S2Ep18 - Dave (Hurley's third flashback) - 04/05/06

Hello my dear friends,

Unlike most people on the boards, I was not a huge fan of 'Dave,'... mostly because I saw the A Beautiful Mind/The Sixth Sense-like "twist" coming from a mile away after watching the previews. Additionally, so much of what this episode was about (Is the entire show all in Hurley's head? Was Libby also in the psych ward with Hurley?) had been theorized before on the boards... I honestly felt like the writers decided to just take the ideas on the boards and make an episode out of them and then go have a beer and toast the fact that they just saved themselves a ton of effort.

However, I by no means thought it was a bad show - it just didn't really do anything for me. There were still a lot of little things I caught, though, so here we go:


R.I.P. RANCH DRESSING (yet again)

Seriously, what does this show have against Ranch? It is good on nearly EVERYTHING, and I'm a fairly picky eater! Earlier this season, Michael blew a container of Ranch up during shooting practice, and now Hurley wastes all of his for no apparent reason. I'm pissed! End of rant.

Back to the bigger issue... So after Libby convinces Hurley TO DESTROY his jungle pantry o' goodies (complete with shelves(!?!?) as my friend AW noted, see pic to the left), they find that a huge pallet of food has been dropped - a cruel test of willpower for poor Hurley. Before talking more about the food drop, I first have to say that I was tres annoyed by Libby telling Hurley to just pour Ranch dressing all over the place and scatter all sorts of other perfectly good stuff all over the ground. I mean, how selfish is that? Last I checked there was a new mom on the island as well as countless other pour souls still living off of boar, mangoes and whatever other scraps the Power Duo in the hatch decides to dole out. But noooooo, Libby felt that it was more important to get Hurley over his food addiction than to feed much-deserving plane crash survivors, so to hell with the other peeps!

Moving on... TPTB had Charlie say out loud what the overriding theory on the boards is regarding the food drop (mentioned in last week's write-up):

CHARLIE: Locke said some kind of blast doors trapped him in the hatch. Maybe it was because of this -- so no one would see who dropped it. Any of you guys see a plane last night?

And then of course I have to include Sawyer's follow-up response - not only because it includes another great nickname (especially since I had "De Plane, De Plane!" as a section title last week), but also because it mocks that fact that the Lostaways don't tell each other important information:

SAWYER: Yeah, I saw it, Tattoo. I just decided not to tell.


Back to the food drop... if it happens on some pre-determined schedule, then perhaps it is around every 60 or so days. The Lostaways have been on the island about that long at this point, and I think had it been dropped at any other point in time during their stay, they would've found it. So I think the last food supply restocking happened on Desmond's watch, and this was the next one since that point in time. But once again, I really have no clue, so if anyone has any other theories, let me know.


SPEAKING OF DESMOND...

This was the third episode in a row that repeated a previous Desmond one-liner:

"You're running like the devil is chasing you" - Locke to Ana Lucia
"Are you him?" - Helen to Locke's dad
"See you in another life!" - Dave to Hurley (although he didn't attempt to swing the signature Desmond "brotha!" at the end)

I don't know if they are doing this to just drive us all crazy (they're succeeding), or if it's leading somewhere. I certainly hope we get to welcome the Return of Desmond before the season is over.



I SEE CRAZY PEOPLE

So one long-standing question has been answered:

Q: "What put Hurley in the mental institution in the first place?"
A: "He stepped onto an already overloaded deck (the 23rd person on a deck that was only supposed to hold 8 - the numbers again, of course), and it collapsed and killed some people. He went catatonic afterward and his mother had him checked in.

Speculative questions have arisen now that we know the details of the accident:
1) Was Locke perhaps on that same deck and was paralyzed during its collapse?
2) Were one or both of the people that were killed in the accident related to anyone else on the island?

But by far, the biggest questions of the night were: Is Dave real? Is the entire show all in Hurley's head? In my mind, I think it's safe to answer an unequivocal "no" on both counts. Of course the writers wanted to make everyone doubt what is going on, and they did a good job tricking fans into second-guessing the reality of the island. And people are NOT all on the same page on this topic on the boards. The two biggest reasons why people thing Dave IS real are:

#1: How did Hurley get hit with the ball, have the slipper, get slapped, etc., if Dave isn't real?

#2: How can you explain the difference between the real-life pose and the photo Dr. Brooks took? - The producers know how people examine things... this definitely leaves a lot to be explained (although many have said that the difference in both the film quality and the angle of the real-life pose vs. that of the polaroid is enough to explain the subtle discrepancies).

However, I think those two points pale in comparison to the hard fact that if the show WAS all in Hurley's head, then they just explained the whole thing and need to start wrapping up production right quick. And since 1) they have planned the series to span 5-7 seasons and 2) the writers have SAID it is "not a dream, because WE would be disappointed if we were fans and that was the explanation," ... I'm pretty sure we haven't been watching the manifestations of Hurley's comatose mind this entire time.

But boy, did the writers include a ton of shout-outs to the boards and the fan base at large... having Dave bring up well-known questions such as:
1) Why do the numbers keep appearing everywhere?
2) Why isn't Hurley losing any weight?
3) Would Libby really be interested in Hurley?

On that last topic - so Hurley finally gets some lovin'. But then the "big reveal" at the end made sure we weren't too excited for Hurley for very long. More on that shortly.

Two other things to note from the Hurley scenes:
1) How awesome was it that Jin just stood there laughing when Hurley was pounding the crap out of Sawyer? That was one of my favorite parts.

2) Much-debated on the boards: What does Dave say when the Polaroid is snapped? Hurley clearly says "Cheese," the transcripts (which, remember, are just some random guy transcribing what he hears) say that Dave said "Awesome," but when I rewound it several times, I couldn't make it out, though it did sound oddly like "Hansoooooooooo." Though of course I already had that in my head from the boards. We'll probably never know.




EKO... IS... STILL... BUILDING... WHAT, EXACTLY?

Your guess is as good as mine.





TO BE HENRY, OR NOT TO BE HENRY

LOCKE: What's your name -- your real name?
GALE: Why don't you just keep calling me Henry? I've gotten used to it.

OK, then, I will keep calling him Henry.

So when we first see Henry in this episode, he's in a crucifixion-like pose, being interrogated once again by Sayid. This scene was the best part of the episode for me, and it was filled with the most clues, so here is the transcript [after Sayid reads from the RealHenry's dollar bill, which proves that he was not dead upon impact, as Henry previously said]:

GALE [panicky]: It wasn't me. I didn't kill him. You don't understand.
SAYID: How did you know his wife's name? Did you interrogate him?
GALE: Please, just listen. I'm just a --
SAYID: How many of you are there?
GALE: If I told you about them -- you have no idea what he'll do.
SAYID: He?
ANA: You mean their leader -- the guy with the beard.
GALE: Him? He's no one. Nothing.
SAYID: Where are your people?
GALE: I can't...
SAYID: How many of you are there?!
GALE: You don't understand.
SAYID [pulling a gun]: Understand this --
ANA: Hey.
SAYID: You have 3 seconds to answer my question. How many of you are there? 1 --
GALE: He'll kill me!
SAYID: I'll kill you. [he pushes the slide back on the gun] 2...
ANA: Sayid!
GALE: You can't do this! I am not a bad person!


Here are the three important things from that scene:

1) The mention of He/Him again.
In 'Maternity Leave,' we heard Zeke and Ethan worrying about what "He" would do after finding out that Ethan brought Claire to the Medical Hatch without first making the list. Now Henry is talking about the same person/being - so scared that he was not even going to give up any information when Sayid started to pull the trigger.
Theories remain:
a) Henry is Him, the leader of the Others, and is just a damn good liar and actor with a lot of confidence that he won't end up getting killed by the Lostaways
b) Alvar Hanso (financier of the Dharma Initiative) or Gerald DeGroot (U of M hippie scientist guy from the video) is Him
c) Cerberus/Smoke Monster is Him
d) Someone we haven't seen yet is Him

Right now, I'm leaning toward A. Especially after the previews (more on that below). But when he said above, "If I tell you about 'them'"... that casts a little doubt on choice A to me. He's not necessarily speaking as if he's "one of them." But then again, he's a smart, tricky little bastard, now, isn't he?

2) Henry stated that Zeke was "no one, nothing." Which leads me to think:
a) Either there's a little Jack/Locke-ish competition going on between Henry and Zeke, or
b) Zeke literally is just the resident Island Hillbilly, who has a penchant for making threatening speeches but is otherwise harmless and useless, or
c) Zeke is on par with Henry in the pecking order of The Others and Henry was insulted that the Lostaways could mistake Zeke for Him., whoever He is

I also wonder, was Desmond an Other? I really don't think so, but since he did ask Locke, "Are you him?" when Locke first entered the Hatch, I have to consider this a possibility. I still think he was hoping Locke was his replacement for button duty.

3) "You can't do this! I am not a bad person!!!"
Perhaps Henry is not Him, then. Why would someone shout this in disbelief when they think they're about to get shot? If Henry was just an Others minion, he probably had been brainwashed into thinking, similar to Ethan and Goodwin, that what they were doing on the island was "the right thing to do" and that they were saving "the good people." For a "bad person" like Sayid to triumph by killing Henry would turn that world on its head, hence the reaction from Henry. I don't know what else to make of it.


HDTV TO THE RESCUE

Shout-out to my boy Humpy for bringing us yet another key clue... check out this screen capture of RealHenry's balloon from Lockdown.

Coincidence? I think not. Widmore Labs strikes again [they were also the maker of Sun's pregnancy test... for those of you who can't keep up anymore].


THEY DO TALK TO EACH OTHER!

A fairly small point... but Ana Lucia never had any encounters with Hillbilly Zeke, yet she mentioned "the guy with the beard" to Henry, insinuating that she thought Zeke was the Others' leader. Therefore, I'm assuming she only would know about him if someone else actually - gasp! - shared information with her.



BITTER, PARTY OF ONE, YOUR TABLE IS READY

Although I don't think it was meant to be funny, my friends and I couldn't help but laugh at poor Locke going nuts, stuck in the bunk bed while the gun went off in the ammo room:

[Ana pushes Sayid just as he pulls the trigger so that he misses Gale.]
ANA: What the hell's wrong with you?
LOCKE [from the bunk bed]: What's going on? I heard a gun shot.
JACK [entering the armory]: What happened?
SAYID: He's a liar!
ANA [to Jack]: It's fine, just get him out of here.
[Sayid and Jack exit the armory.]
LOCKE: Jack! Jack!
JACK [looking in at Locke] I've got it covered, John.
[Locke hits the top bunk in frustration.]


Jack also had to break the bad news to Locke that he wasn't going to be able to walk normally for weeks. And then finally, our favorite Hatch Prisoner drops the bomb on Locke that he never even entered in the numbers or pressed the button - and went as far as calling the Hatch "a joke."

The most interesting part of the episode to me was this exchange:

LOCKE: Did you get caught on purpose? You and your people have been here for God knows how long, and you got caught in a net...
GALE: God doesn't know.
LOCKE: Excuse me?
GALE: 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. May I ask you a question? What possible reason could I have for putting myself through all this?

What exactly was THAT supposed to have meant: God can't see the island any better than anyone else can? Hmmmmm.




I SEE MORE CRAZY PEOPLE

It had been theorized early on that Libby was most likely not telling the whole truth about her background, because she told Hurley mid-season that he stepped on her foot when he boarded the plane, and that could not have been possible as he was in the middle section and she was in the back. But what about her claims that she was a psychiatrist? Not necessarily untrue... she did do a few things previously that indicate some sort of medical background... setting that one guy's leg (though he did end up dying of an infection), hypnotizing Claire, and most recently, succeeding in literally talking Hurley off of the ledge. However, we now have PROOF that all was not always well with Libby, as the episode ended with her staring blankly into space, peering out from darker hair in a corner of the same psych ward Hurley called home for a bit. Theories range from: she was in there after Hurley killed someone in her family in the deck accident, to: she was never a psychiatrist but studied them enough as a patient that she's convinced herself she was one, to: she has been stalking Hurley ever since the psych ward and actually followed him to Australia and booked the same Oceanic flight back that he did [we still have not seen her official flashback yet, so this is possible].

Regardless, the chick is hiding something.
What's up with all the women on this show looking dismayed and fretful and guilty every time the men turn away?








BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE


SAWYER: Hold on, take it easy. You guys are like locusts. How about a little order here?
CHARLIE: Shouldn't we let someone a little more trustworthy take care of this?
SAWYER: Like you, babynapper?
CHARLIE: No, like Hurley. Why not Hurley? He's done it before, he can do it again.
HURLEY: No. No way! Not me, no. Not again, no.
LIBBY: Okay, hey, hey, how about no one's in charge, okay? I'm sure everyone can manage to just take what they need.
SAWYER: Great plan, Moonbeam. And after that we can sing Kumbaya and do 'trust falls.'



SAWYER: Well, that's what I get for not going to the expert in the first place. What can I do you for, Deep-dish?
HURLEY: I'm kind of looking for something.
SAWYER: Forget it; I'm done trading. I got enough food now to open a chain of mini-marts. Hey, you think Sayid needs a job? [SO bad, even for Sawyer]



CHARLIE: Hey, I noticed you were building something. I thought maybe you could use this -- for whatever it is.
EKO: That's very thoughtful of you, Charlie. Why don't you help me?
CHARLIE: What are you making?
EKO: Hold that end. [referring to a log]
CHARLIE: Is it a Starbucks? [another shout-out to the boards]


KATE: Seriously though, why would Hurley of all people...?
SAWYER: I've got no idea. I didn't do nothing. He just Hulked-out on me.



HURLEY: Did either of you see a guy run through here -- in a bathrobe, with a coconut?
CHARLIE: No, I saw a polar bear on roller blades with a mango.
EKO: I did not see anything, Hurley.




UPCOMING EPISODES

04/12/06 - 'S.O.S.' - A "trade" strategy - seemingly Henry in exchange for Waaaaaaaaaaaaaalt! and/or Michael - is concocted by Jack, who appears to be in full Ballistic Mode in the previews. I actually loved the previews. If you don't remember them, here's a play by play recap:

Ominous-Sounding Deep Voice Guy (OSDVG): "Next Wednesday...."
Flash to Jack in pouring rain in the jungle, shouting out to no one: "HEY, I'M BACK!"
Flash to Kate and Jack by a fire. Kate says, "I'm sorry I kissed you."
OSDVG: "On an all-new Lost..."
Counter clicks down from 2:16 to 2:15
Flash to Jack and Kate walking in jungle, then a flash of Jack saying: "I'm going out to the line that we're not supposed to cross." (many arching eyebrows while he says that)
Flash to Jack again in the middle of the jungle in the rain: "Hey, do you HEAR ME?"
Flash to Jack talking to Henry: "We're going to force a trade, us for you." [that makes no sense, but that's what I heard]
Flash to Sawyer on the beach: "The ol' prisoner exchange..."
Flash to Locke, drawing a "?" and then scribbling it out, frustrated and hitting the desk.
Flash to Jack again in the jungle: "We've got your man!"
Flash to Henry: "They'll never give you Walt." [hey, who told him about Waaaallllllt?]
Flash to Ana Lucia standing in the doorway of the Hatch.
Flash to Kate looking concerned.
Flash to several short clips of Jack freaking out in the jungle:
"You want him back? You're going to have to come out here!!!"
"COME ON OUT!"
"I KNOW you can HEAR ME!!!!!"
Flash to Kate yelling, "Jaaaack?!?!"
Flash to Jack running
Flash to Jack going, "Wait, wait..."
Flash to a creepy baby doll being picked up from the grass in the jungle
Flash to a net/trap yanking up people (it's Jack and Kate, from what I can tell on Pause)
Flash to perhaps THE CREEPIEST Henry Gale look ever: he's slightly smiling and just being very still, staring off to the side. I literally squealed all ten times (yes, ten) I re-watched the previews - even on different days!

Dammit, why should I be the only one to suffer for this blog? Here you go: a face only an Other could love (sorry, that's horrible, but I'm tired and loopy).

And here's a hint: the flashbacks are about a Lostaway (or Lostaways), who was/were not even in the preview.


Three weeks later... the final four:

5/03/06 - "Two for the Road" - I am not happy after finding out whose flashback this is.

5/10/06 - "?"

5/17/06 - "Three Minutes"

5/24/06 - Still untitled two-hour season finale.

HERE'S HOPE FOR BETTER SCHEDULING NEXT SEASON

From Executive Producer, Damon Lindelof: "There's 36 weeks in a TV season and we have 24 episodes. But we're lobbying ABC for when the show is on, it's on, and when it's off, it's off. So, we want to air it in three acts next year. You know, blocks of seven, seven and eight. But in order to do that, we have to roll the show out in October instead of September, and hopefully that will work out."

Best site ever to find out if Lost is a repeat or not (updated each week of the season - wish I could've told you guys about this one sooner!):

http://www.islostarepeat.com/

ASHTON KUTCHER AIN'T GOT NUTHIN' ON NAVEEN ANDREWS (SAYID)

When it comes to dating older women, that is. Here's a recent interview with the man who plays our favorite torturer.

As we have three weeks until the next new episode, I will probably not post the 'S.O.S.' write-up next Monday, especially since I'm traveling this week for The Man. However, I will do my best to get something up sooner rather than later.

Until then,

- e

S2Ep4: Everybody Hates Hugo (Hurley's second flashback) - 10/12/05

Hello everyone -

Sorry about the late delivery of this week's write-up... normally I would not try to play the sympathy card (oh, who am I kidding, yes I would - but whatever)... but since so many of you gave me crap about it, I am going to tell you WHY it was late and then you will feel bad for me. Not only does The Man continue to beat me down with his politics, bureaucracy and supreme
Dilbertness, but I actually had leg/vein surgery last week. As in, they found out that I truly am a freak of nature and that NONE of the major veins in either of my legs worked (pumped blood the wrong way, yes, I know this seems impossible) and therefore they had to close all of them and rely upon the miracle that is the human body to reroute blood on its own so I can watch Lost in the future without my legs constantly falling asleep. SO THERE! I have mostly been confined to a chair with my legs elevated, so I took that time achieve a life's goal: to watch all 3 Lord of the Rings extended edition DVDs... we're talking 15 hours, people. Time slipped away and here we are at Wednesday already again... but it was funny to see Charlie from Lost back in his Pippin mode. (Note: I intended to send this out on Wednesday and then my DSL went down. When it rains, it pours.)

So back to Lost: I was very pleased with this episode, despite its general lack o' Locke. It goes to show that they can pull off a great episode and satisfy viewers even when nothing too major happens, as long as it is just well done overall. The love was back on the boards as well as you will see in the attachment - and those people are way more critical than I am. For the most part, everyone liked Hurley's second flashback and felt that Lost was back to "firing on all cylinders." Another thing to note is that nearly everyone hates Ana Lucia way more than any of us ever felt the Kate Hate, thus giving weight to the phrase, "It's all relative." Kate is way more tolerable than Ana Lucia ever could be. Grrrrrr.

HURLEY'S FLASHBACKS and ISLAND STORYLINE
Did I not call that Jin speaking English would be a dream? I did. But in case you didn't know, that was Daniel Dae Kim's "real" voice... he actually had to learn a specific Korean dialect for the show (he was already knew Korean, though).

We didn't really learn anything new from Hurley's flashbacks, but I enjoyed them nonetheless. His little mousy friend guy (DJ Qualls) was cool, and I learned from all the Vassar peeps watching at my place that the girl Hurley asked out at the CD store went to school with them (but is a few years younger).

Here are random comments from the flashbacks, but nothing of importance really:
- In Hurley's dream sequence at the beginning, when he had his feeding frenzy in the storage room, he is guzzling a carton of some liquid, and on the side it says "MISSING:" and then shows a picture of Walt, like milk cartons did back in the day. This has no significance since it was a dream sequence, but I caught it on my second viewing and thought it was clever, so I figured I might as well share.
- Hurley's boss at Mr. Cluck's was also Locke's boss at the box company. They are played by the same person (I initially didn't think they looked anything alike at all, but they are indeed the same actor) and the character's name is Randy in both Walkabout (Locke's original flashback) and this episode. It is strange because both of those flashbacks were shortly before the plane crash. However, Hurley's was further in the past because he hadn't actually cashed in his Lotto winnings yet, and I believe that all of his "bad luck" occurred over a series of months immediately following, during which time we know that Mr. Cluck's was hit by a meteorite (Hurley mentioned this on the premiere this season), and perhaps that is when Randy moved to become the manager of the box company. Locke's original flashback was just mere days before the plane crash. Or another theory is, since we know from Hurley's original flashback that he actually ended up OWNING the box company that Locke worked at, he himself might have moved Randy to that company after the meteorite hit.
- The scene with Hurley and his friend singing "You All Everybody!" (which might possibly be the worst song EVER - this coming from someone who has the full version in her laptop as I write this) was hilarious - notice the CD was in the $2 Bargain Bin under One Hit Wonders. Poor Charlie.
- It was great when Hurley thought CD Girl was going to turn him down and then she said "I could probably go Saturday..." - yay! I was very happy with that. So funny that he gained the courage to do all of these things BEFORE he cashed in, typically people would have more courage after the money was in hand.
- I loved the Cluck You! garden gnome display, because garden gnomes ALWAYS rock.
- While not necessarily telling us anything we didn't already know, I felt that Hurley's flashbacks were still very relevant to the goings-on at the island, unlike some other flashbacks that don't seem to move anything along. We knew Hurley won the lottery, but now we know that even before he actually had the money, he wasn't all gung-ho about getting it because he dreaded how his life may change. And since he was that upset about having to be in charge of managing the food, we can guess that a lot of people tried to take advantage of him after he became rich, not to mention all the freaky bad luck that descended upon him supposedly because of the cursed numbers.
- I thought the ending food party/bonfire montage was great - it was nice to just see a brief moment of normalcy for our beloved Lostaways. Who in the heck was manning the button though... and poor Sun, burying the message bottle so that no one else loses hope of rescue.
- Claire and Charlie got their d@mn peanut butter, hooray!
- ... But we still don't know why Hurley was in the mental institution where he learned the numbers... thus guaranteeing another Hurley flashback.

LOCKE
As mentioned above, there was precious little Locke in this episode, but when he was onscreen I think he did some telling things. First off, he was back to his old ways of forcing people to confront their fears/weaknesses, and he did this in two ways for Hurley: 1) Telling Charlie everything he wanted to know about the hatch, including revealing that there was a food stash AND that Hurley was in charge of it, and 2) His big "Yeah, I've had a lot of jobs I didn't want to do. I still did them. I'm sorry, Hugo, you don't get to quit" speech.

On a different note, Locke is getting really into his whole "I've created a system where people will take 6 hour button-pushing shifts" and it is frightening me. On yet another note, I read someone that the writers said in a recent interview that Locke and Jack represent two factions of fans - the ones who "want the island to be weird" (uh, like me) and those who "want the island not to be weird - for there to be an explanation for everything."

THE HATCH
So Sayid and Jack go crawling around all over the place in the hatch, and trying to break apart walls wherever they can, all to no avail. They cannot break through any walls, big surprise. Apparently they are trying to get to the whatever's on the other side of the hatch, though I have no idea why - the low, pulsing humming sound would not be motivating ME to get closer, but I am not Jack or Sayid. Sayid mentioned the similarity to Chernobyl, so I think I can guess where this is all going...

WHERE THIS IS ALL GOING
Actually I don't really know, but here is my guess. My guess is that we actually have already learned what is up with the island. It IS the base for a series of experiments, which had hatches/labs scattered across the island, each focusing on a different thing (magnets, animals, climate control, the paranormal, time manipulation, etc). I am totally fine with that, because it still leaves a ton of ways they could go with several different things. Such as: are the people who crashed on the island over the course of time there for a reason (as in, picked or forced to be there somehow), or were their crashes just random because there's some magnetic pull from the island? What is The Sickness? Where is all this power coming from, and the food supplies in the hatch, and the gas for the Hillbilly Boat, etc? What do they want with Walt? What exactly are The Others? Is there a way to escape the island? Is there some sort of time warp going on?
There are literally still hundreds of questions IF the island is really all an experiment base, which still may not be the case. But enough people have asked me what I thought was going on, so there you go. I will probably change my mind in 2 hours.


THE DEGROOTS = THE OTHERS?
OR ADAM AND EVE (THE SKELETONS)?
OR JUST U of M HIPPIES?
Here is a current theory circulating, that I mentioned last week as well... that the two U of M grad students (The Degroots) who started the Dharma Initiative and were in the video were actually the same people on The Others' boat on the season finale (who took Walt). Judge for yourself at the link below. I personally do not think the women look anything like each other, and the guy only has a faint similarity (just because two people have mustaches doesn't mean they are actually the same person...) (This web site goes down a lot, be forewarned)

http://www.humpys.net/images/thedegroots.jpg

Another theory is that The Degroots are the two skeletons Jack found in the cave last season (nicknamed Adam and Eve). But he said they had probably been there 40-50 years, and it has not been that long since 1980, unless there is some time warp thing going on. However, I was not under the impression that the Degroots themselves ever went to the actual island, but I could see how they could have in order to set up the experiment labs.

THE RETURN OF ROSE
To prove that I am not totally crazy, I will now reveal that I DO realize these characters are not real people, because I know that the reason Rose has not been on the show since early in Season One is that she was in a Broadway play. OK, now quickly! Back to Escapism Land...
- I do like Rose, and I like how Hurley chose her to be his partner. They made a good team and she was definitely ready to knock sense into him when he was going to BLOW UP all the food... ?!?!?!
- I wanted to bring up what may or may not be an important thing Rose said (in the original pilot episode)... when they had first crashed and they were all out on the beach the first night on the island, they all saw the trees shaking and heard what we now know to be the "monster sounds," and Rose said "That sound that it made, I keep thinking that there was something really familiar about it." And then Shannon asked her where she was from, and she said, "The Bronx." Hmmmm...
- So this whole time we knew that Rose held firm to the belief that her husband was still alive. And drumroll please... we find out he is a white guy. This was the big shocker to everyone on the boards, who then felt bad for making assumptions... but seriously, as you will see in my attachment, even all of the African-American posters were like "Uh... we didn't see that one coming, either." But the funniest thing was that even all of the hard-core toughies on the boards admitted to getting a tear in their eye when Bernard revealed himself to the Three Amigos, and then when we saw the shot of Rose saving the candy bar for him. *Sigh.*

INSIDE HATCHLITE
(or Hatch #2, The Ghetto Hatch, whatever you want to call it)
- There are now three Dharma Logos: The Swan (original hatch), The Straight Line (I'm just making that up, I don't really know what it's called, but it's on the shark), and The Cross (also making that name up, it's in the second hatch where the Tailaways are hiding out).

Several other sources had also reported that the Dharma logo could be seen on the wreckage of Flight 815. However, that has been widely negated since, and I myself have seen the screenshots and they are not the same logo. Planes have several warning logos and whatnot all over the place and some are octagons, but they do not appear to be the Dharma logo.
- There were 23 original Tailaways... one of the numbers. When they all reached HatchLite, and there were only a handful of Tailaways there, Michael asked Libby, "I thought you said there were 23 of you?" to which she replied, "There WERE." My father happened to be watching it with me and all my peeps that night, and he immediately was like "Cannibalism!" Nas-tay. But a lot of the people on the boards assumed that, too. Seems as though the original Lostaways fared much better than the poor Tailaways have...
- There is a theory that since there are 6 numbers, and everyone's assuming there are 6 Dharma stations, that each number has some sort of significance to one of the stations - like 23 is for HatchLite because there were 23 of them, and 42 is for the Swan because I think there is that number of them remaining now, etc, etc. That doesn't make sense to me but if it makes
sense to someone else, let me know.

BEST LINES OF THE EPISODE
HURLEY: Dude, look, I'd never lie.
CHARLIE: Oh, and the time you told you were worth 150 million dollars?
HURLEY: It's 156 million.
CHARLIE: I'm sorry, I must have confused it with the 900 TRILLion *I* am worth myself!!!


RANDY to Hurley after viewing Mr. Cluck's security video: You owe the company for an 8 piece dark meat combo!!!


MICHAEL: Everything's cool. We had a talk and they believe we were on the plane, too.
SAWYER: Swell, I guess we can all sue Oceanic together.

(Erika's personal favorite... do you think they got a hold of one of these write-ups and this is a shout-out?)
CHARLIE: You're saying no to a nursing mother?
HURLEY: It's not like that.
CHARLIE: Oh, it's exactly like that. You know, I never thought this would happen but it did. You've become one of them.
HURLEY: One of them?
CHARLIE: Them - The Man - management.


JOHNNY: Driveshaft - more like Suckshaft.

JOHNNY [as they are leaving the record store]: Dude, you've been crushing on this girl for months and doing nothing. Today you're frickin' Fabio.


LOCKE: Change is good, Hugo.
HURLEY: You know, people say that, but it's not true, man. Trust me, I know. And guess who gets to be the bad guy who has to say: no you can't have peanut butter for the cute blonde and her poor... island... baby.

JOHNNY: Do you think we got enough gnomes?

SAWYER ROBBED at GUNPOINT (in real life)
http://www.eonline.com/News/Items/0,1,17570,00.html


DON'T PLAY THE LOTTO WITH HURLEY'S NUMBERS
http://news.yahoo.com/s/eo/20051020/en_tv_eo/17621

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S1Ep18 - Numbers (Hurley's first flashback)

[This message was initially sent as an email to friends, it was loaded into this blog 2.5 years later]

Hello my friends,

4 8 15 16 23 42

Oh, MOMMY!!!!

Where to begin? This episode was chock-full of information so I will cover it in chronological order.

1) Jin/Sun

At the beginning of the episode, Jin has reversed his usual MO and is now being nice to everyone EXCEPT his wife. He is helping the gang rebuild the raft and shows no signs of forgiving Sun for "embarrassing" him by knowing how to speak English.

2) Walt the Evil Child

Is Sawyer on to Walt? Sawyer was reading by the raft site and when Walt asked what he was doing, he replied, "I am helpin', Short Round... keeping watch for arsonists." Even if Sawyer WASN'T really on to Walt, then I bet Walt is now suspicious of him and has Sawyer on his you-know-what list, which probably isn't a good place to be.

Another important thing to note from that scene is that Sawyer has now moved on from Watership Down and is reading A Wrinkle in Time. If any of you remember this book from back in the day, then you know that the characters in it prove the existence of a "tesseract," a way to time-travel. There are also many other themes in this book that may prove important but I will spare you until I feel they are emerging. It could've been shown just because ABC was also airing a made-for-TV movie of the book around the time the episode aired, in which case Sawyer is a total sell-out.

3) Danielle's Map

When they were re-examining Danielle's map, she had marked the area where she lived as the "Dark Territory," once again reinforcing the whole "light vs. dark" theme.

4) Who's Your Daddy?

In Hurley's flashback his father was conspicuously absent, adding him to the list of characters with Daddy Issues:
Walt - Raised by a step-father who was afraid of him and is now back with his birth father who he doesn't really know and thinks is too strict.
Locke - Mentioned in past episodes that his father was "not cool, not cool at all." He also mentioned he had a foster mother.
Sawyer - His father killed his mother and then himself.
Claire's baby - Claire's unborn child's father left them 4 months into her pregnancy. Now that we know something is strange with this baby, many wonder if that guy was some sort of demon.
Hurley - No father present.
Jack - Clearly had issues with his alcoholic father and is now seeing a zombie version of him running around the island.
Sun/Jin - Sun's father was some sort of evil mob-ish type character and Jin was trying to escape from him.
Kate - Kate has mentioned her father a few times... no bad issues raised yet, but he has definitely been mentioned.

5) What wasn't shown

Clearly we are going to need another Hurley flashback, my guess is it will be in the finale. There are a lot of clues from this episode that show things were not well in Hurley's life even before he used the cursed numbers. Proof:
- While on the couch before the numbers air, his mom yells in... "You're gaining weight AGAIN!!!"
- To which he replies, "If you WANT ME livin' here..." which leads me to
believe it's not necessarily his choice that he's living there, and his mom wants to keep an eye on him for some reason.
- After he wins and is in the press conference, he says to reporters, "I put my family through a lot recently..."
- It is clear that he was in the psychiatric ward himself before. He knew the doctor he ran into in the hall who asked why he was BACK, he had known Lenny from being in there, and now the question is WHY was he in there?
- Throughout the episode he got really mad when anyone insinuated, even in a clearly joking way, that he was crazy.

Also, everyone is just assuming that the reason he was on Korean TV was that he had won the big lottery. The titles in Korean did read "The lucky winner" or something along those lines, and he appeared to be in a shirt that he was in during his flashback.

6) The Cord

When they were trying to find Danielle again, they followed the same cord Sayid had originally found. This time they followed it all the way until it went into the ground. Hmmmm, what else is in the ground that other survivors have found... ??

7) Connections to other survivors

Shame, shame on you if you didn't catch Hurley's financial advisor talking about the "box company in Tustin" that Hurley owned... no doubt the same box company where Locke worked. He also mentioned a shoe company in Canada where a fire killed 8 people but they were over-insured for it... many people think that Kate is from Canada and that there may end up being a connection there, too. I wouldn't doubt that Kate set the fire, maybe that's how she ended up killing "the man she loved," but we'll see.

8) Lenny

Lenny in the psych ward was repeating the numbers over and over, the numbers that Hurley ended up playing in the Lotto. Did those numbers cause Lenny to go insane? It wasn't totally clear but I think it was implied.

When Lenny learned that Hurley used the numbers and then got all upset and they started hauling him away, he shouted, "You've opened the box! It won't stop! You've gotta get away from those numbers!!!!!"

What box was he talking about? Was it literal... was he talking about the hatch in the ground where the numbers were imprinted on the side at the end of the episode? Or was he talking more like "Pandora's Box?"

Notice that Lenny was playing "Connect Four." That could have been a sign that the characters are all indeed connected in some way, but it could've also had to do with the number sequence itself... 4, obviously... and then there are 42 slots in the Connect Four board (no, I am not a nerd enough to know that, it was on the boards. I only know that kind of trivia off-hand about Lord of the Rings stuff).

9) Sam Tooney

To recap how the numbers came to Sam and Lenny...
They were in the Navy together (Lenny worked for Sam), stationed at a listening post in the Pacific, monitoring long-wave radio transmissions.
Sixteen years ago (coincidence? I think NOT) they heard a voice repeating
the numbers. Sam decided to use those numbers to guess the amount of
beans in a huge jar at a county fair once he returned home. He won. On the way home he and his wife got in a crash and he was untouched but she lost her leg. Ever since then, he felt that bad things happened all around him and that they were his fault. Then four years ago (coincidence again? um, NO) he killed himself in the hopes of stopping the "curse." When I watched the episode I felt that that last part did not bode well for our friend Hurley.

We do not know how Lenny "used" the numbers but I'm guessing he did something similar and ended up in the psych ward. Now Hurley has used them...

10) Locke - The Good/Evil battle wages on

You all know that I love me some Locke, but I must say that my previous confidence that he is a "good guy" is starting to wane. Locke was clearly digging for info from Claire while building her the cradle for the baby/her birthday. First off, he KNEW it was her birthday, no doubt, just like he knows everything about everyone else. During their talk he asked her: what she remembered/how her memory was doing and what she was naming the baby. She also told him that she was going to give the baby up, and that it was her birthday. He said to her "I'm good at putting bits and pieces together." I can't help but wonder if he wants to know what she remembers from the kidnapping in order to help himself and the other survivors, or if he wants to be sure she DOESN'T remember it.

Also, I hope you all remember that in Claire's flashback "Raised by Another," that episode started off with a freaky dream Claire was having which featured a bloody baby cradle (not the exact same one Locke ended up building, though). And Locke was also in that dream, with the black and white stones for his eyes, and he said "He was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now." Ominous.

11) The French Chick

Danielle's "camp" was destroyed by an explosion she set to go off once Sayid and Jack got near to the old site. Sayid at least found his pic of Nadia again, though.

When Hurley encountered her, I just want to let you know that his "rant" to her was totally a shout-out to the nerds on the message boards. You will see in the message board section below that people were quite excited about it. But the writers have always said that the character of Hurley was written "for the audience" and when he went off about how he wanted to know what the monster was and that he "wanted some freakin' answers," that was to let the fans know that the writers have heard loud and clear that many people are frustrated about the lack of any closure to the tons of issues raised so far in the show. Specifically, when Hurley wondered if the monster was just a "pissed off giraffe," that was an obvious wink to the boarders because that has been an ongoing joke on the boards since the beginning. All respect the power of the nerds!

Also with the Danielle encounter, since no one else saw her, part of me still wonders if she's actually real. Clearly she's real to some extent because she did have a camp and all of the others with Hurley saw the remains of it, Sayid's old pic was there, she shot at Charlie and Hurley, etc. But I feel like Sayid needed Danielle to come to terms with his past, and then before they left each other Hurley hugged (bear-hugged, actually) Danielle and said that she was the only one who said he wasn't crazy. I just have this feeling that only one survivor is ever going to see her at a time because she is some sort of figment that will help characters make a turning point or something. Who knows. She seemed much more chilled out when she was talking with Hurley than when she was with Sayid.

She also gives characters vital information. She told Sayid about "the others," the black rock, her child Alex, the sickness, the original expedition she was on, and he got the maps she drew.

She told Hurley that her crew had heard the numbers on a radio transmission and changed the course of their boat to investigate. Then they crashed. There was a radio tower, up by the black rock, that the transmission was coming from. The crew became obsessed with the meaning of the numbers, and then "the sickness" came. She said after the team was gone (as in, she killed them), she went and changed the transmission to the distress signal that the survivors heard in the pilot episode. Danielle confirms to Hurley that the numbers must be cursed as they caused her team to land on the island and she's lost everyone she cared about ever since. Hurley replied, "You have no idea how long I've been waiting for someone to agree with me."

When Hurley re-joined the others, he now had a battery from Danielle.

12) Timing

I am still confused about the timing of things. When Hurley was about to tell Charlie why he was acting so weird, right before Danielle starting shooting, he began, "A year ago..."

I am not sure if it was a year ago that Hurley won the lottery, or if whatever else was going on with him to send him to the psych ward started a year ago. Remember that his flashback ended with him in Australia (hence the reason he was on the flight back to the US), so typically the flashbacks don't cover a full year. I have a feeling the lottery thing was just a few months before the trip.

13) The NUMBERS

More on this in the message board section, but the numbers and their POSSIBLE significance are below:

4 - Four has been mentioned several times in the show, the most notable being that Hurley's grandpa got his pacemaker 4 years ago, Locke was crippled 4 years ago, Sawyer mentioned he'd been "waiting 4 years" to kiss Kate, Sam Tooney killed himself 4 years ago... etc, etc.

8 -

15 - 815 was the flight number, Kate's bank lockbox number, and supposedly the time the flight was supposed to land (HOW people know that, I have no
idea) in the US, and the number of the series of copy machines Charlie sold in his flashback (even I missed that one!!!). Other possibilities for 8 and 15 are in the message board section.

16 - The transmission was heard by Sam and Lenny 16 years ago, right before Danielle supposedly changed it as Sayid had figured it had been repeating for 16 years.

23 - This is the one no one can figure out really. Jack was in seat 23A.
Kate's capture reward was $23,000. Some people said this is an Illuminati-related (if you don't know, don't ask) number.

42 - No one really knows this one either, although in the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy series, 42 is supposedly "the answer to everything."
Perhaps it's the number of original survivors who will remain at the end of the series? Right now they're at 46. 42 is also the number of spaces on the Connect Four board, mentioned above.

Finally, the goose-bump-inducing, hair-raising shot at the end of the episode showed that the hatch Boone and Locke have been uncovering has the series of numbers imprinted on its side, like a serial number or something. But note that the audience saw these numbers, none of the characters have yet...

14) Is there such a thing as luck?

Luck was a big theme in this episode. Sam Tooney's wife was still convinced that the numbers weren't cursed and all of the bad things that happened after her husband used them would've happened anyway. She stated: "You make your own luck."

Locke told Claire that it was lucky that her baby's birthday was going to be close to her own. She asked him, "Do you believe in luck?" to which he replied, "I believe in many things."

At the end, Hurley and Charlie had their big heart-to-heart, during which Hurley told Charlie that he thought the crash was his fault. Charlie went off that bad things happen to everyone, and asked if Hurley also thought he was responsible for the fact that Charlie was an addict before the plane crash, etc., etc. But Charlie walked off angry because he thought Hurley was just joking about winning the lottery.

15) And finally, Memorable Quotes

The best line of the episode goes to Hurley with, "I can get out of the way. I'm SPRY!" before leaping away from the booby trap.

A close runner-up is Locke, when asked by Claire how he got glue: "I MADE it... out of rendered animal fat."

Second runner-up is when Hurley tells Sayid that he ran into Danielle and
that: "She says 'hey.'"


POSTS FROM THE MESSAGE BOARDS

- Three Indiana Jones references in this episode. Can you name them? OK, I’ll tell you: Replacing Hurley's weight so as not to set off the booby trap. 2. "Short Round." 3. The rope bridge.
- What a great episode!!! Fantastic one liners from Hurley and we found out more! That rope goes into the ground and Danielle was on a boat. Was it just me or did it seem that Hurley was adopted? I was almost crying when Locke revealed that it was a cradle for her... that was so unexpected and sweet of him. And he raised a few questions that I had been waiting for someone to mention (naming the baby being a big one) Those numbers on the hatch freaked me out!!! Overall, I'd say that this episode was wonderful. We got another interesting back story and it explains a bit why Hurley has kept to himself (he doesn't want to hurt people).
- And I loved it when Hurley was talking to Danielle and saying something like - "Hey there is a monster in the jungle and we aren't looking for it....it could be a giant giraffe or something but I am not saying anything about them not going after it." He was just verbalizing what WE fans have been saying on the message boards...it was great!!!! And I LOVED the Locke and Claire scenes. Especially with the cradle. especially for her birthday. That was great. Locke is so wonderful!
- As for the ending w/ Charlie, I don't think it was at all a waste of screen time. Hurley believed that the plane crash was his fault (and I for one can understand why), but Charlie's confession proved that not all bad things that happen are related to the "curse" Hurley seems to have over him. I mean, how could the "numbers" cause bad things to people that Hurley, until he got on the plane, had never known existed? It's like blaming him for...well... Jack's lousy relationship w/ his dad Sawyer's parents and their untimely end Jin and Sun's disintegrating marriage Michael's uphill custody fight w/ Walt's mom Walt's mom dying Claire being knocked up and tossed by that loser ex of hers Charlie's addiction Locke's paralysis and the bad things that seem to haunt Kate. The point was, as Charlie put it, "bad things happen". No curses, witchcraft, or voodoo required.
- This was a nice comedy ep; not a great ep, but a nice one. While much of it was, again, predictable, it achieved the same thing for Hurley that "Raised by Another" did for Claire: it propelled a previously secondary character to center stage and made us rethink Hurley's whole role on the show. Far from being just comic relief, he could possibly be the reason the plane crashed on the island. I loved his mother (but note, no father), his grandpa was cool too. And we have another Catholic on the island (poor Father whatever his name was, being hit by lightning at the funeral!). Locke is still a psycho. The crib proves nothing. Did you see how he went fishing for info on how much Claire remembered? It's all part of his sick plan, gaining her trust and manipulating her into confiding in him. He is taking a very unhealthy interest in her baby, if you ask me. He's also getting one more person, and a key one at that, into his cadre. Also, I loved when Hurley hugged Danielle. Great moment.
- I seriously bet that there will be a record number of people using those numbers for whatever lottery is in their area. I am totally serious. I wonder if something like that would make the news.


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