1.10 Raised by Another
Days 15-16 Claire Littleton

Claire has a horribly realistic nightmare about her new baby being harmed or kidnapped. Flashbacks reveal Claire's backstory: the former boyfriend who got her pregnant, then abandoned her, and the psychic who convinced her to take the ill-fated flight that landed her on the island. Hurley is shocked and confused when he discovers that Ethan Rom (guest-star William Mapother), another plane crash survivor, does not appear on the flight manifest.

Hearing baby cries, Claire wakes up in the night. She gets up and is no longer pregnant. She walkes through the jungle and finds Locke, who tells her that it was her responsibility and she gave him away; now everyone has to pay the price. She hears crying again and sees something moving. She finds a crib and moves the blankets, finding blood. Screaming and crying, she wakes up everyone in the cave. Charlie helps her and tells her she was sleepwalking and that it was just a dream. The next morning, Jack is giving her bandages for her hands, since she dug her nails into her palms during her nightmare. She tells him that it was the first time she has ever sleepwalked. When Jack asks how long she's been pregnant, she flashes back to when she first found out. Although she and Thomas, her boyfriend, are upset, they contemplate keeping the child. Later, Jack talks to Kate on the beach, who says she's worried about Sayid, who still hasn't returned. Jack tells her that Claire will have the baby soon. Meanwhile, after Claire rejects Charlie's offer to become \"friends\", she has another flashback. Claire is going to move into Thomas' loft soon, and Claire and her friend go to a psychic. A few seconds into the reading, the psychic knows that she is pregnant. As the reading continues, the psychic gets a look of terror in his eyes. He gives Claire her money back and refuses to do the reading. That night, everyone is again awakened by Claire's screaming. She tells them all that she was attacked. Michael and Jack stay with her while the others look for her attacker. Jack leaves and catches up with Hurley, who tells him that they don't even know everyone. He even reveals that his real name is Hugo; Hurley is his nickname. Hurley then comes up with the idea of doing a census. When Charlie gives Claire a blanket and tells her not to worry and that he's not going anywhere, she has another flashback. After Thomas arrives at the loft, he tells her that he doesn't want to be a father anymore and then leaves her. As Hurley begins his census, Jack tells Charlie and Kate that he thinks that nobody really attacked Claire, causing Charlie to get mad at him. In the jungle, Hurley finds Ethan and marks him on the census. In the cave, Jack tells Claire that he thinks she just imagined it and tries to give her sleeping pills. She gets upset and leaves the cave. In a flashback, Claire goes back to the psychic. He agrees to do a reading. He knows that Thomas left her and tells her that the reason he stopped the last reading was because he saw something \"blurry\". He continues the reading and tells her that Thomas will have nothing to do with the baby or her and that she needs to raise the baby herself. He says danger surrounds the baby and Claire's goodness must influence the child. She tells him that if she doesn't get back together with Thomas, she will put the baby up for adoption. When the psychic tells her again that she must raise it, she decides to leave. Later, the psychic calls her in the middle of the night trying to tell her about his plan. Charlie manages to catch up with Claire, who is headed for the beach. Meanwhile, Boone tells Hurley that Sawyer has the flight manifest, and Hurley convinces him to give it to him. As Charlie and Claire are talking, she starts having contractions, and Charlie lets slip that he is a drug addict. He then runs to get Jack. Claire has a flashback of her at the adoption agency. When she tries to sign the papers, none of the pens will work. She then decides to not give up the baby and then goes to the psychic to hear his plan. Meanwhile, Charlie finds Ethan and tells him about Claire and to go get Jack. When Charlie goes back to her, Claire's flashback continues as the psychic tells her that he found an agency in Los Angeles that is willing to take the baby. Claire tells Charlie about it and that the psychic was full of it, but Charlie disagrees, saying that the psychic may have known that the crash would happen and she would be forced to keep the baby. Claire then realizes it was all a setup. After the contractions stop, the two head back to the cave. Back in the cave, Sayid arrives and tells them about Rousseau and The Others. Just as Hurley comes to the cave and tells them that one of the survivors wasn't on the plane, Ethan catches up with Claire and Charlie and is staring at her!

Watched this episode last night as well, one of my faves as it introduced Claire's past, and also started the mystery of the Others with Ethan. The way they introduced Ethan was good, watching back it is painfully obvious that he was going to be important, but I can't remember if it was that obvious the first time round. Claire's boyfriend Tom was accused by a few for being a recruiter for the Others. But in the scene when he told Claire he was leaving, he didn't look like he planned it. He had bought some beer and put it in the fridge, if he was told by someone to break it up, he would come prepared..possibly. Hurley was good in the episode, "Who are Scott and Steve?" and the scene when Claire and Tom found out they were expecting was funny. The Psychic Malkin was interesting. He was a fraud, we know that, yet he did seem to actually see something with Claire.

Ok, this theory JUST came to me, like 5minutes ago, while me and LIC were joking over my new member title. I asked if i could have "Raised by an Other", because it reads the same as "Raised by Another" anyway and as a huge fan of Ben's band of merry men and women (and mikhail :P) i thought it would be funny. Anyway it was at that point i had this epiphany: Claires dad was Christian Shephard. Its been LONG theorised that Christian is an Other. What if the title of that episode is (in code almost), supposed to read "Raised by an Other", giving a clue that Claire (whos flashy it is), was raised by an other, ie christian, who was around for the first few years of her life, and at least began her "raising" Ok, its by no means CONCRETE proof, but i really wouldnt put it past the producers to throw a MASSIVE clue out there, but not show us it even was a clue until later. Thats my crackpot theory, and im sticking to it :p

I'm sticking by that crackpot also!

This week's rewatch has me thinking about that darn psychic again.At first he refused to give Claire a reading and gave her back her money. If he was truly a fraud, why didn't he just take her money and give her some line of nonsense?It has been a tradition,among some psychics,not to give people bad news,especially about a death(I saw that in person once,PM me if you're curious).So did Malkin see the plane crash and that's why he refused to give her a reading? If that's the case,then why did he change his mind later?When she returned,he agreed to tell her things, and started on the "don't let this child be raised by anyone else" routine. He then proceeded to harass her for months,not to give the child up for adoption, even calling her in the middle of the night.So then why,why,why, did he insist she get on that flight to give the baby to a couple in LA?Did he want her to die?If he was connected to the Others,and I'm not so sure that I believe that, was this a plot for them to get a healthy baby ? Did Christian put him up to it to get Claire and the baby on U.S soil?So many questions about the psychic. Other oddities from the epi: -The story opens with "the eye" again, this time Claire's. In her nightmare,when she runs into John Locke,he has 2 stones for eyes, one the white stone, and one the black stone.The significance of the stones again, remember the ones that were found with Adam and Eve? -When Hurley was taking his survey,Locke told him he spent most of his life in Tustin,California. Is there any importance to that ? -When Locke was hunting with Ethan at the start of the epi,I wonder if he suspected anything odd about Ethan. Locke's a pretty shrewd character,and you can learn alot about someone when you hunt with him. He said that Ethan was a far superior tracker than he(Locke) was.Was Locke suspicious of Ethan ?

I question the psychic also. When describing Claire’s future he tells her that a part of it is “blurry”. Is this a reference to her time on the Island? Ben stated that “Even God” can’t see the Island so wouldn’t that mean that a psychic can’t see it either? It seems that Malkin saw Aaron’s future more then Claire’s. I would guess that being raised by anOther caused some great future catastrophe. I agree Lou, a fraud would have just taken the money and made up some “vision”. It is funny watching Ethan try to blend in with the Losties now that we know he is an Other. His strangeness is apparent. And why would a doctor have such great tracking skills? I hadn’t considered Locke realizing something was off with Ethan and the possibility that he was keeping him close. I think you are right. Locke didn’t miss much about others on the Island. It was off Island that his people reading skills were inferior.

Looking back post season 3, i've noticed something interesting: Early in the episode, when Tom suggests their "doing this", Claire says her mum would disown her, and Tom replies simply "she bascially already has". What i realised though was: At this point Claire's mum has been in a coma for like...years. She is probably not even aware of Tom, let alone hating him enough to disown her daughter for being with him.... So... Is this really reality we're seeing in the flashbacks? or an alternate reality where her mum is fine (if a little touchy about her choice in men), or is it merely a mistake, suggesting the writers didnt think to look back at what they'd already said when they wrote the "Claire's mum is in the coma" story. Just something interesting to consider.

I think Tom means that the mother, being in a coma and non responsive, in a way has disowned her, rather than a mistake.

When Claire was in her "Goth"phase, right before they were in the accident, apparently they had been arguing,Claire told her mother that she hated her, maybe that was when Mum was disowning her ?