Last Thursday’s episode of Lost, “Eggtown,” lived up to the more than satisfiable quality of the other episodes so far in this season, and ended with a twist quite typical to the show’s famous (and perhaps at times infamous) recipe.
Firstly, why the hell is it called “Eggtown?” I wondered that myself, actually, until I looked it up on Lostpedia (thank God for tv nerds with Wikipedia fetishes, though I can’t seem to find the specific location on the page now). According to those behind the scenes at the Lost wiki, there were many things within the episode that pertained to its title. The term “eggtown” itself refers to a system of bartering, and since eggs would be a measly exchange, poor towns would be referred disdainfully as egg-towns. I personally thought that, in a sense, this could refer to the “exchange” of Aaron, since at the end of the episode Kate’s baby was revealed to not be her own flesh and blood at all, but Claire’s.
Cuuute …
There could be several reasons why Kate ended up with Aaron. Maybe Kate just simply stole Claire’s baby, which doesn’t seem logical to me, though, considering Kate and Claire are friends on the island. However, something illogical like that would actually be normal for Kate, considering she’s highly indecisive when it comes to what she wants and who she is—for example, as Sawyer correctly noted, she just jumps back and forth between Jack and Sawyer depending on her mood and what her needs are at the time. When it comes down to it, she’s selfish.
Or maybe Claire died and Kate “adopted” Aaron for her, although there’s something odd about that, too, considering Aaron referred to Kate as “mummy.” Still, lots of adopted kids, especially young ones like Aaron, associate their adoptive parents as their “true” parents. Besides, it sort of makes sense. Aaron’s too young to have to deal with or even comprehend the Crazy Island, Home to Fucked Up Psychological Projects Where No One Can Leave, Inhabited by Black Smoke and Polar Bears, and Ruled by Freaky Numbers story. I mean, it’s a little much for any outsider to swallow without gagging on the thick swill of ridiculous bullshit; while Aaron did, of course, live through the trauma of the Island (which will demand some serious therapy later on due to all those suppressed memories, poor kid), he’s too young to remember and fully understand, anyway. So it’s really not that strange. And like a lot of things in Lost that seemed to be a big deal, there might actually be a simple explanation behind it that doesn’t make Kate seem like a sneaky bitch. Take lovely Desmond for instance: We all thought he was some crazy Scot for living underground and pushing a goddamn button every 108 minutes, and that he was as fucked up as the Others, who we all figured were savages until we met people like Juliet—although, in retrospect, they honestly did make Desmond seem delusional at first, but now he’s cool and we all like him (plus, he’s nice to look at).
Or, perhaps Claire’s still alive but for some reason couldn’t make it back to civilization and she didn’t want her kid growing up even more traumatized than he probably already will be, so she gave him to Kate to take care of out of trust. You know, the whole instinctive mother sacrifice thing. I personally wouldn’t want my child to grow up on that hellhole of an island, but, hey, maybe that’s just me.
Additionally, there’s also the issue of why Jack refuses to see Aaron. Does he know “Kate’s” child is really Aaron (though, really, unless he’s stark blind, how the hell could he not have noticed)?
There are other minor references to the episode title, “Eggtown,” as well. The episode, for instance, literally starts out with eggs: Locke’s nice breakfast for Ben that gets smashed against the wall in our Island Secret Keeper Man’s frustration (why, O Island, do you torture him so?). Also, part of the episode (in the present) deals with Kate’s fertility: the issue of whether or not she is pregnant with Sawyer’s child (she says she’s not). Of course, that just led to me debating back and forth over the course of the episode whether or not “Kate’s” baby was Jack’s or Sawyer’s, which, obviously, was a intended tactic meant to play the viewer right into the writers’ hands as a distraction (and it worked, damnit).
“Who’s my baby daddy?!”
Speaking of which, don’t they have condoms on that island? Although I guess the island itself functions as one big contraceptive, figuratively speaking, considering no one’s baby survives to be born. Well, the conception part still happens, but let’s just say the pro-abortion people would be happy and the pro-life advocates would be pouting on the beach and cursing “Mystery Frickin’ Island” (see last post on nicknames).
“Fuck it, I’m SO blowing this popsicle stand of an island.”
On another note, I’m still asking myelf why Kate didn’t stay behind, considering she had to deal with the consequences of her crimes. Knowing Miles’s response to “Do you know what I did?” you’d think that even though Miles and his crew had to study everything about the Oceanic passengers, that Kate would be scared off and not want to take any chances returning with them to the US. And since Kate plead “not guilty” to her conviction in the flashforward, that suggests that she didn’t suddenly change her ways and want to take responsibility for all the shit she’s done. Nope. She’s the same ol’ Kate—except for the child part, but whatever, although technically it’s not even hers. Unless, of course, she decided she just had it with all the insanity and would rather rot in jail on a life sentence than deal with the weird Monster and the Others anymore, which is perfectly understandable. Face it, the drama and conspiracy on that friggin’ island would make anyone cry out for normalcy and mediocrity. I mean, I’m not even on the island and it drives me crazy just thinking about having to put up with all that crap. Sure, the show’s great and all and I’ve stuck with it since Day One, but honestly, it’s ridiculous. Let’s not lie. Scientific explanations for everything my ass.
Next up, Daniel. This guy:
Daniel Faraday with Charlotte.
In this episode, Daniel and Charlotte played a memory game in which Daniel had to recall the suit, number, and color of each (Dharma) playing card. Charlotte tried to remain, unconvincingly, optimistic throughout the test, but a despairing and frustrated Daniel was disappointed in himself when he got two out of three correct. Charlotte called it “progress,” but Daniel questioned incredulously whether or not that was really progress at all.
Looking back at past season four episodes, there is additional evidence of Daniel’s problematic memory. In “Confirmed Dead” Naomi referred to Daniel as a “headcase” when discussing her odd assortment of a crew with the freaky Oceanic guy (Matthew Abaddon, the tall African American guy who approached Hurley in his flashforward in the mental institution). Obviously, there’s something mentally off about him, just like with Hurley and Libby. Frankly, I’m interested and can’t wait to learn more about him. Also in “Confirmed Dead,” during Daniel’s part of the flashback he is seen starting to sob uncontrollably when he sees a news report about the finding of Oceanic 815 in the depths of the ocean. Someone whose face is not revealed (later revealed by the writers to be Daniel’s caretaker—further possible evidence of a mental health issue) asks him why he is upset, and he responds, “I don’t know.”
Daniel Faraday responding to the news about Oceanic Flight 815.
Moreover, when Jack and Kate first meet Daniel (after he falls from the helicopter), he demonstrates some odd behavior while they look for Miles and the other members of his crew; this abnormal behavior fueled the impression that “those people” came to harm the Losties, a view shared by Ben (well, no duh, they’re after him), Locke and his group, and even some ambivalent members of Jack’s. Nevertheless, thinking about it now, Daniel’s initial behavior in the company of Jack and Kate was probably nothing more than innocent and harmless, unlike what was first imposed on us viewers. Daniel’s oddness most likely can simply be attributed to his unreliable memory and whatever mental health problem he has suffered from.
When Jack asked him his name, Daniel paused a long time before answering. According to Lostpedia, he also used the technique of word-searching when he wanted to refer to his pack but couldn’t immediately pinpoint the right word. Moreover, he was generally mentally sluggish and is somewhat eccentric, often mumbling to himself. When they met up with Miles, the latter had to remind him of their secret code—the one Naomi used when she talked about the sister she doesn’t have over the radio—which is meant to be used if someone had a gun to their head and needed help. Miles reprimanded Daniel about this after he called Jack and Kate “good people,” treating him as though that forgetfulness were a normal and annoying occurrence.
The memory game.
There are some rather interesting theories on the Lost wiki about this guy. I try to generally avoid these theories, because either they might actually be dead-on and thus flat out spoilers, or just because there are so many and most of them are so wild that it runs the risk of throwing off my own perceptions. However, I read a few, and one said that Daniel doesn’t actually have memory loss; instead, Charlotte was testing his psychic ability. There was also something about how he lost that psychic capability and was trying to regain it. According to a part of that general theory, Charlotte never turned over the cards—Daniel was trying to guess them. Nonetheless, while that theory is intriguing and could be possible, I don’t think it is. I wouldn’t really think a psychic would be called a “headcase,” even though, I guess, he could be by those who don’t buy into the whole thing (me included). Still, it seems much more likely that he was a mental patient or something along those lines. Besides, Charlotte’s an anthropologist, not a psychic herself. How could she test him from a point of higher authority if she was not trained in some way or was one herself in order to judge his skill level and track improvement? It just doesn’t seem likely, especially because his memory seems extremely poor. A psychic who lost his “powers” would, in my view, merely be reduced to normalcy, not a sublevel of functioning. And to counter the Charlotte-never-turned-the-cards-over thing, that scene with Daniel and Charlotte began in the middle of Charlotte’s test, not the beginning, so in reality I guess you could say it’s technically not confirmed whether or not Daniel saw the three cards beforehand. We only saw him guessing and then the results.
What is more, there was an interesting suggestion that Daniel could be Ana Lucia’s “Danny.” It’s certainly conceivable, knowing the many connections between characters on Lost … although Ana Lucia was part of the Los Angeles police force and Daniel, according to “Confirmed Dead”’s flashforward lives in Essex, Massachusetts. People do move, however.
At any rate, I can’t wait until they dig into Daniel’s character. Looks like I’m going to have to stick it out, though: It sounds like the next episode’s focus will be on Desmond, but that’s just guessing.
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