Post by MrEMahon on Mar 13, 2005 0:35:03 GMT -6
I didn't read anything about fictional mysteries not being allowed to be discussed in this forum, so I'm going to bring one to your attention, (as if you haven't heard of it already) and that's the mystery of Lost, the fairly new ABC show about a group people who were on a commercial flight that crashed somewhere in the south Pacific on a rather mysterious island. If this is an inappropriate place for this thread, just go ahead and move it to wherever it should be, I'll find it. Now, back on the subject, I just watched an episode of this show not long ago that cemented my interest in the show, as well as confirmed for me, who my favorite character on the show is. Some would say that it's difficult for a character to stand out in a cast of fourteen regulars.
I say that each character stands out for those who are attracted to that characer, as they say, different strokes for different folks. One character that really stands out for me is Hurley, the laid back kinda guy played by Jorge Garcia. One thing I like about Hurley is that he's not your typical six pack ab'd pretty boy. Not that the show doesn't have it's share of those, but at least they are making an effort to be realistic, in that not everybody in this situation that they are depicting is going to be a beautiful person. Of course, at the same time, they have so far failed to stay realistic, in that Hurley hasn't lost any weight since he's been on the island, when he's been on a restricted diet. Then again, maybe he's not supposed to, maybe that's a clue to the Lost mystery, after all, we've seen Locke, a cripple, walk again when he arrived at the island, so who knows.
Of course, at 300 some odd pounds, it would take a while before his weight loss would be noticable, so the jury's still out on that one. But that's certainly not the only reason that Hurley has quickly become one of my favorites. Hurley's a regular guy, as I've said, he comes off as the rolie polie regular joe, he doesn't have a lot of style, looks like he hasn't had a hair cut in ages, so forth and so on, and provides a lot of the comic relif on the show, in a predictable fashion. And they make you think that he's just there for that reason, so you don't pay him alot of attention, but little do you know, he's very intrigal to the plot. Of course, if you payed attention you would have noticed clues that the writers gave you to try to tell you this.
For instance, in an episode that had nothing to do with Hurley, he showed up in some media footage on Korean TV, on a TV set in the background, in one of the flashback scenes having to do with the Korean couple's marital problems. You know form this, that there's more to Hurley than meets the eye. So when a few fragments of Hurley's background are finally revealed, in an episode dedicated to him, it all starts to make sense. This was probably my favorite episode yet, You find out that Hurley, the not extremely well educated, not extremely motivated, regular joe type who always goes around calling everyone "dude", and has easily flown under the viewers rader up to this point, is worth ten's of million's of dollars. Hugo Reyes, which is his real name, won the state lottery when he was back on the mainland, which isn't a big suprise, being that it's unlikely a guy like him would be rich any other way, but then things start to get interesting.
We find out that just after winning the lottery, bad things begin to happen around Hurley. There are deaths in the family, a new home that he had just bought for his mother burns down, he is falsely arrested for being a drug dealer, because he resembles someone on the FBI's most wanted list, just to name a few of the highlights, or, I guess you could call them low points. So many bad things happen that he becomes convinced that the numbers that he used for his lottery ticket are somehow cursed and that he's opened a Pandora's box of sorts. Then we find out that this is due to the fact that the numbers came to his attention when he overheard a man in an asylym muttering them over and over again. Now this is the part that I need help with, can anyone tell me what the relationship is between Hurley and the man in the asylum is? Is he a friend of his, did he work at the asylum before he won the money, and that's how he knows him?
I didn't catch that part, I must've stepped out of the room for something at that point. At any rate, the crazy man tells him that he should not have used the numbers, he didn't say why of course, he just kept yelling at Hurley, telling him that he had made a very bad mistake. The one thing he did tell Hurley is that he got the numbers from a friend of his, an Austrailian guy, so of course, now intent on figuring out the mystery of the numbers, he goes to Austrailia and talks to the wife of the guy he's looking for, because the guy he's looking for died a while back. I know, I know, up to this point it seems like a pretty typical scenario like you'd see on an episode of The Outer Limts or something, but from here, it not only get's strange, but really original.
So the guy's wife tells Hurley that her husband used to be in the Navy, and was a comminucations officer, stationed in the south Pacific, (I believe that's the case, correct me if I'm wrong) and that one night he picked up a signal that was broadcasting the numbers all through the night. So due to that, he never forgot the numbers, and like Hurley, he used the numbers to win a lottery, and he also had bad luck afterward. This is a great moment in the ep, because it really makes things seem dire for Hurley, he asks the guy's wife how her husband god rid of the curse and she tells him that he took a gun and shot himself in the head. Anyway, this is how Hurley ended up in Austrailia in order to take the fateful flight, so you could say that the numbers brought him to the island.
Flash foward to the present, as he's having a conversation with Sayid, he sees the notes that the french woman had made, and low and behold, there's a piece of paper with a series of numbers on it that repeats over and over, and Hurley realizes that they are "his" numbers. Of course he puts it together, the crazy man's friend heard a broadcast of these numbers in the south Pacific, the French woman has been broadcasting her signal for years, she's been broadcasting these numbers. This is my favorite moment in the ep because it takes you down a completely different path, concerning your theories about the island. Up to this point, it was much easier to theorize about island, my primary theory was really simple, that the castaway's were actually dead, but they don't realize it, well, I thought Locke probably realized it, after all, on the island, he's become everything he's always dreamed of being, but couldn't be back home.
At any rate, yeah, I was thinking in terms of an M. Night Shamylan sort of twist to it, but now, with this development, it's obvious that the answer to the mystery isn't as simple as that. There's something else going on, and at this point, I'm at a loss for ideas on the matter. Anyone have any theories? So anyway, Hurley takes off in search of the French woman, I belive her name is Rousseau, and he finds her, and then there's another twist, she tells him she was brought to the island by the numbers herself. She was on a ship that was sailing through the area when the crew recieved the broadcast, they thought it was a distress signal, so they came to the island to check it out, in the process of doing so, their ship sank, leaving them marooned on the island.
She never found out who set up the tower and began broadcasting the signal, she let it continue broadcasting in the hopes that someone would come and rescue her. (she claims that all of the others died of some illness) So it's a great ending, because Hurley get's no answers, and there's just more questions for us. And then one last little twist, the camera pans out on what looks like a bomb shelter, located somewhere on the island, and printed on the side of it, are the numbers. This is definitely an intriging little puzzle of a show and I'm definitely going to continue trying to figure it out, and I hope you'll all join me. Well, I guess I shouldn't say little, as it's apparently becoming wildly popular, and it's easy to see why.
Mr E
I say that each character stands out for those who are attracted to that characer, as they say, different strokes for different folks. One character that really stands out for me is Hurley, the laid back kinda guy played by Jorge Garcia. One thing I like about Hurley is that he's not your typical six pack ab'd pretty boy. Not that the show doesn't have it's share of those, but at least they are making an effort to be realistic, in that not everybody in this situation that they are depicting is going to be a beautiful person. Of course, at the same time, they have so far failed to stay realistic, in that Hurley hasn't lost any weight since he's been on the island, when he's been on a restricted diet. Then again, maybe he's not supposed to, maybe that's a clue to the Lost mystery, after all, we've seen Locke, a cripple, walk again when he arrived at the island, so who knows.
Of course, at 300 some odd pounds, it would take a while before his weight loss would be noticable, so the jury's still out on that one. But that's certainly not the only reason that Hurley has quickly become one of my favorites. Hurley's a regular guy, as I've said, he comes off as the rolie polie regular joe, he doesn't have a lot of style, looks like he hasn't had a hair cut in ages, so forth and so on, and provides a lot of the comic relif on the show, in a predictable fashion. And they make you think that he's just there for that reason, so you don't pay him alot of attention, but little do you know, he's very intrigal to the plot. Of course, if you payed attention you would have noticed clues that the writers gave you to try to tell you this.
For instance, in an episode that had nothing to do with Hurley, he showed up in some media footage on Korean TV, on a TV set in the background, in one of the flashback scenes having to do with the Korean couple's marital problems. You know form this, that there's more to Hurley than meets the eye. So when a few fragments of Hurley's background are finally revealed, in an episode dedicated to him, it all starts to make sense. This was probably my favorite episode yet, You find out that Hurley, the not extremely well educated, not extremely motivated, regular joe type who always goes around calling everyone "dude", and has easily flown under the viewers rader up to this point, is worth ten's of million's of dollars. Hugo Reyes, which is his real name, won the state lottery when he was back on the mainland, which isn't a big suprise, being that it's unlikely a guy like him would be rich any other way, but then things start to get interesting.
We find out that just after winning the lottery, bad things begin to happen around Hurley. There are deaths in the family, a new home that he had just bought for his mother burns down, he is falsely arrested for being a drug dealer, because he resembles someone on the FBI's most wanted list, just to name a few of the highlights, or, I guess you could call them low points. So many bad things happen that he becomes convinced that the numbers that he used for his lottery ticket are somehow cursed and that he's opened a Pandora's box of sorts. Then we find out that this is due to the fact that the numbers came to his attention when he overheard a man in an asylym muttering them over and over again. Now this is the part that I need help with, can anyone tell me what the relationship is between Hurley and the man in the asylum is? Is he a friend of his, did he work at the asylum before he won the money, and that's how he knows him?
I didn't catch that part, I must've stepped out of the room for something at that point. At any rate, the crazy man tells him that he should not have used the numbers, he didn't say why of course, he just kept yelling at Hurley, telling him that he had made a very bad mistake. The one thing he did tell Hurley is that he got the numbers from a friend of his, an Austrailian guy, so of course, now intent on figuring out the mystery of the numbers, he goes to Austrailia and talks to the wife of the guy he's looking for, because the guy he's looking for died a while back. I know, I know, up to this point it seems like a pretty typical scenario like you'd see on an episode of The Outer Limts or something, but from here, it not only get's strange, but really original.
So the guy's wife tells Hurley that her husband used to be in the Navy, and was a comminucations officer, stationed in the south Pacific, (I believe that's the case, correct me if I'm wrong) and that one night he picked up a signal that was broadcasting the numbers all through the night. So due to that, he never forgot the numbers, and like Hurley, he used the numbers to win a lottery, and he also had bad luck afterward. This is a great moment in the ep, because it really makes things seem dire for Hurley, he asks the guy's wife how her husband god rid of the curse and she tells him that he took a gun and shot himself in the head. Anyway, this is how Hurley ended up in Austrailia in order to take the fateful flight, so you could say that the numbers brought him to the island.
Flash foward to the present, as he's having a conversation with Sayid, he sees the notes that the french woman had made, and low and behold, there's a piece of paper with a series of numbers on it that repeats over and over, and Hurley realizes that they are "his" numbers. Of course he puts it together, the crazy man's friend heard a broadcast of these numbers in the south Pacific, the French woman has been broadcasting her signal for years, she's been broadcasting these numbers. This is my favorite moment in the ep because it takes you down a completely different path, concerning your theories about the island. Up to this point, it was much easier to theorize about island, my primary theory was really simple, that the castaway's were actually dead, but they don't realize it, well, I thought Locke probably realized it, after all, on the island, he's become everything he's always dreamed of being, but couldn't be back home.
At any rate, yeah, I was thinking in terms of an M. Night Shamylan sort of twist to it, but now, with this development, it's obvious that the answer to the mystery isn't as simple as that. There's something else going on, and at this point, I'm at a loss for ideas on the matter. Anyone have any theories? So anyway, Hurley takes off in search of the French woman, I belive her name is Rousseau, and he finds her, and then there's another twist, she tells him she was brought to the island by the numbers herself. She was on a ship that was sailing through the area when the crew recieved the broadcast, they thought it was a distress signal, so they came to the island to check it out, in the process of doing so, their ship sank, leaving them marooned on the island.
She never found out who set up the tower and began broadcasting the signal, she let it continue broadcasting in the hopes that someone would come and rescue her. (she claims that all of the others died of some illness) So it's a great ending, because Hurley get's no answers, and there's just more questions for us. And then one last little twist, the camera pans out on what looks like a bomb shelter, located somewhere on the island, and printed on the side of it, are the numbers. This is definitely an intriging little puzzle of a show and I'm definitely going to continue trying to figure it out, and I hope you'll all join me. Well, I guess I shouldn't say little, as it's apparently becoming wildly popular, and it's easy to see why.
Mr E
I saw the ep where Hurley was on the TV in the background, but missed that detail while watching it, and I totally missed the episode dedicated to him.
I'll have to rewatch that ep... I tape it for my sister, and I may not have taped over it yet. 
I remember an old movie about these soldiers who survived a plane crash... only it turned out they didn't. Each man's spirit faded to nothing when their bodies were found by searchers... all but one, whose body wasn't found. I can't remember the name of the movie or who was in it... I wouldn't mind watching it again now that I'm a lot older.
It would be a shame if
