Lost: Raised by Another Rewatch

April 16, 2023 12:06 PM - Season 1, Episode 10

Claire has nightmares; Hurley makes an unsettling discovery.

S1E10: Raised by Another (Lostpedia | transcript): air date 1st December 2004 • writer Lynne E. Litt • director Marita Grabiak • days 15-16 on the island • Claire flashbacks

An eye opens • everyone pays the price now • white eye black eye • a hell of a nightmare • Thomas is the worst • I could be your friend • so when did you find out? • needle-stab nightmare • who the hell are Scott and Steve? • Thomas is DEFINITELY THE WORST • it’s not all in her head • ETHAN ROM • blurry’s bad • there is no happy life, not for this child, not without you • you mustn't allow another to raise your baby • your own little Patriot Act • so not moving to the rape caves • Sawyer’s daisy sunglasses • you sure know how to butter a man up, Stay Puft • you don’t like me, Charlie, you just want to rescue me • catch a falling star • maybe he knew • you’re quite welcome • Sayid returns • one of them isn’t in the manifest * CREEPY ETHAN STARE

Whitney Pastorek, Entertainment Weekly: ''Lost'': The fetus of doom

First let’s talk about Claire’s initial nightmare and the continuing function of Locke as this freaky shaman know-it-all who’s putting things in motion and curing people of drug habits and apparently now spending time showing up in dreams. In Claire’s terrorfest, he’s sitting at a table playing with cards — one of the cards having a cool and wildly symbolic knife-unsheathing sound effect to it — and telling her that the baby was her responsibility and ”everyone pays the price now,” which doesn’t really make any sense at that point in the show, but what’s awesome are his eyes, one black and one white, a nice parallel to the backgammon game and the pouch of stones Jack found on the two corpses they called Adam and Eve and . . . oh man, there’s so much. The black and white thing has a significance. The beach vs. the caves thing has a significance. There is a significance, frankly, to a lot of this stuff but I have no idea what it is yet. The most obvious thing is a fight between good and evil, but then I feel like I’d have to start talking about a certain Stephen King novel whose initials are The Stand, ya know? And also if it comes down to a simple fight between good and evil, this show will turn out to be Not a Good Show, in my opinion.

Ryan McGee, Zap2It: 'Lost': Raised by Another

The reveal of Ethan Rom, and the subsequent events that transpire in the episodes to come, really gave the show a true antagonist for the first time. With the monster largely unseen in recent weeks, and survival more and more likely through hunting and water supply, the show turned the show sharply in introducing an on-Island, human threat for our survivors. On top of that, we finally learned that events on the Island may have been set in motion long before anyone boarded Oceanic 815. A stellar episode, a Top 5 of Season 1 installment, and a remarkable primer for events that finally transpired years later.

Myles McNutt, AV Club: Lost (Classic): “Solitary”/“Raised By Another”

I feel pretty confident saying that these two episodes are the ones that pushed the show firmly into theory territory, expanding well beyond the mysteries set up in the pilot and doubling down on the ones established there. It not only introduces the idea of there being other people on the island, but it even shows us one of them, stealthily introduced in the previous episode. It continues to build the mystical qualities of the island while pushing them into the flashbacks, raising the stakes for when we visit the pasts of other characters in the same fashion. Nearing the midpoint of the first season, we’ve reached the point where the stakes of survival have shifted from building a community to protecting one.

Rewatch companion: THE STORM: A Lost Rewatch Podcast - S1, E10: "Raised By Another" with Aimee the Medium

Neil Miller: “I think it’s interesting that Jack is the one who is so sure that something weird isn't happening to Claire. Because we’ve also seen him kind of go through that himself already. We saw him chasing his father through the jungle. So, Jack’s conclusion is that she’s just under a lot of stress, she’s hallucinating. But there has to be some part of Jack, you would think, that is like: wait, but the island is showing us weird stuff; or the island at least showed me some weird stuff. So, it’s more of this, like, Jack not believing what is happening around him in light of — y'know, even with only 10 episodes in — we have pretty significant evidence that the island, or some force on the island, is communicating with people in some way. So it’s interesting. Like how I always read it for Claire was: whether it’s a dream, whether it’s real, it’s this continuation of the island trying to send messages; or the island awakening a power inside of people on the island that allows them to see or anticipate what’s going to happen. Or what could happen.

The show has been telling us for 10 episodes — for the most part of 10 episodes — that there’s some magical power to the island. This is the first episode where I feel like it comes into focus, for me at least, that there’s something special about the people on that—like specifically special about the people on that flight. This episode, I think, starts to really sell the destiny of flight 815. Where it’s like, Claire’s the first person that we are being told by the show had to be on that flight for a specific reason.”

“There was no couple in Los Angeles. He knew. He knew about the plane, what was going to happen. Oh my god, he knew.”

L O S T

posted by We had a deal, Kyle (4 comments total)

Currently streaming in the US on Hulu (subscription) and Freevee (free with ads); in the UK on Disney+; and available for purchase just about everywhere.Next episode will post Wednesday.
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:06 PM on April 16, 2023

and I'll just note two things:

• "Another" in Malkin's warning "you mustn't allow another to raise your baby" can also be parsed as "an Other"...
• Ethan Rom anagrams to Other Man; I assume this is somewhat deliberate given how unusual Rom as a surname is? and given that the show does Easter-egg other anagrams later in the run.

posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 12:09 PM on April 16, 2023

I always feel like Claire suffers greatly from the writers believing that "is pregnant" (and later, "is a mother") is sufficient to define her as a character; like, they never really knew -- or cared -- to give her much more than that?
posted by We had a deal, Kyle at 7:03 PM on April 20, 2023

I'm not sure if the problem with Claire was the weak story or the bad acting. I wanted to give Emilie de Ravin a chance again but it was obvious by ep 3 she's just not into her character. I'll pay attention and see what my revised verdict is this watch through.
posted by fiercekitten at 10:48 PM on April 21, 2023