Hurley sits alone. In the background are pine trees. In the foreground are the twin signifiers of Hurley's masculinity: a motorcycle and a leather jacket. Cut to wide shot: Hurley, a tiny insignificant leather blip in a sweeping mountainous forestscape. He Is Man. This man carries the weight of the world on his shoulders. It's very hard to be James Hurley.

Yet, what is this weight made up of? In an effort to learn why he is so troubled, we only need look to some of Hurley's drippy quotes. Here, I present a selection of the most typical:

"I'm only quiet on the outside."

"I guess I'm not so interested in how my bike looks as in where it can take me."

"When you love someone it's like this bright light is shining on you all the time."

"I want to make the way my heart feels last forever."

"It doesn't matter if we're happy and the rest of the world goes to hell."

"Sometimes I think I should just get on my bike and go."

"I went for a ride this morning. God, the engine sounded like a thousand people singing."

The writers wanted Hurley to be hated – that much is clear. In the original scripts he is described as "wiping the tears from his eyes, covering up his total emotional destruction". At other moments he is on his motorbike "cutting through the wind with reckless abandon". These are his two states of being, both of which are annoying. Despite being a teenager whose daily efforts involve merely going to school and riding home to get fed, he will repeatedly say he needs to "just start over".