I have a new theory about the island.

1) In this episode Locke told Walt to picture the knife and tree in his mind's eye.
2) In White Rabbit, Locke told Jack that he looked into the eye of the island.
3) Claire's dream about the crib happened during sleep, but she was seeing it in her mind.
4) Once in this episode and once in the Pilot something that Walt saw in pictures (polar bear, bird) caused it's presence to be known. Seeing something creates a memory, which is also a picture in your head (mind's eye).

Is this a coincidence? Maybe, but a possibility is that the island and everything on it (besides the people) is just a fabrication created in their minds. It mind help explain all the "coincidences".

I am kind of thinking, if Michael had any sense and any friends who are lawyers, he had some serious points in his favor, no? I mean, they weren't married, so he probably can't get alimony even if he claims it was a common-law marriage (although he supported her through school). But if he's the stay-at-home dad, and the mom wants to move to a foreign country? I bet that he had at least an outside chance of (a) making her not move or (b) paying for him to move too, or at least paying for his airfare (considering the kid can't fly alone).

Even if there isn't a court order of custody in place already, and even if we presume that the mom will end up with primary physical custody of the kid, the dad is still likely to get visitation rights, and she is interfering with those rights if she moves a continent away.

The moral of this story is, Michael is actually a lot more malleable than he thinks he is, since his ex steamrolled him so neatly. Especially with the adoption situation: he gave in because she engineered a situation he didn't think he could win, but if he'd been stubborn, there is no reason why he would have been required to sever parental rights. Like, men who murder their wives don't get their parental rights automatically severed; Michael's only crime is being a clueless and deeply klutzy pushover.

Maybe, but a possibility is that the island and everything on it (besides the people) is just a fabrication created in their minds. It mind help explain all the "coincidences".

A mass hallucination? (If the island weren't, well, lost I'd say "a conspiracy of cartographers"?)

I dunno. I kind of think that it's one thing or the other - either the island is real and things are happening, or none of it's real and it's just someone's fever dream. I lean toward the first.

I do think that, as we've tossed around all along, some of the things that are happening are generated by the mind - Walt's in particular, perhaps, but not just his. And once created, some of those things are real though possibly not others. But I think that's not what you're getting at.

My conclusion was a bit hasty, but I mainly wanted to point out the whole "mind's eye" thing. And whatever happened to the "black vs. white" imagery?

Nutty, for Michael, I think the dealbreaker was his accident. No way could he have afforded those bills. It was a bribe, but he probably felt that his son would have more opportunities than he could give him and Michael couldn't have won custody with so much debt (he would have had to file medical bankruptcy at minimum).

I am not sure Michael assessed the situation incorrectly. He didn't even have the $$ to hire a good attorney.

Note that he was on a payphone calling her, and even before he heart Bryan in the background he reacted badly to her suggestion that she called him back. Fighting a custody battle when the child is an ocean away and you have no regular support and are now injured and probably unable to work for a while? Caving on ceding the parental rights is a dicier issue, though.

for Michael, I think the dealbreaker was his accident. No way could he have afforded those bills.

So the question is, could he have sued the taxi for bills associated with running him over? If he was run over during Giuliani's administration, probably no, considering he was jaywalking. Stupid Giuliani.

I think the real point is that he didn't have any idea how to react to each successive step. So when she arrived at the hospital to buy him off, he was more like, "Oh. This is the culmination of your evil plan," and realized he had no options. (I don't think she really had an evil plan, but in a plan-off, she beats him hands down.)

I disagree. I think she clearly had a plan to cut Michael out. She insisted that the child have her last name, she wasn't interested in marrying Michael and she clearly thought him a source of poor financial support.

To me, the worst thing is that she didn't seem to care a lot about Walt. He was yelling for her attention, she MADE her husband adopt Walt. Crazy.

I don't like her.

This conversation is reminding me of something I meant to post a while ago. So far, I don't see if/how this ties into the whole Island of Mystery thing, but it seems like most, if not all, of the castaways (okay, the main cast, at least, from which I exclude Scott, Steve, and Rose) have one thing in common -- they were all screwed over by someone, which led to them being on the Flight O' Doom.

Kate -- farmer guy turned her in
Locke -- wasn't allowed on the Outward Bound trip
Claire -- (1) jilted by her babydaddy, and (2) some sort of weird mojo with the psychic
Michael -- selfish fucked-up babymama
Boone -- Shannon's scam (and she, in turn, therefore, screwed herself over)
Sayid -- errr, I actually can't remember his backstory, oops
Sawyer -- he's kind of the inverse of this; he spent a chunk of his life screwing other people over, and at the end screwed himself over by not going through with the scam
Charlie -- NSM, though he probably *felt* screwed over by his brother when he refused to get the band back together
Sun and Jin -- NSM, really, though Sun was planning to screw Jin over by walking away, but then she couldn't
Hurley -- don't know his backstory at all

And Jack -- unless you consider that his dad, by killing himself, screwed Jack out of the chance to play the hero, Jack doesn't fit into my pattern very well.

What might it all mean? Probably fuck-all. But interesting.

Sayid -- errr, I actually can't remember his backstory, oops

He helped Nadia escape from the Iraqi prison & firing squad, and in the process shot his friend Omar. So I guess you could say Nadia screwed him over because she wouldn't talk about the bombing.