Season 2, Episode 18: "Dave"

The title of this episode is DAVE. This is the name of Hurley's "imaginary friend."

We find out why Hurley was in the mental institution. Turns out he was involved in an "accident" where he stepped out on an overcrowded deck causing it to fall and two people were killed. He feels extreme guilt over this. We see that Hurley has made himself "crazy" over this and ends up institutionalized. He has hallucinations, and has an imaginary friend Dave who makes him do things he does not want to do (his subconscious). Once he finds out that Dave is not real, he truly seems shocked and wants to help himself and get better. He forces Dave out of his life and makes himself get better. He tells him that after Dave "left," he got better and got to go back home, got his job back at the chicken shack, and then won the lottery.

TO CAUSE TO DIE
Just like all the other survivors, we find out that Hurley, too, is responsible for killing someone. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Eko, Ana Lucia, Sayid, etc. - they have ALL killed someone, whether directly or indirectly, but they are all consumed with their guilt. Now we see that Hurley feels this as well. When we saw earlier that when the clock counter in the hatch hit zero, the hyeroglyphics came up which translated means "To Cause To Die" - maybe this has something to do with the fact that all of them have caused someone to die? That is why they have all ended up on the island together?

DID HENRY PUSH THE BUTTON?
So Henry tells Locke that nothing happened when he pushed the button. Is he telling the truth? He "knows" that Locke is really invested in pushing the button and what happens in the hatch, so he knows he how to get to Locke. Notice Locke got very intense when he told him that NOTHING happened. He is just playing with Locke, trying to get to him. If he is one of the Others, he would know what happened, I think he is trying to play with Locke. Or, if something else DOES happen when the counter gets to zero, he could be telling Locke that nothing happens just to see if he lets it go to zero, so as to force some event to happen (if Henry knows the truth about what will happen, maybe he is trying to make it happen?)

RELIGIOUS SYMBOLISM
- When we first see Sayid interrogating Henry Gale in the locked room, notice his positioning. They have Henry tied up with his arms outstretched, just like Jesus Christ on the cross. And just like Christ, Henry is being interrogated and questioned and mocked, yet he won't give in or fight back by telling the "TRUTH." He is not talking. He also mentions God, later on, when Locke is asking him questions. (Locke says, you and your people have been here for God knows how long...and Henry says, God doesn't know how long - He can't even see the island! Why would he think that GOD cannot see the island?) Henry also mentions "HIM" and "HE" over and over and the way he talks about this person is very "God-like" - who is he talking about? Whoever is in charge there, certainly they do look to this person as a "God." He seems almost to be scared of this person.

MORE WIZARD OF OZ
As we have seen with Henry Gale, the references to the Wizard of Oz are all there. Henry Gale = "Uncle Henry", the balloon, etc. - It seems to me that this "HIM" that he talks about is almost like "The Great and Powerful Oz" - someone that appears to be in charge yet we never SEE this person. Just like in Claire's flashback from the medical hatch a few episodes ago, when "Zeke" is talking to Ethan, he says that HE is not going to be happy about this. Clearly there is someone else in charge, yet no one ever sees him or has direct contact with him. Just like in The Wizard of Oz...everyone in the land knows of him yet no one has ever actually seen him. He is just "the man behind the curtain" and in the end we see that the "Wizard" is fooling everyone by putting on this front. So who is this "HIM" they are all so scared of...maybe it is just "a man behind a curtain" as well.

HENRY & LOCKE
It seems that Henry could have been "sent" there to take care of Locke. He is trying to build trust with him (he helped save him when he could have escaped). He is creating confrontation between Locke and Jack because he KNOWS how to get to him. The OTHERS could have sent Henry there to work on Locke, maybe try to bring him over to their side? He has a definite interest in Locke and trying to get to him. Whatever the reason, it is definitely working. We are also starting to see Locke lose his "power" - not just physically but mentally. In this episode, we see that Locke has lost the use of his legs, once again. When we first saw him in the very beginning on the island, he had just GAINED the use of his legs for the first time and with that brought great power and wisdom. Everyone looked to Locke for advice, he was the natural leader and always had the right answers. Now, along with his physical strength, he has lost his "power" as well. People see his weaknesses now and no longer trust him, no longer look to him for the answers. It was almost as if gaining the use of his legs GAVE him that power, like he could do ANYTHING, but now that it is gone, he has gone back to his old vulnerable self. We've seen from his flashbacks that he was not as "strong" a person as we would have thought. He gets conned over and over, and it was not until he was on the island and could walk again that he became this powerful,all-knowing man. I think Henry and the Others know this, to a certain extent, and are playing with him. Maybe they think they can get information out of him.

BUT I'M A GOOD PERSON
Henry says this just as Sayid is about to kill him. He is pleading for his life, almost like he thinks he does not deserve to die because he is "good." From what we know the Others ONLY take the "good" people. Goodwin told this to Ana Lucia. Also, Claire's psychic told her the adoptive parents were "good" people. And Ethan also tells Claire that they are "good people." What does being "GOOD" have to do with being with the Others? Notice, though, that when Claire was taken into the medical hatch, Alex - who saves her - says that they are NOT good people. It almost reminds me of some kind of religious cult or something - the people in it think they are doing good things when in fact they are not.

SEE YOU IN ANOTHER LIFE
This has been repeated over and over and over. First, Desmond says this to Jack when they first meet at the stadium. Nadia writes this on the back of the picture she gives to Sayid. And now Dave says this to Hurley. In a way it is true, in that being on the island is kind of like "another life." (i.e. - Desmond DID in fact see Jack in "another life.")

LIBBY
So we find out at the end that Libby was also in the psych ward. We don't know why she is there, but from the looks of it, she was really out of it and messed up. On the island, she appears to be completely normal. Did she change, was she faking it? Also, she seems to take a big interest in Hurley. Does she know more about him than she is letting on? Is she really trying to "help" him or is there another agenda. We know she lied to the other survivors about being a psychiatrist (she was the patient, not the doctor!) So this is actually why Hurley said she looked familiar, because he HAD seen her before! If you remember a few episodes back, in the episode "Fire + Water" (see below), they were in the hatch together doing laundry and he asked if he had met her somewhere before. She gets all flustered and quickly changes the subject. I remember because I thought that was weird of her to act like that. She obviously wants to hide the fact that she was in there with him. She is using the "flirting" as a way to distract him from figuring it out. Notice last night after she kissed him, and he said "if this is real, then do it again" - she did not kiss him again. As they walked off together, the look on her face seemed very wierd. You knew she was "playing" him.

IS THE ISLAND REAL?
Okay, hear me out here... Maybe they are ALL in a psychiatric hospital. (Notice there is a picture of an Island in the doc's office, so if they were all there they could have "dreamed" it up.) Perhaps all of them are living in this "dream" or it is a result of some crazy experimentation by the hospital (maybe the psychiatric hospital IS the Dharma group!) The doctors could be giving them all some type of drug (the Dharma "injections") to make them hallucinate like this. It makes sense....they have all done bad things, causing them much stress, pain, guilt (killing people, losing loved ones, etc.) - it would make sense for all of them to end up in a psych ward. They could all be the patients in the ward and their "interactions" with one another in the hospital is actually being played out as if they were on the island. Just like Dave said...the crash, the numbers, polar bears, the hatch, etc. - all seems very unlikely to be "real." I think it would be really interesting if over the course of their flashbacks, we start to see the rest of their backstories and see how ALL of them end up going "crazy." Right now I think they just want us to focus on Hurley, but I really think it could be ALL of them in there. "The Others" would be the doctors and the staff there. On the island, the "others" are the bad people and they are running from them all the time. Though they keep trying to convice them they are "good." Kind of like in a psych ward, they see the doctors and the staff being against them, they are trying to run from them when really they are good (they just don't see it that way.) On the island, when people get "taken" that could be when people actually leave the hospital (they are cured - they become "good"). And for example when Michael, Walt, Jin and Sawyer built the raft that could have been them "escaping" from the psych ward - only to get "caught" and brought back again. It's a long stretch, I know, but I think it would be really interesting if we find out in fact this whole "island" experience is in fact a bunch of psych patients playing out this hallucination. They are "LOST" - mentally. The things that have happened on the island could be part of things happening in the psych ward, but that is the way that THEY see it.