I had a really apprehensive feeling from the first few minutes of the episode. There was Hurley throwing out food on a deserted island instead of handing it out to his fellow Losties, which made me very angry. Then he and Libby come across the food drop, where Charlie recommends that Hurley be put in charge of handing out the food again. It reminded me of Everybody Hates Hugo, my favourite episode ever. Finally, Evan Handler inexplicably appeared in the jungle, bathrobed and putting his considerable acting talents towards being obnoxious. I could see the review already “A sad return to early Season 2 quality, with only a couple of saving graces like the ongoing Henry Gale subplot blah blah blah.”

Happily, although it was never great, “Dave” did get better as it went. It’s nice to see a flashback set in the mental institute, and to get the reason for Hurley’s incarceration. Better yet, it launches a great concept, and addresses the “It’s all _____’s hallucination.” It’s seriously hilarious to hear Dave mount a case that none of the show is real, simply by rattling off every implausible event that’s happened over the past two seasons. Most of all, words cannot express how much I love Hurley beating up Sawyer as Jin grins broadly.

Greatest. Jin moment. Ever. Until he gives a thumbs up to Hurley two episodes later.

The “Henry” stuff is brief, but no less engaging despite last week’s reveal. Sayid rather awesomely tricks Ben into admitting that he likely killed the real Henry Gale, who is now tied up in the Standard Crucifixion Pose of Misplaced Christian Symbolism. Even more interesting is Ben informing Locke that he never pressed the button. Already we’re taking everything this guy says with a metric ton of salt, but his description of the hieroglyphics, the magnetic hum, all consistent with what we’ve seen with our own eyes. It’s a moment made to prompt some nice discussion (until the finale).

“Discussion prompting” is a good way of describing the main plot, for that matter. Regardless of whether or not it was planned, the events of Season 6 inevitably caused me to wonder if Dave was the Smoke Monster, trying to bump off another Candidate by tricking him into jumping off a cliff. I can’t think of anything that actively contradicts this idea. Hurley getting a coconut thrown at his junk might even suggest it. But then in the flashback, Dave manages to slap Hurley across the face (just like Charlie in TBotE, a can of worms I don’t even want to open right now). And it’s left ambiguous as to whether or not Libby saw the slipper that Hurley took off Dave. But for once, it holds up either way, and is not contradicted by anything later on.

Loose Ends:
On the other hand, there’s Libby in Hurley’s hospital. And any time it’s brought up, the same group of people appear and say “She went crazy because her husband died, and it’s a coincidence that they were on the same plane. END OF DISCUSSION!” Except no. If, say, we had never seen the four toed statue again after the Season 2 finale, would it be technically correct to say “It’s just a weird statue that some people built on the island long ago. END OF DISCUSSION.” Well sure. But it, like the Libby cliffhanger, is framed as significant, and it never really gets followed up on. With the series over, I have to wonder, why even set this up if you’re not sure it’ll pay off later on?

I thought that “Dave” was an episode that was interesting mainly because of how significant certain events seem in light of future seasons (or not). But on its own terms, there’s still enough to like.

Rating: 7.5/10
Average: 7.69/10
Ranked 11th out of 18th episodes.