HOMECOMING

Or, Charlie Has Relationship Problems

[Originally Aired February 9, 2005]

Locke brings Claire back to the cave. She's okay but has no memory of he captivity with Ethan. In fact, she's no memory of the island at all, nor anything prior to the crash. Later Charlie and Jin wander through the jungle, and Charlie jabbers on and on to Jin even though he can't understand a word being said. Ethan attacks them, slinging a rock at Jin and knocking him on his ass, then Ethan tells Charlie that if they don't bring Claire back to him he'll kill one survivor a day until they comply. In flashbackland Charlie is a junky has-been rock star. His friend sets him up with a rich girl so they can steal and pawn her father's stuff. Charlie sees one of Winston Churchill's cigarette cases at her home and plans to steal it. But Charlie starts to really like the girl and then her dad offers him a job selling copiers. On the island, a perimeter is set up around the beach: torches, guards, noisy booby traps. Claire asks Charlie what is going on, but he doesn't tell her about Ethan's threat. Boone falls asleep on his watch. At sun-up a survivor hasn't survived. He has lots of broken bones. Everyone realizes the shoreline was not secured and Ethan came in from the water. Charlie, meanwhile, detoxes and gets sick at his first copier sales presentation. Later he visits the girl and tries to explain, but she tells him how the paramedics found Churchill's cigarette case in his pocket. She asks him why he took the job, and he says he wanted to be respectable, that he wanted to prove that he could take care of her. She tells him he'll never take care of anybody before slamming the door in his face. Claire finds out about the threat and gets pissed at Charlie for lying to her. Jack decides to unlock the pistols and use Claire as bait to capture Ethan. Jack, Kate, Sawyer, Locke and Sayid head into the jungle with Claire, hoping to lure Ethan into the open. It works and Jack beats the crap out of Ethan. Then Charlie appears and grabs Jack's pistol and shoots Ethan to death. Everyone is pissed at Charlie now because he's ruined their chances of learning more info. Not that Ethan seemed the chatty type. Anyway, Charlie says he deserved to die for what he'd done. Later, Claire remembers the peanut butter he gave her in exchange for moving to the caves.