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Claire's back, and she doesn't have any memory of anything since the plane crash. Oh, great, amnesia, there's a plot device that never gets tired. Fortunately for new viewers, we get a whole lot of recapping of some of the salient plot points. Ethan attacks Jin and orders Charlie to bring Claire back to him, or he's going to pick off Craphole Islandians one by one. So the campers set up guards and sentries, which you think they might have done ages ago anyway, what with the polar bears and the boars and the Iron Giant and ETHAN ATTACKING ONCE ALREADY, but I guess they couldn't have done that and play golf, but anyway.
We get more of Charlie's backstory -- copping drugs and ripping off unsuspecting women (trying to, anyway) and giving the worst copier sales presentation ever -- as well as, of all things, a shout-out to The Office, which kind of ruled, actually. Boone, God's Friggin' Gift to Humanity But Not Guard Duty, gets caught in a castaway trap, which provides much amusement, until Steve/Scott dies due to having every bone in his body broken. Jack busts out the nine-double-ems to even up the score against Ethan, because, despite outnumbering him 46 (er, 45) to 1, Ethan supposedly has the advantage. And Charlie goes Charles Bronson on Ethan's ass. It would have been nice for the islanders to get some answers out of Ethan, but Charlie's...well, he's kind of a tit, no? And can someone explain to me how legendary Driveshaft could have been when the only song we ever hear from them is "You All Everybody"? It's like if an Australian show about a plane crash starred the bass player from legendary American band The New Radicals.
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Previously on Lost: Ethan kidnapped Claire. That's bad. Ethan beat up Jack. That's good! Eth-- wait, that's it? Thirty-six seconds of previouslys? That shit ain't fair. You watch 24, you get like two whole minutes of previouslys. That might not sound like a lot, but for a recapper, that's friggin' ages. Two minutes of previouslys, then a car chase, and you're into commercial, and five minutes at your desk and you're a quarter of the way done. Odds aren't too likely that I'm getting a car chase on Lost any time soon. Maybe in a flashback? These are the things I wish for.
We open with Locke carrying Claire through the cave camp, yelling for Jack. Everyone else is kind of yelling and getting in the way, which I'm sure Claire appreciates. Does Walt really need to be there? Is he going to help? Will attracting polar bears to the camp help somehow? Locke hands Claire off to Jack, who lays her down on his operating slab or whatever, and for those of you who were wondering, or those of you thoroughly convinced there was no longer a bun in the oven, Claire is still very much pregnant. (Or she's really really retaining water and I'm quite the insensitive clod.) People are still crowding and yelling things like "Is she all right?" like BACK OFF ALREADY, which Jack finally makes them do and Locke tells him that Claire collapsed in his arms.
Let's just figure that Charlie understood that Jack's order for everyone to back off applied to everyone but him, because he's right up there staring at Claire. Jack tries to bring Claire around by applying a cold cloth to her face and gently talking to her. Eventually, she does come around, sees Jack -- and starts to scream. Man, I've been there, pal. Claire freaks out, despite Charlie trying to soothe her by telling her she's safe. She stares at him, frightened. "Who are you?" she says. Charlie's stunned. So am I. When the hell was the last time amnesia worked as a plot device? I can't remember. Ha! She looks around at the group. "Who are you? Who are you people?" she screeches. Commercials.
The women in the Victoria's Secret commercials seem rather surprised by their own breasts. What, these old things? Shucks. Where's Bob Dylan?
Perhaps I shouldn't have complained so much about not getting a lot of previouslys, because I get a bunch now, in the form of everybody bringing the amnesia victim up to speed, and I get the irritating sense that Claire's amnesia is a plot device to answer questions for new viewers. She remembers being on a plane from Sydney to L.A. So her memory cuts out right before the season premiere, then. She remembers nothing, and doesn't know any Ethan, apparently.
Jack explains that they've been stranded for almost a month, and Claire starts freaking out about the baby, who Jack assures her is kicking and normal and everything's fine (although I seem to remember Jack saying, just before she was abducted, that Claire was ready to pop, so you'd think there might be a little more concern on his part). Claire wants to know why no one has rescued them yet, and no one has the answer for that. See? Claire is a befuddled new viewer, and Locke and Jack and Charlie here are Lost's writing staff, with no answers.
And here's a little Greek chorus: Sun and Jin, watching the proceedings from a little distance. Jin wants to know if Claire's okay, and Sun says she thinks she is, and Jin asks after the baby, and Sun looks at him for a moment before saying that she's sure the baby is fine. Something's going on here; either Jin (and/or Sun) is interested in Claire's baby specifically, or, more likely in my mind, Sun and Jin have an upcoming backstory about a baby of their own.
From one secretive couple to the : Boone's grilling Locke on whether Claire escaped and blah blah blah blah, and Locke's all, essentially, "Did I get here before you or something?" Boone's quite incredulous that Claire doesn't remember anything. "You think he's around?" Boone asks. Dude, the credits are rolling RIGHT NOW. It just said, "Guest starring William Mapother," like TWO SECONDS AGO. Pay attention!
Charlie brings Claire her diary. Thank you, odd little man who HAS MY DIARY FOR SOME REASON, I'M FEELING SAFER BY THE SECOND. He says it might help, and he points out that where they're sitting right now is where she sleeps. "It's quite cozy, innit?" She says nothing. Eventually, he says that when Ethan took her, he took Charlie too, and the others came after them and got Charlie back but she was gone. And how nice that Claire's getting the story in dribs and drabs like this. "Who is he, Ethan?" asks Claire. "Ethan...Ethan's the bad guy," says Charlie, and I think new viewers could stand a little more complexity than this. Claire wants to know why Ethan left Charlie behind. It's because you're cuter, Claire. Charlie wants to leave that story for the morning. She says she won't be sleeping, and Charlie says that's lucky because he's not much of a sleeper himself, so finally he has someone to stay up with. "We're friends?" says Claire, and it hilariously sounds like she can't believe that. Charlie says they are indeed friends. And he keeps staring at her, at least until he flashes back to his drug-snortin'-in-back-alleys days back in London.
His buddy, or mate or bloke or whatever the hell, who's partaking of illegal substances with him in the alley behind some bar, whines that their stash is getting low, and since Charlie doesn't have vast quantities of money to buy more (isn't he a bloody rock god?) he's going to have to go back to work.
But we're not talking about singing here; back in the bar, Dodgy Mate is talking about "Lucy Heatherton, 22 and ripe in oh so many wonderful ways." She's a smiling brunette out for a pint with her girlfriends elsewhere in the bar. Dodgy Mate explains that she just graduated from Oxford and lives with her dad in Knightsbridge, her dad being Francis Pryce-Heatherton, "who, my friend, is bloody loaded." Charlie wants to know how Francis gets his information, like this is really inside stuff he's got here. "Ready to fall in love, Mr. Charlie Pace of legendary rock band Driveshaft?" Charlie's a little hesitant, watching the cute girl with her friends, but he finally says, "Absolutely."
And Charlie's got this unorthodox seduction technique, in which he jokes with the women about how he has "high moral standards" and they obviously want to take him home and ravage him. They're all sitting around laughing, having a great time. And Charlie orders them not to buy him any more beers. How impressed would I be if the so-called rock god at the bar couldn't even buy his own beers? Not very. But it seems to be working; Dodgy Mate even has Driveshaft's one and only song, "You All Everybody," playing over the bar jukebox.
Back on Craphole Island, the self-appointed learned circle of elders is passing judgment on the pregnant woman in distress. Sayid's skeptical that she actually escaped, because Ethan was so intelligent that he infiltrated them. Yeah? Sayid's basically saying, "The only possible explanation for Ethan outsmarting us is that he must be a genius." Sayid suggests that Ethan's sent Claire back. "You're off your head, mate!" yells Charlie, who clearly plans to be objective here. Jack does point out to Sayid that it's a stretch, and Sayid counters by asking how often in Jack's career he's diagnosed amnesia, and Jack admits that it's rare. Locke wants to know the chances of Claire's memory coming back, and Jack says he doesn't know. And the little hobbit freaks out again and says that while they talk about Claire, he's going to go spend some time with her, like STOW IT, CHARLIE, like this is such the magnanimous gesture for you.
He runs into Jin in the jungle on the way back to the caves, and he says "annyong" to him, and Jin says "annyong" back, and given that that means "hello" in Korean, I can't say I buy that as an intentional Arrested Development shout-out. And unfortunately Charlie starts doing the you-don't-speak-English-so-let-me-blissfully-blather-on-about-my-problems thing, and he seems to think that Jin is lucky he doesn't speak English, so he's not caught up in all the "bloody insanity that surrounds us at every turn," like maybe I'm missing something here, but Sun and Jin were on the plane that crashed, they're on the island with all its inherent dangers of boars and giants and Ethans, yet they're lucky that they CAN'T COMMUNICATE WITH THE OTHER CASTAWAYS, so could you maybe back up and explain that one to me again, Charlie, and this time consider how valuable English-language skills might have been to the once-handcuffed Jin, okay? "It's quite beautiful really. You take care of your wife, everything else is someone else's problem. No need to be involved in the decision-making process," and what I wouldn't give for that "tree-shaking behemoth" (that Charlie thinks Jin doesn't have to worry about) to come along right now and bite Charlie in half. Jin finally gets Charlie to shut up because he -- despite not speaking English -- has heard something, a rhythmic whup-whup-whupping, that's speeding up. And Jin's felled by some hard object that hits him in the head, knocking him out (if Jin spoke English, he'd probably be dead now). And Charlie just STANDS THERE, looking befuddled, like maybe his scrawny ass should take cover, but before he does anything, Ethan strolls out of the bushes, looking muddy and bloody. "Charlie, I want her back. I want you to bring her back." Charlie wants to know what Ethan did to her, and he picks up a club, presumably to find out that information, but Ethan just picks Charlie up by the throat and slams him against a tree and tells him that if Charlie doesn't bring Claire back, he'll kill a castaway every day until he does. "And Charlie? I'll kill you last." He lets Charlie go and walks away into the jungle. Not so tough without your Frodo, are you, Charlie? Commercials.
Hey, Vin Diesel? How's that XXX sequel looking to you now?
Charlie's at least had the good sense to tell the castaways about the threat, even if they're not quite as convinced as to the proper course of action. "What do we do? We go out and we bloody kill him!" Locke thinks Charlie should calm down. Of course, Charlie needs to convince them he's right, since Ethan's already kicked his ass twice. But Jack agrees with Charlie. "The man threatens to kill one of us unless we bring him Claire and what, we just wait for that to happen?" Jack says they tracked Ethan once, they can do it again. "You both seem to have forgotten how that turned out," says Locke. Heh. Locke's idea is to "circle the wagons" -- tell a select few and post sentries. Hey, guard duty! What a great idea! And now that the castaways are in danger for the very first time, maybe they should implement that. "'Tell a select few'?" scoffs Jack, because he's so good at telling everybody everything that's going on. But that's apparently what he wants to do this one time, so Locke agrees, and Jack decrees that they'll move everybody into the jungle, and Locke starts wondering if maybe that's just what Ethan wants so he and any help he has can get rid of them in one swoop. "All right, John, you obviously have a plan," says Jack. "So let's hear it." Locke just looks at him like, all right, all that time playing Axis and Allies finally pays off!
Sun gives a shirtless Jin a sponge bath, which is apparently the Korean method of treating a head trauma. They talk in subtitled Korean about how this is the best vacation ever. Well, of course they don't. It's got Sun asking Jin what happened and a frustrated Jin saying that he has no idea what's going on. Essentially. Sun's looking vaguely guilty about being able to speak English, but the way Jin snaps at her in one particular instance makes me wonder if he doesn't in fact suspect that she does speak English.
Charlie goes to blather on to Claire, which is great, as we haven't heard him yammering on for like two whole minutes already. She's concerned that no one's really talking to her, and she wonders if something's going on, so I guess they didn't tell her about the threat against her, which means that Jack's glasnost only goes so far. Charlie talks about what a great time they've had on the island, even going so far as to build a golf course. And how much do I hate hearing about golf in the middle of winter when I can't play? I don't wish to alarm you, but I was in Canadian Tire the other day and I just stood in the golf section for five minutes looking around at all the equipment and figuring out just how long it would be until I can play again, like my blossoming golf-obsession is precisely the sort of trait I would have mocked in someone else just a few years ago, and yet here I am. Anyway, since Claire really doesn't appear to relish the thought of Charlie's nonstop blather, she just asks him point-blank if something's going on, and he says there isn't. And then he stares off into space, which might freak Claire out a little bit, given that she has amnesia and likely doesn't remember how flashback-heavy this show is.
So Lucy's brought Charlie back to her place after what is I guess their first actual date, and Charlie's going on about how if she wanted to invite him back for sex she should just say so instead of pretending she's invited him back for tea, like SHUT UP, CHARLIE. And she goes off to fix the tea while he cases the joint and checks out anything pawnable, and quizzes her on her relationship with her father, who Lucy says is quite thrilled that she's going on a date with a bona fide rock star, like how unfortunate for Charlie that he apparently has some competition here. Her dad's out of town; Lucy thinks he's buying some paper company up in Slough. Now that, my friends, is a shout-out. And she comes back in as he's checking out a silver and gold cigarette case or something, and she says it belonged to Winston Churchill and her dad collects "old rubbish" from world leaders. And she wants Charlie to meet him ("Winston? No thanks. I hear he's quite mouldy," jokes Charlie) so guess who's coming to dinner?
Jack's sharpening a knife, which I wonder if, on the island, constitutes "prepping for surgery." Kate strolls up and says he looks hungry and tosses him a...well, I don't know. Let's say it's a mango. And she says Locke told them about the Ethan thing. "Why do you think he wants her back?" she asks, and Jack says he doesn't know. She came by to suggest that Jack break out the nine-millimetres he has stashed away in the air marshal's case, but Jack won't do it, quoting the statistics about how a gun's far more likely to shoot a fellow castaway than someone coming to kill you. "I'm not putting guns in untrained hands," says Jack, although there are plenty of trained hands on the island. Shit, Locke, Kate, Sayid, and Sawyer. There you go! Posse up!
Boone and Locke and Sayid are rigging up some A-Team-esque defences, if the A-Team wasted time setting up trip wires that drop a bag of the castaways' recyclables on your head. Locke orders up four of those bad boys around the perimeter of the camp, and I have to say those look like an awful lot of effort for a trap that will only work if Ethan trips a wire and then stands still in one exact spot. And Sayid's got plans to keep the sentry fires burning, and he's got men volunteering for guard duty. So Boone volunteers as well, and Sayid can barely disguise his skepticism and says "okay," but Locke's way more encouraging and says the camp's counting on Boone, like, R.I.P., castaways.
Nightfall, and Charlie's bugging Jack by suggesting that they should move Claire to a cave on the mountains since she might be safer there, and I don't know if Charlie could make any less sense whenever he opens his mouth but I do know that he's really starting to get on my nerves. Jack's too, although he softens a bit when Charlie reveals that he feels guilty about what happened to Claire. Jack just assures him that nothing will happen to her now, which is a promise I don't think Jack can make.
Flashback to dinner with Lucy and her dad, who's played by Hey! It's That Guy! Jim Piddock, who you may remember as being married to Mickey in A Mighty Wind. He says that Charlie is the most impressive person he and Lucy have ever had for dinner, which makes me feel really sorry for them. And he says that he used to be in a band, called Protestant Reformation. I'll allow that that's bad, but you don't get to snicker at that when you're in a band called Driveshaft. So Frank drones on about how the band broke up when he got married and Lucy was on the way, and yeah yeah, Summer of '69, and you've got to think about the future and all that, and this is of course Making Charlie Think. So Frank asks when the new Driveshaft record is coming out, and Charlie fortunately says the word "hiatus." He says his brother Liam just had a baby and so is taking some time off. "Quite a lot of time off, actually. It's been a year since we were together," he says, the bitterness in his voice evident. He says he's thinking of working on a solo project, since he and Liam don't keep in touch and there's been some problems with royalties. Frank busts out the sorry-I-asked face while Lucy looks sweetly concerned. Then Charlie admits that Driveshaft might be dead. He could just say their new record is called "Chinese Democracy," and that way he could have like several years to work on it in peace.
Back at the bar, Dodgy Mate hits the roof because the only thing Charlie took from Frank was a job offer, selling copiers. (Man, a crossover with The Office would rule. Actually, just watching The Office right now would rule. See ya later!) Charlie says he likes Lucy, and Dodgy Mate calls her a moose, which doesn't earn him a punch in the mouth, but it's quite harsh from a man with only a passing acquaintance with showering. Dodgy Mate reminds Charlie that he's supposed to steal something of value from the dude to pay for the heroin, since no one would ever suspect a rock star (Lost apparently existing in an alternate universe where rock stars are paragons of morality and virtue). Charlie fidgets, I imagine because the rock star who needs his tab picked up by his bar conquest and who is having royalty problems might be the first suspect. Charlie just says that Liam's not coming back so he needs to start thinking about his future. Dodgy Mate asks when Charlie starts his new job: Monday. It's Friday now. "A weekend without a fix. Monday should be bloody wonderful. Let's see how the future treats you then, hey, Charlie?" Dodgy Mate stomps off.
Back at camp, despite all these men who supposedly volunteered for guard duty, we only see, naturally, Locke, Sayid, and Boone, Camp Castaway's Spunky Li'l Guard -- who falls asleep at his post.
And it's morning. And Boone jerks awake, realizes he's fallen asleep, and hears something. Is he even by the camp anymore? When he fell asleep, there were fires close by, but now he's surrounded by trees. I'm not sure quite what happened, but I think the only important part is Boone blew it big time. Commercials.
So Boone's looking quite frightened there in the jungle, clutching his spear. The bushes rustle, and he charges at...well, nothing, and he trips and falls flat on his face, and we hear Locke yelling about someone tripping an alarm, and...Vincent shows up, so I guess he came back, that's nice to know, and Sayid and Locke come running up to laugh at Boone. Sayid jokes about finding a missing castaway, but before they can all have a good laugh, someone in the distance screams.
Everyone goes racing to the beach, where some Red Shirt lies dead on the sand. And as a crowd gathers, Sayid wonders how someone could have gotten past them. You mean other than when Boone got caught in a trap and he couldn't get out because he loves Shannon too much baby, and you and Locke left your posts to go laugh at him? Locke looks out to the ocean.
"Thought those guys had the full-on perimeter set up," says Hurley to Kate, who says Locke told her Ethan came in via the water. And as the council of elders carry the body off in a makeshift body bag, Hurley wonders if they're sure it wasn't an accident. Kate says every bone in the guy's body was broken, describing it in such graphic detail that Hurley almost chunders. "Guess ol' Steve drew the short straw," says Sawyer, strolling up. "Dude, that was Scott," says Hurley. Well, at least that won't be confusing anymore, right? Not to mention hilarious!
Memorial service for Steve Jackson, who Hurley eulogizes, saying that he was a salesman who won a two-week vacation in Australia as a sales prize, and maybe that's supposed to be ironic but I can think of worse ways to go than in a plane crash after a two-week vacation. Had he died on the flight there, that'd be a tragedy. Hurley calls him a good guy, then apologizes for always calling him Steve, in the running Steve/Scott joke that never actually goes anywhere. "I don't know how to end these," he says. And that's where we end. It's not as good as the eulogy for Donny at the end of The Big Lebowski, but what is?
Back at the caves, Claire's wandering around and noticing that all the extras are staring at her, so she seeks out one of the non-mute castaways, Shannon, to ask why everyone is staring at her. "I'm not staring at you," says Shannon, which as she's saying it is not true, and Claire calls her on it, so finally Shannon says, "You mean nobody's told you?"
And we go right to Claire tearing a right holy strip off Charlie for not telling her about Ethan's threat. "There wasn't anything you could do," he tries, lamely, but she doesn't accept that. He apologizes. "I just wanted to take care of you," he says, and she says she can take care of herself. Flashback!
Charlie, looking quite uncomfortable in a suit, which he tells a fussing Lucy ("Luce," he calls her now) that she didn't have to buy for him, and she wonders what he would have worn for his first day at his new job. "I have shirts! With buttons!" he tries. She notices he's sweating a little and asks if he's okay. He says he's nervous, and she tells him not to be: "Dad's put the fix in. He's already demanded they buy two copiers to boost your confidence." She turns away for a moment and Charlie looks at Churchill's cigarette case and the music screeches a little bit in case we're not sure what might happen. And she asks if he's memorized the manual and he blathers off some features of a copier (which has a model number that's the same as the doomed Lost flight). She points out that he's been onstage in front of thousands of screaming fans, so selling a copier to a couple of dudes will be a breeze. Then she's all, "Ooh, wait here! I need to leave the room for a moment, giving you ample opportunity to steal Churchill's cigarette case!" Which he does, looking rather ashamed. (Which reminds me: it's been at least weeks since the last time I kicked heroin, but as far as I can tell, Charlie looks suitably awful.) Charlie heads for the door, but Lucy informs him that she's driving him, despite his protests.
Locke's sharpening some foliage into a spear when Jack asks him to walk with him and talk. Jack's wondering what happens after the sun sets tonight. "What if we don't bring Claire to him? Rhetorical, Jack. Same thing happens tonight happened last night." Jack suggests Locke pick up Ethan's trail from where he attacked Charlie and Jin, but Locke doesn't think that's a good idea. "Whoever he is, wherever he comes from, we're on Ethan's turf. He has the advantage." Locke says they're just a bunch of scared idiots with sticks, which is a rather astute analysis. Jack says he's got a way to get the advantage back, and takes the key from around his neck and grabs the briefcase from his hidey-hole. He opens it, and Locke's rather surprised by the guns. "Why, doctor, you've been holding out on us." Jack gives Locke a gun and says he guesses Locke knows how to handle one. Locke just smirks. Now we're going to see some A-Team action. Commercials.
"Are you insane?" Charlie's yelling at the A-Team, who it seems have suggested using Claire as bait to lure Ethan out so they can bust a cap, or four, in his ass. Charlie's ranting about what a bad idea this is when Claire interrupts to say she can speak for herself. "They want to use you as bait!" yells Charlie, and Claire says that if she can help stop Ethan from hurting someone else, then she needs to do that. So Charlie opts for Plan B: joining the A-Team. "I'm coming with you," he says, pointing out that there are three of them and four guns. "You ever fire a weapon?" asks Locke. Hey, has Jack? Charlie doesn't say anything, so the A-Team turns their backs on him and starts making plans. Aww, don't make Charlie have another "I'm not useless!" tantrum.
Anyway, the tension's really starting to increase, so now's a good time to flash back to a lighthearted scene in which the heroin addict is all sweaty and nervous and making an incompetent photocopier sales pitch, one that ends with him vomiting on the machine, all set to ukulele music. I wish I were kidding.
Locke's thinking. "Charlie's right. We've got four guns. We should have four men." Seems to me that the person we've seen demonstrate the best firearms proficiency is a woman, but I guess only people with penises are allowed to hold the penis substitutes. Because their choice to join the posse is Sawyer, who, when asked if he knows how to handle a gun, says, "I know at least one polar bear that seems to think so." Kate, of course, looks perplexed, but she always looks that way. Kind of odd, since it was her idea to use them. Naturally, her problem is just that she wants to come along. Jack nixes the little woman's idea, saying that they're "out of guns" and that no one's going out there unarmed. Well, other than THE PREGNANT WOMAN YOU'RE USING AS BAIT. Sawyer wants to know how much ammo they have, and Jack says about a hundred rounds, all nine-millimetre. And Sawyer's all, well, if the lady wants to come, and he pulls out the air marshal's other gun, which everybody seems to have forgotten about until now. So Jack glares for a moment, but Sawyer says, "Five guns are better than four," and Jack finally gives in, probably realizing that Kate could kick his ass, and that even the A-Team had a woman on it. Sometimes.
Charlie watches the group making their plans, and since he doesn't know Kate's past, he's probably thinking, "Oh, a bird gets to go but I don't? Wankers. Lorry, flat, telly." And so forth. Sayid's telling Claire that she'll be surrounded at five points, and reminds the others that "guns are the measure of last resort." They want Ethan alive. Charlie glares after them as they saddle up.
It's night, and it's raining, and Claire's all by herself in a small clearing in the jungle. You know, they could have given her a jacket. We see the A-Team in their various hiding places, and if they don't want to be seen, maybe they could quit moving around and poking their heads out from around the trees. Suddenly, Ethan lunges out from the brush at Claire, who goes screaming off through the woods, which probably ain't part of the plan. Commercials.
Claire's running, Ethan's chasing her, Jack's following behind. Still no "Run Through The Jungle." My anger knows no words. Jack manages to tackle Ethan, losing his gun in the process, while the other members of the A-Team swing into action, mainly consisting of yelling and pointing guns while Jack and Ethan fight. Jack finally gets the upper hand, while Locke is yelling "hold your fire" like this is a military exercise or something. Ethan's down on the ground, and Jack still keeps clocking him, but considering how strong Ethan's proven to be, I'm not sure I can really blame him. "Winner by knockout. Nice one, doc!" yells Sawyer. Ethan gets to his knees. "Uh uh uh, jungle boy. Not for one second," says Sawyer, with his gun right in Ethan's face. But before anything else happens, blam blam blam blam. Ethan's wasted, bullets through the chest, and somehow not one member of the A-Team noticed Charlie showing up and picking up Jack's gun. Everybody looks stunned. Now they'll never be able to ask Ethan what the weather is like in Ontario! Nice scene, if kind of bullshit. The rain and the mud made things pretty dramatic. And for those of you who found the wet fighting men kind of hot, I'd like to complain about the grievous underutilization of Kate in this scene. What was even the point of bringing her along?
Back at the camp, Jack sits down to a brooding Charlie. "Why did you do it, Charlie?" he asks, which you'd think they might have covered right after it happened. "Because he deserved to die," says Charlie. Jack starts talking about what they might have learned from Ethan, but Charlie doesn't think Ethan would have told them anything. "I wasn't going to let that animal anywhere near her again," he says. Shut up, Charlie. Jack just blinks a couple of times.
Charlie flashes back to him knocking on Lucy's door, and profusely apologizing to her, but she ain't havin' it, telling him that her dad's sales manager showed up with a cigarette case that the EMTs pulled from his suit jacket at the hospital, and it still smelled of his sick. Charlie's like, whoops. "Oh, you meant to. You meant to! You're a liar! I believed you and you lied! I thought you wanted...you said...you selfish bastard!" like GO LUCY, and Charlie tries to explain, and she says she understands why he pretended to like her, and why he stole ("because you're a junkie!") but she can't figure out why he took the bleedin' job (she didn't say "bleedin'," but I wish she had because I love that Briticism). "I guess, I...wanted to be...respectable. I wanted you to think that I could take care of you," he says. "You'll never take care of anyone," she hisses, and slams the door in his face. So, are we supposed to feel sorry for Charlie now? Like this excuses his behaviour? Bollocks.
Hurley strolls through camp. Sun and Jin snuggle. Jack fills up water bottles. Sayid gazes at Shannon while she tends to some wound that I don't remember him suffering this episode (big faker). And Charlie broods. And broods. And Claire comes up to him, smiling, and says, "I remember peanut butter. Why do I remember peanut butter?"
Shut up. That's why.
I'm gone for a couple of weeks, so behave for Sobell while I'm gone. And I'm warning you: by the time I write a recap, my attractive non-lawyer future wife will have had the "future" designation removed, so expect a marked increase in toilet-seat-up-or-down jokes. ["Not on my watch, son." -- Sars]