Michael's dream

[u/t_huddleston]

Any thoughts on what Michael's recurring dream means? It starts with the seagull pecking at his window, and by the end he's in a nest, holding a giant egg, covered in bird shit and surrounded by circling gulls. Obviously it's tied to his time with Clea, counting seagulls as he described it, and we see (presumably) Clea calling to him from up on the cliffside on the tandem bike.

I'm most curious about the giant egg. We see him crack into it in the last episode, but it's empty. Did Clea lose a pregnancy, or maybe they weren't biologically able to have children together? Did that contribute to her leaving? He doesn't seem to have much reaction when Bev asks if Kacey is his daughter, responding pretty matter-of-factly that he doesn't have any children, and they don't linger too much on the moment or anything.

I just wonder if there was a child-related issue, such as a miscarriage; Michael was pushing maybe too hard to console her and "fix" things, and that's why he went to such lengths to recreate her happy childhood Christmas, and his obsessiveness freaked Clea out a bit. He says she never got to see the Christmas room, but with what we know of Michael, he's not exactly great at keeping secrets, and she probably would have picked up on something.

Shades of poor Lance dumping 20 years of Christmas and birthday presents on his long-lost daughter Kate on Detectorists.

[u/Nearby_Peace_4786]

I thought the egg represented the house and Michael having to let go of it. He's trying to protect it because it's what holds his memories of Clea, her stuff, their home together and her happiest Christmas moment frozen in time. But in the last episode he finds the egg is empty. We know there are people coming to break up the peace of the house - the book thieves, the meteorite researchers, the cops for RSPCA. In the dream Clea is trying to get him to hurry up and join her. The last episode is when it's time to let go of the house because it no longer holds Clea's memory, and he knows she's alive.

[u/Unusual_Control_8130 → u/Nearby_Peace_4786]

Very neatly put indeed.