Lost: Season 1 Episode 10 "Raised By Another" Review

"What separates us from these savage Yanks if we can't drink tea?"

-Charlie Pace

The 10th episode of Lost focuses on Claire (Emilie de Ravin) who has a horrifying nightmare about something awful happening to her unborn child and wakes up screaming.  The next night, she is attacked by an unseen figure who tries to inject her with a needle, but she manages to get the attention of the other castaways in the caves.  After a search of the area comes up empty, Hurley (Jorge Garcia) decides to starts a census of the survivors and starts gathering information on all of the other castaways.  Boone (Ian Somerhalder) suggests that Hurley uses the flight manifest that Sawyer (Josh Holloway) has to make his job easier.  Hurley manages to smooth-talk Sawyer into giving him the manifest.

Jack (Matthew Fox) confides in Kate (Evangeline Lilly) and Charlie (Dominic Monaghan) that he doesn't think Claire was actually attacked and that she had dreamt or hallucinated it.  Charlie gets very angry at this suggestion.  Jack tries to get Claire to take a sedative, but she becomes furious that he doesn't believe her.  She packs her stuff and takes off into the jungle back towards the beach.  Charlie follows her trying to get her to come back to the caves, but she starts having contractions and sends Charlie back to get Jack.  He runs into Ethan Rom (William Mapother), the hunting partner of John Locke (Terry O'Quinn), and tells him to go get Jack before rejoining Claire.

While they wait, Claire tells Charlie the story of how she ended up on the island, which is our flashback story.  After discovering she is pregnant, Claire's boyfriend, Thomas (Keir O'Donnell) convinces her to keep it.  After moving in together, Claire goes to see a psychic, Richard Malkin (Nick Jameson), but he quickly refuses the reading and looks terrified about something.  Several months later, Thomas leaves Claire and she goes back to see Malkin.  He tells he that he saw something blurry, which is bad, and says that she must raise the baby herself and gets angry when she says she is planning on giving the baby up for adoption.  He constantly tries to contact her for months.  Eventually, she decides to hear his plan and Malkin buys her a plane ticket to Los Angeles where she can give the baby up to a couple that will protect it.  He is very insistent that she flies on Oceanic flight 815.

Claire realizes that Malkin knew the plane was going to crash and got her on it to ensure that she would raise the baby.  She starts to feel better and heads back towards the caves with Charlie.

Sayid (Naveen Andrews) arrives at the caves in near-hysterics talking about the French-woman and telling Jack, Kate, and Locke they aren't alone.  Hurley arrives and reveals that one of the castaways wasn't in the manifest and wasn't on the plane.

In the jungle, Claire and Charlie are confronted by Ethan who gives them an extremely creepy look.

What Works:

"Raised By Another" is definitely in the conversation for scariest episode of Lost and this is part of the reason I love this episode.  First off, the opening dream-sequence is the stuff of nightmares.  The crying baby, Locke's eyes, the bloody crib, and Claire's screams all compound on one another to give us a bone-chilling start to the episode.  The attack on Claire in the middle of the episode and the implication that Malkin knew about the plane crash are also very frightening and effective scenes.

The best part of the episode is the ending.  I will never forget the first time I watched this episode.  The revelation that one of the survivors wasn't on the plane is one of my all time favorite moments.  And the final scene with Ethan in the jungle gave me nightmares.  I remember barely being able to contain my excitement for the following episode.  It's one of my favorite cliffhangers in a show that is full of excellent ones.

Hurley is purely and simply gold throughout this episode.  Every scene with him is just fantastic.  I love his interactions with Locke, Ethan, Boone, and Shannon (Maggie Grace) as he tries to get their information.  His revelation to Jack that is real name is Hugo Reyes is excellent and his "buttering up" of Sawyer is one of the greatest scenes of the series. 

What Sucks:

My only complaint with this episode is Charlie, even though he does have the best line of the episode (see above).  I found him to be irritating in this episode and his attempts to lighten the tone of this dark storyline didn't work.  His conversation with Claire while drinking tea feels forced and his attempts at humor when trying to calm down Claire just don't work for me.

Platinum Polar Bear:

For the second episode in a row, I am awarding Hurley the Platinum Polar Bear, which goes to the most useful character in a given episode.  His census idea was really smart, even if he wasn't great at it.  He was also the one who figured out Ethan wasn't on the plane, which allows Locke and Jack more of a head start in the next episode than they would have had otherwise.  This is Hurley's second time winning this award which ties him with Jack and Locke for the most wins.

Verdict:

"Raised By Another" is the episode that really sold Lost for me.  I was into it before this episode, but the Ethan cliffhanger is just so great, that I truly fell in love with the show here.  This episode is one of, if not the most scary episodes of the show, but it also has a fantastic and funny b-story with Hurley.  Charlie is rather irritating, but this episode has still got it going on without a doubt.

 9/10: Great