LOST Recap

From EW:

Hey there, kittenfluffs! It's your old pal Whitney, back again to run you through tonight's jam-packed episode of Lost. Goodness, there's so much to talk about — let's just jump right in, shall we?

Previously on Lost... Charlie's still a drug addict! And I think if there's one thing we learned this evening, it's that every time you do drugs you are stomping on the Virgin Mary's heart. We opened with little Chuckie in his bunny slippers on Christmas, getting a piano. He's overjoyed! But suddenly his brother is grown up and laughing at him, and his dad the butcher is chopping off babydoll heads with a giant cleaver, and then Charlie's playing the piano in the ocean and Aaron (Claire's baby) is crying somewhere inside it, and then it drifts off to sea and the voices are in the woods and eek!

Shh... don't be scared, my fluffies — it was only a dream. But Charlie's really got a bit of a thing with babies, don't he? Babies, it seems, are like the heroin of people, and once they get into your system, the withdrawal will make you madder than Michelle Rodriguez if you try to take her gun. And now that Claire's told Charlie to beat it, Locke's started to make the moves on her, and our poor little hoodie hobbit is burning with jealousy watching ''his'' family trot about with a new surrogate dad. Thus, Charlie's next dream is no better: He's playing guitar on the beach when he sees Aaron's crib floating out to sea. He dives in and saves the kid, but then has a vision of his mum and Claire, shining like angels, murmuring, ''You have to save him, the baby's in danger...'' over and over, and then a dove pops out of the sky and flies away — and then Charlie wakes up and he's standing on the beach with Aaron in the middle of the night, having stolen him out of his crib while sleepwalking.

In case you haven't caught on yet, Charlie's not well. The Flashbacks du Jour didn't really give us much new information: Charlie's brother was all screwed up on drugs, he blew Drive Shaft's one chance to salvage their career when he ruined a totally humiliating shoot for a diaper commercial (''You all, every Butties!''), then he sold Charlie's piano for drugs and headed off to Australia with his wife and new baby to get clean — all of which we basically could have inferred except for the piano-selling, and that was more symbolic than anything. Oh, and the diaper-wearing. We maybe could not have inferred the diaper-wearing. But anyhoo, what happened in the present was way more important, effectively separating Charlie from the group and especially from Locke. ''This island is my test!'' protested Charlie, when Locke caught him with his stash of Heroin Marys in the woods. ''That's why these are here!'' ''These are here because you put 'em here, Charlie,'' Locke responded — and did anyone else find this an awfully realism-oriented comment coming from a guy who believes the island gave him back his legs?

And finally, Charlie pretty much cemented his reputation as a crazy, ranting baby-stealer when he set a fire in the jungle to distract everyone so he could take Aaron — and you try explaining yourself to a bunch of hungry, stranded island folk who already think you're nuts when you're caught red-handed for the second time, walking into the ocean with a baby. Even Hurley shot him a dirty look, and Locke — who is taking the job of protecting Aaron very seriously now that he has it — beats the crap out of him. But the thing is, Charlie really did have good intentions! He'd pulled Mr. Eko aside that afternoon (Mr. Eko had been out marking his favorite trees, which I guess is one way to kill time) and explained his crazy dreams to the resident priest; Mr. Eko took a long pause and then said, ''Have you ever considered that those dreams mean something?'' (Uh, ya think???) Turns out the angel/dove thing was a John the Baptist reference — hey, tonight's episode opened on a painting of J.Bap! — and so Charlie decided it meant he had to baptize Aaron to protect him. Protect him against what? Well, there is that whole antichrist thing...

And hey, speaking of babies, what happened to Rousseau? (And while we're at it, Michael? And Vincent? OMG! Vincent is so totally gonna find/save Michael and Walt!! He's a dog! He knows everything! OMGOMG!)

Sorry. Where was I? Oh. So in the end, Claire goes ahead and covers her losses and gets herself and Aaron baptized by Father Eko. (Was anyone else thinking, it's a shame they're stuck on that island and haven't heard the Vatican is considering getting rid of limbo for unbaptized babies? No? Just me?) Charlie promises Jack he'll never spaz out again. And Locke puts the drugs on a shelf in the gun closet and locks the door. Why doesn't Locke just destroy the drugs to keep this problem from rearing its ugly head again in the future? Oh, come on, kittens: You can't be that naive.

In subplot news, someone's taken the time to build an outhouse. Jack and Sexy Michelle Rodriguez are spending a lot of time together, and Kate's not at all jealous. Sexy Michelle Rodriguez is a bit jealous of Kate, though, and used the phrase ''You hittin' that?'' because she's super-classy. And Hurley had a big night: He learned to play blackjack from Sawyer, and he did a little laundry with his lady love, Libby, who undressed near him and, when Hurley got all squinty-eyed and asked if he knew her from somewhere, offered the fishy explanation that he stepped on her foot real bad while boarding the plane.

Oh, and I think the TV was talking to you kittens tonight. Did you ever think that sometimes — sorta like when you've got anachronistic washer/dryers living in an underground hatch that looks like it's been furnished by Ikea — it's nice to just keep it simple?

No? Just me?