Another thing just struck me about last night's episode:

The box o' birthday cards makes an earlier scene with Walt and Michael a lot more poignant in retrospect. Remember when Walt accused his dad of not even knowing when his birthday was? That must have hit Michael like a two-by-four across the noggin.

Nice catch, Anne.

Perhaps Walt felt some sort of subconscious rage towards her b/c of her treatment of his father (assuming that he had some vague memory of his father from when he was a baby) and this manifested as the blood disease.

Walt may have been mad at his mom, but I doubt it was because of her treatment of Michael. It looks to me as if she never told him about his real father at all.

Remember when Walt accused his dad of not even knowing when his birthday was? That must have hit Michael like a two-by-four across the noggin.

Yep. And it is just like Fury to make us think about previous scenes with his episodes. He did that to marvelous effect with Locke.

And Claire at the end was not an HSQ for me since I saw Emilie de Ravin's name in the credits and was waiting for her the whole time.

Wouldn't she be in there every week, because of being a regular? Like, was the (memfault) actor (Daniel Dae Kim???) who plays Jin in the credits last night, because he's a regular, even though he wasn't in this episode?

Daniel Dae Kim is a regular.

Emilie de Ravin is not. There's the rub.

Maybe they'll have t-shirts that say 'I Am Locke's Bitch, Don't Fuck With Me'."

Would "Locke's Bitch, but not Boone enough to admit it" be too spoilerific for a tag line?

Why was he so against Walt hanging out with Locke, anyway? Because Locke was a little creepy at first, then it became an issue of not backing down when Walt continued to hang out with him?

I would think it was a combination of this, and just everything else, too. I wouldn't like some strange (as in still relatively unknown-to-me) man hanging around my kid. For me, that's just a sad fact of life in this world. If my kid had been taken from me and I'd just gotten him back, and was trying to bond with him, I'd like it even less. And then the elements you've noted would come into play for me too, Nora. All in all, it would just be a big, "BACK OFF MY KID" thing for me.

I think I'd be pissed at anyone I found handing my 10 year old a big ass hunting knife when I wasn't around, but especially so in the circumstances Cindy set out.

I'm with Lee. Only people that get to give my kids knives are people I've vetted. Random folks don't get to teach my spawn to kill, especially when I'm furious about living in a place where killing may even be an option for the adults, and am fierce about trying to get away.

Not that they will, I think.

I think I'd be pissed at anyone I found handing my 10 year old a big ass hunting knife when I wasn't around, but especially so in the circumstances Cindy set out.

Oh, totally, I agree. But Michael forbade him from hanging out with Locke just when they were playing backgammon.

And, yeah, I understand the whole, trying to bond with son thing, except, you know, he wasn't, really. Or at least, doing it well (see: golf tournament episode, when he didn't even let Walt take his turn) He leaves him with Sun and Claire and whatnot. I think it's more of a gut danger instinct that he can't ignore, but really can't back up. Which is parental perogative, I'd say.

The dynamic between them (Michael and Walt) is awesome and painful.

The dynamic between them (Michael and Walt) is awesome and painful.

Yes. I love it. And you're right, that he's trying to bond with his son but not doing a very good job. Unlike Brian, he does want to be a father; the problem is, he's never done it before. The last time he was a dad was when Walt was a baby, and the same techniques don't really work anymore.