Episode Analysis of 1.10 "Raised By Another"

WARNING: If you have not already seen all of LOST, please DO NOT READ THIS.

My LOST re-watch and in-depth episode analysis will include major details from the entirety that was LOST, and will be written with the perspective of having seen everything already. You will be SPOILED if you read any further. It is far better if you learn the story of LOST for yourself, as it is meant to be seen. Trust me on this, and don't say that I didn't warn you first. Seriously. Stop it. Now. Go watch it. Then, come back here.

First off, let's clear the air first. I'm back after taking two months or so off from blogging altogether. While it was much longer than I had originally anticipated, I didn't realize how much time I needed until I actually got back here. Sometimes, I need a break from these things to clear my head and reset. It's good to be back now.

What happened while I was gone? Well, apparently all the actors from LOST have literally lost their damn minds after leaving the Island. First, Doug Hutchison, who played Horace Goodspeed, and is fifty-one years old, married a sixteen year old aspiring country singer. Then, Matthew Fox got arrested for allegedly assaulting a woman on a damn party bus or something. Sounds like he's pulling a Jack Shephard to me. I wonder if he was wearing a fake beard when he did it..

And, in much less disturbing news, Evangeline Lilly had a baby without anyone even noticing she was pregnant. Apparently she's dating Norman Kali, who was a Production Assistant on LOST. I recognized this dude right away because he's in a bunch of the LOST DVD Extras.. Their baby's first words? "We have to go back, Kate." Yes, babies speak immediately when they are born. Evangeline was also cast in the new film, The Hobbit, and was seen in New Zealand with her baby boy. So, that's pretty exciting. Especially for LOTR nerds like myself.. Also, congrats to Evangeline and Norman. And, that's probably the first and last time I will ever write about "gossip" or whatever the fuck that was that I just did..

So, now that we're done with that quick recap and LOST news, let's get back to business as usual, shall we?

To read my original post on this episode, please refer to Raised By Another.

This episode was written by Lynne E. Litt, and directed by Marita Grabiak. It originally aired on December 1st, 2004.

This is a Claire Littleton flashback-centric episode.

We begin with a close-up of closed eye. We hear a baby crying in the distance and a waterfall in the background. Claire Littleton's eye suddenly opens. As she wakes, her eyes shift, looking around to catch her bearings. It's dark, and a baby continues to cry. Claire suddenly springs up from her sleep, short of breath, and looking around the caves. She feels her stomach to realize that she is no longer pregnant.

1.19 Deus Ex Machina

1. Locke works in a toy store, says he played mouse trap with his brother.
2. Aisles 8 and 15 for footballs.
3. Boone and Locke have been working on the hatch everyday for 2 weeks.
4. "One minute you're quoting Nietzsche, the next you're an engineer." Boone, to Locke.
5. They build a trebuchet, it doesn't work and it breaks. They can't open the hatch. From Lostpedia
6. A piece of the broken trebuchet is in Locke's leg. He is starting to lose feeling in his legs.
7. "Everything breaks if you apply the right force." Locke
8. Locke sees the woman who asked about the footballs from the store watching him, he is hit by the same Pontiac Bonneville as Michael when he goes after her. From Lostpedia
9. She is his mother, Emily Annabeth Locke.
10. Locke was raised in several foster homes.
11. "I want to tell you that you're special, very special. You're part of a design. You do realize that, don't you? That our meeting, me finding you, this is a sign of things to come. Great things." Emily tells Locke he was immaculately conceived.
12. "Don't tell me what I can't do!" Locke
13. "We're supposed to do this." Locke
14. Locke has a dream, he sees plane fly over island. Boone says "Theresa falls up the stairs. Theresa falls down the stairs." He is covered in blood. Locke is in his wheel-chair again. From Lost Hatch
15. Locke uses an private investigator to find out information about his mother, and he finds out about his father too. Emily Annabeth Locke was institutionalized several times for schizophrenia at Santa Rosa.
16. "I've done this enough times to know this stuff isn't meant to be, even though it may feel that way. But this probably won't have a happy ending." The private investigator, Frainey. From Lost Hatch
17. Locke finds his father, Anthony Cooper. He says he didn't know about John until a year after he was born. Emily said she put him up for adoption.
18. Anthony Cooper asks John if he has a family, he says no. "I tried it a couple of times. It didn't take." Cooper
19. Cooper asks Locke if he hunts, he says no.
20. Locke tells Boone about his dream, that he asked for a sign, then saw a plane crash.
21. Locke and Boone find a dead priest in the jungle, with a gun on him and Nigerian money. From Lost Hatch
22. Cooper is on dialysis. Locke finds out.
23. "Jack wouldn't know the first thing about what's wrong with me." Locke tells Boone when he tells him they have to go to Jack about his legs.
24. Locke tells Boone that he was in a wheelchair when they crashed, that he was paralyzed for 4 years.
25. They've been on the island 4 weeks.
26. "This island changed me. It made me whole. There's something that we were meant to find. I know it." Locke
27. Boone tells Locke about Theresa. She was his nanny, fell down the stairs when he was 6.
28. They find the plane from Locke's dream.
29. "See you on the other side, son." Locke gives Cooper his kidney.
30. Boone climbs up into the plane, finds Nigerian maps, lots of heroin, priest bodies, tries to send out a mayday on the radio, plane falls off cliff. From Lostpedia
31. "We're the survivors of Oceanic Flight 815!" The voice on the radio.
32. Locke brings Boone back to Jack and then leaves.
33. Cooper abandons Locke after the operation. Emily tells him he was conned for his kidney, that she needed money. "It had to be your idea."
34. Locke goes to Cooper's house and he won't let him in.
35. Locke goes back to the hatch, sees a light coming out of it.
36. "I've done everything you've asked me, so why did you do this to me?" Locke From Lost Hatch
37. John Locke has a moment of great epiphany when he sees the light coming from the hatch door beneath him, suddenly stopping his moment of anger. From Lostpedia

Questions:

1. How did Locke become so skilled at hunting when he only went bird hunting with Cooper?
2. Did the island take the use of Locke's legs away from him?
3. How did Locke continue to walk when he couldn't feel anything?
4. What is the purpose of the dreams people have on this island?
5. Why does Emily tell Locke that he was immaculately conceived?
6. How did the beachcraft get on the island?
7. Did the island take the use of Locke's legs away so that Boone would climb up to the beachcraft and die?
8. Was Locke supposed to find the Pearl station when he found the plane?
9. Why was Locke suddenly able to walk after the plane fell with Boone inside?

Favorites:

1. Locke telling Boone that his story would bore him.
2. "All I'm gonna get for my trouble is a snappy one-liner and if I'm real lucky, a brand new nickname." Jack, about helping Sawyer with his headaches.
3. "Really? Well, I guess that makes me God, huh?" Cooper responding to Locke telling him that his mother said he was immaculately conceived.
4. "Have you been using the wacky paste stuff that made me see my sister get eaten?" Boone
5. "You picking up a little Korean there, Michael?" Jack "Yeah, I'm pretty sure I know how to say faster, and idiot." Michael
6. "Sorry, Doc, sound fun, but my insurance ran out." Sawyer "Insurance ran out? That's a good one." Jack
7. "Do I get a lollipop?" Sawyer talking to Kate about going to see Jack fro help.
8. Jack testing Sawyer to see what's wrong with him. "When was your last outbreak?" Jack
9. Boone tells Locke a traumatizing story about his Nanny and Locke just starts laughing because he sees the plane form his dream.
10. Jack telling Sawyer he has hyperopia.
11. "Dude, it looks like someone steam-rolled Harry Potter." Hurley

Notes:

1. They mention Locke's brother in this episode and then we never hear about him again.
2. There is some major Mouse Trap symbolism in this episode.
3. Wow, Jack can actually be funny. Is this the first and only time?
4. With the 4 guns from the Halliburton, 1 from the marshal, and 1 from the dead priest, they have 6 guns now.
5. When Boone puts out the mayday on the beach craft, we later find out the the voice on the other end is Bernard, Rose's husband, who is with the others from the tail section.
6. We find out later that Desmond heard Locke in the hatch.
7. The scene where Locke goes to Anthony Cooper's house at the end and he goes back to the hatch on the island are almost mirror images of eachother. Cooper took Locke's kidney away and he didn't get what he wanted. The island took Boone and he didn't get what he wanted from it. He was conned. He put his time into these two things and thought he'd get something in return and he didn't. The stories parallel eachother.
8. From Lostpedia: Deus Ex Machina originated as a theatrical device in ancient Greek theatre. This device consisted of a physical crane that lowered a character down onto the stage, the character representing a god. This god would help the characters with a sudden twist in plot. This term would come to mean any device within a plot that provided a sudden change, or solution, in plot; Deus Ex Machina literally translates into "God from the machine" in Latin; In script writing, the term Deus Ex Machina is often used to refer to a solution to the story, a means to an end that comes out of nowhere and has nothing to do with the story, sometimes leaving the audience feeling cheated; Deus Ex Machina is one of the final chapters of Watership Down written by Richard Adams.

1.10 Raised By Another

From Lostpedia

1. In Claire's dream, there is a baby crying, she's walking through the jungle, she sees Locke and he says "he was your responsibility, but you gave him away. Everyone pays the price now."
2. Locke's eyes are black and white when he is speaking to Claire.
   From Lostpedia
3. There is a baby's crib in the middle of the jungle, with an Oceanic plane mobile, blood in the crib, and blood on her hands when she wakes. From Lostpedia
4. "She was okay with letting you fly in your third trimester?" Jack, asks Claire about her doctor.
5. Thomas, Claire's boyfriend says that they can make it work. He is a painter. Claire says her mom would disown her if she had a baby. From Lostpedia
6. Sayid's been gone for almost a week.
7. Claire goes to psychic with her friend, Rachel, he knows she's pregnant, that she hasn't told her mom, he freaks out and turns her away.
8. Claire with hand over mouth and knife. She says he had a needle. "He was trying to hurt my baby!"
9. Hurley starts a census, asking everyone why they were on the plane.
10. Locke says, "I was looking for something." Hurley asks if he found it. "No, it found me." Locke is from Tustin, California.
11. Claire is due in a little more than a week, maybe two.
12. Ethan Rom, from Ontario, Canada.
13. The psychic tells Claire that she has to raise the baby, that if anyone else does it will be dangerous. "There is no happiness for this child without you."
14. Claire is going to give up the baby for adoption to Arlene and Joseph Stewart for $20,000, she asks if they know Catch A Falling Star, that her dad sang it to her. She has a bad feeling and backs out, goes to psychic again. From Lostpedia
15. Richard Malkin spent the last 4 months saying that Claire has to raise the baby, then he pays her to give the baby away to a couple in Los Angeles, $6,000 when she leaves and when she gets back. "They're good people."
16. Claire tells Charlie about the psychic while she's having contractions. Charlie says maybe he knew they would crash.
17. "It has to be this flight." Richard Malkin
18. "There was no couple in LA. He knew about the plane, what was going to happen." Claire
19. Sayid comes back. "I found the French woman. We're not alone."
20. "One of them isn't in the manifest. He wasn't on the plane." Hurley From Lost, The Untold

Questions:

1. How did Claire get on a plane when she was about to have a baby?
2. Why does Claire tell Thomas that her mom will disown her when we find out later that she was in a coma at that time?
3. Was the psychic for real? Did he see the plane crash or was he working for someone?
4. Did Claire's dream foresee the future?
5. Is this when Claire got into astrology?
6. Where did Hurley get his nickname from?
7. Does the baby really need to be raised by Claire?

Favorites:

1. "I have this dream. I'm driving a bus, and my teeth start falling out. My mom's in the back making biscuits. Everything smells of bacon. It's weird." Charlie
2. "My name's not even Hurley. It's Hugo Reyes. Hurley's a nickname. Why? I'm not telling." Hurley, to Jack about doing the census because they don't know people.
3. Hurley after talking to Locke. "Yeah, I know I already talked to you. I just need to get away from that guy."
4. "Lance? Your name's Lance, right?" Hurley "Yeah, definitely not Lance." Ethan
5. "Canada? Right on, right on, love Canada. They have great..." Hurley
6. "Name, Shannon Rutherford. Age, 20. Location, Craphole Island."
7. "One sugar plum fairy, two sugar plum fairy. If I can kick drugs, I can deliver a baby." Charlie, to Claire, in the jungle when she's having contractions.

Notes:

1. Raised by an other.
2. Ethan Rom is an anagram for Other Man.
3. Jack says Claire will have the baby soon.
4. This is the first time Oceanic Flight 815 is mentioned.
5. Charlie told Claire that he did drugs when she's having contractions.
6. The survivors find out that there are, in fact, other people on this island.