Season
2, Episodes 15 and 16- “Maternity Leave” and “The Whole Truth”
Summary:
Aaron
is coming own with a fever, and draws the attention of Danielle, who claims he
is sick. Jack thinks it will pass but Claire goes to Libby who wants to help
her remember what happened when she was kidnapped. Through breathing exercises,
she remembers being in a medical facility with Ethan injecting her with a shot
and being taken to a nursery. The man we know from “Exodus” is also there,
without a beard. Claire and Kate run off to find Danielle so she can take her
to the facility. Danielle thinks Claire is the one who can lead her there. They
stumble upon the abandoned Staff station and Claire remembers a teenage girl,
and later Danielle, helping her escape. Claire tries (and fails) to find the
vaccine Ethan used, but tells Danielle that her daughter Alex helped save her. Eko
is chopping down trees and discovers a man is being held in the hatch and
demands to see him. Eko tells Henry he is sorry for killing two Others, and
Henry suggests to Locke that Jack is calling the shots. In the morning, Aaron’s
fever has subsided.
In
flashback, Sun and Jin are trying to have a baby, but she has been secretly
meeting Jae Lee to learn English so she can escape to America. A doctor tells
Sun that she is incapable of conceiving a child, but he later tells her that
it’s actually Jin who is infertile and he wanted to avoid angering the hitman.
Jin is furious at Sun for working alone in her garden. Sun is having stomach
pains, and asks Sawyer for a pregnancy test. The test is positive. Locke tells
Ana-Lucia about Henry and she questions him about his story and asks to draw a
map to his balloon. She takes the map to Sayid and Charlie and the three of
them set off to find it. Jin tells Sun he is tired of fighting, and Sun tells
him she is pregnant and that he was infertile. Henry jokes that if he were an
Other he would lead Ana’s group to a trap.
Review:
This is the first episode to feature
flashbacks to on-island events, which makes it instantly notable. As with “Fire
+ Water”, the retroactive knowledge that Aaron does not factor into the endgame
mitigates the revelations here. The pregnancy issue is still a big deal though,
and this is where all of that knowledge DOES help it. Ethan no longer looks
like a giant creep, and it is kind of easy to get behind what the Others are
doing – assuming they don’t force the baby away from Claire. Not a fan of the
loud wonky noises that signal the jogging of memories. Libby gets her first real
opportunity to contribute in some way, which was needed, but I’d kind of prefer
her to accompany Claire to the Staff instead of Kate. Speaking of the Staff,
this is our first new DHARMA station since the Swan (the Arrow hardly counts)
and it is introduced to us with no previous buildup, which is a nice,
refreshing treat to those of us who sweated out the hatch thing for like 8 or 9
months. It’s mostly just a medical station though, with not much to discover.
Rousseau is finally cleared of any
wrongdoing in Claire’s kidnapping, which frees us up to have a little sympathy
for her and her quest to find Alex. Now that we can put a face to Alex, we are
invested in their reunion. Shifting over to the Swan, Eko’s confession is a
pretty powerful moment, and Ben begins his first overt manipulations. Locke’s
tantrum with the dishes was kind of…awkward. But it’s weird to think that even
with Ben's devilish grin and puppet-stringing, there was still ambiguity as to his
true persona at this point. It seems pretty obvious now.
I never really paid much attention to
“The Whole Truth” before, but this time I actually enjoyed it quite a bit! The
bait-and-switch of who really was incapable of having a baby was well-done, and
actually made sense from the doctor’s perspective, and also planted the seed
for “D.O.C.” by re-adding Jae Lee into the mix. It was a very cute scene near
the end when they were talking about baby names and who else actually knows. We
don’t often get these pleasant little stories, so they should be savored when
they happen.
The balloon journey is interesting, as
it contains Sayid, Ana, and Charlie, three people who’ve had a rough go of it
this season. It’s almost like they chose to go in order to rehabilitate
themselves and prove their worthiness. Sayid wants to know that his roughing-up
of the prisoner was justified, Ana wants to see if she can exonerate someone
who is accused of being the enemy (something Shannon never had a chance to do),
and Charlie just wants to show that he is useful and relevant after being
shunned because of his “Fire + Water” antics. We end with them still searching
for it, and on Michael Emerson’s legendary “You guys got any milk?” line as he
hypothesizes what a trap might look like for the three of them. This really
should have been the tipping-point for viewers. No way an innocent man would
tease something like that. Luckily we don’t have to wait too much longer.
Connecting the Dots:
This is a notable episode for the
subplot of the pregnancy issue. The tests that the Others are running on Claire
seem to be aimed at keeping her pregnancy normal and safe. They want her to
give birth so they can study how her situation is different from the other
women who have died. Because the problem was later said to have occurred during
the 2nd trimester, Claire is then safe because she only arrived in
her 3rd trimester (and consequently, Sun is safe because she leaves
in her 1st).
In “Maternity Leave”, Claire asks Sun if
she’s a mother, which Sun solemnly responds, “No,” knowing that Jin is
infertile. In the very next episode, Sun learns she is in fact pregnant.
Sun’s pregnancy test was made by Widmore
Labs.
Ranking:
1.
The 23rd
Psalm (10/10)
2.
One of Them
(8.5/10)
3.
The Other 48 Days
(8.5/10)
4.
The Whole Truth
(7.5/10) (One of the better Sun/Jin episodes is easy to enjoy, and with a
promising B-plot.)
5.
The Long Con
(7.5/10)
6.
Maternity Leave
(7.5/10) (A puzzle piece is uncovered in the Others’ grand scheme, and there is
no obvious weak spot to the episode.)
7.
Orientation
(7.5/10)
8.
Man of Science, Man
of Faith (7.5/10)
9.
The Hunting Party
(7/10)
10. …And Found (6.5/10)
11. Abandoned (6.5/10)
12. What Kate Did (6.5/10)
13. Collision (6.5/10)
14. Everybody Hates Hugo (6.5/10)
15. Adrift (5/10)
16. Fire + Water (4/10)
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