The alternate timeline picks up where it left off in the premiere, with (a very violent) Kate hi-jacking Claire’s taxi. She eventually feels remorse regarding her actions, and finding that Claire was going into labor, drives her to the hospital. While Claire is waiting, a familiar-faced doctor comes in to check on her, Ethan Rom. The parallels between the nice, good-natured Ethan in this “when” with Ethan on the island, kidnapping Claire were great choices by the writers, providing a great mini-twist as well as showing the extreme contrasting nature of both situations.
Ironically, while Claire is having her sonogram, she blurts out of nowhere that she wants to name her baby Aaron. This is an interesting scenario due to the fact that Claire deliberated over baby names on the island for quite some time, while this alt. Claire just blurted it out as if she already knew it, possibly showing that both realities are starting to merge. If so, it would explain other occurrences involving characters recognizing other people and things from their on-island time (i.e. noticing Jack, Charlie “supposed to die, etc.).
Many fans aren’t too keen on Kate-centric episodes, but the Kate-Claire interactions proved to be crucial to the plot off the island and-- I’m sure later in the season—on the island as well. Regardless, the Kate nature of the episode was interesting character-wise, though not in plot advancements.
Back in the Temple, it looks like Sayid is “infected” with something and didn’t pass the Others’ “test”. Though Sayid seems a little off in this episode, he, like Jack said, “isn’t even running a fever.” The way everything is said about the sickness and how everyone reacts, it appears to be the same “infection” that plagued Rousseau’s science team. If we look back to the flash last season to Rousseau’s beach camp, it can be inferred that the sickness has some relation to exposure to the smoke monster. Here’s the weird part though: Sayid never was near the smoke monster, right? He’s been pretty sedentary ever since he was shot last season. It looks like we’ll have to wait until next episode to find out what’s going on though.
In relation to Sayid’s infection, the Others seem to be dodging questions quite seriously. Whether it’s about what’s really going on with Sayid, the Ajira 316 flight, or Rousseau, everything is kept under wraps. Why, though? Because they can? Or do they have a good reason for not sharing their information and giving vague answers about everything? This is the main reason why the episode seems to have failed as a whole. The characters have the same questions we do and they’re not getting answered, just being disregarded. The unnecessary violence of the Others and lack of question answering has gotten many irritated with the Others’ presence as a whole. Until this season, we had a pretty good idea of who they were. Now, they’re back to the ragged clothes and yet another person is claiming to be the “leader”. So how many leaders does that make now? Let’s see: Ben, Richard, Jacob, Locke, Dogan…hmm…four leaders too many?
Though, the episode did have one good thing going for it: for the first time since season 4, Claire showed up on the island in new footage (and actually seen by another character!) But she’s not exactly the innocent-looking Claire we last saw. She looks rather rugged and paranoid kind of like Rousseau when her team was infected. If the excitement is to last by this revelation, Claire’s got some explaining to do about where she’s been and what’s been going on. Maybe a flashback of her disappearance is in store?
Yet, by this unveiling comes another mystery: apparently, Claire was (or is) sick/infected. Clearly, the Temple Others know something about it, so if they choose to start answering some questions, they could have interesting bits of information to share.
From the look of the promo for the next episode, entitled The Substitute, we’re going to get some nice MIB action and island revelations. It’s also going to be interesting to see how everyone else reacts when they realize that “Locke” isn’t Locke anymore. Hopefully the plot next week will be a nice break from the vague nature of the Temple dwelling Others.
Until next time, stay Lost, and Namaste.
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