Raised by Another... Now the most pointless episode.

[greg_achen]

I remember when this episode first aired, it was one of the most popular episodes since Walkabout. Everyone thought this episode would have major repercussions on the plot. During Season 1, Damon and Carlton even said that Aaron would play a crucial role in what was going on in the show. Flash forward to Season 6 and Aaron's only importance was to be a motivating factor to get Kate back on the island? Lame.

But the psychic was a fraud and scam artist, you say! If so, he is the WORST scam artist in the history of scam artists.

The problem with the whole the psychic is a fraud theory is that the psychic originally refused to do Claire's reading and turned her (and her money) away, which doesn’t make any sense if he was a scam artist. How could anyone have predicted that after turning her away, she would come back later at a different date to see him of her own free will? Sure you could say Malkin anticipated her coming back out of morbid curiosity, but it still makes it highly circumstantial.

Not to mention if Claire had agreed to raise the baby herself, per Malkin's original plea, he would never have put her on the plane to begin with! He spent MONTHS trying to convince her to raise the baby herself. If a couple were paying Malkin to get Claire's baby from the get go, initially refusing to do her reading and then later telling her that she had to raise the baby herself might not have been the best approach.

The facts are that Richard Malkin refused any money from Claire, and actually paid her, losing thousands of dollars in the process, just to insure that she raised the baby herself. Malkin had no apparent financial gain in his dealings with Claire.

If Malkin were trying to scam Claire, I really am at a loss of what he was trying to scam her out of since he paid her and she was willing to give the baby up for adoption the whole time.

Even from an episode standpoint Raised by Another is now riddled with inconsistencies. In the season 3 episode Par Avion, Claire's mother was in a coma long before she was pregnant. That means all the dialogue pertaining to telling her mother in that episode is in REALLY bad taste:

CLAIRE: My mom would disown me.

THOMAS: She basically has already.

MALKIN: Ah, so when did you find out?

CLAIRE: What?

MALKIN: About the baby.

CLAIRE: Two days ago.

RACHEL: She hasn't told her mom yet. We're afraid she might -- [Claire shushes her].

Are there any other pointless episodes now that it is all over? It's too bad because Raised by Another really was a great episode back in the day.

[HellWig]

So true. Too bad in Season 1 the writers decided to throw 100 different plotlines at the wall to see what stuck, without planning in advance how to properly follow them up or tie them together. What we were left with was a great setup with a truly lackluster (and jumbled) punchline

[tommytoothpaste]

The longer time goes after the finale, instead of the series being more and more credible I feel that more and more of these huge holes will surface and we will be left with nothing but episodes that now in heinsite, which is normally a wonderful thing, seem trivial and completly pointless.

Very sad.

[08marsh]

I enjoyed the series finale. Did not really like the direction of the overall plot of the show from late season 5. But still i thought the finale was a "nice" ending. But now when i look back on all my favourite episodes and read threads like this i realise i can't look back on my favourite parts of the show in the same light anymore. The more you look back, the more you see how the actual story of the show got "Lost" along the way.

I didn't really expect them to plan things in advance. Part of the writing process is seeing what evolves as you move forward. That worked well for a lot of the best character arcs but when you throw things like Locke in a wheelchair, Walt has powers, Clare's baby must be raised only by her etc, these things i expect planned. At least work out what you're putting into the show and how it will resolve at some point in the future. Really disappointed in Darlton.

When you watch early season episodes they come across as having depth, meaning and shroudng brilliant things in mystery. Then watch something like Across the Sea and you notice how they just cover everything in this "mystery" even when there's nothing below the surface. So, now watching the early seasons is painful because the "mystery" is gone. Not because they answered anything but because they unintentionally proved there's nothing there at all.

[bumpygrimes]

Originally Posted by greg_achen

Are there any other pointless episodes now that it is all over? It's too bad because Raised by Another really was a great episode back in the day.

"Raised by Another" is still a great episode. One of the best in the show's history. Sometimes I like to pretend that Lost ended after Season 1.

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Originally Posted by 08marsh

So, now watching the early seasons is painful because the "mystery" is gone. Not because they answered anything but because they unintentionally proved there's nothing there at all.

That's not fair to the brilliant Season 1 episodes to pollute them with thoughts of how convoluted the show got in later seasons. Right now, I'm re-watching Season 1 with a clear mind, as if watching it for the first time. It's much better that way.

[bousha1]

hmmm, Malkin got Claire on a plane to go to the island, to meet Charlie and the other losties. I think that's far from pointless. Aaron was the sole catalyst for Kate returning to the island to fufill the collective destiny she shared with these people, which makes him at least a littlle bit important. And the bit about great danger surrounding him, both on island and as one of the O6, others were constantly trying to snatch him, so it, at the very least, wasn't an absolutely out there story line that never bore fruit. It's over now, so we are free to come up with our own Aaron and Jeon epilogue. D&C left that open ended for us. What a nice gift!

[workingmom]

Originally Posted by bousha1

hmmm, Malkin got Claire on a plane to go to the island, to meet Charlie and the other losties. I think that's far from pointless. Aaron was the sole catalyst for Kate returning to the island to fufill the collective destiny she shared with these people, which makes him at least a littlle bit important. And the bit about great danger surrounding him, both on island and as one of the O6, others were constantly trying to snatch him, so it, at the very least, wasn't an absolutely out there story line that never bore fruit. It's over now, so we are free to come up with our own Aaron and Jeon epilogue. D&C left that open ended for us. What a nice gift!

You could take this a couple steps further and lead to Kate killing MIB, the embodiment of evil that must be kept away from the rest of the world. It's not saying that Malkin saw all those events unfold, but he may have sensed the danger and conveyed the need to keep Claire united with her baby.

[NegativeZero]

Originally Posted by bousha1

hmmm, Malkin got Claire on a plane to go to the island, to meet Charlie and the other losties. I think that's far from pointless. Aaron was the sole catalyst for Kate returning to the island to fufill the collective destiny she shared with these people, which makes him at least a littlle bit important. And the bit about great danger surrounding him, both on island and as one of the O6, others were constantly trying to snatch him, so it, at the very least, wasn't an absolutely out there story line that never bore fruit. It's over now, so we are free to come up with our own Aaron and Jeon epilogue. D&C left that open ended for us. What a nice gift!

Agreed. Don't forget that while waiting for Jack to come and deliver Claire's baby, she tells Charlie the story of Malkin and concludes that he didn't know what he was talking about-- until Charlie tells her that he thinks that Malkin knew exactly what he was doing by getting her on that plane. For whatever reason, Malkin knew how important it was for Claire to be on the plane. He also knew how easy it was for her to give her baby up for adoption in Austrailia. So after many months of convincing her to keep it-- and realizing she wasn't going to-- he concocted the story about the couple in LA.

If it wasn't important for Claire to be on the island, then she wouldn't have had trouble signing the adoption papers in Australia. Two pens failed while trying to sign the contract.

Regardless of why it was important for her to be there with Aaron, it was important to the story for the reasons you stated. Good post.

[planetsong]

Also, because Claire went to the island, and Kate witnessed Aaron's birth, when Claire went missing, Kate became "mother" to Aaron, which caused Jacob to cross her off the candidate list, which caused the MIB to underestimate her.

[bumpygrimes]

Originally Posted by bousha1

D&C left that open ended for us. What a nice gift!

It would be like receiving an empty box on your birthday. When you ask, "Where's the gift? Why is it empty?" the giver replies, "Instead of buying you a real present, I got you this. It's an open-ended gift! Use your imagination, and make it any gift you want!"

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Originally Posted by workingmom

You could take this a couple steps further and lead to Kate killing MIB, the embodiment of evil that must be kept away from the rest of the world. It's not saying that Malkin saw all those events unfold, but he may have sensed the danger and conveyed the need to keep Claire united with her baby.

Darlton said in an interview that the official explanation is the psychic was a fake. So, according to the showrunners, Malkin never saw anything because he was a fraud. As we all know, that's a lame and nonsensical explanation, but it's the official one.