Real or Fake?
So what is the deal with Richard Malkin, especially when it comes
to his relationship with Claire Littleton? Crazily enough, when we
first met Mr. Malkin and saw his encounters with Claire unfold
I never doubted that he was a real psychic and that he set Claire
up to be on Flight 815. It wasn't until his encounter with Eko in
? that I ever doubted him.
Malkin tells Eko he's a fake. But if he's a fake, how did he know
that Claire was pregnant? There does not seem to be tell given
off by Claire or her friend before he asks directly how long she's
known about the baby. And then he refuses to go on because he sees
something blurry. Could this blurry thing have been Smokey? Or is
it more like the Dark Thing that covers part of the galaxy
in A Wrinkle in Time?
It seems to me that if Malkin's a fake he would not go to the
extremes he does to make sure Claire raises her baby. The
implication is even that he buys a plane ticket with his own
money to ensure Claire ends up on the doomed Flight 815. So is he
a real psychic so concerned about this young girl and child that
he harasses her and spends his own money? Or could he be a fake
working on someone else's behalf? Perhaps he's an agent
protecting time as suggested at Eye M Sick.
Friday, July 27, 2007
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6 comments:
I always questioned his psychic abilities. If he was so adament that Claire raise this child by herself, why was he all of a sudden sending her to LA to meet a couple who will adopt the baby. I thought it might have been an adoption scam (baby-selling). But, how did he know she was pregnant (maybe she was sending off a "I'm pregnant" vibe somehow?). "Psychics" know how to play off people's vulnerabilities and read people to their advantage. It was strange that he made sure she was on Flight 815, though. Can't explain that one.
Rewatching "Raised by Another" I was watching for any sort of tell about Claire being pregnant and couldn't spot one, but maybe her fingers were puffy or something like that. Maybe she asked to go to the bathroom. Maybe one of the few reason young girls come to see psychics is they're pregnant, and if she hadn't been he'd have made another guess.
It just dawned on me, the psychic and Claire's boyfriend Thomas mirror one another in the episode. First Thomas is encouraging about keeping the baby and Malkin refuses the reading. Then Thomas pulls a 180 and Malkin does too becoming the one to insist that Claire keeps the baby. These abrupt about faces is what makes this episode unsettling. That and creepy Ethan. :D
I always thought Dharma was behind the psychic as well as Thomas's motivations. Say, for example, Thomas was excited about being a father. After Dharma got to him, he wanted away from Claire. Maybe to protect her.
I kind of think that Malkin was a fake who did "cold readings" on people and then ended up unexpectedly getting real readings, like the Whoopie Goldberg character in the movie "Ghost". I also think that maybe the DI got involved in affecting how he read and instructed Claire (in which case they would have told him about her being preg), but I am not prepared to explain how in any way. :o) As in, I have no clue how that all came about, but that I am open to TPTB making the story go that way. He could also have sensed the evil from the DI manipulations and tried to send her away from them which ultimately backfired, but that's just iffy guessing here.
I'm also willing to go along with the idea that the DI affected Thomas' actions as well, but I'm equally willing to thinking that he was just a typical jerk who had the right intentions at first, but then got selfish later after he gave more than two seconds of thought about it.
I hope that all the razzle-dazzle about Aaron was not all just red herrings, etc., and that TPTB will not never visit him or his purpose again. Sometimes I get worried that might be the case. Didn't Ben say when he was sending Ethan and Goodwin off to the wreck, that there *might* be some pregnant women on the plane? If he didn't know, that maybe means that Mittelos didn't control her being there. But that doesn't mean that wheatever was left of the DI in the world, didn't have control over her being on the plane. Unless of course, Ben's ignorance was just another one of his poker plays in his big game of being in charge.
I guess that I have no clue. :o)
My current theory is that Malkin was a fake, hired by Christian Shepherd to keep tabs on his daughter and make sure she didn't give his grandchild away.
He was supposed to put her on that flight because that was also Jack's flight. Perhaps the family in L.A. she was supposed to meet was really her own?
You know what I think? Malkin's initial reading of Claire was psychic -- he really did see the plane crash. That freaked Malkin out, which is why he sent her away initially. Then someone contacted Malkin and somehow convinced him it was crucial to get Claire on that plane.
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