Episode Report Card Daniel: C+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT This is the Dave I know
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 18 | Aired on 04.04.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Hurley's feeling close enough to Libby that he lets her in on his secret stash of food. Not to share it with her, but because the guilt is completely tearing him up. Libby encourages him to dump it all out, instead of, you know, SHARING it with people. Fortunately (or unfortunately, from Hurley's perspective, since his weight problem is more important than crash survivors not starving to death), everyone's discovered the Dharma Initiative food drop, and it's every man for himself. Sawyer implores everybody to be civil about the scavenging, which is kind of like Ana-Lucia imploring Sayid not to shoot someone.
Oh, wait. That also happens, as Sayid whips his gun out during an intense interrogation of No Henry, who knows Zeke, who is apparently nobody compared with the real leader. No Henry tells Locke that he never entered the numbers or pushed the button, and you know what happened? Nothing. Not that Henry's all that trustworthy, but let's say for now he's telling the truth: looks like Locke owes Jack a Coke.
Hurley keeps seeing Dave (Harry from Sex and the City) on the island, his bad-influence friend from when he was in the crazy house. Dave doesn't want him to take his meds. Dave doesn't want Hurley to lose weight. Dave doesn't want the asylum pickup game to degenerate into total anarchy. But Dave's not here, man, a reveal that's telegraphed pretty blatantly, so thank god it wasn't the final twist in the episode or anything. Hurley's therapist reveals that Dave doesn't actually exist, which is not to say that Hurley stops seeing him. Hurley's mental problems stem from his blaming himself for walking onto a deck that collapsed, killing two people.
Back on the island, Hurley's Island Dave convinces him that he never actually left the hospital -- that the lotto win, the island, the hatch, Libby, everything is all in Hurley's mind, and the only way to wake up is to throw himself off a cliff into the ocean. Luckily, Libby shows up to make out with him, which, as you might imagine, convinces him not to go cliff-diving. Maybe if he'd known her when she was in the asylum with him, they could have been playing tonsil hockey then too. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
In what I hope is a continuing trend, we get no previouslys this week. I have two theories: the first is that the network is finally ready to concede that viewers can be trusted to remember what happens on this show.Naaaah.
The other is that they're going to really start screwing with continuity, so they don't want any reminders of what happened before.
Libby's power-walking across the beach, doing that perfect-posture arms-swinging thing power-walkers do that never fails to crack me up. Hurley's struggling to keep up with her, and she's kind of annoying anyway, brightly telling him that exercise is addictive. No, it's not. Junk food is addictive. Cigarettes are addictive. Exercise is hard. That's the problem.
She pauses to give him a break, and he embarrassedly says he probably needs to drop a few pounds. With genuine affection, she tells him not to be so hard on himself, because it won't happen overnight, and offers up some encouragement re: different metabolisms. But Hurley says it isn't his metabolism: "I'm sick," he says. She asks him what's wrong, and he says never mind, and starts to walk away. She stops him, and tells him he can trust her. "Okay. But...it's bad," he says, reluctantly. Endearingly bad, or bad bad?
In the jungle, Hurley's managed to build a tree pantry, using the giant tropical leaves for cover. His stash is a lot bigger than I'd figured. He tells Libby that when they crashed, he figured an upside would be his all-mango diet, and that he'd dropped a couple of belt sizes. She smiles slightly. "Then we found this hatch, and it was full of food. Tons of food," he says. Look, just because you don't have previouslys this week doesn't mean the characters get to talk to each other like they need to brought up on every plot point. Libby knows about the hatch. Anyway, Hurley says he tried to give the food away, but he kept some for himself. Oh, and they still have tons down the hatch anyway, which I'd still like explained. "Wish I could just get rid of it," he says. "Then get rid of it," she says. He doesn't understand her Dr. Phil common-sense approach, so she reaches for a huge jar of the ubiquitous Dharma Initiative Ranch Dressing, like how many bags of goddamn Dharma nachos are there anyway? Is Libby going to help him gather it up and bring it to the other Lostaways, saying something simple like they found some more food? No, they're going to rip open every package and spill out every bottle right there on the jungle floor, because it's better to help Hurley shore up his self-esteem than make sure dozens of crash survivors don't starve to death. Give me a break.