My Imaginary LOST Recap (spoilers)

So much to talk about in last night’s episode of LOST, yet so little time. I’ll go with the headlines. I knew Dave was imaginary before he was even on screen. You might want to call my bluff, but from the moment Hurley’s doctor said “Well I’m not Dave’s doctor, but I think he’s a negative influence on you….”, I knew. No doctor would ever speak in such a way about another patient at a hospital. He’d find a more diplomatic way to phrase it, but he was obviously trying to allude to his disapproval of Hurley and his imaginary friend.

Also, Hurley’s issues with his weight and eating, were too on the nose. The writers took a character who is overweight, and linked up his deep personal issues to….food and being overweight. I felt cheated by Hurley’s whole speech about “I eat to punish myself!”, which I’ve heard about a hundred different ways in ABC afterschool specials. I wanted something more about Hurley’s character, something different, but I was disappointed by the “deep, dark” secrets of his past. We already knew he had spent some time in a mental hospital, and yes, it was neat to see him in this environment, but Dave felt like a cop out to me. He was just a bald personification of Hurley’s Id whose conversational repertoire was limited to chicks and food, a variation of a little red devil sitting on his shoulder. See, if they wanted to make it REALLY interesting, I think they could have gone with TWO imaginary figures; one representing his suppressed desires, and the other representing his responsible conscience. That would have thrown us off the scent that Dave was fake, and it would have given more dimension to Hurley’s character. As for the “accident”, and reason that Hurley ended up in the hospital, I was not a fan. He walked onto an over crowded deck and sank it, unintentionally causing the death of two people? Nope. Not buying it. I spoke to an associate who said he liked the fact that Hurley’s accident was connected to his weight, but I didn’t because it made everything too one note. It quickly became an instance of “oh look the fat character is sad that he’s fat, and everything that goes wrong in his life is somehow related to that”. I wanted Hurley’s craziness to come from somewhere else besides his food issues, and his guilt and inner turmoil about his weight.

Dave’s theory that Hurley had made up the entire island, was interesting, but would have flown better if presented earlier in the run of the show, --like last season. At this point, we have pretty much iron clad proof that the events in the island could not all be going on in someone’s mind. There are too many different storylines, and events that have happened that other characters are unaware of. The scene on the cliff was eerie, and I liked it when Dave plummeted off the rocks into the brewing sea, but ultimately they weren’t able to sell it as enough of an alternate theory.

I thought it was cute that they tried to further develop the bond between Libby and Hurley. Libby is a little on the bland side, but a likeable enough character, and it was nice to see Hurley get a real confidant. However shocking the final reveal in the mental hospital was, I’m not so sure I like the implications. First off, it’s more of that “everything’s connected, there are no coincidences” hoo haa, which I can’t help but feel is the story equivalent of quicksand. The deeper and deeper these writers get, the harder and harder it’s going to be to come up with a relevant and solid explanation for why this connectivity exists. Secondly, Libby’s slightly evil look when she walked off frame holding Hurley’s hand (just before they cut to the hospital), made me think that her intentions are false, and she is tricking him somehow. Can’t the poor guy get some genuine affection? Hurley wasn’t in the hospital that long ago, perhaps only a couple years before the show started and Libby has asserted herself on the island as a professional psycho-therapist. Which leaves a few possibilities open to explain her character’s behavior. (1) Libby is lying about her profession and who she is. She is still mentally ill and is plotting some kind of scheme. (2) Libby was in fact in the hospital, but somehow in the relatively short period between her time in the hospital and the moment she boarded the plane, managed to get her stuff together, recuperate from her mental illness and become a certified therapist. (This seems highly unlikely) (3) It was not Libby who we saw in the mental hospital, but her twin sister. The reason she went into the psychology field was because of her sister’s struggles.

As for the scenes with the fake Henry Gale, my eyes were glued to the screen. This plot line has really grown on me and I think it’s leading to some potentially interesting reveals. I like his confession about not typing in the numbers, --though I suspected as much that nothing would happen without constant monitoring of the countdown. I like the actor who plays Gale, and I think the writers have shaped his character nicely. I enjoyed this portion of the episode a great deal.

From the looks of the preview, next week’s episode is more Henry Gale material, which I am excited about. I like the idea that they may try to trade him in for Walt, but would somebody please tell me where the hell Michael went, and why no one even seems to give a damn that he’s vanished?!