- Outside  Influences -
Richard Malkin

We first meet Richard in Raised By Another. Claire visits him for a reading. As he holds her hands he is disturbed by something "blurry" which must be bad as he backs off Claire and tells her that she must be the one to raise her baby.

Later he tries to convince her repeatedly to keep the baby. He then has a turn of thought and tells her he found a "nice" couple in L.A. that will adopt the baby. He pays her to fly to L.A. and buys her the ticket on the ill flighted plane.

Had he not convinced Claire to fly to L.A. she wouldn't have been on the flight. Plus as we find out in (?) he says he's a fake. Then why pray tell did he try so hard to convince her he was for real and he saw this blurry thing and had such strong feelings that she must do this or else?


In "?" we see Eko, a as a priest checking out the story of a young girl who supposedly drowned and then came back to life during the autopsy. That young girl happens to be Richard's daughter.

He claims that his wife is not telling the truth. He knows this as he is a con of sorts. He pretends to be a psychic but he's not.

Quote:

EKO: And why is your wife so convinced otherwise? MALKIN: Because she's a zealot. All of this -- everything she's doing -- is to spite me. EKO: Why would she spite you? MALKIN: Because she knows I'm a fraud. Because I make my living as a psychic. You see, that's what I do. I gather intelligence on people and I exploit it. Everyday I meet people looking for a miracle, desperate to find one. But there are none to be had. Not in this world, anyway.

His daughter though later catches up with Eko in the airport just before getting on flight 815 and tells him she saw his brother Yemi, and that he had a message for him.

Quote:

EKO: What are you doing here? CHARLOTTE: I had to see you. EKO: Look, your father said I shouldn't... CHARLOTTE: I know. He doesn't want me talking to you. And I know you probably think I'm crazy, but I have a message for you and I promised to deliver it. EKO: A message? CHARLOTTE: He says you were a good priest. EKO: Who says that? CHARLOTTE: Yemi. EKO [shocked]: Speaking about my brother is not a joke, so you should be very careful what you say next. CHARLOTTE: I saw him when I was -- between places. He said that you would come and see me. He said that even though you were pretending, you're a good man. EKO: Who put you up to this? Did your father tell you to do this? CHARLOTTE: He wants you to know that he will see you soon. He said that even though you don't have faith in yourself, that he has faith in you. EKO: Why are you doing this to me? What do you want from me? Why are you doing this to me?! LIBBY [appearing]: Is everything alright? [Charlotte nods and Libby keeps walking.] CHARLOTTE: He has faith in you. One day you'll believe me.

In this regard, had Richard been lying to Claire, he was a fake, and yet he lied still that his daughter came back from the dead. If he hadn't told Eko that he was a fake and that his wife lied to spite him, Eko would have stayed to investigate possibly not getting on flight 815.

Just what does this man know exactly?

Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
Directed by Deran Sarafian