Hibbs' Missing Finger

Maybe you missed this debate. Maybe this one passed you by. The man in question was Hibbs. You know, that guy that used to be a Terminator. He showed up and told Sawyer he knew who the real Sawyer was and where to find him in the episode Outlaws. The debate that ensued, that had online Lost fans frothing at the mouth in fervent need-to-know madness, wasn’t about who the ‘real Sawyer’ was, nor was it even really about the infamous “Tampa job” that gets mentioned during this scene.

No, the real furore concerned Hibbs having a missing finger.

I’m not kidding. Someone e-mailed me asking what I thought about it. They asked me if I thought it was part of some deeper meaning to do with missing body parts; like Ray Mullen the farmer and Marvin Candle only having one arm. There was debate about whether or not, indeed, Hibbs had perhaps lost his finger during the infamous “Tampa job”.

I mean, come on! One missing finger means that Hibbs has FOUR fingers on one hand and FOUR is one of THE NUMBERS and so surely it has to MEAN SOMETHING!?

Perhaps what should be remembered is that the actor playing Hibbs, Patrick Roberts, doesn’t have a missing finger. So the logic ran that if it had been intentional to make him have a missing finger than it very well might have some kind of significance.

But hold up a second, I thought. Take a look at the above image. Could it not be the way he was holding the glass? Could he not have just curled his finger inwards? I had to know. So I sat with my face inches from the monitor, watching in slow motion, looking for one clean shot of Hibbs’ left hand to either confirm or deny the theory.

Believe it or not, there’s only one single, solitary fleeting moment where we get to see Hibbs’ left hand. It’s here:

(Click image to enlarge)

Oh look. There’s his finger! He's got five fingers, all present and correct! So I guess that’s one mystery solved. Phew! Bet you can sleep easier at nights now, right?