How Claire almost LOST the baby.

Maternity Leave



Original airdate 03/01/06

This was the episode where Claire finally remembers what happened to her when she went missing all those weeks ago.

OK, so I really enjoyed this episode, but one thing did bug me and I'll get that out of the way first. Unfortunately, that one thing was Claire. She was incredibly shrill and hysterical throughout much of the episode and I wanted to grab her, shake her and tell her to get a freaking grip! Thank you Jesus for the drugged out and blissful Claire we got in her flashbacks because those scenes were a nice counterbalance to her otherwise general state of FREAK OUT.

So, Claire's baby Aaron falls ill in the night, with a fever and a rash. Claire freaks and the first flashback is triggered. Lucky for us, she doesn't flash back to Australia but to scenes from her abduction by Ethan. And we find out a TON of info (well, relatively speaking - just as many questions are raised, too):

• There is another DHARMA hatch with a caduceus symbol (you know, the medical one with the intertwined snakes)
• Ethan was definitely one of the Others and was supposed to have been compiling a 'list' (like Goodwin from the tail section crowd, I suppose) but couldn't finish because he was outed by the flight manifest as not being on the plane. What is this list?
• Claire wasn't dreaming when she said a needle had been injected into her stomach. She was kept in what looked like a hospital room in the Caduceus Hatch, kept on drugs to make her complacent, and Ethan injected something (a vaccine?) into her pregnant belly on a regular basis.
• The Others' plan was to literally take the baby from Claire by cutting it out of her. Why? Why do they want the baby? What were they injecting him with and why? Why why why?
• Rousseau's daughter Alex is alive and living among the Others and it was she who helped Claire escape.
• Rousseau is definitely not an Other and did not attack Claire - in her drugged-out state Claire had clawed at Rousseau's arm while she tried to help her get away. Rousseau ultimately had to bonk Claire over the head and carry her back to camp. Which is as I figured.
• In one of the more gratifying moments for me, Kate finds a false beard, theatrical glue and tattered rags hanging in a locker in the Caduceus Hatch (they hang them up?), which means the whole Hillbilly Zeke thing was indeed an act and not just some really hokey writing. Why they feel the need to disguise themselves as mountain people, however, I do not know.
• We got a good look at Zeke without his hillbilly outfit. When he was talking to Ethan, he mentioned a "him", who it would appear is above Zeke in the Others Pecking Order. Who is this 'him'? Alvar Hanso?

When it comes to this show, getting all that information was like hitting the jackpot.

Although she was on my very last nerve through most of the show, Claire got back in my good graces at the end in the sweet scene with the baby. He is a cutie.

So, Eko is still cutting down trees. For a church, perhaps? He figures out that Jack and Locke have been storing an Other in the vault and asks to speak with him alone. I can only imagine the praying deal-making with God that went on in Henry Gale's head when he saw Eko walk in and shut the door behind him. It turns out, though, that Eko had come to redeem himself by confessing to Henry that he had killed two Others with his bare hands and asking Henry for his forgiveness. He then cuts the two little braids he has hanging off of his beard. This, from what I gather from around the Internets, has something to do with Ezekiel 5:1 - the growing of the beard as an expression of great sorrow and mourning and the cutting of the beard releasing him from the burden of their deaths.

Finally, on the subject of Henry Gale's apparently easy manipulation of Locke at the end. Some have found it implausible and out-of-character that the cool and perceptive Locke we've seen on the island would fall for such an obvious ploy on Henry's part to pit Jack and Locke against each other. But you know what? I think that Locke is very susceptible to that kind of psychological manipulation. He was manipulated right out of a kidney, he was manipulated right out of the guns and he currently spends his days pressing a button every 108 minutes for no reason except that someone said he had to. The man is play-doh.

Oh, and hey Sawyer?



Uncle Junior wants his glasses back!