What I’m Watching: Lost

Lost: Season 6, Episode 12 “Everybody Loves Hugo” (B+)

Firstly, I’d like to say that it’s incredibly refreshing to find an episode that features pretty much all of the show’s characters and addresses the many threads currently being explored on the show. It’s also quite interesting to see the dynamic opposition to the history we know about the castaways before they were on the island in the flash-sideways universe, which it appears is now intricately connected to the main storyline through not just Desmond. The episode’s introduction, with Pierre Chang narrating the slideshow praising the affluent chicken-loving philanthropist, was truly wonderful. The title is a direct contradiction of the fourth episode of the second season, “Everybody Hates Hugo,” and it’s nice to see the guy doing so well. Bringing back Michael and Libby in different forms was interesting, and having Desmond watching over everyone like Jacob was pretty great too. Desmond’s nonchalance on the island contrasted with his absolute cool over, accompanied by sunglasses, on the mainland in the flash-sideways universe was intriguing. Obviously Locke was going to push him into the well, which he seemed woefully unprepared for, but far more shocking was Desmond running Locke over with his car. It’s not clear how things are working yet, but if Desmond is in fact able to coexist in both worlds and retaliate against the reanimated Locke in the other universe by running the still living version over, that would be insanely cool. I’m not sure how much sense that makes though, but we’ll have to see. The craziest part of the episode was when Ilana just blew up! Sure, it happened to Arzt, but Ilana was actually a full-fledged character leading everyone else towards a greater goal. Ben’s comment about how the island just disposed of her as soon as she served her purpose was eerie, and perhaps quite accurate. What a show!