Tuesday, July 20, 2010

Episode 052: November 18-19, 2004 (Days 58-59)


Aaron has a rash, and won't stop crying.  Rousseau shows up and tells Claire there's something wrong with him.  Claire has a flash of a memory from when she was taken, so she has Libby try and hypnotize her, and she begins to start remembering what happened to her.  Kate and Claire go off into the jungle to find Rousseau to see if she can help them find medicine for Aaron.  Eko finds out that Ben is in the hatch, and asks Jack to speak with him.  Rousseau takes Claire and Kate down into the Staff to try and find some medicine for Aaron.  They don't find any, but Claire regains the rest of her memories, and realizes that Rousseau saved her and helped her escape Ethan, and also tells her that she may have seen Rousseau's daughter while she was held captive.  Eko sits and talks with Ben and repents for killing the two men who tried to drag him into the jungle, and asks for his forgiveness.  Aaron's fever goes away, and the rash clears up.  Ben starts playing mind games with Locke, implying that Jack is the one in charge.  The episode runs 43:53 and is 355MB to download.  You can stream the episode below (via Facebook), or go here to use torrents (better quality, recommended) to download the episodes to your computer.

Now, for those of you that missed my comment earlier, this is what I had to say regarding my decision to put Claire's memories here, instead of treating them like flashbacks and showing them when they happened:

"That was a tough one. With your ordinary flashback, that's just what they are, a glimpse into the past of a certain character; they don't have any relation to what's happening in the present (aside from providing underlying character themes, but that's not what we're talking about here).

With Claire's memories in "Maternity Leave", we're not exactly looking at a flashback so much as we're looking at Claire regaining her memory. So, while we're looking at events that occurred in early October, what we were watching was Claire experiencing those memories during "Maternity Leave". It's kind of a fine line, I know. The thing that sort of pushed it over the edge is the last memory Claire regains is when she's outside in the jungle, she actually plays out the memory in front of her, while she's still standing there in the background.

I really went back and forth on this, even seeking input from some other people. I think I could have put them in chronologically, and it would have worked fine, but I also think it works fine this way too."


So that's how I came to the decision that I went with, in case you were wondering.

Part 1


Part 2


Part 3

8 comments:

  1. I think you're right. The flashbacks are usually a glimpse into the past of the characters, but for the viewer.

    In this case, the 'flashbacks' we see are being experienced by Claire in the present as she regains lost memories, we see her reacting to them as they return.

    Showing all her reactions to the flashes without seeing Ethan, stoned Claire etc. would be a bit disjointed.

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  2. I think you did the right thing. Keep em going! You deserve a medal.

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  3. I wonder if they planned Claire getting infected. This episode has a lot of foreshadowing to what happens to her. And that scene where she tells Aaron that they're supposed to be together; being apart is what leads to her being influenced by MIB.

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  4. watching the in this order is making me notice more and more that Claire, Sayid and Lock are almost all dressed in black/dark clothing most of the time, I think this was the foreshadowing right from day 1. I do think the writers changed their plans a few times. It makes NO Sense that Christian Shepherd who appears with Claire in the Cabin is MIB/Smoke Monster pretending to be Jacob.

    I also feel from the first 2 or 3 episodes after the plane crash that they seem to be implying that Locke is already dead and already the MIB but this is abandoned a few episodes later, there's him being able to walk, the sinister look on his face with the eerie music and weird camera circling to him implying he's evil, the smoke monster moving towards his position in the jungle, facing certain death and him appearing a few hours later having killed a boar and he says at one point "I've looked into the eye of the Island and it's beautiful" given what we find out about the magical cave of light - I thought maybe he could have been foreshadowing this. Plus he was never on the list. I thought maybe it was intended that the smoke monster was Jacob and Locke was the MIB as soon as the plane landed which is why MIB couldn't kill him and they abandoned this story line and changed it around.

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    Replies
    1. Good find, I never noticed that before going through the episodes.

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  5. I love what you've put together Mike, and I love reading the realizations that people have through watching this all again. I always wanted to see the show this way and my dream came true when this blog was the topic of a "Today I Learned" on Reddit a couple weeks ago.

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  6. I think in this case it would have worked well to put the flashbacks in during *both* places. The case you argue makes sense, but I don't see why that means we shouldn't see the events as they happen, as well. Watching this cut, it's really jarring now to see that there was footage of what happened with Claire while she was missing that I didn't get to watch as it happened.

    But, I can see why you made your choice, and even though I disagree with this particular call, it's still a wonderful project that you put together! Really enjoying it, can't imagine how much work you put into this, thanks for it all.

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