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.
“ '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! ”
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.
“ Shut up. That's why. ”
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]