TDTVS

(42/82) Hurley is tonight’s episode’s central character, both on and off the island. Both on and off island scenes concern Dave, that’s him in the picture with Hurley, and is a figment of Hurley’s imagination that that resists change. In the Santa Rosa Mental Health Institute he tries to keep him from coming to grips with his grief over having (in his mind) caused the deaths of two people and to keep him from losing weight. On the island he is manifested when Libby, a tail section survivor, tries to help Hurley to lose some weight too, but perhaps Dave is also there to prevent Hurley from developing a relationship with Libby.

Halfway done, Lockdown is episode #41 of 82 and appropriately it centers around John Locke. The off island flashback shows how John is totally locked to the whims of his con man father. After attending the father’s funeral he is shocked when a few days later the “deceased” shows up requesting help. He needs Locke to go and retrieve the money he stole from a couple of very bad dudes by unlocking a safety deposit box. On island, John has to enlist the aide of suspected bad guy Henry Gale, who he has unlocked from his cell, when he gets stuck under a blast door that automatically closes as part of the titular Lockdown. While trapped under the door he gets a brief glimpse of a strange map.

Episode 39 of 82 concerns Claire, now and before. For the first time a flashback doesn’t go off island or pre crash, it concerns a missing 2 week chunk of Claire’s memory from back in the first season when she was kidnapped from the beach by a person who was not on the plane.

Episode 38 of 82 tells us how Sayid becomes a torturer for the US at the end of the first Gulf War, while on the island he gets to use those skills on a person that the French Chick has captured in one of her snare traps. She says that he is one of the “Others” and not to be trusted, the captured party says he is just a cross pacific balloonist that crashed on the island 4 months ago. His name is Henry Gale which is also the name of Dorothy’s uncle in the Wizard of Oz. It is also the name of an American physicist in the early 1900s who worked at the Mount Wilson Observatory in Pasadena, CA.

I’m thinking I’m going have to defer to my wife’s supervisor Brandon on this now. He once asked me which season of TDTVS was my favorite and I said, “One.” He said , “Two.” Tonight’s second season episode, number thirty seven of eighty two, was Sawyer centric and the writers have really hit their stride. The off island flashback concerned Sawyer’s intricate double con on a woman. While on island Sawyer, cons Locke into inadvertently handing over the islander’s gun stash with the help of recent pariah Charlie and an unknowing assist from Kate.

Halfway through Season 2 in Episode 36 of 83 we get another well written story that intertwines the off island flashbacks with the on island action. This episode is Charlie-centric and we see him trying to save his drug addicted brother, but it breaks up their relationship and their band Drive Shaft. On island he has dreams and sleep walks convinced he must save Claire’s baby Aaron, but all he does is make people think he is using heroin again and breaks up his relationship she and her son.