Confirmed Dead Discussion, and Does Hurley See Dead People?

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In this episode of the JoshMeister's LOST Podcast, tJM and guests Amanda from the Lost Flashbacks and Steve from the Smoke Hatch discuss Season 4 Episode 2, "Confirmed Dead."

• The episode starts out with an ROV apparently looking for a "chest full of doubloons" (very much like the Find 815 game... however, the people navigating the ROV whose voices we heard were clearly not Sam Thomas or Mr. Ockham)
  
• They instead found what they thought was Oceanic 815
• We see a Daniel (Dan) Faraday flashback, in which he cries as he sees the news report about the alleged Flight 815 being discovered
• Back on the island, Dan calls George Minkowski
• Apparently there was an electrical storm
• Dan has a gun
• Kate: "most of them are back at the beach"
• Locke: "There's a cabin I have to go to"
• Hurley: "The cabin is back that way."
• Locke: "What did you say, Hugo?"
• Ben looks at Hurley, apparently just as surprised as Locke that Hurley has apparently seen Jacob's cabin
  
• Locke: "I got 'em [my orders] from Walt"
• Jack and Kate find out that a gas mask fell from helicopter
• Dan: "Rescuing you and your people... can't really say it's our primary objective."
• Locke: "It was Walt, only taller."
• Locke: "I'd probably be dead if I still had a kidney there" (pointing where Ben shot him)
• Was it Locke's destiny to no longer have his kidney so he could survive Ben's gunshot?
• Miles to Kate: "Naomi... the woman you killed, where is she?"
• We find out later that Naomi asking about sister was a duress code
• Flashback: Inglewood, CA
• Radio: "Authorities are confirming, all 324 passengers, dead" (presumably talking about Flight 815)
  
• Miles Straume (sounded like Strung) goes to Miss Gardner's house, and we find out that Miles is a dishonest exorcist
  
• Talks to dead people - Tells Kate "I'll know [what really happened to Naomi]! Take me to her body."
• Later: "They didn't kill her. It happened like they said it did."
• Flashback: Medenine, Tunisia
• Tunisian newspaper about Flight 815
• Charlotte: polar bear skeleton in desert, Hydra logo on its collar!
• She smiles upon finding the Hydra logo - is she a DHARMA Intiative employee? Are all of them currently working for DHARMA? This might explain the gas mask; they don't want to get gassed like Ben did to his father
  
• Daniel says he's a physicist and talks about how the light scatters strangely
  
• Miles claims he "collects soil samples"
• Feigns surprise about Find 815
• Josh's wife Kylene suggested at the commercial break that Miles wasn't surprised because he can talk to dead people and thus already knew they weren't dead
• Charlotte running? Nope; Vincent
• Flashback: Eleuthera, Bahamas
• Sees TV report about Flight 815 and the "victim identification process"
• They showed actual bodies in the plane - whose bodies are they really? Were they planted there by Widmore? Abaddon?
  
• Seth Norris is the name of the pilot, whose alleged body was not wearing Seth's wedding ring, which Frank notices as proof that it's not the real pilot
• When asked how he knows so much about the pilot, Frank says: "because I was supposed to be flying Oceanic 815 on that day"
• What is the significance of Frank seeing a cow? Just to prove that there are random cows roaming on the island providing food for the Others, like Mikhail's meat locker in the Flame station (and lack of many cows outside) hinted
  
• Ben shot (but didn't kill) Charlotte - she was wearing a bulletproof vest! She knew there was danger on the island
  
• Frank Lapidus landed the chopper safely
  
• Flashback: Naomi says: "So this is the team?"
• Matthew Abaddon hired Naomi to lead the operation?!
• Locke to Ben: "What is the monster?"
• Ben: "I don't know."
• Ben says that he knows why the freighties are there—for him! And he reveals several details about Charlotte Staples Lewis' life, which shocks her
  
• Locke: "How do you know all this?"
• Ben: "Because I have a man on their ship."

Also discussed:

• Master Nak's theory that Hurley can see dead people:
  
  
• Hurley isn't crazy; he can see dead people. I want to rewatch the Season 2 episode when we first hear about Dave... but I have a hunch Dave was really a dead guy. Maybe a guy who died in the mental institute and hung around Hurley.
  Supporting evidence:
  Hurley can see Jacob at first, but when he closes his eyes and looks again, suddenly the whole cabin is gone. Maybe Jacob is dead, just a spirit?
  Charlie certainly seems pretty real when he appears to Hurley in the flash forward.
  
  ---
  
  [...] There is one interesting scene [in the episode "Dave"], however:
  
  Hurley walks into the gym to see Dave playing basketball with the other patients. At one point, Dave yells for the "rock" to be passed to him. Immediately afterward, the ball is passed to Hurley, who just happens to be standing directly behind Dave. Could it be that the patient was able to hear Dave speak but couldn't see him, and thus mistook his voice for Hurley's? Paralleling Hurley's flash forward, another patient was able to see Charlie. Interesting... [Josh notes: Could this mean that Hurley is actually able to subconsciously project his imaginary friends or delusions so that other people can sometimes sense them?]
  
  Perhaps Hurley is only able to see these spirits when he is in a disturbed emotional state. He was able to see Jacob because he had become separated from the others and was distressed. Dave seems to disappear after Hurley shuts the window on him in the flash back, but he returns right after Hurley sees that a new food package has been dropped on the island. We don't know much about the "future," but perhaps Hurley could see Charlie because he was worried that he made a mistake by leaving the island. When Hurley gains control of his emotions, he isn't able to see the spirits anymore (which is why Jacob's cabin [Josh: and Charlie] disappeared).
  
  ---
  
  Hmm... just read your blog about Ep. 1. This seems to give support to my theory that Hurley can see dead people.
  
  Christian Shephard did not die on the island, but Hurley saw him there. This could support my idea that Dave is really the spirit of someone who died in Santa Rosa.
  Also, Hurley has never (at least, not yet) seen Dave again on the island since Libby brought him back to his senses. He didn't need to take any Clonazepam in order to stop seeing him. If he was truly crazy, it's unlikely Dave would have just stopped showing up.
  
  Also, Locke didn't just "somehow run off" after throwing the knife at Naomi. They show him calmly walking away in the Season 3 finale. As to the "how," Jack is too busy talking on the satellite phone to bother chasing after him.
  
  
• Josh suggested that perhaps the guy who pointed out Charlie to Hurley was actually in Hurley's imagination as well
• Josh asked whether anyone noticed whether Desmond went with Locke or Jack, and callers on the show said that he went with Jack
• Jorge Garcia, the actor who plays Hurley, said on Jay and Jack's podcast that the actor whose eye popped up in the window was NOT an actor who has played a regular role on the show before (thus, the theory that it was Locke in the cabin was apparently untrue... which is backed up by the fact that in Episode 2 Locke was surprised that Hurley knew about the cabin)
• Also, Jorge wasn't told what to paint, so we can't read too much into Hurley's painting of an Eskimo and an igloo

The following section contains spoilers from the preview.

• Preview for the next episode:
• Kate: "I believe he can get us off the island"
• One of the Oceanic Six will be revealed