When it comes to Lost, there are
many hills I am willing to die on. I’ll defend how much of the mysteries ending
up being resolved, how even however you view the ending it was still a great
series, that despite how messed up mythology series are in general, it still
deserves to be considered one of the greatest shows of all time. But on some
aspects, I am far more willing to be moved because I am aware of the series’
flaws. And perhaps one of the most telling ones becomes crystal clear the more
often you watch it: that while most of the characters were brilliantly and
fully developed, the female characters were always more short changed than the
male ones. And by far the most obvious one of these is the character of Claire.
In part, this may be because in the first
season the writers were never entirely certain how much they were going to use
her after the Pilot: alone among the series regulars Emilie De Ravin’s name is
left of the cast roster for nearly half the season, even before the conclusion
of this episode. But even if you allow for that problem the fact remains that
Claire’s character by far got shortchanged the most of all the characters in
the first season and well past that. She received the fewest flashbacks of any
character who made it to the third season, and after that never received an
episode that was centered on her alone. In the back half of the series, she
will essentially become increasingly neglected and end up disappearing for the
entire fifth season, and when she does return in the final season there is
almost no explanation given to where she has been and even then she is utilized
almost entirely in regards to other characters who by this point are more
important to the series beyond their connections to her. (Fans know what they
are by this point, but for the purpose of the rewatch I will save the spoilers
until they come due.)
And more frustratingly almost all the
time we do see on the screen, it is because of her pregnancy and later her
child. This itself ends up being a major flaw which in hindsight becomes
excruciating from this episode on. From the moment Claire visits the psychic,
it appears that the child Claire will give birth too is somehow very important
and that she was put on this plane for the sole purpose of ending up on the
island so he could be raised here. The idea of this storyline will be explored
to an extent in the next two seasons, so it does seem like the writers were
taking it seriously. But in the second half of the series, Claire’s child is
irrelevant to the island storyline and in the final season doesn’t even
appear at all. (I realize these are spoilers but for the sake of
this column, I think it is necessary to explain the flaws in the concept.) In
that sense it seems that everything we have seen about Claire’s pregnancy and
child were fundamentally irrelevant to the overarching mystery of the series,
which makes you really wonder what the point was of making it an issue at all.
I will spend a lot of these articles explaining how some of the mysteries that
fans never considered resolved are irrelevant to the enjoyment of Lost as
a whole, but the argument about the storylines that end up derailed potentially
strong character arcs as a result is one that has far more merit.
Which is maddening because you can see
that particularly in episodes like this the character of Claire had so much
potential. De Ravin is a great talent who even in her few moments she’s had to
this point is very good at making the natural goodness of Claire shine through.
By far Claire’s character is the most honest of almost all the ones we shall
meet during the course of the series; she will always tell the truth about what
happened in her life before she ended up on the plane, as she does when she
tells Charlie just how she got her in the first place and realizes that she was
manipulated. (Though I have to say, the character of the psychic is another one
of the more frustrating mysteries that the series never chooses to resolve
either.) Claire was one of the few characters who was truly an open book. Was
that the reason the writers never used her to her potential? Because on a
series where everyone was keeping secrets, being good and pure was a detriment?
And it’s not just the psychic that truly
makes me believe there was more to it than Claire’s presence on the island. The
scene in the attorney’s office when Claire is about to sign the contract and
two different pens have no ink? It’s impossible to believe that wasn’t supposed
to be more than just some sign to Claire; it always seemed like it was an
acknowledgement to the audience that some other force was driving Claire to the
island. The scene didn’t have to be there; we could have just as easily seen
Claire standing outside the lawyer’s office and refuse to go in or getting cold
feet. Why have that scene if it wasn’t supposed to have significance?
That said, we can’t exactly complain that
‘Raised by Another’ doesn’t pay off in other ways. For all the mess that we
will have going forward, the fact that Claire’s due date is becoming closer is
something that the series had to deal with and it is fitting that Jack, as the
island doctor, has to be the one who’s worried about it the most. When Claire
starts having bad dreams (and oddly, the dream she has may actually be
prophetic depending on your interpretation of later events) and then begins to
think she is being attacked, Jack has to act like it’s all in her head and be
the good doctor.
It must also be said that this episode
also demonstrates in addition to being ill-suited leader, his bedside manner
leaves much to be desired. Jack’s approach when dealing with Claire is clumsy
and acts exactly like someone who isn’t taking a mother’s fears into
consideration. I don’t really blame Claire for storming off.
For the second straight episode, we get
another example of how much better suited to the job Hurley would be than he
thinks. He’s the one who has the idea for the census and to try and figure out
who doesn’t belong. This is also the first time he has a direct interaction
with Sawyer, and he does infinitely better than Jack ever has. Sawyer will
deliver heaps of insults on Hurley over the first half of the series but
perhaps because he has spent much of his life dealing with this kind of
cruelty, they tend to roll off his back much easier than they do with anyone
else on the series. It’s also worth noting that almost no one else will do with
Sawyer for a long time, and tell him that to do the right thing is in his best
interest. And it works. Sawyer doesn’t even put up an argument.
Perhaps one of the more significant
stories is the budding relationship between Charlie and Claire. Charlie is clearly
smitten by Claire already but because he does not want to overstep his
boundaries, he is still trying to stay in the friend zone. That said, the two
will always have a far more honest (though complicated) relationship during the
series, and in it Charlie confides his darkest secret (by accident) and a more
honest one (his belief in foresight, though I think his may be more guided by
faith than the paranormal). In that sense, he is the perfect person to help
Claire through her current crisis and a bond between them has fully formed.
Of course, because this is Lost, it
is momentary. In the last minutes, Sayid returns to the caves, driven by pain
and hysteria. Before Jack can do what he normally does and try to belay Sayid’s
concerns, Hurley comes running back to the caves to tell him what he has just
learned: that one of the people claiming to be a survivor was not on the plane.
And in the last moment of the episode, Charlie and Claire come close to the
caves and both come to a horrific realization: Claire now knows who her
attacker was and Charlie has realized he put his trust in the wrong person at a
critical moment. For the first time in the series, it is now clear that for all
the threats that lurk in the jungle, there is also a human element. That threat
will linger over the series until the very end.
I don’t know, and maybe we never will, if
much of Claire’s character was designed for her to be reactive rather than
active. But it will become clear very soon just how vital children are to this
island. If this was the best way to make the threat real, perhaps the writers
made the right choice this time. As we shall see, future decisions regarding
her will not nearly be as well handled.
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