Monday, April 03, 2006

Lost - "Dave"

Episode Title: “Dave”

Brian’s Deeper Meaning Guess: Clearly this is another shout out to me from the Lost producers. First they play Dave Matthews Band's “Stay” earlier this season, now they title the episode after the frontman of the band. Once again my worlds collide and I am in danger of spontaneously combusting.

Or… I guess it’s entirely possible that the title refers to this guy:

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I’ll go out on a limb and say his name is “Dave”. Why?

  1. There aren’t any characters on the Island named Dave that we’re aware of, and he’s the new character that seems to be introduced this episode.
  2. You can hear Hurley say “Dave?” at the end of the preview, and he’s clearly the only person seeing this guy.

So who is Dave? Based on his getup, he’s probably someone Hurley met during his time in the mental institution. (PS – can we please learn why Hurley was in the mental institution in the first place this episode? Please?)

But after last week’s triple layered deeper meaning, this week looks to be the least symbolic Lost episode title yet. Even Season One’s “Pilot” could be viewed two ways (the pilot episode of the series, and the Pilot of the plane who faced an untimely demise from the Monster).

Sorry to disappoint loyal reader, but I’ve got nothing for this one. I even tried searching the Net for some acronym of D.A.V.E. and found nothing.

It’s like the Lost creators are trying to put me out of a job.


TV Guide Description: Libby lends Hurley support when he begins to think the island is having a strange effect on him, and Locke's sense of purpose is shaken when the prisoner provides new information about the hatch.


TV Guide Breakdown: After a few simple interactions, it looks like the Hurley-Libby relationship is finally going to start being developed on the show. Libby once again looks to be donning the “clinical psychologist” robe to help Hurley, who thinks he’s going crazy when he starts seeing imaginary friends from back in the day. But why does Hurley seem to know her? More on that later…

Is Hurley going loco? Well, he has been eating more Dharma food than anyone else on the Island, thanks to his secret stash. If there is something fishy with the food (which, doesn’t there have to be? Otherwise why would they need Dharma-manufactured food instead of just buying name brand stuff off the shelf? Hello, product placement ABC!) he would be the first one to feel the effects.

Or it could be that Hurley’s been a little nuts all along. Although they’ve never officially come out and say it, it’s been insinuated that he spent some time in a mental institution, but was released. I don’t think it would be unrealistic to see him lapse back to “crazy mode” due to the stress of the crash and life on the Island. He’s definitely a little touchy about the subject matter, since the previews show him literally jumping on Sawyer when Sawyer mentions something about “going crazy” to him.

So why is Hurley seeing Dave all the sudden? Well, think about the other visions we’ve had on the show:

  • Jack seeing his father (who he wronged / drove to his death).
  • Sawyer thinking a boar is someone from his past (who he killed).
  • Shannon seeing Walt (who may or may not already be dead).

Based on this, I’ll go out on a limb and say Hurley wronged Dave in some way (possibly killed him?), and is now being haunted by his memories. Hurley is one of the few Survivors left who have a seemingly “clean” past, so it’s about time his gets muddied up with some sins to put him in the same boat as everyone else on the Island.

The more interesting storyline looks to be about Locke’s sense of purpose being shaken by Henry Gale (I can’t keep calling him that, so let’s call him Henry Gale Impersonator – HGI), when HGI tells him new information about the Hatch.

Ever since he discovered the Hatch, Locke felt that it represented his “mission” on the Island, the greater purpose for why he’s there and why he found it. Once he saw the 108 Timer and was told it was necessary to save the world, he had exactly that. So I’m betting that HGI tells Locke that entering the numbers is simply an experiment, and nothing will happen if he stops doing it.


Clearly this would shake Locke to the core, since his “purpose” on the Island would be gone. But this would bring up a very interesting scenario:

On the one hand, we’d have Locke – who would try to convince everyone else that HGI is lying and that they need to keep entering the Numbers.

On the other hand, we’d have Jack – who finally has some evidence that tells him what he’s suspected all along – that not entering the Numbers wouldn’t cause any catastrophe.

With all the Jack / Locke conflicts we’ve seen building up over the past few weeks, this would be a great way to bring them to a head. It would also be a way to force Locke to start telling people what he’s seen, to use as evidence of why they need to keep entering the Numbers (such as the hieroglyphics and the blacklight image).



ABC. I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again – never EVER trust anything you see from ABC. Last week’s preview promised “five revelations, each more shocking than the one before”… which didn’t really pan out. This week looks to show Hurley plummeting to his death from a cliff on top the Island… also probably not going to happen.

But this doesn’t just go for the TV commercials. Their website is also guilty. Someone commented that “The Real Henry Gale is Rose’s brother! There’s a letter on ABC’s website!” But here’s what Lost's creators have to say about that…

"It's on the ABC site, but we [the producers] are not necessarily generating nor fact-checking content. We are sort of aware of it, and we sort of pitched the concept, but it sort of went off the rails a couple of weeks ago, talking about Henry Gale being their brother, and you know, we were a little surprised."

Translation – we can’t come out and say “Stupid ABC is just making stuff up because they pay the bills that allow us to live and film in Hawaiian paradise”, but that’s clearly the underlying message.


Episode Prediction: Although we’ll be dealing with the aftermath of the Henry Gale fiasco, (and hopefully the Locke / Jack conflict over entering the Numbers I described above) I’m thinking this episode will be a bit of a “slow” episode compared to last week.

Expect some development of the Hurley / Libby relationship, and Hurley to be haunted by his past in the form of “Dave”. Hurley will think he’s going crazy again and will go off in the Jungle looking to clear his mind. Libby will follow and end up being the only one who can help him. At the moment of truth, when Hurley is about to jump / fall off the cliff, he’ll remember why he knows Libby.


Check out this promo picture that ABC posted, but quickly took down after realizing they were morons, yet again:

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Bring your own booyah.

This brings up all sorts of questions, namely:

  1. Is Libby crazy too? Certainly looks like it from the picture. Hurley clearly knows her from his time in the looney bin. So is she lying about this whole “clinical psychologist gig”? She seemed to know what she was doing when helping Claire out retrieve her memories. Which makes me think…
  2. She’s undercover. Acting crazy to help her patients, who see her as one of them (former Lost episode title pun intended) instead of a “doctor”. Could it be that she was assigned to “monitor” Hurley, to the extent that the whole reason she was on Oceanic Flight 815 is because she’s following him?
  3. If you want to get really crazy, you could hypothesize that she’s a Dharma employee hired to monitor crazy Leonard, who is repeating the Numbers over and over again? Once Hurley started using the Numbers, she began following him, with the mission of “controlling” these cursed Numbers to prevent them from affecting anyone else.
  4. And if that’s the case, is Hurley the whole reason for Oceanic Flight 815 crashing? A way to “bring the Numbers back home”, eliminating the possibility of them spreading any farther?

Whoa. This is how awesome Lost would be if I was in charge of it…

43 comments:

FroneAmy said...

OK, Spoiler Alert, possibly.

Reading on another Forum (probably on www.thetailsection.com) and someone posted photos that ABC had posted but were mysteriously removed of Hurley's stint in 'rehab'.




There are three pictures, one of Hurley and his arm around somebody, posing for a picture. The second picture is of Hurley with his arm around thin air, from a different perspective, and you can see the doctor taking the polaroid of Hurley. The third picture is of Libby, looking quite like an inmate, but with darker hair. Thought you'd appreciate a little more 'inside' information.

BrianLaesch.com said...

Love the show and the blog. Keep it up.

Anonymous said...

Wow, way to catch that Libby photo before they removed it!

Brian said...

Based on those picture descriptions, it sounds like Dave is Hurley's imaginary friend, not a real person who ever existed in his past. Interesting. Perhaps he "got better" when he stopped seeing Dave, but now that he's seeing him again, he thinks he's going crazy.

We could see Dave acting as a sort of "conscience" for Hurley, or maybe an alter-ego of sorts?

Jennifer Laycock said...

Ok, if Libby's hair was/is brown...and they've been on the island for almost two months now...

Wouldn't her roots be showing?

Anonymous said...

HAHA! No offense, but only a girl would say something like that! I'm sorry! :)

Anonymous said...

Good suggestion on the 2001 reference, Joe. I thought that the title might be a pop culture reference, like that one, or maybe the old Cheech and Chong 'Dave's not here' bit, or perhaps, more recently, the Kevin Kline movie about the actor impersonating the President. Each of these has some merit given what we've seen of the preview and already know about the characters and the Island.

Anyway, those are my 2 cents.

Stupid Toad

Anonymous said...

Brian - I have to hand it to you, you've got some really terrific theories; I just love reading your blog. Keep it up, can't wait to read this week's (4/5).

Anonymous said...

Uhm...my name is in fact Dave...feels a little wierd :)

Anonymous said...

I'm more than likely wrong, but I seem to remember from Hurley's flashback last season -- could this 'Dave' be the guy from the mental institute that he first heard the numbers from? The guy who's wife he tracked down in the middle of nowhere Australia?

Nice thoughts though, can't wait to see what happens.

Brian said...

Justin - the guy from Australia was "Sam Tooney", so it's probably a different person than Dave. The other person Hurley knew at the mental institution who was repeating the Numbers was "Lenny".

I'm thinking this "Dave" is either a new character or an imaginary friend of Hurley's...

Rachel said...

Dave is Evan Handler, aka Harry, Charlotte's husband on Sex and the City! Woo hoo.

Anonymous said...

Those paint bottles behind Libby sure look familiar. *cough* hatch hallway *cough*

I'm not sure what to expect from this. "Numbers" is one of my favorite episodes, and "Everybody Hates Hugo" is the one I hate the most. It would be good if, as mentioned, they shed some light on what would make Hurley not be a "good person." So far he seems like a benign person with a weird combination of good luck and bad luck. It would also be nice if Leonard has something to do with this flashback (and I'm guessing he'd have to).

As for whatever HGI reveals to Locke, the real question would be whether or not anyone wants to believe him. Maybe it is just an experiment, but he could tell them that hoping they'll stop pushing the button, only for something drastic to happen that could help him escape. Locke's next quest is going to be the big question mark anyway, so many at this point whether or not the swan computer does anything is incidental. But if it is just a fake experiment, it would be nice to find out why the extra warning was spliced in, and then splice out, from the Dharma video. If it really is dangerous, why take it out? If it is just an experiment, why put it in to begin with? I still think Michael was hallucinating when he saw that Walt text on the screen, so we'll have to see where that goes.

Anonymous said...

The woman in the pic doesn't look like Libby to me. Besides the hair, the face looks different. I'd be surprised if it was her.

Anonymous said...

well that was dissapointing. the only thing I can draw from this is that since Jack, Shannon, Hurley, etc. have halluncinated, the island is making people see things that aren't there, so we have to wonder what else might not really be there.

"see you in another life..."

I don't think Desmond was an illusion brought on by a feeling of guilt, but Locke and Kate have some things to feel bad about as well.

Anonymous said...

interesting episode, and as usual, u were mostly on the money brian. i like how they opened and closed the hurley chapter, while only raising one question: how did libby get better and how did she end up on the island? she was obviously a patient of the mental institute, so whats her story? btw, did she not look hotter than ever on this episode?? as always, great stuff man.

Anonymous said...

Continuing on the last post:
another question raised by the producers. Im begging to wonder if they will ever answer questions, ir just keep raising them.

Brian said...

Well that episode was a total mind-f. Not only did the writers bring up two of the most popular theories on the Internet (the Purgatory one and the "it's all a dream" one), but they threw it right in our faces. I can't imagine how crazy the average viewer is going right now.

I'll work up a full analysis in the next few days, but here's the important points:

- It's not all in Hurley's head.
- They're not all dead.
- Libby is still a wild card.

Next week looks great.

Anonymous said...

I've read Libby is supposed to be a compulsive liar. This may be true since she said Hurley stepped on her foot while getting on the plane.

But he was in first class, and she was in the tail section...

Brian said...

Would compulsive lying get you put into a mental institution? And she clearly has some sort of medical background, so she isn't faking everything.

I'm liking my original crazy theory on her more and more...

Anonymous said...

I'd be shocked if Ecko isn't building some sort of church/chapel. The constant stream of questions is driving me nuts, i almost wished i waited to watch season 2 on dvd. At first I was disappointed with the episode, but after sitting on it for a while, it wasn't that bad. And I'm not liking the previews from Canada that are on steroids. Any of the possible wow!! moments were ruined (Hurley w/imaginary friend and crazy Libby). Now I know why I avoid spoiler sites. Hopefully this doesn't turn into one with all the new readers.....

Anonymous said...

So that doesn't mean that it really is all in Hurley's head, right? Because I think if the show ends that way, the most pathetic way possible, I'll put an ax through my TV.

Jenn said...

Can someone help me out here? If Dave was immagined, was Kate's black horse also immagined? I have a vague memory of Sawyer seeing it too. What can we say about other "visions" on the island?

Anonymous said...

what about the island image on the artwork shown when Hurley was in the shrink's office??

Brian said...

By my count...

Things Imagined:

- Jack's Dad
- Shannon's Vision of Walt (initially)
- Charlie's Visions of Aaron Being Kidnapped
- Boone's Visions of Shannon Dying
- Dave

Things Real:

- Kate's Black Horse
- Shannon's Vision of Walt (when Sayid saw him too???)
- Eko's Plane

Anonymous said...

Where do "the voices" fall into it?
Where does the "black smoke" fall into it?

Real or Imagined?

Brian said...

Black Smoke - real (Eko and Charlie... and possibly Locke saw it)

Voices - product of going crazy?

Anonymous said...

OK Brian. SOO I love reading your blogs and all and I think they're amazing. You're right so often.

Yet that's the problem. . . I figured Dave wasn't going to be there. And the ending was un exciting that it was almost a disapointment.

SO I have come to the conclusion that I am only going to read your blogs after the show is aired. So there's still some surprise!

Brian said...

I've had a couple of people complain about me "ruining the surprise" by guessing stuff that's going to happen.

Granted, finding the Libby picture and the Balloon picture were pretty random (never happened in Season 1 at all, only happened twice this year).

Would you all prefer I not "preview" the episodes, only analyze them after the fact?

Anonymous said...

I personally want the previews, however, I know that for a lot of people it does kinda ruin it. For me it gets me excited to watch the show. Endings and all. Please continue posting the previews. Perhaps one solution is to post them in a "hidden" fashion where they are only viewable by following a link or password protecting the preview entries. What do you think of that . . . make everyone happy?

kjell

Anonymous said...

I'd like your previews/predictions as well. It's great to see what others (esp. you ) think will happen in the next episode. It hasn't been ruining things for me at all. I was just freaking out and excited that he actually was made up. It would be different if you actually knew what was going to happen. That would kind of spoil it. But as I see it, we still have to watch the whole show to see if you "spoiled" things for us, which isn't really spoiling things afterall.

Anonymous said...

Previews are just spoiling things in my view. I can't understand why the companies keep releasing them at all. The thrill of the ending was of course ruined when we knew beforehand that Libby was going to be in the mental institution.

But if many people want'em, maybe you could color mark them or put up some warning headlines. Oh, and if you adopt such a "spoiler policy" then please ask all commenters to follow it too.

Keep up the great work!

Anonymous said...

Please please please do not remove your pre-analysis and spoilers. It's what makes your site really great! :)

Brian said...

Okay then.

If I ever come across a picture such as the balloon one or Libby one (something that is concrete evidence, rather than me just analyzing and guessing), I'll put up ample Spoiler warnings or hide it somehow. We'll cross that bridge when we come to it.

The Previews shall live on!

Anonymous said...

yeah Brian, please keep up the previews. I am new here, discovered this blog before "lockdown" and now I cant stop checking it. Good work man. Please keep it up :)

Anonymous said...

Yeah, I agree...keep the "previews".

If anyone doesn't want to take the chance that you have spoiled something, then they can wait until after the show has aired in order to read it.

Great Work! Keep it up!

Anonymous said...

I agree... Keep the predictions! It's not your fault that you're right so often!

Anonymous said...

Someone somewhere here was saying something about St. Rose of Lima (to do with the name of the institution). Well, turns out her feast day in the Roman Catholic Church is August 23rd.(8/23), flight 815

4, 8, 15, 16, 23, 42, EXECUTE

Anonymous said...

hey man, im glad ur keeping the previews. Your not really spoiling anything, cause your taking your best guess at it, and dont actually have concrete evidence, except the pictures. FOr all of you that dont want the previews, you should all jus wait after the episode to check the site. Keep it up Brian!

Anonymous said...

I kinda started this "spoiler" talk, but I am not talking about the Brian previews. Obviously some will be correct and some incorrect. I was just saying I didn't like the pic of Libby, because that would've a "daaaaaaaaaaaammmnnnn" moment, but instead it was just a "eh, it happened" moment because we were waiting to see her in the loony bin. I'm not complaining about the educated guesses and theories at all. Have fun guessing stuff.

Anonymous said...

Brian - Love your site - keep up the great thinking!!!
More More More!!

Web Buffy Lost in LA

Anonymous said...

Ohh Man! I seem to have generated a lot of
"Should you keep the preview" talk

I think you should keep them as well! I never said to stop them, I just said I wasn't going to read it until afffter the episode aired. Then I can compare and see how you did!

So keep doing what you do best!
It's awesome

Anonymous said...

ok ik do thinkthat libby is a dharma man (girl) and is checking up on hugo because of te numbers her face when she and hugo left the clif was so undefinable that i don't know whta to think
but than the face she made when in the looney bin was more of an actual looney than a man (girl) who knows what she is doing