TVSquad

Here's the backstory you need to know going into tonight's episode of Lost: Claire is Australian. Claire was preggers. She was kidnapped by Ethan, who we think was one of the Others and whom Charlie shot dead. Then she had a baby. Then Charlie went a little nuts, she stopped hanging around him so much, preferring the company of Locke instead, then Charlie tried to steal Aaron from her, and Locke punched him, but Claire still decided to heed Charlie's warning and baptized her baby. Also, in the last episode, One of Them, the group caught one of the Others. (Yes, I know within the world of the show, it is still not clear whether he is an Other or not, but since the name of the episode was One of Them, I think that should be telling us something).

Caught up? Good. Here we go. The episode begins with Aaron crying with a rash and fever in the middle of the night, and Claire waking Locke to go get Jack. Danielle shows up saying, "You don't remember, do you?" and Kate shows up yelling for Danielle to go away. She asks Claire what happened and Claire says that Danielle said "there's something wrong with my baby." Cue Lost intro graphics.

More after the jump...We return with Jack saying that the kid getting sick is normal and generally poo-pooing Claire's fears, just like he did last season when she said someone was attacking her in the night and trying to harm her baby (wait, that was right!). So, Claire seeks out the island's local shrink, Libby, and asks for her help in recovering the memories from when she was kidnapped for two weeks.

Cut to Jack and Locke chatting with the Other they captured last week; Locke gives him Dostoyevsky's The Brothers K. Locke asks for a long term plan for the Other, and Jack says, "what about the button? We don't have a long term plan for it!" I'm getting tired of this somewhat sily back and forth tug of war between Locke and Jack. Their little power struggle story is wearing very thin and they both are coming off as much weaker characters than they were last season.

We go into what appears to be a flashback of Claire's hospital care pre the crash, but we're confronted with Ethan as her physician about to inject her pregnant belly with a rather long needle. She shrieks and we flash through several odd visuals like an uprooted tree on the island, her knitting a sock for her baby, medicine bottles with the numbers written on them, and a young dark-haired woman. She snaps out of it, yelling, "I saw Ethan" as we break to a commercial. This episode was interesting, because we didn't have the normal flashbacks, but rather we're presented with on-island flashbacks with odd broken intros and outros representing Claire uncovering memories her mind had shut out. Unlike the previous episode sans normal flashbacks, The Other 48 Days, this episode worked for me.

Eko comes down into the bunker while Jack is in the restroom with the Other and Jack is trying to keep the Other hidden from Eko. Kate comes up to Sawyer and says "I need a gun, but you don't get to ask why." Sawyer, "Why?" Sawyer caves and offers her a 9mm or a rifle.

Claire is leaving Aaron behind with Sun and Sun says, "A mother shouldn't leave her baby" and Claire retorts, "Are you a mother?" all confrontationally. We find out from the previews for next week's episode that this was a little bit of foreshadowing, as one of those clips shows Sun asking Sawyer for a pregnancy test. Sun looks taken aback by Claire's question and then asks "Are you sure you want to do this?" and it triggers another crazy flashback with Ethan. He injects her belly with a needle from the vials that have the numbers written on them (and which also are in the bunker with the hatch and where Desmond used to live all by his lonesome, injecting himself daily). Ethan and Claire are friendly with one another, although she is clearly drugged and somewhat out of it. They walk down a tunnel with Dharma project stuff everywhere and enter a baby room for the baby. There are baby toys with a mobile over the crib made entirely of airplanes (which seemed a bit much to me). She sees "Zeke" clean-shaven without his beard talking to Ethan, and Ethan explaining that the group discovered that he was an Other because his name wasn't on the manifest from the flight. This ends the flashback and Claire leaves her child with Sun to try to track down the place where Ethan kept her.

Kate is tracking Danielle and finds her just as she tells Claire that Danielle killed the other people that came with her because they were infected. This becomes an important point to remember at the end of the episode when Danielle tells Claire that if the baby gets infected she knows what must be done. Claire orders her to take her back to the place where she was taken before and says, "The place where I scratched you" and Danielle says, "It's not far from here."

Cut to Eko coming up to Jack and asking about the guy in the hatch. Says he wants to speak with him alone. Eko points out that Jack has to let him see him if he wants him to keep the guy a secret.

Cut to Danielle stopping at a spot in the woods, saying "This is where you scratched me." Danielle says, "Where to now?" and gets angry when Claire doesn't remember. She says "You lied." Kate pulls a gun on her and Danielle walks up to the gun and says go ahead please do it. Whoa, suicidal French lady!

Claire walks on through the forest and finds the upturned tree that we've been seeing in the little flashback intros and outros, and which again sends her into another odd flashback with her knitting. Ethan takes her for a walk outside over to the upturned tree.  He gives her water and she says it is sour. He seems to think that odd and dismisses it as such, but we of course know there's something making it sour. Either the drugs she's on or nanobots in the water! Ethan says, "Can I tell you a secret? I'm going to miss you. I wish you didn't have to go." He says, "There's not enough vaccinne for you and the baby....No one is going to take him from you unless that's what you want. You have a choice."  Ethan says, "We're good people, we're a good family."

And then we leave this flashback in a very odd way. We have an interesting shot with Claire standing in the woods looking upon the scene of the past Claire sitting on the tree with Ethan:

We then enter fully into the rainy dark present and she goes to find the spot. She finds large double doors with Dharma logos covered by a tarp. They open them, eerie music plays as they stare at each other and we head to a commercial.

Claire, Danielle, and Kate enter in to a dark passage with flickering greenish light. Kate finds some flashlights and they look down the same hallway that was in Claire's flashbacks from before. Claire and Danielle go one way as Kate goes another. They open up a door and find the remnants of the baby room as the lights flip on. Kate is exploring elsewhere and finds lockers filled with the costumes worn by the Others, theatrical glue, and Zeke's beard. Wow! So the whole dirty band of scum-bags is some intricate ruse by the Others. This is a big revelation, but like all the revelations on the show, it tells us absolutely nothing about what is really going on. Claire finds a sock she was knitting for Aaron. Enter a flashback with a young darkhaired woman, who later discover to be Danielle's long lost child, Alex(andra), helping Claire escape and showing Claire that the Others all dressed in doctors' garb are preparing to take her baby. Alex knocks her out with some chloroform and we return to present with Claire sure that the medicine is somewhere in the facility. She runs into another room, trying to lift what appears to be some sort of refrigeration unit containing the medicine. She opens it and it is empty. She starts demanding that Danielle tell her where it is as she enters another flashback with her in the woods calling out for Ethan saying she's sure she wants him to take the baby. Danielle shows up as Ethan is searching for her. Danielle is trying to save her from them and knocks Claire out to save her from Ethan's group, carrying her back to the camp.  Danielle says "You're not the only one who didn't find what they were looking for" referring to her lost child, Alex. Commercial break.

We return to Claire following Danielle through the forest and we discover that Alex was really Alexandra, the woman who saved Claire. At this point, Danielle says that she is sorry that Claire did not find what she was looking for and then notes: "I hope your baby is not infected, but if it is, I hope you know what must be done." before walking off.

Cut to Locke doing dishes as Jack and Eko arrive. Locke says to Eko: "If the alarm goes off do not tell him what it is for." Eko retorts: "What is it for?"  He then enters the room and says "Hello, I am Mr. Eko," offering his hand to the captive Other.

What follows is an interesting, yet somewhat pointless scene in which Eko apologizes for killing the men who tried to drag him away. He asks the captive for his forgiveness, then he pulls a knife and cuts off the two little twirls from his goatee, one evidently for each of the men that he murdered when the Others tried to snatch him away in the night during The Other 48 Days, and gives them to the man. This really doesn't tell us much besides the fact that Eko knows this man to be one of the Others whom he killed that night.

We return to Claire's baby feeling better and she proclaims her love for her baby, and repents from ever wishing to give little Aaron away to Ethan and the Others. Sweet scene, but largely anticlimactic, so we switch to one final scene: Locke feeds the captive who asks him about something Locke said earlier about Hemingway admiring Dostoyevsky. Here, we as the audience all know that this Other is manipulating the all-too-manipulatible as of late Locke, when he says: "Which one are you? The genius or the shadow of the genius? . . . I don't understand why you let the doctor call the shots." Locke huffily replies, "No one calls the shots, we make decisions together," but after he leaves the room, the Other's words have infected him and upset him and he knocks all the dishes he had been cleaning, broken on the floor. With the Hemingway reference, something about Locke is becoming very Short and Happy Life of Francis Macomber, if you ask me.

Overall, I'd say it was a good and interesting episode, but, unfortunately, again, the big revelations we received don't really give us any hard answers, but rather just open everything up to more questions. I no longer enjoy watching the Locke vs. Jack struggle and from the looks of next week's previews, it is going to largely surround that struggle as Locke approaches Ana Lucia for help in going behind Jack's back and getting the Other out of "his" bunker. Tick tock. When do we get some real answers. This continued tease, well on in its second year, is really starting to wear thin for me.