Episode Report Card Daniel: B+ | Grade It Now! YOU GRADE IT Sisters are screwing it up for themselves
By Daniel | Season 2 | Episode 15 | Aired on 02.28.2006
In a hurry? Read the recaplet for a nutshell description! Finished? Click here to close.Claire remembers more bits and pieces of her abduction at the hands of Ethan Rom, and it involves some kind weird doctor's office/operating room in which she's getting a big belly needle from a doctor-esque Ethan. And she seems quite happy to be there, but that can be easily explained by the massive sedating Ethan seems to be doing, down in yet another Dharma hatch -- this one with the Caduceus symbol, but I think I'm going to call it Dharma Feelgood, for the benefit of everyone who knows that Tommy Lee was once in a band. There's a nursery down there, which is for the baby, and an apologetic Ethan explaining to Claire about how there's only enough vaccine for her or the baby, which they'll be looking after when they send Claire back to her camp. She also remembers Ethan talking to Gruffy McScruffenbeard, only he's not so scruffy and is in fact beardless.
See, in the present day, Turniphead is sick, and Claire is convinced -- despite Jack (who we know is actually a doctor) telling her that it's just a fever -- that she needs medicine from the scary people who abduct pregnant women, try to kill their ersatz bodyguards, and wield giant belly-needles. Makes sense to me. Kate gets a gun from Sawyer, presumably because Claire told her about the little toy planes in the nursery, and she and the other two Craphole's Angels (Rousseau being the third) go traipsing off in search of various landmarks in Claire's returning memory. They find the now-abandoned Dharma Feelgood, which no longer has a nursery and no longer has any medicine. However, Kate finds the grimy rags that the Others wear when they're out and about, hanging up in some lockers, as well as theatrical glue and a fake beard. It's almost like we can't trust these people whose hobbies include kidnapping pregnant women, hanging bass players, and blowing up recreational rafters.
Speaking of trust, Claire still doesn't have any for Rousseau, since one of her memory fragments is of Rousseau grabbing at her, which we've presumed to be part of the abduction. Comes now the revelation that Rousseau actually saved Claire from the Others, and that Claire was helped on the inside by a woman who in all likelihood is Rousseau's daughter, Alexandra. Rousseau is so taken with the possibility of her own daughter being alive and well that she tells Claire that she hopes Aaron isn't infected, but if he is, Claire's gonna have to kill him (she doesn't use the word "kill," but that's what she means). Fortunately, it turns out that Aaron really did just have a fever, and he's fine. Also, he has a huge head. It's about as proportional as Stewie Griffin's.
Elsewhere, the power struggle (if you can call it a struggle) is starting to flare up between Jack and Locke, and Henry is starting to exploit that, either because he really is an Other, or he's just trying to stir up shit and somehow be able to escape. Eko comes in to spout some mumbo-jumbo and he cuts off those little scraggly beard bits on his chin. Which, thank God, because they were starting to bug me for absolutely no reason that I can articulate.
There are also two books featured in this episode. When I write the recap proper, I will tell you, as I have done with two other featured works of literature, to check out the first word on pages 4, 8, 15, 16, 23 and 42, because it forms a sentence that could be a hint. As with the other times I've done this, I will be lying, and I will remind you in the recap that I have lied before and am clearly not to be trusted. And yet, the day after the recap goes up, I will receive email from people wanting to know whether I'm talking hardcover or paperback. Just warning you. Want more? The full recap starts right below!
It's the middle of the night, and Turniphead's all fussy, crying and screaming like a big baby. Claire's frantically trying to shush him, and wakes up Locke, as if Locke could sleep with all the racket anyway, and says she needs to find Jack because Aaron's sick. Locke says Jack is "on shift" in the hatch. Claire makes as to light out for the hatch, but Locke stops her, saying he can't let her go through the jungle alone at night. You'd think that'd be something Claire would be quite reluctant to do without Locke saying it. But anyway, he volunteers to go get the doctor.Jack is sleeping on a couch. Boy, is old man Locke going to be pissed at Jack! Probably going to make him work on the weekend, too! Jack wakes up as Locke enters, and he's not overly thrilled when he finds out he's been roused because Turniphead supposedly has a fever. "Claire was coming here," says Locke, pointedly, and he and Jack both look at the closed-door of the armoury jail where Henry Gale is being held. So it wasn't so much chivalry that made Locke come, as not wanting their little Abu Ghraib to be exposed. Locke asks if Henry's asleep. "Not a sound all night," says Jack. So, asleep or dead, then. Jack resignedly gets up, says he'll be back as soon as he can.
Back on Craphole Beach, Claire's still trying to calm a screaming Aaron, wetting a cloth to cool him down. I've always wondered what they do to babies to make them cry like that when they need to on television shows. Or do they just sit around waiting for a tantrum? When I was a baby, my dad would surreptitiously poke me during church, so I'd start crying and he could take me out and go home and watch the hockey game. Anyway, Rousseau comes strolling up, and by "strolling up," I mean, "does that weird zombie staring walk thing she does." Claire freaks out, yelling. Nobody comes running. Wasn't there supposed to be some sort of guard system at the beach? You know, what with all the people dying? And failing that, can people be bothered to WAKE UP when someone is screaming? Rousseau is fixated on Aaron. "He's infected, isn't he," she says. Claire, who really should have run far, far away by this point, wants to know what she's talking about. Rousseau says Aaron's sick. Claire yells for her to get away. "You don't remember, do you?" says Rousseau, and apparently now Claire does, because we get a rapid-fire succession of images: a crib with a mobile of planes; the door on a stainless-steel medicine cabinet swinging open, revealing shelves full of vaccine bottles; a woman's hands holding some knitting; someone unscrewing the top of a canteen; a woman's face filling the screen; the tip of a needle, and then a very pregnant belly being wiped with a disinfectant before said huge-ass needle is poked in; and Claire struggling with Rousseau. Over top we hear a couple of klaxons with some dude saying, "It's a vaccine. We don't want him to get sick." I didn't recognize the voice at this point.