Claire's not the only one to come back
8.5
"Great"
Normally, a homecoming is a symbol of a joyous occasion, but as this the case with so many things that have happened on Lost, it's quite the opposite. Because no one is sure how Claire escaped, especially in her condition, so there is an unspoken fear of her that gets even greater as the episode progresses. Claire is in little better shape, since her mind has somehow completely erased every memory she had since the plane crashed a month ago. Before she was calm laid back and friendly, now she's scared, paranoid and wary of others. The only one who remembers is Ethan, and he's certainly not going to share anything he knows. When he makes his reappearance near the end of Act One, he intends to make sure she comes back.
A brief consideration for something that is practically used as a throwaway: How did Claire get away? If Ethan is an example of how strong the Others are (and evidence would seem to bear this out) he has superhuman strength, fights like a trained marine, is wily, and seems omniscient. Are we supposed to believe that somehow a nine months pregnant , frail little woman managed to fight her way clear of a large collective of Others? Given what we know about them, no one willingly walks away from any of them. Furthermore, later evidence would indicate that if you stay with the Others for a period of time (two weeks is probably long enough according to canon), you practically become indoctrinated into their group. How come it didn't work for Claire? The obvious answer to both those question would have to do with her pregnancy. Is there something about this still unborn child that the Others are weary of dealing with? Is it possible that her personality has connected her somehow to the island in ways we don't understand? This is less of a concern to the castaways, because we see this through the eyes of Charlie, who has been nearly as crippled as everyone else by what has happened. He's been despondent over how he could saved her, now that's she's back he's getting a second chance. For once the flashback seems a little superfluous as it doesn't really tell us anything about Charlie we didn't know before (he was a junkie and he wants to feel useful) but we do get the idea that he wants to take care of people and keeps failing at it. The fact is he's never been taken care of by anyone, and he doesn't know how to9 do it.
This leads to a confrontation with Ethan, which is a demonstration of how the group strategizes under pressure. Sayid, Locke and Jack are essentially the triumvirate of decision makers. Kate attempts to help, but her advice is ignored until the situations gets worse (after Scott is killed). Sawyer is a "soldier" who is willing to come along and do his duty, but is not considered capable enough to be part of the planners. For that matter, you wonder if his inclusion of Kate with the group was more of a way to score points with her then it was to actually bring about success. And Charlie is seen by the decision makers as too emotionally involved to be a part of the ambush. Every time he objects to something, he's overruled by those who seem to know better, even though they're improvising as well.
The trap that is set ends up working, and we learn a couple of things before the climax. Jack is becoming increasingly angry at the Others attacks on him, and it evokes a savagery that we wouldn't consider him capable of.. It is clear from the way things were set up that Sayid was planning to torture Ethan after they captured him, despite whatever crisis of conscience he had in 'Solitary'. But all of this is rendered mute because Charlie picks up one of the fallen guns and blows Ethan away. He says that it had to be done, and that they probably wouldn't have gotten any information out of him. What we learn of the Others in Season 2 would seem to bear this out, but the fact remains is that Charlie has probably just put everybody else in greater danger. He just doesn't know how bad things will get.
There are other little things that are going on in this episode that show certain evolutions of the characters. When Ethan attacks Jin and Charlie at the beginning of the show, he uses a slingshot and his fists. Later episodes will demonstrates that the others clearly have more access to better weapons, and since the act was essentially over there was no sense in playing games, so why not just use a gun? Perhaps the brutality he used in killing Scott (or Steve, or whatever, this is one mystery I'm not touching with a 42 foot pole) was to demonstrate how powerless the islanders are against him, but they already know that based on what happened to Charlie, so why bother? Furthermore, considering that Ethan was pretty smart, he did seem to fall into an obvious trap. Was there a secondary protocol that we were not aware of? This seems a little unlikely, but considering how important Ethan was to the Others, why continue to keep him in play? In castaway related news, Jin seems to be becoming more suspicious of his wife and the people he's camping with. When Claire is brought into the caves, he asks Sun what is going on, as if he suspects that she knows more than she is telling him. He also seems concerned about whether Claire's baby is all right, more so than some of the others in fact. There actually is a backstory here, but we won't get to it for a little while.
Vincent again makes an appearance when something bad happens, this time reemerged seconds before the body of Scott is pulled out of the water. Furthermore, considering everything that Boone has been through in the last few episodes, he doesn't seem to have gleaned much of the survivalist instinct from Locke, considering how quickly he falls asleep while on duty. I guess that's what you call foreshadowing.
This is a shocking episode of 'Lost, not so much because of who dies, but who ends up killing him. The Others are going to disappear from the scene for a while, but it's going to become clear that they are gone, and definitely not forgotten. More pressing problems are going to occur, and they're going to make the troubles with Ethan, seem literally like child's play.moreless