Season 1, Episode 10:

Raised by Another

Claire wakes up at the caves, hearing a baby and discovering that she's not pregnant anymore. She follows the baby's cries into the jungle and finds Locke reading a pack of Tarot cards that make knife sounds. He tells her that "he was your responsibility but you gave him away, Claire. Everyone pays the price now." When she looks up, one of Locke's eyes is white and the other is black. Claire keeps following the sounds of the baby and a crib sitting in the middle of the jungle, with a mobile of Oceanic airplanes. There's a sound like the plane crash and Claire starts digging through the crib's blankets; when she draws back, her hands are covered in blood—

—and she wakes, screaming, standing in the middle of the caves, thrashing about as Charlie tries to calm her down, blood on her hands. It's her own, caused by digging her fingers too tightly into their palms. Jack treats her hands and asks about her and the baby's medical history.

Claire takes a home pregnancy test that confirms her suspicions. At first, her and her boyfriend Thomas completely freak out, until Thomas decides that they should really "give it a try". Claire is reluctant, but Thomas talks her into it keeping the baby.

Jack and Kate chat idly on the beach, and the conversation comes around to Claire, who's almost ready to give birth. Charlie finds Claire sitting along in the jungle and tries to make her feel better with jokes, tea and stories about his own weird dreams. He tells Claire that he's there for her if she needs a friend, but there's an implication that he'd like to be more than friends, and she turns him down.

Claire's friend, Rachel, takes her to see Richard Malkin, a psychic. Through a palm reading, Malkin discerns that Claire is pregnant. Moments later, he grows concerned about something and stops the reading, giving Claire her money back and asking her to leave immediately.

That night, Claire has flashes of a hand on her throat, a knife, and a syringe being injected into her belly: she wakes up, screaming about being attacked. Charlie and Hurley head into the jungle to try and find the attacker and Jack sends another survivor, Ethan, to fetch water while he and Michael ask her questions about what happened. Later, Hurley tells Jack that no one heard or saw anything, and puts an idea to him: a census of the survivors, to find out who everyone is and where they're staying. He cites the fact that people only know him as Hurley, a nickname, when his real name is Hugo Reyes. At the caves, Charlie brings Claire a blanket and assures her that he'll stay and watch out for her.

Thomas comes home to his and Claire's flat, which is much nicer and homier than ever thanks to Claire's efforts, and douchebags out: he breaks up with Claire, balking at the responsibility of being a father, saying that his career as an artist is more important, accusing Claire of getting pregnant on purpose and making like he's the victim before walking out on her.

Hurley visits the beach to get details for his census, and gets creeped out by Locke's declaration that he was in Australia "looking for something", but it found him instead. Later, he gets details on Ethan Rom, from Ontario. Jack and Charlie talk to Kate about whether anyone left the beach during the night, and Jack suggests that Claire wasn't attacked at all, but instead had a vivid hallucination brought on by anxiety, something that happens to pregnant women—a suggestion that Charlie gets very angry at. Jack reminds them that Claire is due in a week or two, but an anxiety attack could trigger an early labour, and that would be dangerous for her and the baby. Jack returns to the caves and suggests to Claire that she hallucinated the attack, but she gets angry and decides to leave for the beach.

Claire goes back to Richard Malkin, the psychic, and asks for another reading. He knows about Thomas leaving her, but as he reads, he grows more and more concerned.

Malkin spends months trying to convince Claire not to give up the baby for adoption, claiming he's got a plan, but she doesn’t listen.

As Claire hikes back to the beach, Charlie follows, trying to convince her it's a bad idea. At the beach, Hurley talks to Boon and Shannon about his census, and when he reveals that Claire was attacked, Shannon changes her mind about moving to the caves. Boone suggests that Hurley get the flight manifest, which already has the names of the dead crossed off, but Sawyer is the one in possession of it. Nonetheless, Hurley convinces him to hand over the manifest by telling Sawyer that he "could use the points". In the jungle, Claire is halfway telling Charlie that she doesn't need rescuing when the contractions start. He's reluctant to leave her alone in the jungle, but when Claire tells him to, Charlie runs off to find Jack.

Claire and her lawyer meets with the Stewarts to formalise their closed adoption of the baby, meaning that she'll have no right to see or correspond with the child after its birth. She makes the Stewarts promise to sing "Catch a Falling Star" to the baby, but when she goes to sign the documents, her pen doesn't work. Neither does the lawyer's. Or the Stewarts'. She decides not to give up the baby and goes back to Richard Malkin, asking about his "plan" for the baby.

Charlie finds Ethan collecting firewood and sends him back to the caves to get Jack, then returns to Claire. He manages to calm her down a bit and she talks about how she not meant to be there.

Malkin tells Claire that he's found a couple in Los Angeles, "good people" who can take care of the baby, and that it'll be safe with them. She's reluctant, and skeptical of Malkin's "ability", but he talks her into it.

Claire tells Charlie about Malkin and his predictions. She thinks he was full of it, but Charlie has another idea: now that she's stuck of the Island, Claire has to raise the baby herself... so what if that was Malkin's plan?

Malkin gives Claire her plane ticket. She doesn't think she could leave as early as the next day, but he insists that Claire travel on that exact flight: Oceanic 815.

The realisation hits her:

Claire realises the contractions, or whatever they were, have passed, and thanks Charlie for taking care of her. They start heading back. At the caves, Sayid arrives, injured and dehydrated.

Moments later, Hurley arrives with a warning of his own.

In the jungle, Claire is showing Charlie where the baby is kicking when someone interrupts them, someone who doesn't answer their questions, someone who stares intently at Claire's belly: Ethan.

Tropes in this episode include:

• Accidental Misnaming: Hurley initially mistakes Ethan for another survivor named Lance.
  Hurley: Dude, that's right. Lance is a little skinny guy with glasses and red hair.
  Ethan: I can see how you'd confuse us.
• Actually Pretty Funny:
  • Hurley's attempt and failure to come up with something nice to say about Canada gets a chuckle out of the supposedly Canadian Ethan.
  • Sawyer is visibly amused by Hurley's attempt to convince him to just give Hurley the flight manifest to score some goodwill points with the other survivors, enough so that Sawyer just lets him take it with no conditions or snark.
• The Baby Trap: Thomas accuses Claire of doing this to him, selectively forgetting that he convinced her to keep the baby when they found out she was pregnant.
• But We Used a Condom!: Claire got pregnant despite being on the pill. Thomas accuses her of lying about it when he walks out on her.
• Chekhov's Gunman: Ethan, a Mauve Shirt survivor introduced in the previous episode, turns out to be a spy for The Others who was not on the plane.
• Cliffhanger: The episode ends with Ethan, revealed to be an imposter who was never on the plane, staring menacingly at Claire and Charlie.
• Continuity Drift: In a flashback, Claire worries about what her mother will think of her unexpected pregnancy. Later episodes establish that Claire's mother was in a coma at the time this flashback takes place.
• Dirty Coward: Claire's ex-boyfriend Thomas crumbles under the responsibility of parenthood and bows out of their relationship, having the gall to blame Claire for the whole thing to try and excuse his own selfishness.
• Disappeared Dad: Thomas offhandedly mentions that Claire's father abandoned her when she was young, right before abandoning her and their unborn child.
• Dramatic Irony: Much of the horror and tension in the episode's ending comes from the fact that, unlike the audience, Claire and Charlie don't realize just how much danger they're in from Ethan.
• Faux Affably Evil: At the end of the episode, Ethan greets Claire and Charlie with a friendly "hello, there" before giving a menacing stare that clearly unsettles Claire.
• Five-Second Foreshadowing: Sayid finds Jack just sitting at the caves with Ethan nowhere to be seen, despite Charlie sending Ethan to alert Jack to Claire's (false) labor. That very scene has Sayid tell Jack that the survivors are not alone on the Island, and is followed swiftly by Hurley's warning that one of the survivors wasn't on the plane and Ethan emerging from the jungle to confront Charlie and Claire.
• Flashback: Claire is the centric character as the episode focuses on her pregnancy.
• Foreshadowing:
  • Thomas passingly mentions that Claire's father abandoned her.
  • While being questioned for the census, Ethan asks what the whole thing is about in an attempt at a casual tone.
• Hypocritical Humor: When Claire starts having (false) contractions, Charlie tries to reassure her and keep her calm... while obviously panicking himself, talking ridiculously fast and letting slip that he's a recovering addict.
• Internal Reveal: Sayid tells Jack about Rousseau and her belief in the "others" on the Island.
• It's All About Me: Thomas' reasons for walking out on Claire during her pregnancy are entirely selfish and based on how having a baby is going to affect him.
• I Have to Go Iron My Dog: After getting Locke's info, and being a bit creeped out, Hurley goes to another survivor even though he already talked to them just to get away from him.
• Internal Reveal: When Claire starts having contractions a panicked Charlie tells her that if he can kick drugs he can handle delivering a baby. Claire is, understandably, a bit freaked out by this revelation.
• It Began with a Twist of Fate: Had one of the pens worked during the adoption hearing, Claire would have signed her baby over to the couple and stayed in Australia.
• Kick the Dog: Thomas bowing out of the responsibility of raising his and Claire's baby is bad enough, but he feels the need to throw her "daddy abandonment crap" in her face when she calls him on his own gutlessness.
• Manipulative Bastard: Claire comes to believe that Malkin knew all along that the plane would crash, and that he lied to her about a couple in Los Angeles who would adopt her baby in order to ensure that she would be on Flight 815 and end up on the Island, where she would have no choice but to raise the baby herself.
• Maybe Magic, Maybe Mundane: It's not confirmed whether Richard Malkin is a real psychic who predicted the plane crash and knew Claire would be forced to take care of her baby on the Island or a fraud who spun her a wild story, though Claire suspects the former.
  • The Season 2 episode "?" later confirms that Malkin was a fraud.
• Monochromatic Eyes: Claire's dream at the start of the episode has Locke with a particularly creepy take on this; one of his eyes is totally black, the other totally white.
• Never My Fault: While breaking up with Claire, Thomas has the gall to claim that he has done nothing wrong and accuses Claire of lying about being on the pill to pull The Baby Trap (he, in fact, convinced her they could handle the responsibility of parenthood).
• Noodle Incident: Hurley tells Jack that his real name is Hugo Reyes, and that "Hurley" is a nickname, though he declines to say how he got it.
• Not Even Bothering with an Excuse: Hurley feigns questioning another survivor after being weirded out by Locke, straight-up admitting to the random woman that he just wanted to get away from Locke.
• Not Helping Your Case:
  • While they panic over Claire's pregnancy, Thomas tries to reassure her that the test isn't reliable, bringing up his uncle who thought he has testicular cancer. Claire reminds Thomas that his uncle did have testicular cancer and died from it.
  • While trying to reassure Claire that everything will be all right, Charlie lets it slip that he's a recovering heroin addict. Claire is understandably not reassured.
    Charlie: If I can kick drugs, I can deliver a baby. [Claire stares] Let me explain. I'm a drug addict. I-I was a drug addict. I-I'm clean now!
    Claire: Get Jack!
• Or Was It a Dream?:
  • Subverted. The cold open ends with Claire waking up from a nightmare that ended with her plunging her hands into a pool of blood to discover that she actually does have blood on her hands. However, the very next scene reveals that there's a perfectly mundane explanation, as Claire's fear caused her to dig her nails into her palms and cut them while sleeping.
  • Played with throughout the episode. Claire believes that somebody is injecting her stomach with an unknown substance in her sleep, but everybody except Charlie believes that she is just having disturbingly realistic nightmares. In the end, it turns out these dreams were real, and Ethan was the culprit.
• Pet the Dog: When Hurley asks for it, Sawyer lets him have the flight manifest, no strings attached, amused at Hurley's argument that he should do it purely for the sake of goodwill.
• Real Dreams are Weirder: Charlie tries to reassure Claire about her nightmares by telling her about a dream of his where he's driving a bus when his teeth start falling out, his mother eats biscuits, and everything smells of bacon.
• Rewatch Bonus: Hurley's interview with Ethan, on a first viewing, is nothing special. After The Reveal, it's clear that Ethan is trying to sound more casual than he feels as he realizes that his cover is in danger.
• Screaming Woman: Claire lets out quite the scream after waking up from her nightmare at the start of the episode, and does it again after what turned out to not be a nightmare.
• Self-Serving Memory: Thomas accuses Claire of pulling The Baby Trap on him, despite the fact that he was the one who convinced her to keep the baby in the first place.
• Significant Anagram: Ethan Rom, the first Other we meet in the series, is an anagram of "Other Man".
• Spanner in the Works: Ethan's infiltration of the survivors' camp would have continued to go unnoticed if it hadn't been for Hurley making a census and Boone telling him to check it against the flight manifest.
• Stating the Simple Solution: After Hurley spends a lot of time and energy interviewing people before Boone points out that he could just use the flight manifest as a makeshift census.
• Straw Character: Boone accuses Hurley of creating his own Patriot Act by trying to make a census. Shannon snidely explains that he's a liberal.
• Troll: While Hurley questions him as part of the census, Locke asks who's checking on Hurley, who stammers blankly before Locke admits that it was a joke.
• Wham Episode: Until the very end, this appears to be a fairly innocuous backstory episode for Claire, but then it is revealed that one of the survivors is an impostor who wasn't on the plane.
• Wham Line: Hurley revealing that Ethan's name isn't on the manifest meaning he wasn't on the plane.
• You Have to Believe Me!: Jack doesn't believe Claire when she says someone was trying to hurt her baby.