy, throwing a knife into Naomi's back before she could signal the boat, but then he didn't have the stones to shoot Jack when he signaled the boat. And the flashback was actually a flash-forward, showing us a time after at least Jack and Kate have returned to L.A.
We open on a beautiful pile of papayas, beyond which we can see a cloud-flecked sky and a beautiful blue ocean. We hear gulls, and I suddenly develop an incredible craving for a Corona. And then the papayas explode, as a vintage sportscar plows through them. It turns out they were piled on a box in a parking lot, and the ocean and sky we saw were actually painted onto the side of a produce delivery truck. Needless to say, a bunch of cops are chasing down the sportscar -- Californians take their organic produce very seriously.
As the chase continues, a clean-shaven Jack watches it on his television and mixes himself a screwdriver. Jack hears the newscaster describe the sportscar as a vintage, early '70s Camaro, and he mutters, "Damn it."
Back on the streets of L.A., the police finally force the Camaro off the road, and it crashes into a car parked in a lot. The police surround the car with guns drawn, and Hurley slowly emerges from the driver's seat. They shoot it so it's supposed to be a mystery as to who was driving, but the fat hands that emerge from the window give a pretty strong clue as to who we're looking at. Hurley looks at the cops in a daze, and then makes a run for it. This chase does not last nearly as long as the car chase. As Hurley is led away in cuffs, he starts yelling, "Don't you know who I am? I'm one of the Oceanic Six!" Credits.
Hurley's in an interrogation room, where a hard-boiled cop is giving the exposition on how the police chase started. Except this exposition comes with visuals, as we see a convenience store videotape of Hurley purchasing some snacks, only to see something and freak out, running away and (presumably) taking off at high speed in his Camaro. The cop tells Hurley that he doesn't care that he's a celebrity, and then tells us that, by shocking coincidence, his former partner Ana-Lucia was a passenger on Hurley's plane. Sometimes I think that this entire show is just an extended remix of The Bald Soprano, and at the end we're going to discover that Jack and Kate were married all along. Hurley denies having ever known Ana-Lucia.