Lost: Everybody Hates Hugo Rewatch

August 1, 2023 6:33 PM - Season 2, Episode 4

Hurley quits two jobs.

S2E4: Everybody Hates Hugo: (Lostpedia | transcript): air date 12th October 2005 • writers Edward Kitsis & Adam Horowitz • director Alan Taylor • day 46 on the island • Hurley flashbacks

Everything’s going to change • have a cluckety-cluck-cluck-cluck day • at least we have jobs again, right? • maybe I don’t want to change, maybe I like my life • you’re going to lie to the baby? • Randy, again • dude, I quit • looks like we got ourselves a day off • so we’re friends now, huh? • you’ve become one of them • Starla • change is good, Hugo • you don’t get to quit • CLUCK YOU • we were all fine before we had any potato chips • you put me in charge, this is what we’re doing • beach food montage • I’m Bernard

Scott Brown, Entertainment Weekly: “Lost”: Hurley shares the wealth

Hurley is a great character, and for reasons beyond the obvious. Making the jester the curse bearer is a stroke of genius, as far as I’m concerned — one more way this show reinvents the television ensemble and fends off ordinariness. And as for the goofier flourishes — the wacky mechanics of the supposed ”curse,” the digs about his persistent girth — Jorge Garcia earns them, baby. He takes a conceptually solid but potentially pat retroactive-continuity twist (i.e., that Hurley held off on collecting his lottery winnings because he wasn’t really sure he wanted his life changed) and sells it as a quiet slacker tragedy.

Therese Odell, Houston Chronicle: Lost: Reversal of fortune

The keyword for “Everybody Hates Hugo” would have to be “CHANGE”: it’s said no less than 11 times in this episode. Hurley is terrified of it, to the point of hiding his good luck from those closest to him. Hurley fears that those he love will feel differently about it, want something more from him once they discover what he has, be it the lottery winnings or a closet-full of food. And it’s not entirely an unwarranted fear, as his father does rematerialized in his life only after news of the lottery win. But! There’s an irony here that Hurley’s missing: the changes that happen in Hurley’s life are actually somewhat self-directed. The money changes him, but not in the way that Hurley imagined. By knowing that he has the lottery money, he’s empowered to quit his dead-end job, which sets into motion all the other wacky, non-Hurley-esque things he does, like ask out Starla and play a prank on Randy. What Hurley misses is that Johnny is upset not because Hurley won the lottery, but that he kept it secret from him. Johnny feels betrayed that Hurley lied to him.

Myles McNutt, AV Club: Lost (Classic): “Orientation”/“Everybody Hates Hugo”

I have some fundamental issues with the idea that Hurley would ever in a million years consider blowing up the food instead of giving it all away. The dynamite pops up as a way to suddenly increase tension and create a suspenseful climax, but it never feels suspenseful given that it makes absolutely no sense. The cross-cutting tried to convince me that being disconnected from his friend Johnny was motivating him to blow up a bunch of food with dynamite inside a contained space next to some freaky electromagnetic concrete wall situation governed by the cursed Numbers, but that connection never tracked, and actually had the opposite effect intended. It made me feel like this stopped being Hurley’s story, and started being an episodic structure designed to use Hurley’s personality to make a larger point about the challenges facing the castaways.

Rewatch companion: THE STORM: A Lost Rewatch Podcast - S2, E4: "Everybody Hates Hugo"

Neil Miller: “What we start to see in this episode is the questions of: who gets to go in the hatch? who gets to know about the hatch? who gets to do what in the hatch? are starting to come up. And I think Hurley's a really great character to view that through, at first, because we kind of know that that's the next conflict that they're going to have: we can't fit everybody down here, but we have to make use of this stuff. So Hurley's a good entrance into that.

I do also really like how much work the flashback does to promise us that we're going to get a lot more Hurley-having-a-bad-time. Which I think is what makes it really sad. The flashback is super sad because we're watching Hurley in the island scenes, have anxiety attack over this food, and we know that just winning the lottery is probably not the worst thing that happened to him. You know in that moment when you see his friend that, like, that's why he was worried: because he knows things are going to change when he gets the lottery. I mean, we already know some of the bad luck stuff, but this really digs into the human level of what Hurley's going through when they ask him to deal with the food. And I think that's really good because it's like, on paper, a very low stakes thing that turns into a big thing because we're viewing it through the one character that absolutely cannot handle it. But who has to do it anyway.”

Joanna Robinson: “To quote the greatest philosopher of our time, Lady Gaga, who tweeted several days ago: fame is a prison. There's an isolation that comes with that degree of success or fame or whatever, and you really see that in the final moment for Hurley.

But what's funny: it's a sad, poignant flashback, but you also get to see Hurley smiling in a way that you don't often get to see him. Especially since all the numbers and hatch stuff has been happening. He's just smiling, running around with Johnny, played by the great DJ Qualls, and pranking things and quitting his job and doing all kinds of stuff. And there's so many shots of him just smiling broadly and you realize, A, that when Jorge Garcia smiles, the sun shines brighter and B, that you don't get to see it that often. And so it's just this joy to see Hurley smile.”

Neil Miller: “I think it says a lot about Hurley's character, to the audience, that the way he handles winning the lottery really tells you a lot about who he is at a fundamental level. And I think that this is an episode where if you're not already in love with Hurley as a character, and you get through this one, I don't know what to tell you, you know?”

Dave Gonzalez: “I think, yeah, this is a better counterpoint to Numbers because the conclusion of Numbers was, you know, that Hurley got some validation from Rousseau that the numbers were actually cursed. But let's say you're a Lost viewer, and that was months ago, and you're maybe not thinking of the island as a magical place, or you want some scientific explanation for things. You're the real Jack of your watch group. This provides the other parts of Hurley's character where it's like: he does have a certain amount of insecurities and things that cause troubles for himself. His mom's not entirely wrong about his trash diet and bad lifestyle. But the second he decides that he doesn't have any control, he actually, you know, is able to quit; and ask out a girl he likes, who says yes; and has a great time with his very loyal friend. And the only thing that's actually making him feel bad about that is just that he's kept a secret, that he's won the lottery. But still: all those things were always within Hurley's reach. He just never had the freedom to do it. So it's a much more, I don't know, it's a much less fate-driven character which makes things much more complex in this push-the-button season. Which is probably why it's one of my favorite episodes of the season.”

Joanna Robinson: “I would push back a little bit on this notion that Hurley's life before he won the lotto was complete garbage. Because yeah, there's ways in which, you know, him not having the courage to ask Starla out, or him being bullied by his boss, you would want more for him there. But when his mom says, you need to change your life, and he's like: what if I like my life? I actually kind of believe him. There are things that he doesn't want to have change. That's a whole thing, right? He's like, everything's going to change and I don't want to. I don't need a big house and I don't need all this stuff. I like my friend, and I like this girl I have a crush on at the music store, and I like my job, you know what I mean? And so I don't think the message is like, Hurley had a trash life and then he got the confidence to do other things.”

Dave Gonzalez: “Even though he was the master of his own life throughout this entire episode, the looming thing of --- much like with the food --- the looming thing of having these lottery winnings over your head is a bad thing. That's an anxiety that has always been here for him. It doesn't matter if it's cursed money or if it's food, it's gonna trigger that in Hurley anyway. I guess that was more what I was saying: it's not a happenstance of, you know, a fate coming down and striking Hurley. It's this character who was drawn into conflict somehow.”

Joanna Robinson: “This is definitely a Hurley episode. It's one of my favorite episodes too. I think it's tremendous. Every Hurley episode just makes me so happy to be alive.”

“You're messing with my worldview here, Hugo. You're my rock. I mean if you quit your job the next thing you know bees will stop making honey, and flowers will die, and, hell, the whole damn thing will fall apart.”

L O S T

posted by We had a deal, Kyle (4 comments total)

Currently streaming in the US on Hulu (subscription) and Freevee (free with ads); in the UK on Disney+; and available for purchase just about everywhere. Next episode will post at the weekend. Ish.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 6:33 PM on August 1, 2023

One thing I noticed this time around: Randy -- as previously asserted, a dick -- uses a pointedly anglo pronunciation of Hugo's surname.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:03 PM on August 1, 2023 [1 favorite]

I’m Bernard

He'll always be Mr. Gorpley to me.
posted by Servo5678 at 4:34 AM on August 2, 2023

I love Hugo's rant to Locke which includes "no you can't have peanut butter for the cute blonde and her poor Island baby" because Jorge Garcia's line reading during this whole thing is phenomenal and funny. Right after, there's also a moment after where Terry O'Quinn looks like he's about to laugh because he starts to smile and then has to hide his mouth behind his hand. It's wonderful.
posted by edencosmic at 8:46 AM on August 3, 2023