Hurley's LOST his mind.

Dave



This is the one where we are told why Hurley was in the psychiatric hospital AND what Libby's connection is with him.

To recap: Hurley and Libby are becoming very close. He reveals to her that he kept some of the original hatch food for himself and has been binging. She does her "psychologist" thing and tells him to free himself by destroying it all. He does. But just when he thinks he's got that monkey off his back he and Libby stumble across the palette of DHARMA food just as the castaways are pillaging it. This is enough of a trauma to make Hurley see Dave at the edge of the woods. See, Dave was this imaginary friend that Hurley had when he was in the hospital, sort of a manifestation of the part of Hurley that hates himself. As he's chasing Dave around the island we get flashbacks to his stay in the hospital, where Dave tells him to not take his medicine, to eat whatever he wants and to try to escape. Hurley makes a breakthrough, however, when he opens up and tells his doctor about the accident that resulted in his hospitalization: Hurley stepped onto an already overloaded deck, which collapsed, killing two people. The deck was unstable but because of his obesity, Hurley blamed himself and had a little bit of a nervous breakdown. With this breakthrough, Dave disappears and Hurley is presumably able to recover. But in the here and now, the new food and the increasing attentions of Libby are enough to bring back Dave, who ultimately convinces Hurley that everything that's happened to him since the hospital - the lottery, the plane crash, the island, Libby (how could a girl like Libby be intereseted in him?) - is all in his head and he is actually still in the hospital. The only way to awake from his catatonic state, Dave tells him, is to jump off of a cliff. Libby finds Hurley just in time, convinces him that it's actually Dave who's all in his head and that she really does care for him. She kisses him to convince him. But as they walk away, the look on her face is anything but caring.



Cue another flashback that takes place in the hospital common room but is not Hurley's flashback. It's Libby's (or an objective flashback). She was a patient at the same hospital and from the looks of things she was a bit worse off than Hurley was.

Meanwhile, down in the hatch, Jack is tending to Locke's injured leg (a small fracture and a big NO to the wheelchair) and Sayid and Ana Lucia are interrogating Henry again, who they've got shackled like someone in the Pit of Despair. Sayid catches Henry in a lie about the real Henry Gale and won't give Sayid what he wants so Sayid pulls out his gun and tries to shoot Henry, only to have AL push the gun out of the way just in time. Henry completely flips out and says the oddest thing: "I'm not a bad person!" And that if he told the truth, "he" would kill him. He who? Later, Locke has a private moment with Henry because Locke still wants to believe (I think), and Henry screws with Locke's head again and tells him that he never put the code in, that the counter went down, turned to hyeroglyphics, he heard a sound like a magnet powering up and then nothing. The counter reset itself. And then he made another curious remark: "God can't see the island." (or something like that)

ETA: This is what he actually said: "God doesn’t know how long we’ve been here John. He can’t see this island any better than the rest of the world can." What in the world does that mean?

This was another one I really enjoyed. All of it. I even liked Ana Lucia! It wasn’t a “doozy” like the previous episode was for me, but it was still very enjoyable. I think one of the reasons I liked the episode so much was I felt like the writers were addressing me personally and some of the issues I’ve been wondering about:

1. Hurley’s stash of food – Thank you for the explanation as to where his food was coming from. Now, I understand the psychological benefit of destroying the food the way he did but, dude, what a WASTE! Yeah, they just got a big food drop but Hurley and Libby didn’t know that when he dumped his stash all over the jungle floor. And how about Sawyer just chucking that broken Oreo! He made up for it with the Sayid/mini-mart joke (so wrong but it made me LOL), but still.

2. Fat Hurley jokes – How awesome was it to see Hurley beating the crap out of Sawyer while screaming a litany of all the fat nicknames Sawyer has given him?



I found it interesting that Sawyer didn’t tell Hurley that he didn’t have the medicine when he asked for the Clonazipam (sp?). Did he not give the medicine to Jack yet? I suppose it hasn't even been a day since the poker game ended and Jack said he would be back later to get the meds, so...

3. Who knows about the hatch – So Jack went topside to tell the rest of the group that they had “one of them” captive in the hatch. I guess that means that everyone knows about the hatch and we just don’t see others (not Others) using it for things like showers, etc.? I am going to have to assume so, since the alternative is so unfair.

I knew that Dave was imaginary when they were playing Connect 4, but I should have known when in the basketball scene no one was passing to him and they in fact threw the ball to Hurley, who was right behind him. I thought the actor who played Dave was very good.

So now we know why Hurley was in the hospital. I felt so bad for him when he finally talked about the deck collapse. I liked the whole “this island thing is all in your mind” idea. I don’t think that’s what’s going on, but it fits well enough to work as a possibility and it’s fun to wonder about the possibilities.

So how about Libby?! There’s been a lot of speculation that she worked (as a “clinical psychologist”) at Hurley’s hospital and that’s how he knew her, but now we know the truth. That was a very cool surprise. Is she lying about being a clinical psychologist? I think she is. Does she really care for Hurley? I think she does. Well, maybe I hope she does. What was she doing on the plane? It can’t be coincidence – nothing in this show is – so I’m wondering if Hurley perhaps caught her eye in the hospital and she was sort of stalking him? Maybe? When Hurley asked Libby how she found him on the cliff, she said that Jin saw him whiel he was fishing. There’s no way that she could have gotten all the way up that hill from the beach in such a short amount of time. I think she was following him. Whether it was out of concern for him or because she’s a creepy stalker remains to be seen.

I love Eko and I wish we could see more of him. What do you think he’s building? I’m thinking a church, but that may be too obvious. Good for him for putting Charlie to work. Give that boy a purpose.

Sayid has gone a little off his nut, huh? The professional torturer in him should know that you can’t get information from a dead man. Maybe he and AL were playing good cop/bad cop? I loved Henry’s scene with Locke. Did he push the buttons or not? And who is “He”? The actor who plays Henry is fantastic. I think he’s telling lies within lies, but who knows? I do know he’s evil to the core, though – did you see his face in the previews for next week?

On Wednesday, another new episode.