Matt and Justin's Lost Rewatch

Tricia Tanaka is Dead

Matt is currently working on some very important, yet very time-consuming personal projects and will be taking a couple of episodes off to work on them. However, as they say in show business, the show must go on, and so must the rewatch. Justin is here to regale us with his thoughts on Tricia Tanaka and is lucky enough to be joined by a past guest-blogger, Rob Perrin.

MEET ROB:

Rob Perrin is a software guy working in the telecommunications industry. He spends an inordinate amount of time underground pressing buttons in Ottawa, Canada.

Rob is a relative newcomer to LOST, having joined the party around the time of the season 3 finale. His deep dive into LOST fandom started in 2009 with the Damon, Carlton and a Polar Bear ARG. He ‘virtually’ attended the season 6 Sunset on the Beach premiere, the Gallery 1988 opening, and the LOST Live event. He also purchased several lots at the LOST auction. He’s anxiously anticipating this summer’s stay at The (San Diego) Barracks and a first visit to The Island.

ROB SAYS:

Has there ever been a moment of pure exuberant bliss on Lost equal to the instant when Hurley turns the key to bring an old, hurtling Dharma van roaring back to life accompanied by Three Dog Night’s Shambala bursting joyfully out of its 70s sound system. I certainly can’t think of one. For most of Lost’s run moments of happiness are usually either fleeting or accompanied by an equal measure of despair. Two prime examples are the birth-of-Aaron / death-of-Boone sequence and the scene where Hurley happily cannonballs into the ocean (thinking everyone has been rescued by the freighter folk) but surfaces to the sight of Desmond returning solo from the Looking Glass. “We could all use a little hope,” Hurley declares, and Tricia Tanaka is Dead, despite the grim title, delivers.

The episode begins with the sounds of Shambala courtesy of an 80s-style portable radio/cassette deck. There doesn’t appear to be a cassette loaded, so I’ll assume it’s playing on the radio. We’re introduced to a young lad, perhaps in his early teens, with a fine head of scraggly hair carrying a red toolbox. The boy is soon revealed to be young Hurley. (The first and only young Hurley appearance, if memory serves.) Next we see a red, wheel-less Camaro on blocks, license plate 429 PCE. I couldn’t help but think of Charlie PaCE. Across the street is a house with a 2nd-floor outdoor deck. I wonder if it was the same deck that collapsed later in Hurley’s life, one of the incidents that brought him to Santa Rosa? (Probably not, the fall would only have been eight (!) feet or so, not very deadly.) Some kids are playing basketball in the driveway; again I was reminded of Hurley’s stay at Santa Rosa.

Next we’re introduced to the boy’s father, sporting a strong contender for worst Lost hairpiece. After a failed attempt to start the car (despite not having fixed it yet), he tells the boy, “Having hope is never stupid. You’ve got to believe good things will happen and then they will. In this world, son, you’ve got to make your own luck.” Then he unloads the news that their trip to the Grand Canyon is on hold because he needs to go to Vegas for work. After handing Hugo a candy bar he drives off.

Cut to Hurley in a touching scene at Libby’s grave recounting the events of the last few episodes. Verbalized recaps are usually pretty hokey, but this one works well. Soon after we have a finely crafted segue — as Hurley tells Charlie, “Death finds me, dude”, Vincent emerges from the jungle carrying a severed skeletal arm still holding a chain with key and rabbit’s foot. (One of many severed arms in the series!) “Chase the dog with skeletal arm into the creepy jungle — you be my guest,” says Charlie when Hurley suggests they should follow. Regardless, Hurley gives chase and discovers a tipped Dharma van in the jungle.

In a flashback we learn that recent 114 million dollar lotto winner Hurley bought and refurbished a Mr. Cluck’s Chicken Shack outlet. We’re treated to a stellar comedy sequence where news reporter Tricia Tanaka tries in vain to elicit compelling answer from Hurley. “Why did you buy Mr. Cluck’s?” she asks. “Uh….I like chicken.” Hurley then details the bad luck he’s had recently, most of which we already know at this point in the series, though we do learn for the first time that Hurley’s crush Starla ran off with ex-friend Johnny. Hurley frets when Tricia Tanaka wants to go inside the restaurant for additional footage, worrying that given his bad luck something unfortunate may happen. Hurley and new employee (and former Hurley & John Locke boss) Randy Nations then watch as a meteor obliterates Mr. Cluck’s with Tanaka and her crew inside

Within the van we see one-armed skeleton Roger Work Man, sporting a Swan Station Dharma jumpsuit. I remember being annoyed when Jack’s jumpsuit was labeled “Workman” rather than “Work Man” in Season 5. Hurley returns to the beach camp in an effort to drum up volunteers to help him get the van started. (Thank Jacob both Paulo & Nikki declined!) The end of this scene is wonderful, with Jin unwittingly volunteering himself for the cause.

Sun decides to speak only English to Jin, in an effort to help him improve his communication. If I recall correctly she remarks on his excellent English when they reunite in Season 6. Later in the episode a beer-swigging Sawyer tries to help by teaching Jin a few key phrases: .”I’m sorry. You were right. Those pants don’t make you look fat.” Another Sawyer classic: “Well look at that. Somebody is hooked on phonics!”

I guess the dart Sawyer steps on came from the “imploded” Swan hatch? Sawyer references “Little House”, saying he watched it when he missed school for two months with mono. He’ll watch it again during his 70s stay in Dharmaville. After breaking up (again), Kate & Sawyer have a relatively subdued return to the Beach Camp.

Hurley: “Mr. Cluck’s got hit by a meteor…or an asteroid…I don’t know the difference…but it’s gone.” I love Hurley’s Mom delivery on, “Again with Australia!” She is clearly concerned about her son’s insistence that he is cursed, but her decision to invite Hurley’s Dad back after 17 years is somewhat circumspect. His opening line, “Your Mom wasn’t kidding about those candy bars!” isn’t very promising.

Hurley and Jin make a great comedy team. The sequence where they discover beer inside the Dharma van and accidentally behead Roger as they remove him from the van are classic, probably their best together since the “pee on it!” scene from season 1. (Sawyer’s later “Son of a….what’s a head doing back here,” is funny as well.) Hurley has a surfeit of deftly-delivered lines: “I suck at charades.” “I UNDERSTAND!” “We’ll get that later.” “Craft. It’s like…when you’re good at crafts.”

Hurley is a great hugger. Sawyer gets a doozy (and a mouthful of hair) when Hurley sees him for the first time since the S2 finale. “Dude, you’re alive!” I love Hurley’s reaction when Sawyer tells him that Jack is still with The Others. “It’s OK. It’s gonna be alright. Jack’s gonna be alright. We all are.”

“Now that’s a hell of a Jesus,” David Reyes remarks, referring to the custom-carved solid gold statue Hugo presented to his Mom. It brings to mind the “Jesus is not a weapon,” line from season 5. Hurley decides to give away all of his belongings, starting with a wad of cash to the Trahns, in order to remove the curse. (Apparently the servants were named in honour of Tron, which Kitsis & Horowitz loved.) “The money, the houses, the livestock.” Uh, livestock? Did we ever see or hear about those? “It’s been 17 years, Hugo.” His Mom covers the ears of the Jesus statue. “I have needs.”

Back to the Island, where Hurley, Jin and Sawyer right the Dharma van. Vincent tries to climb in the trunk, stopped by Sawyer’s “Me first!”. (For some reason I find the line hilarious.) Then we get what seem to be setup for a plotline which never materialized: “What’s with all this recycling.” and “Looks like those Dharma freaks were building some sort of dirt road.” Hurley’s optimistic “Looks good to me. Engine’s fine, right?” as he and Jin look at the old engine overgrown with foliage is sweet. His blind hope here is a refreshing change, which makes his initial failure to start the engine all the more heartbreaking.

When Sawyer cracks open a beer, Hurley protests: “Dude, that beer has been sitting there before Rocky III. Probably even Rocky II.” Sawyer’s responds, “Skeletor seems to like it.”

Regarding Roger, Hurley says “That guy had a Mom, a family, and friends.” Little does Hugo know that he was captured by Roger’s son just a few days prior. “He was a Dharma janitor,” explains Sawyer. We will see Roger tend to his janitorial duties in season 5.

Hurley and his Dad visit a psychic in an effort to break the curse. The psychic makes a return appearance in S6 as an employee of one of Hurley’s companies. Hurley becomes suspicious when the psychic cracks an egg into her curse-cancelling potion, and for $10K she admits it is a ruse orchestrated by his Dad.

Hurley’s pep talk to Charlie: “I don’t know about you, but things have really sucked for me lately and I could really use a victory. So let’s get one, dude. Let’s get this car started. Let’s look death in the face and say, “Whatever, man. Let’s make our own luck.”

Sawyer lays down several choice nicknames in this episode. For Charlie: “Oliver Twist”, “Munchkin”, and “Jiminy Cricket”. (Even more hilarious — Charlie’s reactions.) For Hurley: “Snuffy”, “Jumbotron”, and “International House of Pancakes”. For Roger: “Skeletor”. Hurley tries his best to strike back — “Shut up! Red. neck. man.”

We’re treated to a good scene between David Reyes and son as Hurley packs for Australia. I guess this episode occurred very shortly before the 815 crash. His Dad says “I’ll be waiting for you when you get back.” And indeed he is.

Hurley is behind the wheel, Charlie rides shotgun, and both Jin and Sawyer push them down a steep hill in an attempt to jumpstart the van. Hurley: “There is no curse. You make your own luck. There is no curse!” Sawyer’s disbelieving “Son of a bitch!” and Jin’s joyous “Hurley!” as the van finally roars to life bring tears to my eyes. Then we’re treated to a beautiful long shot of the van with rolling tree-covered slopes behind as Hurley, Charlie, Jin, Sawyer, and Vincent indulge in a triumphant joyride. The sequence is rounded out with a sweet epilogue set to an instrumental Shambala. Jin return happily to Sun, Charlie excitedly recounts his adventure to Claire, and Sawyer is alone save for his stale Dharma beer.

Finally there is a bit of setup at the end of the episode where Locke and Sayid catch up with Jack-tracking Kate and discover that she’s seeking help from Danielle Rousseau. Kate’s carrot: she tells Rousseau that the other who helped here escape is likely her long-lost daughter Alex.

Tricia Tanaka is Dead is almost certainly the funniest episode of Lost, and arguably one of the best. It features a fantastic performance from Jorge Garcia, a severed arm, Ben’s long-dead Dad, Hurley’s long-lost Dad, a fantastically bad hairpiece, mini-Hugo, our first look at a Dharma van, Hurley’s Camaro, Three Dog Night, Vincent, an exploding chicken restaurant, Hugo’s randy Mom, Randy Nations, a busty fake psychic, and beer. Not to mention more rapid-fire hilarity than a Don Rickles roast. And, most importantly, it features a quality that is often elusive on Lost — hope.

JUSTIN SAYS:

There are a lot of people who watched every episode of LOST and some who watched to a certain point and quit who got tripped up on the same issue. LOST, at its core was always, always about the characters. It is such a simple concept, but it is the essential piece that made LOST work. You can take all the mystery, intrigue, DHARMA and all else that is cool about the show, but at the end of the day, if you didn’t care about these people, none of it matters. I don’t think there is any one single LOST episode that represents this idea better than “Tricia Tanaka is Dead”. It is probably the most feel good episode of the show ever and is definitely among my favorite single episodes. It has me laughing start to finish. Here are some other things I noticed.

We open on a shot of a radio playing “Shambala” which will come back in a big way later in the episode. We see a young Hurley ready to work on a Camaro with his dad, played by Cheech Marin which I find to be an inspired choice. On a side note, I was lucky enough to have attended the LOST auction in Long Beach last August. I was on the auction floor when a man in attendance won Hurley’s Camaro in a thrilling, heart-stopping moment at the auction. The gavel came down, he leaped to his feet and hugged his wife. We all stood with him and gave him a rousing applause. It was the best moment of the entire auction for me. I wonder if he had the same reaction when he opened his bill from Profiles In History.

We find out that Hurley, like just about everyone else has daddy issues. Just before leaving his family for what would turn out to be seventeen years, he tells Hurley “In this world son, you gotta make your own luck.” He then hands him a candy bar (which was surprisingly not an Apollo bar) and tells Hurley who says he shouldn’t eat it, “Live a little Hugo, it’s just a candy bar.” I took this to be the origin of two of Hurley’s biggest problems: a missing father and his eating disorder. I could just imagine every time Hurley is attempting to stop eating after this that his father’s voice whispered in his ear “Live a little Hugo, it’s just a candy bar.”

We then see Hurley talking to Libby, bearing his soul. Hurley crying gets me every freaking time. Beautiful shot of him in the island cemetery, Boone Hill.

We get a Season Six “Mirror Moment” with Charlie looking in the mirror shaving and Hurley walking up behind him.

As Charlie is telling Hurley about Desmond’s vision, Vincent shows up with Roger’s arm (yes, yet another severed arm) with a rabbit’s foot keychain dangling from the finger. Charlie tells him, “Yeah, chase the dog with the skeletal arm into the creepy jungle. You be my guest.”

I share Hurley’s reaction to seeing the DHARMA van for the first time: “Awesome”.

Randy Nations makes an appearance this time not as Locke’s boss or the manager of Mr. Cluck’s, but Hurley’s employee. Apparently destiny is a fickle bitch just like Ben said.

Hurley is being interviewed by Tricia Tanaka outside of Mr. Clucks. She is asking about how his life has been since winning the lottery, expecting him to gush about all the great stuff he’s done. Instead, he says, “Actually, I’ve kind of had some bad luck, too. My grandpa Tito died of a heart attack and the first house I bought my mom burnt down. My friend Johnny ran off with my girlfriend, Starla. Oh, and this guy jumped off my accountant’s roof.” He answered a question I posed back on his Season One flashback episode: What happened to Starla? Well, apparently they got together at some point and then after the lawn gnome incident, Johnny ran off with Starla.

Then, one of the most epic scenes ever. A meteor freaking takes out the chicken joint. Absolutely inspired. I die laughing each and every time. The Special Effects master of LOST said that this was by far the hardest and most intense special effects shot the show had done up to this point.

We see Roger Linus for the first time with the “Work Man” patch sewn onto his DHARMA jumpsuit. I didn’t find it odd at the time, but looking back on it now, it seems a little bit out of place after seeing all the DHARMA patches we see during Season Five (Hurley’s chef patch comes to mind), that Roger had a Swan Station logo on his jumpsuit. We never see him at the Swan, and he is never associated with it. Seems like he would have had something else.

Nikki and Paulo continue their douchebaggery as they are the only ones who VOICE their indifference towards Hurley’s excitement over finding the van. I mean you can tell by looking at them that they all FEEL it, but they’re the only ones who actually comment on it. I wonder if the producers are just trying to make them hated at this point. Four more episodes. Four more.

As he and Kate are making their way back to the beach, Sawyer steps on a dart. Assumedly it would have come from the dartboard set we saw in the hatch and was expelled during the implosion.

Kate mentions giving each other a clean slate like Jack said to her in “Tabula Rasa”. In fact, “Tabula Rasa” which happens to be a Kate-centric episode literally means clean slate.

Sawyer mentions “Little House on the Prairie” which we’ll see him get guidance from in Season Six’ sideways. After she laughs at him, he tells Kate he watched it a lot as a kid when he had mono and his TV only had two stations. I wonder if this incident was what implanted the seed in his brain that later turned up in his flash sideways.

Generally during my portion of the blog, I like to include quotes that I thought were particularly pertinent, poignant, ironic or funny. This episode however is so full of great lines, I would literally just be repeating almost the entire thing. I mean serious props must go out to Adam Horowitz and Eddie Kitsis, the co-writers of this brilliant episode. The dialogue is absolute perfection. If this is any indication of what their new show, “Once Upon A Time” will be like when it debuts in the Fall, I am SO in. Here is a sampling of some of my favorite quotes from the ep…

“Dude, Roger was on a beer run.”

HURLEY: Oh, I got it. You’re going to tip it up. Crafty.

JIN: Crafty?

HURLEY: Yeah, crafty. It’s like, when you’re good at … crafts. Nevermind.

SAWYER: [chuckling] Yeah, yeah, Snuffy. Good to see you, too. I’ll be damned, you all found yourselves a hippy car.

SAWYER: Well, look at that. Somebody’s hooked on phonics. (This is absolutely my personal favorite.)

HURLEY: Dude, even if you were speaking English, I wouldn’t understand a word you were saying. Just relax; we’re good. This’ll work.

It was also quite the episode for Sawyer nicknames. These are the ones I remembered:
“Ese”, “Snuffy”, “Blockhead”, “International House of Pancakes” and “Jumbotron” for Hurley. “Oliver Twist”, “Munchkin” and “Jiminy Cricket” for Charlie. Hurley comes back at Sawyer with one of his own when he says, “Shuddup, Red…neck…Man.”

“Hey Oliver Twist, where’s my stuff?” Just as we predicted in the last episode, Sawyer is back, his stuff is gone, and he is not happy about it.

Kate has been on the beach all of ten minutes, changed her clothes and already is passively recruiting Sayid and Locke to go back and get Jack. I know she claims at the end of the episode she didn’t want them to come, but she was fishing.

The solid gold Jesus statue that Hurley buys Carmen because he’s such a good son and knows her love of the savior, reminds me of when Hurley as part of the Oceanic Six comes home after the island. They have planned a surprise birthday party for him and he gets a creepy feeling and grabs a Jesus statue and rushes out the back door. Upon seeing him brandishing the statue, Carmen says, “Hugo, Jesus Christ is not a weapon”. Dear Lord I love Carmen Reyes.

Carmen says she wants Hurley to drop all the nonsense about the curses. Hurley takes this to mean she thinks he’s crazy to which he replies, “I’m not crazy!”

Another laugh out loud moment in an episode full of them is when Carmen, clearly excited about David’s return, plugs the golden Jesus’ ears, and whispers, “I have needs!”

Hurley, Jin, Sawyer and Vincent are like the ultimate good ol’ boys club. Then you add Charlie to that mix a bit later and it’s like the All-Star team.

Sawyer finds some blueprints in the DHARMA van. Were they roads as he claimed? They sort of looked like maybe mapped areas of electromagnetic energy. Didn’t Zoe (I shudder to speak her name) have some plans that looked similar to this in Season Six?

We get a real hint of what is to come with Roger Work Man:

SAWYER: [pointing at Roger] Skeletor seems to like it. [Sawyer clinks the beer can on Roger's skull] Bottoms up.

HURLEY: That’s not cool, dude. That guy had a mom, a family, and friends. Oh, and a name, it’s not skeletor, it’s Roger Workman.

SAWYER: It’s Work Man, you blockhead. That’s his job. He was a DHARMA janitor.

HURLEY: Yeah, well you should still respect the dead.

Sawyer nails the fact that essentially Roger was a janitor. The weird thing is that Jack, the one they’re currently worried about was also a janitor with Roger back in the DHARMA days when La Fleur is Head of Security. Crazy. Also, Hurley’s point is well taken also that Roger had a family, maybe not so many friends, though Kate befriends him for a bit. But the key foreshadowing here is obviously his son Ben who is currently mending from spinal surgery.

The psychic that David Reyes takes Hurley to works in the temp agency with Rose that Locke goes to in the Season Six sideways world. This scene also reminds me of Claire going to Richard Malkin in Season One. She mentions the numbers and also says “Death surrounds you and war is coming.” This struck me as very reminiscent of Ben and Widmore’s words about a war coming to the island.

Jin getting English lessons from Sawyer is brilliant. The only three things a woman needs to learn scene alone is a classic.

Hurley channels his inner Cher and slaps Charlie. “Snap out of it”. Also funny is that in “Moonstruck”, Cher slaps Nicolas Cage who in the movie has… wait for it… a fake arm. This no arms thing keeps getting weirder and weirder.

Another awesome Hurley quote, “Let’s look death in the face and say whatever man. Let’s make our own luck.” All this talk about making your own luck in this episode made me think of “Titanic” for the second time in two episodes as Jack Dawson also famously “made his own luck”. The luck talk also really flies in the face of the whole fate/destiny themes that run throughout the show.

“I came to ride shotgun.” I feel this was the essential moment that bonded Charlie and Hurley together for good.

Then, Sawyer and Jin push and the van begins to roll. As the van approaches the rocks (which aren’t real, but CGI’d in the scene), the van starts. Watching it this time, it struck me that it almost feels like Hurley somehow wills it to happen. I mean obviously the flashback and the on-island story are almost identical in some respects, and the Camaro and the van share the similar purpose of being Hurley’s link to his father and the issues that come along with it. Many of the LOSTies experienced a cathartic moment of conquering and release while on the island. This is Hurley’s moment and I think a big turning point for him. He pops the clutch, the van fires up. “Shambala” plays. Son of a bitch. This is indeed the best joy ride ever. Then Sawyer, Jin and Vincent join the party and Hurley spins some donuts in the field, reveling in the moment, and we revel with him. We then fade from the Three Dog Night version to the Giacchino orchestral version of “Shambala”. Awesome.

As all great Hurley eps do, this one seems to close with a real feel good moment. Poor Sawyer. All couples, and he’s the odd man out.

But, there’s one scene left. Kate is in the jungle looking for something or someone. Sayid and Locke stumble out of the jungle upon where she is. Sayid doesn’t sound convinced about John’s motivation of where they need to go based on his vision of the message on Eko’s stick. Then shots get fired.

Enter Danielle. Kate tells her The Others have Alex. Seems they have a new island tour guide.

In one week, we go from one of the worst episodes to one of the better ones. I’ve included a couple of pictures I took while taking the KOS Tour in between seasons five and six. Our tour guide, Scotty, claimed this was his favorite episode of the show of all time. Scotty, I can’t really argue with you. A great high point for Hurley, this is one of my favorite episodes too.

MATT SAYS:

What a crappy time for me to get super-busy. This is one of my favorite episodes because of the little pieces of groundwork it lays for Ben and other storylines, while at the time seeming just like innocent fun. And little did we know this was just the beginning of the Dharma van appearances on the show, usually in awesome scenes. Whether it’s Hurley running over the Others in the season finale, young Ben lighting one on fire towards a house in the barracks to cause a diversion or the cavalry coming in to help Jack in the shootout during the Incident, Dharma vans see a lot of action. I’ve got two photos that I want to share. The first was of my friend Carrie, who came to my season three finale party dressed as Tricia Tanaka, complete with comet approaching and Action 8 microphone. Amazing!

The photo of me in a Dharma-ish van was I think, the secret workings of that magical island box Ben will talk about soon. You see, for my crazy videos, I knew I wanted to do a scene involving the Dharma van. But, not many people have light blue VW buses anymore, that even run as well. So, one day I’m over at my friend’s house, talking about the LOST video, the van, etc. I look out their back window and see a row of VW vans, buses, etc. parked in their neighbors garage. He is a big VW collector and so naturally, I had to go ask him if I could use his van very briefly in my video, and as I described it to him, I think I sounded crazier and crazier. He graciously allowed me to use it and even helped push the van (as it wasn’t running the best. I sliced it together with clips from this episode and you can see it here at the 6:00 minute mark.

Enjoy!