|
 |
||||||||||
|
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
|
|||||||||||
GET
A weekly commentary of the television show
by Carlos R Savournin
2-18: "Dave"
Anyone who watches “Lost” as religiously as I have, knows very well it’s not just about a group of people who crash-landed on an island and must wait to be rescued. We all know this isn’t “Survivor” meets “Fantasy Island.” There’s much more to the show than meets the eye; its religious undertones, the six degrees of separation, the political statements of red and white states, and of course those pesky numbers. After nearly two seasons, fans of the show still don’t know what the hell it all means. But we keep tuning in to see what’s going to happen next, and this week’s episode proved just why.Finally, we find out exactly why Hurley was in a clinical institution; he feels responsible for the deaths of two people though his psychologist clearly told him he wasn’t. The only thing we do know for a fact is that Hurley found comfort in food, which explains why he didn’t lose any weight after two months on the island. On the brink of a mental snap, Dave, Hurley’s imaginary friend for whom the episode is named after, tells Hurley something that stuns us all; something so typical of “Lost” that we don't know what to think.
Dave tells Hurley that everything he did, everything that happened, the island and everyone on it is all just in his imagination and that Hurley is still, in fact, in a coma at the institution. We’ve all heard the theories; They’re all dead, this is their purgatory, they’re all dreaming. I’m no one to give my opinion; I don’t work for the show, I don’t write for it (though I did write a helluva script that was rejected by ABC), and I certainly don’t know any more than any other fan, but to say that everything is all in Hurley’s mind, that it’s all just a dream, is mental rape. Do we believe it? Is he yet another liar on the island who's there to confuse the characters further, meanwhile effectively aggravating the viewers so we’re certain to tune in next week?
Enter Libby, the clinical psychologist on the island, who literally brings Hurley back from jumping of the cliff of insanity - back to “real life” to tell him he’ll be okay. Like a prince kissing his princess out of a coma, Hurley is healed with a kiss from Libby, a woman his imaginary friend told him would only love someone like him in his dreams. The kiss is real, and so are the tears that fall from her eyes. Hand in hand, they walk off the cliff, and viewers are left to witness something so shocking, that even I (I’m pretty good a predicting where the show is headed) am left speechless.
The moment we heard Libby was a clinical psychologist, and that Hurley recognized her from somewhere, we had the suspicion that she worked where Hurley had been institutionalized. “Don’t I know you from somewhere?” he asked her in a previous episode. “You stepped on my foot when you got onto the plane,” she answered. Something wasn’t right about that, though. Libby is a Tailie. She was in the tail section of the plane while Hurley was in the front. How would it be possible to step on her foot? So, once again, the theories began - like - She was a doctor and she didn’t want Hurley to freak out about having her on the island. Turns out everyone was wrong. During the last scene of the episode, we switched from Hurley’s flashbacks into the mind of Libby to discover that she wasn’t working for the hospital. She was a friggin’ patient!
And she looked fruiter than Hurley ever has.
So, what’s her deal? Does she have her own agenda? Is she an Other? The way she eyed Hurley in the mental hospital was not a friendly gaze, and now she “has feelings” for him? Did the island cure her the way it cured Locke?
The episode itself was a stand alone focusing more on one character than moving the rest of the story forward, and while we’re getting closer and closer to the season finale (rumored to be a two-hour-no-answer-fest on May 17th), the episodes are becoming more complex and intriguing. So many questions are still left and even more are on the rise. “Lost” is doing something so dangerous that its viewers walk a thin line in whether or not they will continue watching. But, as this week’s episode proved, the writing is too damn spectacular, you can't help but to continue to watch.
Next week’s episode, “S.O.S.”, will probably have nothing to do with Hurley or Libby, but the day we get another episode about the happy nutty couple, we’ll tune in, disconnect our phones and hopefully find out exactly what Libby’s up to.
Until next week, get LOST.
TO DISCUSS "LOST" IN OUR FORUM CLICK HERE
Return to the Hatch here
© Savournin, 2006
All pictures are property of ABC Television and the Walt Disney Company
