Bring ON the hardcore!

OOh, Ooh, memememe.

let me roll up my sleeves. I just had my cookies and milk. I'm ready.

Raised By Another

The opening scene is one of the creepiest, most frightening things I've ever read. It is going to seriously freak people's shit out. Claire is woken up in the middle of the night by a baby crying. She sits upright, puts her hand on her stomach, and is not pregnant. She starts to run through the woods. She finds Locke, sitting at a table with a desklamp. He looks up, and one of his eyes is completely black. One is completely white. Claire hears the baby again and keeps running. She finds a bassinet with a mobile above it. The mobile is made up completely of broken toy airplanes. When she picks up the baby, it's just a doll, which screams when she lifts it up. She sees blood running down her hands.

She wakes up and there is still blood running down her hands. Charlie has found her and tells her that she was sleepwalking. Jack bandages her hands (apparently she'd dug her nails so hard into her palms that they bled), and asks her a few medical-type questions about her pregnancy. She gives all the right answers, but in a very evasive way.

Flashback! Claire & Thomas' apartment in Sydney. She's looking at the results of a pregnancy test, and, well, it's bad news. But Thomas assures her that they can do this, and he'll stay with her, etc etc etc. So they decide to keep the baby.

Present day, Jack & Kate banter expositionally. Charlie brings Kate some tea. (No idea where the tealeaves came from. Probably some kind of island herbal concoction from Sun.) Charlie is trying to get closer to Claire, but she's being deliberately distant.

Flashback! Claire and her friend Rachel are going to see a psychic about the baby, just for kicks. Claire's reluctant, but Rachel drags her in. They psychic (Malkin), starts to do the reading, gets a terrified look on his face, and refuses to continue. Claire and Rachel leave, Claire visibly shaken.

Present day, night. Claire wakes up and sees a man standing over her. He holds her down and injects her with a hypodermic needle. She starts to scream and doesn't stop. The other survivors come running (Jack & Charlie in front), and she tells them what happened. Jack thinks she's had another anxiety nightmare. Charlie's not so sure. Hurley, Ethan (remember Ethan?) and Michael check the area, but find nothing out of the ordinary.

This gives Hurley the idea to take a census of all the survivors so that they know everyone's name. Jack's like, okay, whatever. Hurley's real name is Hugo Reyes, by the way.

In Sydney, Claire is about four months pregnant, and Thomas is leaving her. Needless to say, she's not happy.

Jack is telling Kate what "happened" to Claire. Charlie is still pissed off that Jack thinks it was a dream. Kate tries to be practical, saying, okay, so let's say it wasn't a dream, what do we do about it? And nobody really has an answer to that one.

Hurley, taking his census, is talking to Ethan, who's a little creepy. Turns out he's Canadian.

Jack tries to give Claire a sedative, which offends her, so she takes her things and heads back for the beach. Jack tries to stop her, fails. Charlie is now seriously angry with Jack, who seems to be fucking with his best girl's head.

Meanwhile back in Sydney, Claire is going to the psychic again. She gives him $200 (Australian), and he reluctantly does the reading. He tells her that under no circumstances must she give the child up. That he forsees great danger for the child if she allows it to be raised by another. This isn't what she wanted to hear -- she was planning to give the child up for adoption as soon as it was born. But Malkin is deadly serious.

Still in flashbackland, Malkin has apparently been calling Claire and sending her notes, trying desperately to change her mind about the adoption. She's having none of it.

Charlie is following Claire, trying to take care of her. She doesn't want to let him.

Hurley is censusing Boone and Shannon, who tell him that if he really wants to make (continued...)

( continues...) this easier, he should just get the flight manifest from Sawyer. They crossed off the names of all the dead passengers after the memorial, so what's left should be a complete list of who's on the island. Hurley goes to Sawyer, who gives him the manifest without much of a struggle.

Charlie's still trying to help Claire. She's still not wanting to let him. She then starts to go into labor, and tells Charlie to get Jack. Charlie's all "No, I kicked heroin, I can deliver a baby!" And then he realizes that he just told the woman he's interested in, while she's in labor, that he's a heroin addict. So he backpedals a little, then goes to get Jack.

Claire is in the final stages of signing the adoption papers. There's a lawyer there, and a young couple. But when she goes to actually sign, no ink will come out of the pen. She tests the pen on another piece of paper, and it works just fine. But it won't sign the papers. Resigned, she leaves, and goes to Malkin.

Charlie finds Ethan on the way back to the caves, tells him to go get Jack, and then heads back to Claire. She's babbling about how she shouldn't be here, how she was told she wouldn't be here, how she was promised it wouldn't turn out like this. Charlie calms her down, and she tells him the whole story...

Malkin seems to have changed his prophecy. He wants to give her $6000 to move to LA and give the baby to a couple he found, who he claims the baby will be safe with. And she has to leave on a flight tomorrow. And it really, really has to be this specific flight...

...but he must have been wrong, because the flight went down, and now there's a couple waiting in LA, who'll never see Claire or her baby, right? Right? Charlie's thinking a little more clearly, and suggests that maybe what Malkin wanted all along was to ensure that Claire raised the baby alone. Which is why she had to be on that plane...

Sayid, running through the forest. Hurley, also running through the forest, in a different direction.

Claire's contractions have stopped. Seems it was a false alarm. Charlie promises not to let anything happen to her.

Sayid arrives at the beach and breathlessly starts to tell everyone about Danielle, and the voices in the woods.

Hurley, running in from the other direction, starts breathlessly to tell everyone that there's an islander whose name doesn't appear anywhere on the flight manifest...Ethan wasn't on the plane.

Claire and Charlie are making their way back to the caves, slowly, in the dark. They hear a voice, and standing in front of them, eerily calm, is Ethan, who tells them that he's sorry it's come to this...

END OF EPISODE

OMGWTFETHAN!

All The Best Cowboys Have Daddy Issues

Previously, tons of creepy shit happened.

Jack, Kate, Hurley, and Michael are all realizing that nobody's seen Ethan in a while, or Charlie and Claire for that matter. They all start to run towards the caves (there seems to be an established route by now), and Locke stops them, pointing out Claire's bag on the forest floor. Jack starts to shout "Claire! Charlie!" but Locke shushes him, and suggests they simply follow the tracks. At this point, they're all assuming that Ethan kidnapped Claire and Charlie and hauled them off somewhere for god know why. It's kind of a bold leap, but it's all they've got.

Flashback to an operating room where a surgery is going very badly. Jack is trying to repair a torn artery. He fails, and the patient dies. Another surgeon in the room orders him to call the time of death. Jack lifts his head, looks his father in the eye, and says "You call it." Jack storms out.

Jack is frantic and desperate here, and tracking entirely by himself. He's going nowhere in particular, because he has no idea how to track.

Locke, back at the beach, is putting a small tracking party together. He enlists Kate, and Boone joins up as well. Locke figures they'll catch up with Jack, and go from there.

Michael is being petulant and immature when Locke tells him that they've got enough people, and don't need him along. Eventually Michael's all "Fine! I'll go start my own search party! With blackjack! And hookers!" (Okay, not really.) And Locke's like "Cool, I'm going this way. You? Go that way."

Jack is in his father's office. Neither man is especially happy. Jack's dad starts taking him to task for barging in on his OR when things were totally going find, but Jack cuts him off by saying yo, the nurse saw that your hands were shaking, so she called me up. How many drinks did you have at lunch? This makes Daddy mad, but really, it's not like Jack is wrong.

Locke & the others have found Jack. He apologizes to Jack for not noticing anything odd about Ethan before -- apparently they've been hunting together. Which brings up another point -- Ethan? Waaaaay better at this kind of shit than Locke. So they might not find him. Not easily, anyway. Locke's been marking their path with torn bits of a red shirt. He gives the shirt to Boone, putting him on path-marking duty.

They track for a while, then take a short break for Locke to get some water, and for Jack to beat himself up about not believing Claire when she said she was attacked. Luckily, just at this moment, they stumble upon one of Charlie's finger wrappings stuck to a tree. He's left them a trail! Huzzah!

But hark! The markers say they went one way, the footprints go the other way. So the team splits up, Locke & Boone will follow the footprints, JAck & Kate will follow the markers.

Back at the beach, Sawyer is being briefed. He's skeptical about the whole thing.

Boone points out to Locke that handing him a red shirt wasn't exactly a vote of confidence. Locke doesn't get the reference, so Boone explains about Star Trek, and Locke comments that it must have been a pretty lousy captain, to keep letting his men get killed. They chat about their former lives. Boone apparently runs a bridal salon, and doesn't believe Locke when he says he had a desk job at a box-making company. Locke chooses to let Boone believe what he wants.

Kate and Jack are also talking about stuff. Well, not so much talking as not-talking. Kate can apparently track because her dad was in the army. Jack doesn't want to share anything.

Anyhoo, the reason Jack is in there is that Daddy needs him to sign the report that says everything went fine, there was just too much internal bleeding to save the patient. Jack knows this report is a lie, but Dad starts giving him a guilt-speech about how talented Jack is and how he can't throw his career away, etc etc etc. So Jack signs the false report.

Sawyer and Sayid have (continued...)

( continues...) hot monkey sex in the fuselage talk about their little tiff, and Sayid's experiences of the past few days. Sawyer lets Sayid know that he kept the signal fire going when the tide was about to put it out. Sayid appreciates this. They come to a stoic, manly understanding.

Boone & Locke might be lost. Or they might not be. Locke says it's about to rain, and it does.

Kate and Jack hear something through the rain, and move towards it.

In flashbackland, the husband of the woman who died in surgery is threatening to sue for negligence.

Kate and Jack are wandering aimlessly in the rain. They start to hear the whispers, Jack falls down a steep slope, and come face to face with Ethan. Jack tries to attack him, but Ethan is soooooo much better at this, and stomps on Jack's chest. They fight. Ethan knocks Jack out. Kate revives him (he was only out for a minute, but Ethan is gone). Kate is trying to persuade Jack to give up, because they're hopelessly lost, and it's raining, and dark, and other very sensible reasons. Jack refuses. He's not going to let this happen again.

At the trial, JackDad is being very convincing, and the hospital board is totally buying it. Jack is silently listening, until one of the other doctors asks Daddy if he was aware of the woman's pregnancy while he was operating. Daddy wasn't, but he answers smoothly that of course he was, but it was too late, etc etc. This is too much for Jack. He stands up and informs everyone that his father was operating while drunk, cut the hepatic artery, and that's why the woman died. (Jack's dad's name, by the way, is Christian Shepard. Because this is a show about subtlety.)

Jack and Kate are climbing back up the slope, when they run smack into Charlie's hand. Which is attached to Charlie's body, which is hanging limp from a noose. At this point, we are lead to believe that Charlie is dead for three fucking pages before Jack finally revives him. Bastards!

Michael and the loser search party have returned empty-handed. Jack and Kate and Charlie have returned as well. There's no sign of Claire, Locke or Boone.

This is because Locke and Boone are still in the woods. They are about to turn back, when Boone drops the flashlight into a stream, and they uncover what looks like a shiny piece of metal. As they uncover more and more of it, it's clear that this is not a piece of the plane.

Charlie is practically catatonic back at the caves.

[Now, at this point, there are two almost identical pages, and I have no idea which one will be used.]

Jack is trying to get information out of him, but all Charlie says is (version 1) "Claire. All they wanted was Claire." (version 2) "Claire. All he wanted was Claire."

END OF EPISODE

Oh man. These sound like good episodes. Want. More.

(Thanks bunches, Jessica. That really helps with my withdrawal this week)

Wow, these sound extremely kickass.

Boone apparently runs a bridal salon

And that was the sound of my speculation about Boone going from little more than wishful thinking to rock-solid certainty.