Fire + Water

There's an older boy there already excitedly opening presents, and the younger lad -- oh, let's just call him Charlie -- starts grabbing presents himself, only to find that they're all tagged for "Liam," who has ripped open one gift to find Voltron. Thing is, it's actually a G.I. Joe, but I guess in the U.K. they call G.I. Joe "Voltron." I didn't know that. "Where are MY presents?" whines Charlie. Selfish crybaby even then, hey?

But a bathrobed mommy has just entered to say, "Right over here, Charlie," like I guess she didn't want to leave the eight-ball under the tree. Actually, over to the side is something large covered in blankets and brown paper. Underneath is an upright piano, which Young Charlie is quite thrilled to have. I think I was about Young Charlie's age when we got a piano, and I have to say I wasn't nearly so thrilled as Charlie is. Guess the music and/or heroin bug hadn't bitten me. Yet. "Father Christmas must have known how talented you are!" says Mom. And he brought the piano anyway, you mean? Mommy calls Charlie "special," and I think by the time this series ends, every character will have been described this way. "Someday you'll get us out of here. All of us," she says, and I imagine that eventually we'll find out whatever became of Mommy. Hope Charlie helped you escaped your hellish existence wherein you, as an apparently single mother, can afford to give pianos for Christmas presents. "Yes, c'mon, baby brothah," we hear from over by the tree, and when Charlie turns, his brother Liam is his grown-up junkie rock star self, and apparently wearing a diaper. So we're doing the dream sequence, are we? Great. That's always a winner. Like Lost isn't incomprehensible enough on its own. "You can't save your family if you don't play," he says, and goes back to playing with his "Voltron." And now Young Charlie is Adult Charlie. Another exhortation from Mom to play. And now there is a butcher in the living room, and I mean complete with bloody meat on a butcher block and a huge cleaver. "Dad?" says Charlie. We don't see the butcher's face as he harangues Charlie about needing to learn a trade. How interesting that they're giving a character on this show some daddy issues. It's about time they explored this theme, don't you think? And Butcher Daddy then chops the head off a doll (some obscure Beatles reference?), so am I to take it that Daddy wasn't an actual butcher but more of a performance-artist butcher? Liam, who is by now lying down on the couch, sarcastically asks Charlie to save them, and his mother sincerely says it, and Charlie turns back from the piano, and I swear that if he starts plinking out "Heart and Soul" then I will take that cleaver myself and bury it in his skull.

And Charlie begins to tinkle out some chords, and he's playing it like when a hair band plays a ballad and so the drummer steps out from behind the kit to play some basic chord progression (I'm thinking like Tommy Lee and "Home Sweet Home," in that vein) and any fingers of his that aren't actually depressing keys are sticking straight out all rigid, which ought to earn him a slap across the knuckles by his piano teacher.

So we pull back out from the piano, and now Charlie is playing the piano on Lostaway Beach, and the waves are rolling in around him, and the damper pedal is now a literally true thing. And then we hear some baby crying from theplacewhere the strings and hammers are, which name you'd think I'd know after all my lessons, but I do not. ["I always called it the case, but I don't know if that's the formal term." -- Sars] But I always preferred playing the piano with the lid open anyway, with the louder, fuller sound, an added bonus to which I can see now that I can easily rescue any crying babies that get stuck back there. Charlie's wishing he could open the lid to save Aaron, because what other crying baby is going to be stuck in the hallucinatory piano on the beach in some kind of weird Harry Connick Jr. mixed with Chris Isaak video? And then the piano tips over and it is now washing out to sea, and the piano might want to think about waiting an hour before going out in the water because it just ate a baby.

And then Charlie looks around, and seems concerned. Instead of relieved to find out it was just a dream? No, he's freaked that maybe something's wrong with Aaron, so he goes looking for him, and doesn't see him in the crib, and you'd think the fact that Claire wasn't there either would calm him down somewhat, but he goes yelling at Sun, who's hanging up laundry, to ask if she knows where Claire and the baby are. Sun's all, right over there, because apparently Charlie couldn't be arsed to even look, that's how frantic he is to find them, that he won't actually look. Because there's Claire, the yummy mommy, holding Aaron on the beach, glowing in the light of the setting sun. Charlie watches for a moment, relieved -- and then Locke has to show up and appear to be friends with her, of all things, and Charlie puts on a stalker glare and watches the two of them, and then slinks back into the shadows. His precioussss

Claire's tending to Aaron in his crib. Charlie strolls up with some cloth diapers (in the U.K. they call them "shite-bags"). And he tries to be as non-stalkerly as possible as he gives them to her, and she looks apprehensive but thanks him, because clean shite-bags are always welcome, and goes back to tending to Aaron. Please stop there, Charlie, before you scr-- oh, fine. He asks if Aaron has been asking after him. Since Aaron is what, two days old? I'm fuzzy on the timeline. Anyway, I'm assuming Charlie is joking. But Claire is not in the mood for Charlie's whinging that he wants things to go back to the way they were before, so she points out that the way things were before was that they were strangers on a plane, and then they became friends. "And now Locke is your friend," mutters Charlie, and Claire glares at him like he just made a MILF joke. She tells him she needs space, which usually heads off potential stalkers, as I understand it. Charlie stands up. Even Aaron from the crib is giving him the stink-eye. "See ya, mate. Take care of your mum, now." Oh, we're all crying, Charlie.

Back on Craphole Island, Kate is somehow qualified to do what looks like physical therapy with gimpy Sawyer. Hurley's sitting there watching them, and he asks Sawyer if he got to know the "Tailies" very well when he was over on the other side of the island. "Well enough, why?" says Sawyer, even though it seems to me that he was unconscious and/or getting hit by Ana-Lucia for the vast majority of his time over there. "That Libby chick seems pretty cool," says Hurley, as nonchalantly as he can. Kate tries to suppress a smile, and Sawyer looks over at him slyly. "I mean, is she?" finishes Hurley, and Sawyer teases him about a "love connection" brewing, and Hurley pretends that he's just asking. "I hear ya asking," says Sawyer, and Hurley just gets flustered and says forget it and stomps off. Kate smilingly asks why Sawyer's acting like he's in junior high. Junior high would be a step up for this crew, if you ask me. Speaking of acting like they're in junior high, Sawyer looks over to where Ana-Lucia and Jack are walking out of the jungle, and says that's the third time he's seen them coming out of there. He has a hall of fame smirk on when he asks Kate what she supposes they're doing in there. Training ninjas and (I assume) drinking. Kate just tells him to keep doing his exercises, doing her best to pretend it doesn't bother her.

It's a rare Charlie Pace solo unplugged concert on the beach! Only no one's there to watch him. Maybe he didn't pass out enough flyers. Actually, he probably told everyone, which would explain the lack of audience. But good thing he's there, because he hears crying and sees Aaron's cradle riding the waves out to sea. It's safe to say that in most cases when you hear a crying baby in a cradle heading out on the surf, you should probably do something about that. But somehow Charlie can't tell that this is a dream sequence, so he strips off his shirt and starts swimming out to the cradle, which I guess he thinks Locke attached pontoons to so that it can float like that. And he's yelling to Aaron that he's coming, and the funny thing is that right after he says this, these two little baby arms stick out from the cradle and start paddling furiously away from him.

So now Charlie's hauling the cradle in, and he's not exactly being gentle about it, slinging it around like a sack of potatoes as he sets it down on the sand and gathers Aaron into his arms. Aaron looks none the worse for his watery adventure.

The dream sequence becomes a little more obvious when Charlie looks up the beach and sees Claire and his mother posed (and dressed) like the women in the painting of his childhood home -- they even have halos! Charlie's rather delighted to see his mom, even if the whole scene is now bathed in a sepia tone, and then he gets concerned when they start repeating over and over that the baby is in danger and that he has to save the baby; he also clearly seems to be thinking, "ButI just saved the baby!" There's a flash, and with a neat little shadow effect, a dove appears to fly out of the painting-sky, past Charlie and out to sea.

Then Hurley shows up, dressed like Jesus, or perhaps John the Baptist, which is probably not something that I'll ever have to write again, in another recap. Hay-zeus Hurley wants to know what Charlie's doing. This snaps Charlie out of his hallucination; it's now dark. However, Charlie is still indeed standing in the surf holding Aaron in his arms. "It's the middle of the night. What are you doing with the baby?" Sometimes, when Hurley calls someone "dude," you know that he's being serious. I think here, when he isn't calling Charlie "dude," that he's really concerned.

Up by the trees, we hear Claire start to make a fuss as she notices Aaron's gone, and Hurley yells over that it's okay, and then like all the Lostaways are instantly awake and running over, and Charlie realizes this, you know, kinda looks bad. Claire's freaking as Charlie hands Aaron to her, and he stammers that he doesn't know what happened, but Aaron's okay, and Charlie had a dream, and he's thankfully interrupted with a slap in the face from a distraught Claire, who fixes Charlie with a look of equal parts anger and contempt. Ready to give her some space now, Charlie? This isn't a romantic comedy; not even Matthew McConaughey would be able to get away with baby-snatching, so don't think this is getting you back into Claire's good books.

Hurley and Sawyer are playing blackjack on the beach, and Sawyer's getting frustrated trying to explain to Hurley that one doesn't hit on a stiff, but Hurley is completely clueless about the game, and I have no idea why they're even playing, except to pair up Hurley and Sawyer so that Sawyer can make a comment about Libby, who's carrying some laundry a little ways away. "Well, go on. I'm sure you've got a load you need to drop in, don't you, Jethro?" like how disgusting is Sawyer anyway? Hurley says he's waiting for his moment -- not that he seems to mind revealing his crush to everyone but Libby -- and Sawyer says the moment is now, and painfully gets to his feet and yells out Libby's name before disappearing into his tent thing. Libby looks over, sees a nervous Hurley, who waves. She waves back. "Hey, yourself," she says, because Sawyer sounds so much like Hurley, apparently. She walks away, looking at Hurley and smiling. Hurley looks like he's about to throw up.

Locke's leaving the hatch in the jungle when Charlie shows up. He doesn't look especially pleased when Charlie asks to talk to him for a second, but it's not like Charlie's not used to that. "I take it you heard about what happened last night," says Charlie all casual. Locke's like, you mean you snatching Aaron out of Claire's tent? Yeah, word tends to get around on something like that, you wanker. "This whole thing was a big misunderstanding, John. I was sleepwalking," says Charlie, and thank god Locke interrupts Charlie's bullshit pleading for Locke to talk to Claire on his behalf to bluntly ask if Charlie's been using. "What?" says Charlie, like he has no idea what Locke is asking, and forces Locke to use the word "heroin." Instead of saying "no," Charlie flies off the handle about Kate seeing a horse, and pretty much everybody seeing Walt in the jungle, which is interesting that they actually talk about these things. "But when it's Charlie, it must be the bloody drugs, right?" So one moment you're telling Locke you were sleepwalking, and now you seem to admit to having visions? "That's funny. You didn't answer the question," says Locke calmly. Charlie says that he and Eko burned the plane, including the statues. "All of it?" asks Locke, skeptically, and Charlie lies right to Locke's face, so remind me why we're supposed to sympathize with Charlie here? Locke looks hard at Charlie, then finally seems to accept his word, and says, "Trust is a hard thing to win back. Claire needs time. You should leave her and the baby alone for a while." Locke leaves, Charlie gets ready to flashback.

Wow. You've heard of selling out? Nobody does it Driveshaft-style. We're with the band on what at first appears to be a video shoot, as the band's clad in matching red, white, and black bathrobes while sitting on director's chairs with the band's name emblazoned on the back. I understand that Driveshaft were a big influence on Jack White. Liam, of course, is sick, while Charlie wants to know if he can do this, earning a "sod off" for his trouble. We hear someone yelling that they're going to give it another shot. "Get it together, all right? Lest you forget, we need this," snaps Charlie. Need a hot video to rocket the band into the stratosphere of fame? Not quite.

So the director is bitching that they have twenty minutes until they're in overtime, so "get it right." And when the band disrobes, they're wearing what appear to be diapers, and they take their spots on the set, which is a giant crib, and they're all holding packages of "Butties" diapers. And Charlie has a big pacifier in his mouth. And I'm starting to go into the fetal position myself. And someone says this is "take fifty-three," and the music starts up, and the band is doing this really basic choreography, stepping to the left, then stepping to the right, then spinning around, like, this isn't exactly the Rhythm Nation we're talking about, but Liam can't keep up. And the lyrics have been changed to "You all every Butties," which makes even LESS sense than the original. And then there is this part where the band members stick their butts through the bars of the crib, and Liam tries to and falls right through, which makes the director can the whole shoot right there, like, I'm sure the good people at Butties would have something to say about this. And Charlie pleads with the director to no avail, and the director says the band was only hired as a favour to their lawyer, whatever that means, and he wanted Dirt McGirt? Which I guess is another band? And there is someone handing the director some Perrier on a tray, and just WHAT KIND OF COMMERCIAL SHOOT IS THIS, and Charlie begs for another chance, and the director says that if they want another chance, they should get rid of "that one," pointing at Liam. "I'm not ditching anyone," says Charlie, glaring. "He's my brother." The director says in that case, they're fired.

Charlie stomps up to Claire's tent, with Kate there to head him off, despite him saying that he needs to talk to her. "She'll want to hear this!" says Charlie, who eventually pushes Kate aside and then babbles on to a fearful Claire that Aaron's in danger (no SHIT she's in danger, you crazy dope fiend! From you!) and that the solution is to baptize him, which they can do because Eko's a priest. If Claire knows anything at all about baptism (which she doesn't appear to), she'd know that baptism isn't going to save the kid from anything except going to hell when he dies from this threat Charlie's yelling about. Kate then shoves Charlie away, down the beach. A little ways away, Locke watches the whole thing, frowning. Hey, Locke, little help?

Ana-Lucia is rigging up some kind of shelter. Jack strolls over, carrying a tarp, that he gives her "for when it rains," and it sure is lucky for the Lostaways that Oceanic Flight 815 was apparently carrying a major shipment from some Australian tarp manufacturer, since there seem to have been so damn many on board. And it's lucky for Ana-Lucia that the structure she constructed is a perfect fit for the tarp she didn't have when she was building it. But never mind. She asks Jack when he's going to tell her what happened in the jungle. "I already did," he says.

Ana-Lucia says Jack told her what Hairy Man (thanks again, Erin!) said, but what Jack didn't tell her is why he turned around and came back. "He had a gun to Kate's head," says Jack. Ana's response, unfortunately, is "You hittin' that?" Because trying to keep someone from getting shot is only understandable if you are indeed "hittin' that." Jack appears confused, so Ana-Lucia elaborates: "Plane crash, you both survive, nice beach. She's hot, you're hotit's what people do." She's an expert on plane-crash survivors, I suppose. And she is definitely asking out of more than just curiosity. Jack, thankfully, says he's not "hittin' that," but fails to add that it's none of Ana's business either way. Until he starts hittin' her.

We're out in the jungle with Charlie, skulking through the foliage until he finds his stash of hidden heroin-filled Virgin Mary statues. He's glancing around furtively, but they might as well show us Locke following him, because it will be no surprise later on. Charlie picks up a statue and stares at it, then drops it on the ground and stomps on it to get to the sweet sweet heroin inside.

Flashback to Charlie, pencil clenched in teeth, plinking along crappily on his piano. Liam strolls in, flops down on the couch. "Karen kicked me out, man," he says. Wow, that's almost hard to believe. Charlie wants to know why, and Liam says it's because she thinks he's dangerous to the baby. "Why would she think that?" says Charlie. Because she knows him? "Because I dropped her. I dropped Meghan," says Liam, starting to cry. Or, to put it another way, because he is dangerous. Charlie tries to console him, but Liam's despondent because they have no money and wants to know what they're going to do. Charlie says they'll get through this, because he's writing again. Do they have food stamps in the UK? Better get to work, Liam.