I Can See How Ugly She'll Be When She's Old (The Psychic's Lament)

S01E10

Credits and commercials. Jack's bandaging up Claire's hands, and says she must've had quite a nightmare. "Who says it was a nightmare?" asks Claire. "When somebody makes fists so tight they dig their fingernails a quarter of an inch into their palms," Jack replies, "they probably weren't dreaming about riding ponies." Oh, Jack, have you ever really dreamt about riding a pony? I doubt it, Jack. Because if you had, you'd know that to ride a dream pony, you have to hold on to its flowing purple mane so tight, or else you'll slide off its marshmallow saddle and tumble right out of the sky! He asks Claire if she's ever sleepwalked before, and exposits re: his own sleep-talk-ing, the real point of which is to tell the overheated HoYay posters that he's straight. Jack asks a few questions about Claire's prenatal routine in Sydney, and she says that the ultrasounds revealed the baby to be very healthy, and that her OB-GYN said it was fine for her to fly in her third trimester. Jack asks how many weeks in she is, and Claire responds with the Thousand-Yard Stare of Impending Flashback. Seriously, with all the flashbacks going around on the island, do castaways ever get annoyed that normal conversations devolve into staring contests with the void? Or if the person you're talking to just drifts off and stares into space all of a sudden, is that your cue to take a little flashback time for yourself, and you can both pick up the conversation later? It's like the island is peppered with hypnogourds or something. Yes, thank you, I was a nerd in middle school.

Sydney, seven months ago. A frantic Claire bolts out of the bathroom holding a pregnancy test while her equally frantic baby daddy looks on. He suggests she might have done it wrong, and she snaps, "Thomas, I can pee on a stick." He looks at the test and declares that while there are two lines, they're obviously red, not pink. She takes a look and says, "Pink." Which is funny because the point of the test is not whether the lines are pink or not but whether there are two of them. When my attractive lawyer wife used a pregnancy test, though, we responded with similar disbelief (though not nearly as much panic, as we were happy about the pregnancy, rather than freaked out) -- my wife felt the second line was too pale to mean she was really pregnant, so she made me call the pregnancy test company's customer service hotline to ask them. The woman on the hotline told me it doesn't, of course, matter how pale the second line is; if there's a line there, the test thinks you're pregnant. What a job that must be, huh? Working on a pregnancy test product hotline? It seems like you would never, ever talk to a dispassionate customer -- anyone who calls is either gonna be really happy, really sad, or really desperate. My attractive lawyer wife, though, was not satisfied by this response, so she used the other home pregnancy test -- they are sold in two-packs -- which offered the same result. Then, irritated by the two-line pregnancy tests, which were obviously created for the sole purpose of making otherwise rational people think they are pregnant and then breaking their hearts later when they find out they are not, she went back to the drugstore and bought a two-pack of the more expensive home pregnancy test, the kind with the digital readout that just says PREGNANT or NOT PREGNANT. That one said PREGNANT. In fact, both of them said PREGNANT. That made four positive pregnancy tests, soon to be five if you count the one her doctor did. After that she sort of finally believed that she wasn't being punk'd.

Anyways, Thomas claims that tests of this sort are not always accurate: "My uncle, you know, we thought he had testicular cancer," he desperately says. "Yeah, he did," Claire cries. "He's dead!" Ha! Behind Thomas, by the way, we see a truly terrible painting standing on an easel, expertly worked up by the prop department to demonstrate in one three-second shot that Thomas is a terrible, terrible artist. It looks like a finger painting by a quite unskilled six-year-old. So let's call him Thomas Kinkade, shall we? Claire faces facts and says she's six weeks late. She starts to make the bed as Thomas Kinkade stammers and stutters a bit more. But then he seems to take a stab in the dark and pitches to Claire the idea that they could make parenthood work. "My mom would disown me," Claire says, to which Thomas Kinkade points out she basically has already. And how would they support the baby, Claire asks -- on her "$5-an-hour job at Fish 'n' Fry?" Mmm, fish and chips. We had some great ones at the Fryer's Delight in London. I could eat some right now. "You're not the only one with a job, you know?" Thomas Kinkade simpers. "I mean, I've got my painting." Er, yeah, Thomas Kinkade -- and I've got my writing, but you won't be seeing my attractive lawyer wife becoming an attractive homemaker wife anytime soon. "That's sweet, but this isn't what we want," Claire says. Thomas Kinkade hilariously counters, "It could be, like, the best thing ever." They love each other, et cetera.

Broody Beach. Kate's staring out to sea as Jack approaches. "Well, this is a first," he says. "You, standing still, middle of the day, doin' nothing." Jack, have you been paying attention? If I recall correctly, the last time Kate accomplished anything other than being an adorable buttinski was when she sorted through clothes with Claire. "I am doing something," Kate claims -- she's standing in the surf, sinking into the sand as the waves roll over her feet. "I used to do it with my mom when I was a kid," she adds. Boy, stay out of the way of the Beckinsales when you go to the beach! Those Beckinsale girls have fun in the sun at a dangerous level! Jack clumsily segues to a discussion of Sayid, about whom Kate is still worried. Jack thinks he's fine. More awkward small talk, and Jack tells Kate that the baby's coming soon.

The jungle. Charlie brings Claire a cuppa and takes a seat. He asks if she's feeling better, then tries to take her mind off things by going on about a dream he has that symbolizes his fear of impotence. "I'm all right, Charlie," Claire says. Charlie tells her that if she needs someone to talk to -- a friend -- he would be happy to serve. She gives him a bit of a cold shoulder in response, though she's fairly nice about it. He says he gets it and takes off, clearly a bit hurt. Claire looks at the hypnogourd again and...

Flashback. Claire's walking down a Sydney street with a friend, telling her that Thomas Kinkade finished cleaning out his loft and she's moving in soon. They're heading to an appointment with a psychic, one which Claire feels a little nervous about, but her friend tells her it'll be fun.

The psychic, who looks like an evil Colm Meaney, takes Claire's hands and, after a long pause during which he receives information from the bulge in his back, asks Claire when she found out about the baby. Awkward! Claire looks at her friend, who shrugs an eloquent I-didn't-tell-the-psychic-about-your-baby shrug. "Two days ago," Claire says. Her friend interrupts the further silence to note that Claire hasn't told her mother yet, but Claire shushes her. E. Colm Meaney squinches his not-insubstantial forehead and looks aghast. "What is it?" Claire asks, and is put out when a frightened E. Colm tells her he can't go through with the reading. "You were gonna say something," Claire protests, but E. Colm tells her to leave, now. "What a freak," Claire's friend says as they walk out, but Claire looks scared.

The Caves I Can't Think of a Good Name For. Claire sleeps, wearing a black tank top. There's a weird little jump cut and Claire is suddenly attacked by someone who clamps a hand over her mouth and pulls up her (white) shirt to reveal her pregnant belly. A big fucking knife flashes in the foreground.

Commercials. To people like me who grew up in Wisconsin, the Buick LaCrosse is a hilarious name for a car. What's so ritzy and elegant, or, as the closed captioning claims, "shic," about the city of La Crosse that made Buick want to name a car after it? This does, however, remind me of one of the many, many events in my childhood that made my family believe I was going to end up gay -- when, in the 1987 Whitefish Bay School District Spelling Bee, I finished in second place because I confidently spelled sheik "chic."

Those Same Caves, Still Frustratingly Unnamed. Claire's screamin' again, and Charlie tells Jack that someone attacked her and then ran away. Charlie and Hurley go off to see if they can find whoever did it; Ethan gets some water; Jack and Mercutio sit Claire down and tries to settle her. A frantic Claire says that someone -- she couldn't see who -- stabbed her with some kind of needle. Jack and Mercutio look skeptical, what with her total lack of needle wounds and all.

Hurley and Jack walk through the jungle a bit later. Hurley points out that his search for whoever attacked Claire is hampered by the fact that they have no master list of who's living where on the island. "We don't even know each other!" he says. "My name isn't Hurley. It's Hugo Reyes. Hurley's just a nickname I have, all right? Why? I'm not telling." Heh. "The point is, we got to find out who everyone is." Jack asks if Hugo really wants to start a census, and Hugo says, basically, yeah: "It seems like someone's getting punched or stabbed or something every single day here." He thinks it's time to lay down the law.

The campfire. Charlie drapes a blanket around Claire and tells her that if she wants to sleep, he'll stay by her. "I won't leave you, Claire," he says, and of course, in Claire's flashback, .... . .-. / -... --- -.-- ..-. .-. .. . -. -.. / .-.. . .- ...- . ... / .... . .-.! The details are relatively unimportant: she's like five months pregnant and putting up drapes, Thomas Kinkade's a weenie, Claire points out he was the one who said they could handle it, he accuses her of getting pregnant on purpose. I'll just say that she handles the argument very well and he says all the same things that a total asshat would say in this situation. This is a good (and awful) scene.

Midsection Beach. Hugo approaches Locke, who appears to be tanning a hide. "Is this about your census?" Locke asks, and adds, "Who's checking on you?" When Hugo looks nonplussed, Locke says, "It was a joke." "Oh," Hugo says. "[expertly timed comic pause] Good one." Locke, who is so yucky that out of the other ten thousand possible containers scattered around the beach, he chooses a dead child's shoe to pour sand onto the hide he's tanning, tells him he lived in Tustin, California, and that he went to Australia "looking for something." "Right on," Hugo says, writing that down. "Didja find it?" Locke looks up at the sky and replies, "It found me." Hugo quickly waylays a nearby castaway, telling her, "I know I already talked to you, but I just wanted to get away from him for a second." Ha!

Kate, Jack, and Charlie are walking along the beach. Jack doesn't think anyone actually attacked Claire; Charlie's angry because he thinks Jack's accusing Claire of making it up. Jack explains that pregnant women have very lucid anxiety nightmares, but that only makes Charlie angrier, until -- just like when she broke up a fistfight with a reprimand -- Kate once again demonstrates the kind of authority you'd think would require more than a cute upturned nose to acquire, getting Charlie to shut up with a single word. Jack tells them that Claire's due in a week, but that any more panicky moments could trigger an early labor, and that out here on an island, that "would not be good." Now, I'm no jinocologist, as Alfred Kinsey would say, but it seems to me that the delivery of Claire's baby is going to be difficult here on an island whether it happens on her exact due date or a week earlier. I mean, we're not talking about Claire delivering a Cabbage Patch preemie, here. It's a week, Doc.

Out inna jungle, Hugo approaches Ethan and misnames him "Lance." Ethan cracks a joke -- not that one, a different one -- and tells Hugo his name is Ethan Rom and he's from Ontario. Hugo tries to come up with something nice to say about Canada, fails, and saunters away, but not before Ethan asks, "What's this for?" "Just thought it'd be a good idea," Hugo replies.

The Caves I'm Giving Up On Ever Finding a Good Name For. Jack approaches Claire. He lacks a little something doctors like to call bedside manner, because what he should say is something like: "Hey, I know that attack was as scary as hell and seemed totally real, but pregnant women often have anxiety nightmares that are terrifying and seem real. I know you don't want to hear this, because it was so realistic, but I am pretty certain that's what happened to you. It's nothing to be embarrassed about -- it happens to women in the best of circumstances, and being stuck on an island with a bunch of yahoos and one doctor who despite seeming perfect in every way is actually a lousy leader hardly qualifies as the best of circumstances. I will still make sure you're looked after, and if anyone does try and go after you, I'll make sure we'll get them, but you can feel a little safer now. And to help prevent early labor, I'd suggest you take this sedative." Instead, Jack basically frames the diagnosis in terms of Claire being loopy as a loon and him having to sedate her as a result. This is why, it is rapidly being revealed, Hugo is a better leader than Jack -- a deftly handled revelation that is one of my favorite parts of this episode. She gets rightfully angry and storms off; Charlie sees her going and asks Jack what he said to her.

Flashback. Claire knocks on Evil Colm Meaney's door and asks him to read her again. Inside, she pays him a bunch of Monopoly money and asks, "If you're a psychic, how come you have to count it?" "That's not how it works," he replies. "How does it work?" she asks. "I don't know," he honestly says. He takes her hands and divines that Thomas Kinkade left her like a punk. But that wasn't what he saw before that scared him so; he says last time he saw something blurry, and "blurry's bad." E. Colm looks like he's working out a quadratic equation in his head while also passing a kidney stone. "It is crucial," he says, "that you yourself raise this child." Claire asks about Thomas, but E. Colm says he's unimportant. "Danger surrounds this child," he says urgently. "Your nature, your spirit, your goodness must be an influence" for the baby. He gets more and more frantic as Claire says she's putting the baby up for adoption; he gives Claire her money back and continues to insist how important it is that she raise the child. She flees the psychic's Well-Appointed Living Room of Mystery.

Commercials. I know I've complained a lot about flashbacks in this show, but I'm pleased at how nicely they have contributed to this particular episode. The story on the island is still moving forward in interesting ways, and the flashbacks reveal not Claire's history as an international baby smuggler but instead her normal life, thrown askew by a moderately spooky event -- just enough to keep the story mysterious. I'm enjoying it a lot.

The flashback continues, with a phone call from E. Colm waking Claire in the middle of the night. In Australia, doesn't the phone ring in that funny "ring-ring, ring-ring" way, not the familiar "riiiiiiiiiing, riiiiiiiiiiiiing"? Beats me. So Claire picks it up and tells E. Colm to stop calling her all the damn time. She's scheduled to go to adoptive services tomorrow. E. Colm says he has an offer for her, and restates that great danger will befall her, et cetera, but she hangs up on him. I would think that at this point she would've called whatever police there are in Australia -- the Mounties? the Wallabys? -- to get him off her back. And then she'd have to testify in Kangaroo Court! [hold pose, pause for laughs]

Claire's walking across a field. Actually, I believe she's in the middle of the fairway during this scene. Charlie catches up with her and asks what happened. Jack thinks I'm crazy, she says, and instead of saying, "I believe something happened to you," Charlie says, "So to prove your sanity, you go tramping through the jungle alone. Good one." "I'm not crazy, Charlie," an angry Claire says. And since that's the line he's been pushing all episode, I'm not sure why he puts on a guilty face and doesn't answer here; I'd expect him to enthusiastically agree.

Midsection Beach. Shannon angrily gives her address to Hugo as "Craphole Island," and Hugo asks where they were last night. "Why the interrogation?" asks Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity, adding that they're not all cool with Hugo "setting up [his] own little Patriot Act." Hugo admits that Claire was attacked last night in the Caves Without A Name. "What?" Shannon says with a dirty look at her brother. "I am so not moving to the Rape Caves." Ladies and gentlemen, we have a winner! Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity tells Hugo he should find the manifest -- the one Claire used to read off names at the makeshift memorial service. "Who has it?" asks Hugo. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity replies, "Who do you think?"

Casa del Nicknames. "I'm just gonna lay it out straight," says Hugo. "I hear you have the flight manifest, and I need it and I want you to give it to me." Sawyer takes off his fantastic sunglasses and eyes Hugo, who notes that Sawyer could do what he usually does when someone asks for something and tell him to "screw off." (And then get into a fight, and eventually get tortured and stabbed by a genuine Iraqi.) "'Screw off'?" asks a bemused Sawyer. "Or you could just give it to me," Hugo continues, "cuz dude, you could use the points." Sawyer smiles. "Well gosh, you sure know how to butter a man up, Stay-Puft," he says. Hugo replies, "It's a gift." Sawyer gives him the manifest. I am throwing my weight behind Hugo Reyes for Kahuna of the Island, when it gets to that point.

Charlie follows Claire like a puppy dog. "You don't like me, Charlie, you just want to rescue me," she replies. "But I don't need rescuing." Then she gasps and grabs her stomach. Heads up, Charlie! She's about to drop a bomb on you!

Commercials. When did Ty the Carpenter become like America's Life-Changing Messiah? He even makes a trip to Sears seem like a bolt from the blue.

Claire and Charlie inna jungle. Charlie is freaking out. "We need to time the contractions!" he shouts. "One sugar plum fairy, two sugar plum fairy..." Heh. I like to imagine that Lynne E. Litt heard a British person count seconds in this manner once and wrote this entire episode around the concept. Charlie claims he can deliver the baby himself. Claire tells him to get Jack, but Charlie says he's not leaving her alone. "I might not know what I'm doing, but I'll figure it out," he declares. "If I can kick drugs, I can deliver a baby." Claire looks at him like he just...I can't think of anything he could do more bizarre than admitting his drug problem while trying to talk her into letting him deliver her baby in the middle of the jungle, so let's just leave it at that. "Let me explain," Charlie continues. "I'm a drug addict." This scene is wholly unbelievable, but tremendously funny. "I was a drug addict, but I'm clean now." "Get Jack!" Claire yells, and Charlie says, "Right," and runs mauka.

Flashback. Claire's in a lawyer's office; I spent much of the scene wondering if this bit was filmed anywhere that friends of ours work, since many of my attractive lawyer wife's former co-clerks now work for Honolulu firms, in offices that I'm sure are lined with official-looking books. Across the conference table from Claire sit a nice-looking couple, the Stewarts, and at the head of the table sits an attorney, who's explaining to Claire that once she signs the papers it'll be entirely up to the Stewarts whether the baby will have any contact with Claire at all. He also tells her that upon her release from the hospital, she'll get $20,000. Wow! Can you really do that in Australia? Also, why doesn't anyone refer to the baby by its gender? It seems unlikely to me that the Stewarts would have signed up to adopt a baby without even knowing its gender. The attorney passes Claire a pen and tells her to sign; before she does, she asks Ms. Stewart if she knows the lullaby "Catch a Falling Star." "...and put it in your pocket," the adoptive mother replies. "My dad used to sing that to me when I was a little girl," Claire says. "Do you think you could sing it to the baby once in a while?" The Stewarts agree. I can tell this is a Hollywood legal proceeding, because in a real one the attorney would butt in and notify Claire that the contract does not in any way obligate the Stewarts to sing "Catch a Falling Star," or indeed any lullaby. Everyone's being very nice in this scene as Claire takes the pen and attempts to sign -- but the pen's out of ink. The lawyer gives her another, but that doesn't work either. Ms. Stewart hands her a pen, but Claire stands up, and -- to the protests of those at the table -- says she can't do this, and leaves.

Claire knocks on Evil Colm Meaney's door. "What's your offer?" she says.

Charlie races through the jungle until he meets Ethan. "Claire's having the baby," Charlie tells him, and asks him to go get Jack. Ethan drops what he's doing and runs off towards the Rape Caves. Charlie runs back to Claire. Heh. Dominic Monaghan runs kinda hobbity, honestly. Charlie finds Claire and tries to get her to calm down. "I'm not supposed to be here," she says. "Someone told me it would be different." Charlie replies, "He was wrong."

Flashback. E. Colm's big plan, apparently, is to send Claire to Los Angeles with a pile of money. He claims there's a family in Los Angeles who is eager to adopt, and he's sure the baby will be safe there. "I appreciate that you must think I'm a raving madman," E. Colm says, "but this is what must happen." He gives her $6000 and promises an equal amount when she lands in L.A. "Six thousand dollars for my baby?" Claire says. "That dog won't hunt, Monsignor!" No, actually, she just looks confused.

Back inna jungle, Claire says it's embarrassing that she listened to a psychic. "And after everything, he was just full of it," she adds. "Or not," Charlie says. "All he wanted was that no one else raise your baby, right? Maybe he knew." As Charlie hums a few bars of Driveshaft's Japanese smash hit, "I Can See How Ugly She'll Be When She's Old (The Psychic's Lament)," Claire hypnogourds her way back to...

E. Colm's house. He's handing her a ticket with Oh Shit, The Plane Is Crashing Airlines, LLC's logo on it. "I can't go tomorrow," she protests. "It has to be this flight," E. Colm insists. "Flight 815." "There was no couple in Los Angeles," Claire says to Charlie. "He knew. He knew about the plane -- what was gonna happen..." We see E. Colm, whose eyes are black and creepy and full of tears.

After the commercials, we see Sayid tromping through the jungle. He's got a walking stick, but as per my previously stated rules regarding walking sticks, he's legitimately allowed to use one due to his injured leg.

Claire's contractions seem to have stopped. "Maybe that was the last one," she says. "Please let that have been the last one." "Birthing emergency averted," Charlie says, and they share a nice moment. "You think you can make it back to the Caves?" Charlie asks, and adds, "I won't let anything happen to you."

The Rape Caves. Sayid stumbles in and falls down. Five minutes ago Kate showed up saying, "I think something interesting's gonna happen! Can I hang out?" so she's there along with Jack and Locke. Sayid tells them he found the Frenchwoman, and warns them, "We're not alone." Locke looks on inscrutably.

Claire and Charlie hike through the jungle. Claire gasps, but it's not a contraction; she lets Charlie feel where the baby kicked.

Hugo runs into the Rape Caves and tells Jack there's a problem. "I interviewed everyone, got their names," he says. "One of them wasn't in the manifest. He wasn't on the plane."

"Hello there," says Ethan, interrupting Charlie and Claire. He stares at Claire's stomach as Charlie puts a protective arm around her shoulder. Boy, William Mapother is a disturbed-lookin' motherfucker.

week: Jack's going after Ethan! And Kate's coming with him!