Num­bers

Directed by Daniel Attias
Episode 18 (S01E18)

Hurley’s Hand­outs by Michael Giacchino

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In the begin­ning, Lost was a cool and inter­est­ing show about cast­aways, with strange mon­ster noises and walk­ing para­plegics. Then came a point when all that changed. A point where show began to blos­som into the mys­te­ri­ous mytho­log­i­cal mess that it is today. It all started with six num­bers, six num­bers that have been per­ma­nently ingrained into the minds of tens of mil­lions of Lost view­ers around the world.

Hurley’s flash­backs in Num­bers are some of the best the show has ever seen. Unlike Locke, a char­ac­ter we assumed would have an inter­est­ing past, Hur­ley was just ‘good old fun time Hur­ley’. When we find out that Hur­ley is a lot­tery win­ner who suf­fers from a long series of unfor­tu­nate events, he ceases to be ‘good old fun time Hur­ley’ and becomes one of the most inter­est­ing char­ac­ters on the show. I really like the way this episode shows a con­fi­dent Hur­ley, as well as Hur­ley in his most vul­ner­a­ble state. Jorge really nails his lit­tle mono­logue at the end with Rousseau. He gives so much weight to the char­ac­ter. BOOM!

The num­bers have always played a major part on the show, even before this episode. Locke spends ‘4’ years in a wheel­chair, the flight was Oceanic ‘815’, Sawyer cons Jes­sica for ‘160,000′ dol­lars, Kate’s ran­som is ’23,000′ dol­lars, and ‘42’ is prob­a­bly a Hitchhiker’s reference.

Accord­ing to a 2009 Damon Lin­de­lof inter­view, the Hanso Foun­da­tion hired Enzo Valen­zetti to deter­mine the prob­a­bil­ity of the world end­ing in the wake of the cuban mis­sile cri­sis. He found that there was a 100 per­cent chance the world would end in the next 27 years. The vari­ables in Valenzetti’s equa­tion were 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, and 42. The Dharma Ini­tia­tive was cre­ated in an effort to change these vari­ables, and t0 pre­vent mankind from wip­ing itself out.

This year we found out that the num­bers also cor­re­spond to Jacob’s can­di­dates. These can­di­dates are also ‘vari­ables’ of sorts, accord­ing to Daniel Fara­day. And Jack’s new respon­si­bil­ity prob­a­bly isn’t too far from sav­ing the world.

In just a few hours, Lost will be over for good, we’ll have to say good­bye to the island and all it’s char­ac­ters, good­bye to the ques­tions, the­o­ries and answers, good­bye to the story, good­bye to the mythos. But we’ll never have to say good­bye to the num­bers. These num­bers will hold a spe­cial place in every fan’s heart for the rest of time. Every time you see an 815, or a 108, you’ll think of Lost. Thanks to J.J. Abrams, who came up with the idea for the num­bers. P.S. The iden­tity of the song at 1:24 in the clip above remains a mys­tery to this day.

this guy seri­ously needs his own spin-off series.
#1 Hur­ley is arguably the most impor­tant char­ac­ter on the show. He serves as a con­flict medi­a­tor and gives voice to the fans.

• Best Episode: Num­bers (S01E18)
• Best Line: Okay. See, we did crash, but it was on this crazy island. And we waited for res­cue, and there wasn’t any res­cue. And there was a smoke mon­ster, and then there were other peo­ple on the island. We called them the Oth­ers, and they started attack­ing us. And we found some hatches, and there was a but­ton you had to push every 108 min­utes or… well, I was never really clear on that. But… the Oth­ers didn’t have any­thing to do with the hatches. That was the DHARMA Ini­tia­tive. The Oth­ers killed them, and now they’re try­ing to kill us. And then we teamed up with the Oth­ers because some worse peo­ple were com­ing on a freighter. Desmond’s girlfriend’s father sent them to kill us. So we stole their heli­copter and we flew it to their freighter, but it blew up. And we couldn’t go back to the island because it dis­ap­peared, so then we crashed into the ocean, and we floated there for a while until a boat came and picked us up. And by then, there were six of us. That part was true. But the re… But the rest of the peo­ple… who were on the plane? They’re still on that island. (S05E02)