NUMBERS

Or, Good Luck and Bad

[Originally Aired March 2, 2005]

Finally, Hurley gets his flashback episode and he sits home on a Saturday night, in his work uniform for some place that looks like El Pollo Loco. His mom berates him for sitting around doing nothing when the lottery numbers come one and it turns out he's just become an instant millionaire. And then bad things start to happen. Grandpa Tito dies. His brother splits up with his wife. He buys mom a new house, but it burns down. Mom breaks her ankle. Hurley is arrested in a case of mistaken identity. He tells his mom the money is cursed, but she just scoffs. On the island, Hurley looks at the maps and notes Sayid stole from Rousseau and sees some numbers jotted down over and over. 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42. The same numbers he used to win the lottery. He's freaked out and determined to find Rousseau to ask her what they mean. In flashback, Hurley meets with his accountant, who was bad news. Or good, depending on one's point of view. One of the factories Hurley invested in burned down, eight people died, but the insurance payment results in a profit. In the gulf area hurricanes destroy more of Hurley's investments, but again the result is profit. Hurley is convinced the money is cursed, but his accountant scoffs. He also now owns a box factory in Tustin. His accountant asks where Hurley got his winning numbers. Hurley freaks out again and visits a mental hospital. He was a patient there once. He got the numbers from another patient. When Hurley tells him about winning with the number the guy wigs out and screams something about Sam Toomey in Australia before being carted off. Locke asks for Claire's help sawing some wood. She thinks he's building a trap or cage of some sort. Hurley heads into the jungle under the pretense of finding a Rousseau and asking her for a battery for a radio for Michael's raft. Sayid, Charlie and Jack Catch up with him just as he steps into one of Rousseau's traps. Luckily, he's able to get out the way and is unhurt. As he says, he's spry. They find a crude suspension bridge over a ravine and Hurley crosses it, then Charlie follows and it collapses but Charlie doesn't fall off. Jack and Sayid try to find a way around the ravine but alone the way trip another trap and blow up Rousseau's camp. Sayid realizes there is nothing in the camp, that she packed up and left it booby trapped for when Sayid, or whomever, returned. Meanwhile Charlie and Hurley wander the jungle until someone starts shooting at them. In Australia, Hurley visits Toomey's home, but finds out he's dead. Suicide his widow says. He used the numbers to win some money and that night they were in a car wreck and she lost her leg. From then on bad things happened, or so he thought. Toomey heard the numbers on a shortwave broadcast while in the navy. Hurley tells her the numbers are cursed, and she scoffs. Charlie and Hurley lose each other in the jungle, and then Hurley bumps into Rousseau. He asks her about the numbers. She says that's what the transmitter was originally broadcasting before she changed it to a distress call. He tells her the numbers are cursed, and she agrees. They are what they were investigating when their boat crashed. Hurley breaks down, finally someone agrees that there's a curse. He thanks her and gives her a hug. Claire tells Locke is is her birthday, and he shows her what they've been building: a cradle. Hurley finds Sayid and Jack and Charlie and gives them a battery Rousseau let him have. Later, Charlie tries to bond with Hurley by telling him he's a junky. Hurley responds by telling him he's a millionaire. Charlie thinks he's joking and storms off. The camera cuts to the hatch Boone and Locke found, and etched on its side are the numbers 4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42.