LOST Magazine #26
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LOST Magazine

An excerpt as featured in issue #26 of The Official Lost Magazine.

No one's had it easy on LOST. From season to season, for each character it's really been a measure in weighing just how bad it can get for them, personally. As if it wasn't bad enough to fall out of the sky in an airplane, the survivors' sojourn on the island has only offered up test after test, to each and every one of them, on facing their demons and their own fragile natures. But in season five, Hugo 'Hurley' Reyes and James 'Sawyer' Ford actually got tested and for once ended up rising to the challenge of discovering and living up to their better selves.

For Hurley, a large span of his post-island life was spent dealing with the overwhelming guilt of returning and leaving so many behind. After car chases and intense self-doubt which led to more bathrobe time at Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute (including visits from the dead), Hurley made the decision to return to the island via Ajira Flight 316. Once back in '70s Dharma, Hurley became a bit of a new man, focusing on appreciating life and even helping others build bridges of their own, like he did with Miles and Pierre Chang.

Actor Jorge Garcia tells Lost Magazine exclusively that he enjoyed the more personal moments of change in Hurley's journey in season five. "The moment in The Lie when I download the whole series at the kitchen table, and throwing the Hot Pocket at Michael were special," he laughs. "I also love the whole Hurley writing The Empire Strikes Back bit. Some Like It Hoth was a great episode because I was hanging with Ken [Leung] the whole time." He adds as an aside, "I also know how hard it is to drive that van and how to deal with it, so that was great."

It's a sentiment echoed by fellow cast mate Josh Holloway, who found his own character of Sawyer experiencing potential, achieved through his newfound position of Dharma sheriff, an equal partner and lover in Juliet, and a man finally worthy of giving and accepting friendship. It was especially through his remarkable three-year love affair with Juliet that Sawyer grew into the man that she always knew was inside him. To have that ripped away in The Incident with Juliet's fall was brutal.

Upon seeing the script with the moment that Juliet lets go of Sawyer's desperate grasp, Holloway admits he was gutted. "My first thought was, 'Damnit!' I almost walked out of the theater when that scene happened in Cliffhanger – when [Janine Turner] dropped away. I was so distraught at that! And then when I read it on the page that I had to do it, I was like, 'No!' Now I'm having to perform the thing I was going to leave the theater over, because it affected me so badly," he remembers passionately. "But I thought it was very well written, and I am so thankful I was able to do it with Elizabeth Mitchell."