Hurley

Overview

Hugo Reyes, more commonly known by his nickname “Hurley”, was one of the middle section survivors of the crash of Oceanic Flight 815. Hurley’s father disappeared when he was ten and did not return until almost 17 years had gone by. During his father’s absence, Hurley developed an eating disorder, and later a traumatic accident landed him in a mental asylum where he started seeing an imaginary person. He has been overly-conscious about his sanity since. While employed at Mr. Cluck’s, Hurley won the lottery by playing the mysterious numbers. Because of a series of unfortunate incidents following his win, he believed himself to be plagued with bad luck and has searched for an answer to the curse.

On the Island, Hurley was typically happy-go-lucky and kept the spirits of his fellow survivors up. He was also a voice of reason in the group and used his common sense to solve difficult situations. Eventually, Hurley found that he could not escape the Numbers and after seeing them on the side of the Hatch, knew that opening it would be a bad idea. He struggled with being given the task of dividing up the food in the Hatch and began seeing his old imaginary friend on the Island. Later, he was captured by the Others, along with Jack, Kate, and Sawyer as a part of Michael’s betrayal, but was released to go back and warn the other survivors not to come for them. Back at camp, Hurley found an old DHARMA van which he was able to get running again with the help of Charlie, Sawyer, and Jin, restoring his and the rest of the survivors’ optimism.

After Charlie was born and Jack called the freighter for rescue, Hurley and five other survivors managed to escape the Island by using a helicopter. However, they were forced to leave everyone else behind when Ben moved the Island. Hurley tried to carry on happily with his life, but began seeing visions of Charlie off the Island. Eventually, he was readmitted to the Santa Rosa Mental Institute where he routinely conversed with Charlie and other deceased people. He was removed from Santa Rosa by Sayid, and taken to a “safe house”, where he was mistaken for a murderer. He later threw a Hot Pocket at Benjamin Linus and surrendered to authorities. Hurley was found innocent and released from prison where he was convinced by a man to return to the Island.

He boarded Ajira Flight 316 and was flashed to 1977 where he worked as a fire chief for the DHARMA Initiative. After the detonation of Jughead by Juliet, he time traveled to his original timeline. Soon afterward, the now-deceased Jacob began to appear to Hurley, first telling him to take the wounded Kate to the Temple, and then instructing him to take Jack to the Lighthouse. Hurley later acted as medium between Richard and his deceased wife Isabella.

Hurley was confirmed to be one of Jacob’s candidates by Jacob himself. He was visited and touched by Jacob while off the Island. Hurley’s name appears on the wall in the cliffside cave and the Lighthouse wheel as “8 – Reyes”. Hurley eventually took over as protector of the island for Jack and hired Ben as an adviser. (“The End”)

In the flash-sideways, he was finally reunited with his murdered island lover, Elizabeth “Libby” Smith and along with their friends, they moved on.