Flashbacks

Following Hugo "Hurley" Reyes's (Jorge Garcia) discovery of his winning lottery numbers. Hurley keeps his win a secret, and quits his job at a fast food restaurant along with his friend Johnny (DJ Qualls). The pair enjoy themselves by pulling a prank on their former boss, and going to a record store where Hurley asks out his crush, Starla (Marguerite Moreau). Hurley asks Johnny to promise that they will never change, and Johnny does so. Johnny pulls into a local gas station to buy some beer, but notices news crews talking to the attendant. When the clerk loudly points out Hurley as the buyer of the winning lottery ticket, Johnny's stunned expression clearly reveals that, despite his promise, everything has changed.

On the Island

In the The Swan station. Hurley struggles with the task of food rationing. Charlie Pace (Dominic Monaghan) asks Hurley if the bunker contains food, specifically peanut butter for Claire Littleton (Emilie de Ravin), but Hurley will not answer him. Hurley decides to enlist Rose Henderson-Nadler (L. Scott Caldwell) to help him take inventory. At one point, Hurley has a strange dream, in which Jin-Soo Kwon (Daniel Dae Kim) tells Hurley, in English, that "everything is going to change." Hurley becomes less and less certain of his ability to ration the food in a manner that keeps everyone happy. He attempts to quit, but John Locke (Terry O'Quinn) refuses to permit it. Hurley then prepares to blow up the pantry with dynamite, but Rose intervenes. He explains that the food, newfound wealth to the survivors, will change everything and everyone will come to hate him, just as things changed when everyone knew he won the lottery; however Rose talks him out of his plan. Later, Hurley informs Jack Shephard (Matthew Fox) of his decision to give the food all away, arguing that the food stores do not amount to very much when divided among all the survivors. The food is distributed freely and the survivors enjoy an enormous feast. Everyone appreciates Hurley's decision, including Charlie, who gives his benefactor a hug of reconciliation.

James "Sawyer" Ford (Josh Holloway), Michael Dawson (Harold Perrineau) and Jin learn that their captors are survivors from the tail section of Oceanic 815 and are taken to a DHARMA Initiative station, which they use for sanctuary. A woman named Libby (Cynthia Watros) says that there were 23 survivors from the tail section of the plane, although very few remain.

Meanwhile, the bottle of messages from the raft, on which Michael, Sawyer, Jin and Walt Lloyd were travelling, washes ashore. Claire and Shannon Rutherford (Maggie Grace) give it to Sun-Hwa Kwon (Yunjin Kim), Jin's wife, and she opts to bury the bottle on the beach, inadvertently losing her wedding ring in the process. In the hatch, Jack and Sayid Jarrah (Naveen Andrews) inspect the mysterious concrete barricade blocking what appears to be a corridor to another section of the bunker. They discover that the barrier is very thick and that the corridor is also blocked on the foundation level. Later, Jack and Kate Austen (Evangeline Lilly) share a moment of sexual tension when she exits the shower wearing only a towel.