LOST Rewatch: The Lie

The episode begins with the Oceanic Six discussing whether to lie about what happened to them, to protect the people they left behind. Hurley doesn’t want them to lie, but the others persuade him. Hurley tells Sayid that he’s going to remember that he didn’t back him up, and sometime in the future when he needs help, he won’t get it.

In the present day, however, he is doing just that. Hurley sees Ana-Lucia, who asks him “What if I were real?” She tells him he has a lot of work to do. And that Libby says hi. Hurley takes Sayid to his home. The LAPD shows up but his father covers for them, and then takes Sayid to Jack – who then calls Ben.

Ben tells Jack to go home and pack a suitcase, and put anything he cares about in the world in it, because he is never coming back. Ben leaves to take Locke’s body somewhere safe. He goes to a butcher, who is in fact one of his own people working with him. The Others are working to get Ben – and the others – back to the island.

Hugo tells his mother the truth. She says she believes him – she doesn’t understand him, but she believes him.

Ben goes to Hugo and tells him they all want the same thing – to go back to the island. But Hurley runs outside and surrenders to the police instead.

Locke finds Juliette and Sawyer as some Others have captured them, and saves them.

At the end if the episode we see Eloise in the basement of a church. There is an enormous pendulum, and a computer calculating an event window. She goes upstairs, where Ben is lighting a candle. She says that he has 70 hours. Ben asks her what happens if he can’t get them all to come back, and she says, “Then God help us all.”

The “God help us all” is interesting to reflect on, and not just because it is uttered in a church. Presumably it reflects the view that, if they don’t cause in the present the things that they remember having happened in the past, the results could be catacylsmic in some way, perhaps as time and space unravel because of the resulting paradox.

But perhaps the most interesting element is the faith of Hurley’s mother. When, if ever, is it appropriate to believe someone even when we don’t understand what they are saying, much less how it can be true?