"Sorry, fresh out of sweet forgiveness!"

HOMECOMING

At this point we know a lot of what happened during the time when Claire was missing. I think there is something to be said about the fact that after she was abducted and subsequently escaped (with Alex and Danielle’s help) Claire had no memory of what happened to her post crash.



Also, I was never certain that Ethan actually killed Scott. I still want to see some proof. Could it have been Smokey? There’s one moment of the series that has always been one of great debate. The moment I am talking about is when Ben tells Michael after Michael asks Ben “Who are you people?”, Ben replies, “We’re the good guys Michael.”. Now you either fall into the group of people that believe that or you are of the mind that it is a lie. You could also fall into the undecided category as well, but for the sake of arguing, let’s just go with two sides here. So either he is telling the truth or he is lying. Like I said I believe he is telling the truth (I didn’t feel that strongly at the time but I have come to fall into the "Ben is a good guy" theory) or at least what he believes to be the truth. So if he is a good guy, and The Others are the good guys, then how can I explain Ethan (who would be a good guy as well in my theory) killing one of the survivors and saying he would kill another one every day that they keep Claire from him?



The best I can come up with is that he was acting on his own. He is, after all, a doctor and as we have seen he was working closely with Juliette on the pregnant women on the island problem. He was working under the theory of the greater good. He saw a chance to research his line of specialty and nothing was going to stop him. Was he told to kill anyone? It's possible and if he was, he was probably told this by Ben. We have seen that Ben does not have a problem with crossing the line and actually committing murder to get what he wants or what he thinks the island needs or even Jacob for that matter. In the past we have seen Ben give the orders that if anyone was to get in the way of The Others that they were to kill them, so the good guy bad guy line is at best murky but it is there. In his eyes he is one of the good guys. To us, maybe not so much. Keep in mind I am not saying he is a hero but he does think that he is a good guy. Sawyer and Jack and even Kate are heroes but then again they are not necessarily one of the good guys. How’s that for an ironic twist? For all of their heroic actions, all it has allowed is for Widmore (who we are to assume is one of the bad guys) to get closer and closer to the island that may or may not want him back.



Anyway, back to the episode; Charlie has shot a gun in the past, or it would seem so, just like he always knew how to swim. Everyone was a little upset with Charlie for killing Ethan, thus ruining their chance of getting information out of him. Ethan, like a good Other should, would probably not have been a fountain of information anyway. Oddly enough, if the island really needed Ethan, why did it allow Charlie to kill him? How’s this for a theory: could, in another version of the island adventure, Ethan have actually lived and it was Ethan that was held captive by the survivors and not Ben. That would have ended up changing what was to happen in season two and onward. Maybe this is the first version of the show we will see and ABC has a way of recycling the series with another group of survivors, different directors, writers, and producers as well, and they could call it LOST AGAIN and in this series many of the decisions and actions would be different. Therefore allowing us to see what the answer to some of the “What if…?” questions we, as viewers, always seem to have an endless supply of.



The only thing to come out of this episodes flashbacks is we see that Charlie was told by Lucy that he will never take care of anyone. This is juxtaposed on island with him taking care of Claire. Also in the flashback, did you notice that the copier he was trying to sell was a C815 model?



OUTLAWS

Sawyer is the second person to hear the whispers. We also hear about the Tampa Job. I wonder if the producers have it scheduled to show us what that was about? One thing I do know, I want to play a game of “I never”. When Sawyer does hear the whispers one line stands out and it is the voice of Frank Duckett saying “It’ll come back around.”. Which we also hear him say to Sawyer in the flashback. We also hear that Sawyer’s real first name is James.



Sawyer meets Christian in an Australian bar after he chickens out of killing Duckett the first time at the Shrimp Shack. As the two drink, Christian tells Sawyer about his son back in the states. We hear Christian speak his tell tale line of identification that would prove important in Sawyer realizing that Jack is Christians son when Jack says the same line: “That’s why the Sox will never win the series.”. Sawyer puts two and two together but holds the information from Jack.



After a little prodding from Christian and some good old fashioned liquid courage, Sayer ends up killing Duckett in cold blood. As he reads the letter to Duckett, Sawyer realizes that he has been conned by Hibbs into killing Duckett for him. A man Hibbs owed a hefty debt to apparently. In comparison, Sawyer was able to kill Duckett but was not able to kill the boar that had been harassing him the past few days on the island. Killing the wrong man made Sawyer realize that no amount of revenge was going to allow Sawyer to escape his past. This is what made Sawyer able to allow the boar to live.



Again, thanks to some folks with superior audio equipment here is a transcript of what Sawyer hears on the two occasions that the whispers are heard in this episode:



First male voice: "How could you say that, I knew he was American"
Second Male voice: "Hey listen, come on let’s go"
First: "Go and see what he's doing"
Second: "Duetch negg or Joice leg" (perhaps another language or reversed)
First: "Like it's your choice"
Second: "He's coming up on the gate"
First: "My guess is to shoot the pig" or "Guess he'll shoot the pig"
First: "Yes"
Second: "My [hand/head] is free"
Female Voice: "Maybe we should just talk to him"
First: "No if he see us it will ruin everything"
Second: "What did he see"
Female Voice: "They could help us"
First: "Can't trust"
Second: "Come back around"
(Sawyer pauses, crickets chirping and cicada are heard)
First: "What did he see"
Second: "Nothing, he was following it"
Female Voice: "Speak"
First: "Nothing"
Frank Duckett's Voice- "It'll come back around”



The second time Sawyer hears the whispers he is on the beach. This is the only instance of someone hearing the whispers on the beach. This time the whispers are broken up into three different tacks. There is a left, center, and right track. You can isolate each track if you have the proper equipment. Here are the three tracks used:



Left Track:
Male voice #1: "There goes another poking his head in here" or "There goes somebody"
Male voice #2: "Yeah, let's see what he's doing"
#1: "Let's"
#2: "Let me decide"
#1: "Come back"
#2: "Wait"
#1: "I see another one"
Frank Duckett’s Voice: "It'll come back around"



Center Track:
Voice #1: “Oh my god there's a guy out there"
Voice #2:"Dennis find out what's going on"
#1: "Did he see us?"
#2: "Maybe"
#1: "Open it"
#2: "Did you see what direction he went?"
#1: "Right through those trees"
#2: "Go and get him"
#1: "There is [an explanation/a resolution] and I bet you haven't thought of it"
#2: "What is it?"
#1: "He's been in a plane crash"
#2: "Are you sure?"
#1: "I know what it's like for a plane to crash"
#2: "Complain, complain, complain"
#1: "I want to get closer"
#2: "I know what you said, but he's looking around"
#1: "What if he shoots us or something"



And the right track:
Voice #1: "There may be something, but it may be slack"
Voice #2: "Let's go"
#1: "Has he seen us?"
(Alarms go off)
#2: "I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry"
Possible alarm voice: "Intruder, Intruder"
#1: "Hide against the bushes"
#2: "Open the door"
#1: "I know what it's like for a plane to crash"
#2: "Complain, complain, complain"
#1: "I know what you said, but..."



Make of them what you will.

Guess what? I just shot a bear!

HEARTS AND MINDS

We get to see what an odd and disturbing relationship Boone and Shannon had. Let's see - they had sex and they are brother and sister. Thankfully it was of the "step" kind.



We get to see a little more of the hatch as well. That's all the further they got in a week? What's up wid dat?

Hurley has a case of the brown apple splatters as he searches for the best leaves. Great scene.

Kate and Sun have stopped holding out hope for a rescue as they have started a garden. Some of them they plant from seed! Gonna be there a while maybe?



Shannon likes the rough stuff and has the bruises to prove it. Maybe Sayid and she would have made a great couple.

Locke whacks Boone over the head and ties him up because Boone wanted to tell Shannon about the hatch. Locke puts goop on Boone's head and throws a knife at his crotch.



There's Sawyer in Boone's flashback. Probably the coolest part of the flashback for this episode. Except the dirty family sex part.

The Locke and Sayid scene was a really nice Locke scene. "I was a Webelos.", Locke tells Sayid. Anyone having a problem remembering Locke as a "good guy" or at least a more likable character should go back and watch this episode just for that scene.



Boone is having a crazy jungle goop induced spacey trip. The island is communicating with Boone with Locke's help. Locke calls it a "vision quest".

Sayid and Jack figure out the island is goofy with compass points and magnetism. Or the compass is broke. Nope boys, the compass is fine. The island is f'ed.



The Jin/Hurley scenes are hilarious. In fact in an episode that is Boone/Shannon centric everybody elses scenes are so much better. They were the first Nikki and Paolo.

Charlie makes a statement that Locke is the one person he would put his faith in to get them all off the island. Isn't that some ironic foreshadowing.

You know what, the Boone/Shannon sex scene is disturbing no matter what. Even if they are step siblings. I wonder when there was a bigger feeling of disappointment for the viewers; when we thought Shannon was dead, or when it was shown to have all been a hallucination? It was actually a warning from the island. On a side note, the writers pointed out on the commentary for this episode on the DVDs that they wanted Locke to not be too good or too bad. They wanted him to flip flop back and forth. They wanted viewers to split down the middle between loving him and hating him. This points to the idea of duality and the "Bad Twin" theory.




The term "Hearts and Minds" is taken from the strategy used by the US Military to get the popular favor or approval (win the "hearts and minds") of the Vietnamese people during the Vietnam War. It has become a popular term today denoting the way a society can use its military and public relations skills to conquer a country, not necessarily through brute force but through winning the "hearts and minds" of the people. The term also holds connotations with propaganda and propaganda's fictitious nature. Taken into context with this episode, Shannon conquered Boone not through the use of force but through the use of Hearts and Minds. She controls the relationship as the conqueror, and Boone fell for her "Hearts and Minds" ruses. Another way the title works is that Boone was in a way conquered by Locke. Certainly not the same way Boone was conquered by Shannon, but Locke manages to win Boone's allegiance by giving him a "vision" that allows him to let Shannon go. The "vision" itself is a ruse, thus playing into the "propaganda" nature of Hearts and Minds, but it also wins Locke the loyalty of Boone (just as Hearts and Minds tactics were designed to do). Through juxtapositions we see just how much of a smacked ass Boone really was and we see why his fate ended up being what it was. Boone tried to persuade both Bryan and Sayid to back off of his sister. Both times he failed. Boone's attempts to rescue Shannon (from Bryan and the Monster) both also ended in failure: Shannon took his money, and then Shannon "died". Boone's past attempt at rescuing Shannon only got himself more deeply in love with her; his vision quest on the Island helped him let her go as Locke told him a few times that Boone had to learn to do.



SPECIAL

Locke says that he knows Walt is "special" and he needs to realize his potential.

We first hear about the raft in this episode.



The island intervenes again and Michael is hit by a car causing him to not go to Amsterdam after Walt.



During Walt's flashback we see what kind of "special" Walt is when he is able to "call" (I guess that's what he does) a bird and it crashes into the window. It happens when he is mad at his Mother and her boyfriend or husband (Brian). We see that he was just reading about birds in his school book and as the camera pulls away we see a picture of the same bird in the book that is dead outside of the window. Later on after Walt's mother dies, we see that neither Michael nor Brian want Walt. Each for different reasons because I don't think Michael knew about Walt being different and he may have never truly known. Brian says that Walt is "different, somehow" and that when Walt is around "stuff happens". I guess that's as good of a description as any.



Back on the island we see that Walt has once again used his "special" powers that make him "different" and has now called a polar bear. Similar to the one in the comic book that Michael throws into the fire. Here is where some speculation comes into play. It would seem that Walt can only call the bird and the polar bear but not control their actions.



Did the island make Walt's mother sick and die to get Walt and Michael together so they too could be on flight 815? Just how powerful and all consuming is the islands influence. Looks like it's huge.



Just before Locke and Boone find Claire in the jungle Charlie reads in Claire's journal that she had been having dreams about the Black Rock. How and Why?

Impact velocity physics my ass!

ALL THE BEST COWBOYS HAVE DADDY ISSUES

Locke and Jack should have taken a tip from this episode and continued to work well together for the remainder of the show. Of course if that happened then there wouldn’t have been a show now would there? They quickly figure out the situation that Ethan has dragged off Charlie and Claire. When Locke and Jack realize Ethan has taken them, Jack asks "How can one man drag off two people?" whereas Locke asks "Not how, why?". Science answers how - the way in which - something happened; faith answers why - the reason for which - something happened. This reflects the contrast between Jack and Locke as a man of science and a man of faith, respectively.



We have another Jack back and we see that he has a problem with letting go and giving up. Jack is trying to do the honorable thing to a fault. Sometimes people just die and Jack can’t come to terms with that. The writers continued to peel back the layers of the onion as we see what the rift was between Jack and his father that Jack’s mother blamed him for in White Rabbit. Paralleled on the island we have another father/son issue between Michael and Walt. The son on the island, Walt, just like the son in the flashback Jack, lays it all out on the table. Walt about his relationship to Locke and Jack about what really happened in the operating room.



Boone talks about the “red shirts” on Star Trek. Locke replies; “I would call that a piss poor captain.“ In Star Trek the Next Generation, Terry O’Quinn plays a Star Fleet Admiral who, as a captain, suffered mutiny due to his poor leadership skills. Locke tells Boone he used to work for a box company. Wonder if they made any “magic” boxes? Locke then pulls a “John Bolaris” and predicts the coming rain storm.



So we see a line drawn in the sand when it come to exactly who Jack will lie for and who he won’t. We know Jack lies for Kate when he testifies at her trial but he won’t lie for his father to the board of directors in this episode. Taking this point even further he also lies for Locke and the rest of the people on the island when he makes up the fake rescue story. Seems Christian is pretty low on the list of people Jack would lie for. Christian is the first person we hear mention the “greater good” theory in the show. Seems he makes a better ghost than he did a father.

Sawyer calls Walt "Tattoo", after the dwarfed character on the television series Fantasy Island. Tattoo was the assistant of Mr. Roarke, who ran a magical resort on a mysterious island. Sawyer and Sayid sort of kiss and make up after Sayid tells Sawyer about the French woman. Instead of getting revenge on Sayid, Sawyer tells him that while he was gone he kept Sayid’s signal fire going. Hey, that’s as close to “kissing and making up” as these two are probably going to get so don’t harass me pal!



Hurley foreshadows his back story a little bit when he tells Walt that he will get the twenty thousand dollars he lost to Walt on the backgammon game. Walt is the luckiest person on the island, even more than Hurley and we know he’s fairly lucky even though you wouldn’t know it to ask Hurley.

Jack hears Claire scream but Kate doesn’t. Is it because Jack has a connection to Claire because it seemed that Kate should have been able to hear the scream as well. Either way it leads Jack straight into an ass whooping courtesy of Ethan. Listen to what Jack says to Kate very closely afterwards; “I’m not going to let him do this again.”. Let who do what again? Was Jack talking about Ethan or Christian? It’s hard to tell. As Kate and Jack fumble their way through the jungle they discover the Charlie piñata that Ethan has left behind for them. Jack refuses to give up on Charlie in a move that is juxtaposed with his not giving up in the beginning of the flashbacks. Jack is able to save Charlie’s life however, unlike in the woman in the flashback. See I can praise Jack for something sometime, especially if he is saving lives, because he certainly saved Charlie’s. Right? See, now that I know as much as I do, I’m guessing he just might not have. This is another version of Charlie and he did die but the island, with it’s ability to resurrect when it wants or needs to, knew it needed Charlie later down the line. What do you know, this version of Charlie it resurrected can even swim. Now why do you suppose he would need to be able to do that? Charlie doesn’t remember anything (which fits in with my theory that they have all done this before, we now have a pattern of dying, being resurrected, and not having any memory of it) but he does say “All they were after was Claire.”. What or who did he see? We never found out.



Locke says he feels “it” and Boone and he find the hatch. The first DHARMA station in now in play.

The title of the episode may take it’s name from an album by Pete Townsend titled All The Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. Specifically, this is a reference to a story inside the album jacket which tells a tale of leadership and sacrifice in a crisis. "A natural leader emerged...the most remarkable thing about him was his eyes...Somehow they arrived alive. Somehow they found the broken bottle trail without help. All stars, great and small, shine under God...All the best cowboys have Chinese eyes."



WHATEVER THE CASE MAY BE

Kate and Sawyer look so damn sexy swimming in the “blue lagoon” island style. This was just some eye candy as it gave Sawyer a chance to take his shirt off and Kate stripped down to her underoos, but who really cares about her. It almost looked like a little slice of paradise. If you don’t count all the bloated dead bodies underneath the water. There’s also the Halliburton, hence the title of the episode.



OK, I’m asking it right now, was Boone gay or at least bisexual? During the first season we hear Shannon mention to Boone several times about someone being his boyfriend. This episode she asks if Locke is Boone's new boyfriend. Maybe Tom Friendly wasn’t the first alternative lifestyle-er on the show.

Sawyer tells Michael he had better start making a runway and then later Sawyer ends up working on what Juliette tells him is a runway. Somewhere there is an island spirit laughing it’s ass off at Sawyer.



While getting the key from the Marshall’s grave Kate makes it obvious that she still doesn’t trust Jack when she tries to palm the key. Good job by Jack seeing Kate slip the key but he didn’t feel her take the radio from his back pocket this past season? What the hell Jack, I mean really? Oh and did you notice Kate had safe deposit number 815? Now how is that for a coincidence? Or not. Kate deceived Jason in order to get the plane, just as she attempted to deceive both Jack and Sawyer for the same reason. While Kate simply used Jason to get the plane back (as witnessed by her nonchalant "My name's not Maggie."), she truly does care for Jack, as her revelation to him ("It belonged to the man I killed!") is obviously something that is much more important for her. A metaphorical parallel is found here: Kate reveals her identity to Jason to be false, but shows her true self to Jack. Holy crap did I just say “metaphoric parallel"? Real-time events are spent trying to open the case, while flashback events detail Kate trying to get to the safe-deposit box, both of which happen to hold the same object. Kate opening up to Jack in the end of the episode also parallels them opening the case. I can say without a shadow of a doubt we can give Kate the award for worst flashbacks of the entire series. I just think her back story is so blah that we are going to get a real kick in the teeth one of these days. Now the only question remains is who exactly gave her the other key that she needed to get the box open at the bank?




Now let’s talk about the song that Shannon discovers to be a part of Danielle’s maps and notations. Shannon says that they are lyrics from a song that she remembers hearing on a movie she used to watch with the child she was a nanny for back in France over and over again. The song is La Mer written by Charles Trenent, first recorded in the 1940’s. The song Beyond The Sea by Bobby Darin and sung by Robbie Williams is the ending theme song to Disney’s Finding Nemo. The movie was released in France in May of 2004 which is actually four months prior to when their plane is supposed to have crashed. Little slip up there by the writers. But anyway, in the movie a father fish looks for his missing son and goes to drastic measures to find him. Sound familiar? Nemo is also a reference to Captain Nemo who is the legendary character in Jules Verne’s The Mysterious Island and 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. The Mysterious Island is about a group of castaways who use their survivalist skills to build a functional community on an uncharted island that holds many secrets. Full circle baby!

Frisbeetarianism is the belief that when you die, your soul goes up on the roof and gets stuck.

Goodbye funnyman. Rest in Peace knowing you fought the good fight. He made me laugh and even more he made me think. He was the first stand up comedian whose material I absolutely fell in love. When I was growing up there were three names in stand up comedy Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, and George Carlin that were my "must listens". Now, two of them are gone. Like my friend Cerpts, who has an excellent tribute to George on his blog here http://landofcerptsandhoney.blogspot.com/
I stood in line with him to see George several years ago and to get his autograph. We won't discuss where that book is now, some of you know and that's good enough. The day was hot and the line was long but he didn't rush us through and he made sure to speak to everyone coming through the line. Yes, my friend Cerpts even made him laugh. Not many people can say that. He was more than just seven words and he'd probably tell me to go f myself with this tribute but hey, he's got a year and then I'm taking his ass out of my Rolodex! Hopefully he's somewhere smoking a joint with Richard, Sam, and Lenny right now. Or an even funnier picture - teaching Jesus the artificial fart under the arm trick. Now that would be funny!

"I was fresh out of pies to throw at you."

SOLITARY

You want to talk about a long con, well we have one when Sayid finds the cable on the beach that would be a long two seasons before it came back into play.



In a case of blatant irony, Jack tells Kate that Sayid will be able to take care of himself because of his training in the military. The very next scene we see Sayid get caught in a fairly rudimentary trap set by Rousseau. As much as I talk about characters eyes I want to mention that Sayid has some of the most soulful eyes on the show. Very sad and full of pain. The voices we hear when Sayid is waking up are very odd. Some are clearly not Danielle’s voice (although the writers claim that they are) and some are not in English. The torture that Sayid receives is paralleled by the torture he dishes out in the flashbacks.



In this episode we meet Ethan Rom for the first time. He was hanging out with Locke an awful lot. Was he told by Ben to begin grooming Locke this early on?



Rousseau tells Sayid about “the others” and is then surprised to find out that it has been sixteen years since she first made the distress call. So much to speculate about but perhaps the islands movement that we know is different than the "real" world. This was observed by Faraday this past season and we saw solid evidence of the fact when the doctor on the freighter washed up on shore before he was even killed and thrown overboard. We have different evidence of this when Richard Alpert tells Juliette (at Mittelos Bioscience) that the x rays she was looking at, even though appearing to belong to a seventy year old woman, was in fact the x rays of a twenty something. So what I am doing a horrible job of trying to point out is; perhaps it was sixteen years time but was not sixteen years island time. Got that? So when Danielle says it doesn’t seem to have been that long it really wasn’t. When Sayid tells Danielle he was a soldier she tells him that he still is. That was some foreshadowing as well as we have seen what Sayid does on the island and then further on in the story when he is recruited by Ben.



Hurley makes a golf course! He rocks but who is the d-bag that shows up later with the rash the size of a grapefruit?

When Danielle tells the story of how she ended up on the island I can’t help but compare the story to the Black Rock. Both ships somehow crashed onto (or into) the island. Could they be the same boats? Is Danielle an original member of the Black Rock crew? Was the island moved before and that explains how they seemed to crash into an island that one minute is not there and the next minute appears out of nowhere? Some other things Danielle tells Sayid about are the whispers and she also corrects Sayid when she tells him there are no such things as monsters. For as long as she has been on the island why was she not asked more about the island and Smokey and a laundry list of other things when they all had the chance? You just know she knows more that she is telling. What is the sickness she talks about? Is it related to what we saw happen to Desmond and Minkowski? Is it the same thing that the hatch was “quarantined” from? This episodes flashbacks were fairly straight forward. We found out a little about Sayid’s military past, as well as the Nadia story. The important parts all happened on the island though.




On a side note, David Fury, who wrote this episode, originally had a part of a scene written between Danielle and Sayid that was cut by the executives of ABC. The scene is during the parts when Danielle tells Sayid about her research team. Sayid asks her what her team was researching. She answers him with one word: “Time“. ABC did not want anything included in the first season that would even hint at a science fiction theme for the show and it was therefor removed.

When Sawyer shows up at the golf course it seems that Jack was happy to see him. Some of the rest of the survivors were happy to see him as well. Sawyer finally begins to try and fit in and become accepted into this dysfunctional family.

The scenes between Locke and Walt are always important as I have learned the past two seasons so it was good to go back and see some of their earliest interactions.



In an episode that showed us Sayid working on his own, the title Solitary refers to Rousseau as much as it does Sayid. She has "played" that game for sixteen years and when Sayid asks her to go back with him, she chooses to continue on her own. Sayid, along with every viewer of the show, hear the whispers for the first time. Thanks to some folks with exceptional audio capabilities, here is a transcript of the whispers that Sayid hears:

Male Voice- "Just let him get out of here"
Male Voice- "He's seen too much already"
Male Voice- "What if he tells?"
Female Voice - "Could just speak to him"
Male Voice- "No"



RAISED BY ANOTHER

Claire’s odd dream contained a few interesting pieces: Locke’s eyes are replaced with the black and white stones. Notice that when Locke pulls a card (were they Tarot cards BTW?) it sounds like he is pulling a knife. Locke tells Claire that it was her responsibility but she gave him away and everyone pays the price now. Also in the dream the baby crib has a plane mobile hanging over it similarly like it does later on in the episode Maternity. In the flashbacks there are some discrepancies when Claire and her friend Rachel talk about her mother disowning her if she found out she was pregnant. We later see that Claire’s mother is in a coma when Claire becomes pregnant. Is that what her friend meant that Claire’s mother had already practically disowned her? Seems a little shaky to me. Or are they referring to her aunt who is now taking on the part of mother to Claire? I wonder if we will ever see exactly what the psychic saw when Claire asked for a reading that made him freak out so bad.



Hurley comes up with the idea of getting information on everyone which leads to the manifest and finally leads to them finding out about Ethan not being on the plane. Will we ever find out how Hugo got the nickname Hurley? Does it have something to do with vomiting or “hurling“? When Hurley interviews Locke we find out a good bit in just a few words. “I was looking for something.”, Locke says and after Hurley asks him if he found it he says: “No, it found me.”. This points to Locke knowing about the island and his destiny to be there.



Richard Malkin gives Claire the warning that she must be the one to raise the baby that the title of the episode infers. Raised By Another can also be thought of as Raised By An Other if you think about it. Was it the islands influence that cause not one, not two, but three pens to not write leaving Claire ample time to change her mind about giving the baby away? Malkin comes up with a plan that causes Claire to make a trip to L.A in order to give the baby to a couple waiting there. Charlie thinks outside the box and says that maybe crashing on the island was part of the plan and Claire says that there never was a couple waiting in L.A. for her. Are they right? Did Malkin see the plane crash? He was adamant that she be on flight 815, so if he did see the crash, did he also see Aaron later ending up with Kate off the island? And if so then that must mean he was OK with this. We can only wait to find out.




The episode ends with Hurley telling Jack about Ethan as we see Claire and Charlie meeting up with him in the jungle. Hello Others!