Numbers - Recap

Hurley is helping to build the second raft. Jin is trying to tell him what to do, but Hurley can't understand him. Surprisingly, Michael translates for Jin. The two of them can almost understand each other because of the time they have spent working on the raft.

Jack makes his way over to the raft to check on the progress. Michael tells him that they should build a transmitter and bring it out on the raft with them. They could send out a distress call and it would help their chances of getting picked up by a ship. Jack agrees with the idea but even if Sayid can build one, how will they power it? Hurley remembers that Sayid said the French woman had batteries. He and Jack ask Sayid about it but he isn't happy about going back to see her. Jack says he will go instead but Sayid knows that is not a good idea. Sayid says he was unconscious when she brought him to her camp and was disoriented from the torture when he left. In all honesty, he doesn't know how to find her. Hurley asks about the maps he took from her camp. Sayid gives them to Hurley, who begins to go through them. Suddenly he stops and looks shocked. From his point of view we see a series of numbers listed on the page: 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.

FLASHBACK: Hurley is sitting on his mother's couch. He is eating a bucket of chicken from his work and watching TV. His mother chastises him and tells him that he should go out and meet a woman. Hurley pays no attention to her, focusing instead on the Mega-Lotto drawing on TV. The winning numbers are called out... 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and the mega number... 42. Hurley looks at his ticket; it's an exact match. He passes out and smashes through the coffee table in front of him.

On the island, Sayid wakes from his sleep and sees Hurley staring at him. He wants to talk about the numbers that were on the French woman's papers. Sayid says that he thought they were coordinates at first but realized that was impossible. He has no idea what they are. He asks Hurley why he is so interested, but Hurley makes up an excuse and leaves. Sayid goes back to sleep. As Hurley walks away, he pulls the French woman's map out from under his shirt.

FLASHBACK: There is a press conference being held outside of Hurley's house. Reporters are fighting for space whilst asking Hurley thousands of questions about how he picked the numbers. "They just sort of came to me". He introduces his family and starts to talk about his grandfather, Tito. It is obvious that Hurley really respects, admires and loves his grandfather. He says many nice things about him. The first thing Hurley wants to do with his money is to take Tito on a much deserved vacation. As Hurley continues to detail his plans, Tito collapses and dies of a heart attack.

At the caves, Charlie finds Hurley filling up 3 water bottles. Charlie notices he is acting strange. He asks him where he is going, and Hurley says he is going for a walk. Charlie says he will go with him but Hurley insists that he needs to be alone.

On the beach, Locke asks Claire to help him with something. He just needs her to saw a few small branches. She agrees and they leave together.

At the caves, Jack is filling water bottles when Sayid arrives. Sayid is not happy. He asks Jack why he stole the map? Even worse, why did he send Hurley to do it for him? Jack is completely confused and Sayid knows he didn't do anything. Charlie arrives and tells them about how Hurley was acting strange and went for a walk. They realize that Hurley is going to try to find Rousseau.... alone.

Hurley is walking along the shore and is very determined. FLASHBACK: Hurley is driving a hummer. He has begun to spend his Lotto money. His mother is sitting in the passenger seat as Hurley drives through a very nice neighborhood. He asks his mother if she noticed all the bad things happening lately: Tito's death, their priest being struck by lightning at Tito's funeral, his brother's ruined marriage. He thinks the money is cursed. His mother becomes angry. They are Catholic, his words are blasphemous. They both know there is no such things as curses. Hurley makes her put on a blindfold, he has a surprise for her.

They pull up in front of a brand new mansion. Hurley bought it for his mother. He leads her out of the car and she trips on the curb and breaks her ankle. Wait, Hurley smells something. It smells like smoke. He turns around to find that the new house's second floor is on fire. He takes his phone out to call 911 but before he can dial, the police arrive and place him under arrest.

On the beach, Hurley has found the same cable that Sayid found. He picks it up and follows it into the jungle.

FLASHBACK: Hurley is sitting in an office in a high-rise. He is receiving an update from his accountant. The accountant says he should be happy since his orange juice futures have gone up in price, after tropical storms in Florida. Hurley owns a box company in Tustin and a sneaker factory in Canada, but that burned to the ground and killed eight people. It was over-insured though, so Hurley is going to make tons of money off of it. Hurley starts to talk about how he thinks the money is cursed until his accountant assures him that he is not the first Lotto winner to believe the money has brought him nothing but trouble. He is an accountant, he doesn't believe in curses - only numbers. Hurley is so happy that he said that. He knows now that the money isn't cursed. The numbers are! His accountant is about to explain how crazy he sounds when someone from a higher floor jumps and plummets to their death - passing right by the accountant's window.

On the island, Michael and Walt are working on the raft with Jin. Sawyer is trying to read a book and the noise is distracting him. They ask him to help but he won't. Sun is sitting with Kate. She wonders if Jin will ever speak to her again. She is also worried that she will never see him again if he goes on the raft.

In the jungle, Hurley is still following the cable. He takes a step and hears a loud "click" noise. Sayid runs through the bushes, Jack and Charlie are right behind him, and tells him not to move. If Hurley moves it will trigger a booby trap to swing down and kill him. Before they can figure out how to get him off of it, Hurley dives sideways to the ground and releases the trigger. The booby trap swings down and just misses Hurley. Jack asks him what he is doing out here and Hurley tells him that he is going to get a battery for the raft's transmitter. They decide to go together, with Sayid taking the lead.

FLASHBACK: Hurley is standing at the receptionist's desk at a hospital. He is asking to see a patient named Leonard. He argues with the nurse. He notices a janitor climbing a ladder to change a light bulb. The ladder is wobbling. Just as he reaches out for the light bulb, Hurley yells at him and tells him not to do that right now. A doctor walks by and recognizes Hurley. He agrees to let him see Leonard. Hurley sits down at a table in the recreation room. Leonard is playing Connect Four and mumbling "the numbers" over and over again. Hurley says he needs information. "What do the numbers mean?" Hurley keeps asking even though Leonard will not answer. Leonard just keeps repeating the numbers. Hurley says he thinks the numbers did something to him when he used them to win the lottery. Leonard stops immediately and can't believe what he has heard. "You've opened the box. It won't stop. You've got to get away from them or it won't stop!" Hurley asks Leonard where he got the numbers. He says he heard them when he was working with Sam Toomey in Kalgoorlie, Australia.

In the jungle, Sayid and the others follow the path until it ends abruptly. They look ahead and find a rickety rope bridge that is crossing over a massive gorge. Jack asks Sayid why he didn't mention this but Sayid has never seen this before. Before they can talk about what to do, Hurley walks confidently onto the bridge. This causes everyone to panic until he makes it across easily. Charlie follows right after him and as he makes it almost to the end, the bridge begins to give out. He dives onto solid ground just as the bridge drops out from underneath him. Hurley and Charlie stand on one side of the gorge, Jack and Sayid on the other. Jack tells them to stay there until he and Sayid find a way around to meet them. Hurley won't have any of that and tells THEM to stay where THEY are while he and Charlie follow the path. Charlie is pissed and tells Hurley to listen to Jack and stop acting like a "bloody lunatic".

FLASHBACK: There is a small house in the middle of the desert of Kalgoorlie. Hurley asks the woman who answers the door if the house belongs to Sam Toomey. She says the she is his wife and Hurley asks to speak to him. She says she would like to speak to him too but he died four years ago. She invites Hurley in. Hurley learns that Leonard served with Sam in the US Navy years ago. Sam heard a voice repeating the numbers while they were serving at a naval listening post monitoring the South Pacific. That was 16 years ago. A few years later, Sam used the numbers to win a local fair contest and a lot of money. After that, things started to go wrong for Sam and his family. Sam thought the numbers were behind the bad luck so he decided to move out into the desert so no one else would get hurt. Hurley asks Mrs. Toomey if Sam succeeded in stopping the bad luck. "Yep. He put a shotgun in his mouth and pulled the trigger." Hurley tells her that he thinks he is under the same curse. Mrs. Toomey won't hear it. "You make your own luck, Mr. Reyes. You're looking for an excuse that doesn't exist."

On the island, Claire and Locke are beginning to bond while she helps him with his "project". She is just happy to have something to do instead of trying to figure out what happened to her in the jungle.

Jack and Sayid continue to trudge through the jungle in an attempt to find a way across the gorge. Sayid thinks he recognizes the area. Jack continues to walk and sets off a trip wire. KA-BOOM! A massive explosion destroys everything in front of them. When the dust settles, Jack and Sayid are seen going through the remains of Rousseau's camp. There isn't any wreckage. Sayid realizes that she must have known he would come back at some point so she booby-trapped it and moved to a new location. But where?

Charlie and Hurley are trying to make their way toward the explosion to see if Jack and Sayid are hurt. Charlie wants to know why Hurley has been acting strange. Hurley is ready to tell him when a gunshot rings out and shatters a tree branch right next to them. A second shot hits even closer and they realize they are being shot at. They run off in opposite directions. As Hurley is running through the jungle, he trips and falls flat on his face. He stands up and finds that he is staring down the barrel of Rousseau's rifle.

On a normal day, Hurley would be scared but today he is desperate to know what the numbers mean and he wants answers... right now! He starts to yell at Rousseau and demands to know about the numbers. Something about his attitude touches Rousseau. She tells him that her team picked up the numbers repeating on a transmission. They changed their course to investigate and ended up wrecking their ship and getting stranded on the island. They continued to search for the source of the transmission and found it weeks later. There is a radio tower on the island, by the black rock. As they continued to try and figure out the meaning of the numbers, the sickness came and killed them all. After everyone died, she went to the tower and changed the transmission to the one the castaways had already heard. She says that the numbers are what brought her here, and they brought Hurley here too. Ever since then, she has lost everything she loved. She agrees the numbers are cursed. Hurley is so happy that someone finally agrees with him and doesn't think he's insane that he starts to weep and gives Rousseau a huge hug.

Back at Rousseau's old camp, Jack and Sayid are still trying to salvage whatever they can from the wreckage. Sayid finds the burned remains of a photo. It's his photo of Nadia, and her face is still clear. Her eyes are looking right through him. Charlie appears and tells them they were being shot at. They wonder what happened to Hurley as he suddenly shows up. He walks in as calm as can be and hands Jack a battery. Oh yeah, one more thing. "Sayid... she says hey."

That night as Jin and Michael work on the raft, Jack and the others return to the beach. Sayid goes over and gives the battery to Michael.

Claire is helping Locke finish his "project". While they are talking, Claire admits the she was going to put the baby up for adoption. She also says that today happens to be her birthday. Locke asks her why she hasn't told anyone about it and she tells him why she believes it doesn't matter. Locke finishes the project and turns it over. He has built her a beautiful cradle. "Happy birthday, Claire."

Charlie joins Hurley at a campfire and asks him to finish the conversation they started before the gunfire. Hurley tells Charlie he thinks the plane crash was his fault. Charlie tells Hurley that bad things happen to good people all the time. He admits that he was a drug addict who was doing drugs in the bathroom when the plane crashed. That wasn't Hurley's fault, was it? Hurley doesn't respond immediately which prompts Charlie to say that he just shared his deepest and darkest secret - the least Hurley could do is reciprocate.

"Okay. Back home...I'm worth one hundred and fifty-six million dollars." Charlie is dead silent. He finally responds, "Fine, don't tell me. I bare my soul and all I get is bloody jokes." He gets up and leaves.

As the camera pans off the beach it goes back into the jungle. We get a last look at the hatch itself. There is something etched into the concrete that surrounds the hatch. It looks like a series of numbers. The camera zooms in and we see what is etched into the hatch:

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42…

Share this article with your friends