Current mood:	melancholy
Current music:	Hurt, Johnny Cash

Lost!
Lost?

Why yes I am. Goodness, never has a show been able to mess with my mind like Lost. I won’t bore you with too much background; suffice it to say that I love the show and am completely hooked. While the premise is interesting and different, what I’m most impressed with is the character development. When I think of what I thought about each character after the first few weeks of the show compared to what I think of them now, it’s amazing. I also appreciate that the writers are not afraid to show different sides to each character. Locke for example has in turn made me feel fear, pity, sadness, empathy, happiness and hope. Given the amount of time spent on each character, I’d say that’s an incredible feat really.

I cannot believe the show gets away with having so many things only visible if you have TIVO! If you were not on the Internet, you’d seriously be missing a LOT of interesting information. The show would still stand without those things, which is also quite a feat. I never dreamed I’d be watching a show that I had to do post-episode research on every week though. You can’t really just *watch* Lost, it’s a truly different television experience. You become immersed, like it or not.

This week was Hurley centric and frankly, not one of the best episodes they’ve put together. The moment Hurley told Libby in the laundry room that she seemed familiar; I knew she was from the asylum. Since she claimed to be a doctor it seemed likely that she was a patient. That’s just Lost for you, lol. We start with Hurley admitting to his secret stash, which was touching but I couldn’t have been the only one wondering why in the hell they were dumping Cheetos and Cereal on the ground? Seriously, that was the stupidest thing I’ve ever seen! You two stand there and bond over your little psychological victory while everyone eats yet another coconut for breakfast and then spends the next four hours trying to stab a fish for lunch. When the rest of them came running through to get to the drop site, I was seriously fearful for what would happen if one of them tripped on an errant Corn Flake! That’s a hanging crime on a deserted island!

Then he gets his turn to “see” someone on the island that shouldn’t be there. This time we’re dealing with a guy who is obviously wearing last fall’s mental institution fashion line. Which in theory, is about right so kudos to wardrobe. As we’ve grown accustomed to, the “not there” guy showed up in the weeds and kind of just stood and stared, giving us time to remember Jack’s dad and Kate’s horse and…oh, Sawyer’s boar! Familiarity is great but next time I hope the freaky “not there” guy is found in the armory, cleaning a rifle or something. Just to mix it up! I actually didn’t see the “he was never a real guy” thing coming although I was wondering what the chances were you’d find the perfect enabler in such a limited environment.

The crux of the episode was, of course, the talk about none of it being real and all in Hurley’s head. I was left with a rather bad feeling from all that. I’ve accepted that it’s possible none of this is happening, but I will be unhappy if it’s all in just one of their heads. That means the other characters you’ve come to know aren’t real and that just bugs me. I could accept that it’s a big experiment, I could accept that they’re all dead already, etc…I just don’t feel good about it all being Hurley’s delusion. Were we supposed to be left with the feeling that since Libby was in the institution, it still *could* be all in his head and she just took over for Dave when Dave jumped off the cliff? Were we supposed to think that yes it is all real because “look, she was really at the institution”? Was she really there? Or was she just in the sidelines of Hurley’s imagination? Will we sooner or later see that they were all in the institution, in Hurley’s mind or they really were there but he’s just using them in his delusions? In theory, if Hurley was in the institution and did get better and go home, he’d probably have been on medication. If he had some with him, it probably has run out and we would be at about the time for it to be leaving his system; which could explain his experiences this week.

All of it being in Hurley’s mind really would not explain other people’s flashbacks. It would all be about Hurley, relate to Hurley if it were in his mind, right? Why would we be watching Walt’s early life and learn of his “gift” (which should come back into play just about any time now) and see his polar bear, etc? I’m choosing at this point to thing that if this relates to what Dave told Hurley this week it’s more like they’re all patients in an institution somewhere and we’re taking a trip through all of their delusions about their lives. I still hope it’s more like a big experiment though. I think there are just too many details that wouldn’t make sense (if paranoid delusions and such make sense, lol) and this show BETTER NOT DO THAT TO ME. It will ALL need to make sense, darn it. You don’t put that much work into weaving and such to just say, oh…it was in his head! (Unless you’re St. Elsewhere and c’mon, that’s been DONE.) Yikes though, it would explain the dumb things that seem inexplicable like the sign behind Kate in the “she visits her mom at the hospital” episode that said “Magnetic Resonance Imagining” instead of “Magnetic Resonance Imaging”. Hurley just can’t spell! Crap, that was even mentioned last night; he made spelling errors in his letter! Gah. We should stop talking about this now. 

~Sherry