1:15 Homecoming

Another Charlie-centric episode, this one focuses on Charlie's guilt over Claire being kidnapped, and his memories of another time he tried to take care of someone, a past girlfriend named Lucy.

In the flashbacks, a washed-up Charlie is running out of money, and his drug dealer convinces him to run a scam on an unsuspecting wealthy girl in order to fund his heroin habit. Charlie does the job well and has the opportunity to steal a valuable artifact from Lucy's home. He becomes reluctant though when he begins having feelings for Lucy and realizes that she is a sweet and kind girl. Lucy's father, a successful businessman (I got a kick out of the reference to "The Office" - Lucy says her father is buying a paper company in Slough) offers Charlie a job and he accepts, only to have his thievery discovered on the first day of the job. These events are remembered by Charlie with a lot of shame, especially when Lucy tells him "You'll never take care of anyone."

Since arriving on the Island Charlie has tried to take care of Claire. (Talk about an obvious choice, Charlie - going for the needy, cute pregnant girl!) When she's kidnapped, it reiterates what Lucy said to him years before - he's not capable of taking care of her. This is what pushes Charlie to act with perhaps more violence than necessary, shooting Ethan dead before they can question him.

Given what we know about the Others now though, I think Charlie made a wise choice. Ethan was likely to have escaped and/or killed someone else before they got any information out of him - or at the very least, someone from Ben's camp might have come looking for him.

Claire apparently has selective amnesia, and can't remember anything since getting on Flight 815. Jack says that amnesia is extremely rare, but possible. I wonder if there's something more going on here - Claire's lack of awareness about her surroundings remind me of Desmond's reaction when his consciousness time traveled in "The Constant."

I like the exchange where Sawyer volunteers an extra gun so that Kate can come along on the excursion to capture Ethan. Jack, as usual, is trying to protect her, but Sawyer simply says "hell, 5 guns are better than 4." I'm a Jater at heart, but one thing I like about Sawyer with Kate is that he treats her as an equal and he doesn't patronize her the way Jack sometimes does.