Lower Decks

After an amazing premiere, we get into the meat of the show’s final season.  I’m sure a lot of people will see this episode as a “filler” episode, but I think the hour does a lot to set up the stage for the show’s final season.  We get to find out what happened to Sayid, what happened to a survivor we haven’t seen in a very long time, and we get another question: what does it mean to be “claimed?”

Claire!  We got a nice little cameo from her in the premiere as she appears in the “alternate timeline” inside the cab that Kate hijacked.  It was really nice to see Emilie de Ravin, who wasn’t seen at all last season – the plot of the show hasn’t really needed her, but I think her character was, along with Hurley, the soul of the show.  Her stories weren’t always important to the plot of the show, but they almost always made you smile (the peanut butter scene, the “we’re friends” scene with Charlie, the “message in a seagull” episode, etc.)

Of course, if Dogen is correct, we might only get to see the sweet, innocent Claire in the alternate universe.

That’s about as good as any transition into the topic of “claiming” as I think we can have.  It’s obviously the most important aspect of the episode, and I think it needs to be discussed. 

So what does it mean to be claimed?  It obviously sounds like it means “possessed” – although there’s certainly a reason why Lennon decided to use the word “claimed” (also, why Dogen didn’t use any English word).  But if that’s the case, who is possessing Sayid?  The smoke monster?  Jacob?  Some other force?

And then there’s the question of who else on the Island has been claimed.  Dogen says that Claire has been claimed, but how would the Others know that?  The last time we saw Claire, she was with Christian in the cabin.  I’ve always had the theory that Claire died in the mercenaries’ attack on Otherville, and this would go hand-in-hand with the idea that Claire is claimed.  Because, putting two and two together, you have to die before you can be claimed.

What about Christian?  Has he been claimed?  We know that Christian died in Australia, but he’s been pretty active on the Island since the plane crash.  Jack was able to find his father’s coffin but never the body – does that mean that Christian was claimed?

Is Locke currently claimed?  It’s doubtful because Locke’s body is still “dead” on the beach by the statue.  Then again, since I don’t really have a definition for what it means to be claimed, it’s hard for me to deny it.

Was Rousseau’s crew claimed?  We know they were attacked by the Monster, and we know they were around the Temple.  Is there a chance that they were claimed, and is that what the mysterious “sickness” was?

And once we figure out who’s claimed, we have to ask the question of why certain others weren’t claimed.  If Dogen is right, Sayid’s body was claimed a short period after his death.  And if that’s the case, why wasn’t Boone’s body claimed?  Or Shannon’s?  Or Ethan?  Or Eko?  Or any of the other people who were killed on the Island?

A lot of questions based on one line, but that was probably the biggest development of the episode – as Dogen tried to get Jack to give Sayid a poisoned pill to kill the Iraqi before he can do any damage.  Jack refuses, and we’ll have to see the consequences next week.

Elsewhere on the Island, Sawyer decides to abandon the Temple, leaving Dogen to request that Kate and Jin (along with two Others) go and get him back.  Sawyer simply wants to be alone, and he winds up at Otherville.  It turns out that he had already found a ring for Juliet, and he was planning on proposing.  Apparently the Ajira flight’s arrival threw everything off – another reason why Sawyer is so upset about the death of his would-be fiancee.  By the end of the episode, Sawyer ends up in a prison of his own making – alone.

Kate and Jin have their own agendas in leaving the Temple.  Kate continues the quest that originally brought her back to the Island – find Claire so she can reunite the mother with her son.  She initially looks for help from Sawyer (who refuses), and it also leaves Kate on her own.

Jin is also looking for someone (Sun), and he actually manages to get recaptured by the two Others (that Kate was able to attack and escape from).  He’s about to get killed by one of them until he’s rescued by Claire.

(Side note – one of the Others was first seen back in season three.  Not only was it a nice easter egg, but Always Sunny fans will recognize him as Rob McElhenny (“Mac”))

It seems that Claire has filled the void left by Rousseau’s death.  They look similar, and they seem to have the same skill in setting up traps.  It also explains why Claire wasn’t seen during season 5 – she found a way to hide during all the time travel stuff.

Speaking of that – I wonder if we’ll ever see Rose and Bernard on the Island again.  I assume so.

In the alternate reality, despite the episode’s title, we mainly get to see what would’ve happened to Claire.  There was some speculation last week that Claire wasn’t going to be pregnant (another change in the timeline), but Claire was definitely with child in the episode.

She tracks down the family that was supposed to adopt her child, but it turns out that the couple has broken up and no longer wants the baby.  The distress sends Claire into premature labor.

I found it interesting that the couple existed – Claire speculated in season one that the couple was fake.  You might remember that a psychic was convinced that Claire had to raise Aaron herself or terrible things would happen.  One day, he changed his tune and found a family to adopt the baby, and he sent Claire on Oceanic 815 to meet them.  Claire speculated that the psychic made it all up,  and that it was all a ploy to get Claire to crash on the Island, forcing her to raise Aaron.

It would’ve been an interesting twist to have the address turn out to be fake, but there’s also a chance the psychic knew that the couple would break up.  Either way, Claire gets convinced to raise the baby herself.

Claire’s labor is interrupted by the swift work of a local doctor – Ethan Goodspeed (you might know him as Ethan Rom).  Ethan, always creepy, seems to be tied with Claire as he helps her through her pregnancy yet again.

And that seems to imply that the Island was “destroyed” or “sunk” at the same time as the bomb going off.  Little baby Ethan would’ve been evacuated with the women and children, and he would’ve, presumably, been raised by his mother off-Island.  And despite the fact that he wasn’t raised by the Others, Ethan still grows up to be a doctor.  Some people are just destined to do what they do, I guess.

And despite the fact that Kate kidnaps Claire at the beginning of the episode, the two form a bond.  I think it’s cool that they’ve been put together, especially considering what effect they had on each other’s lives in the main timeline.

So that’s where we are right now.  Claire and Sayid have been “claimed” – even though we don’t know what that means.  Sawyer and Kate are both alone separate parts of the jungle.  And Jack seems to have befriended the leaders at the Temple.

Next week, we’ll probably rejoin the Locke/Monster storyline as we continue to move towards the finish line.