Season 2, Episode 12:
Fire + Water
"You all every Butties!"
Written by Adam Horowitz and Edward Kitsis.
Directed by Jack Bender.
"Kate sees a horse — nothing. Pretty much everybody's seen Walt wandering around the jungle. But when it's Charlie it must be the bloody drugs, right?"
— Charlie Pace
In flashbacks, Charlie visits his sister-in-law, Karen at the hospital after she gives birth to his niece, Megan. He covers for Liam when he fails to show up after a bender. Drive Shaft gets fired from a cheesy commercial when a sickly Liam screws up and Charlie refuses to kick him out of the band. Liam finally realizes his problem when he drops Megan and Karen kicks him out. He sells Charlie's beloved piano and abandons him to get clean.
On the Island, Charlie has a strange dream and becomes convinced Aaron is in danger. Another night, he picks him up while sleepwalking, causing the rest of the survivors to shun him. Hurley and Libby start to grow closer when they do laundry together. Locke finds Charlie's stash of heroin statues and takes them. Convinced that Aaron needs to be baptized, Charlie tries to steal him in the middle of the night to do the job himself, but gives up when Claire is upset. Locke knocks him out. Claire asks Eko to baptize both her and the baby.
Tropes in this episode include:
- Arbitrary Skepticism: Despite being the biggest believer in the supernatural on the island, Locke's first instinct upon learning about Charlie's visions is thinking he's on drugs. Charlie lampshades how unfair that is.Locke: Are you using?
Charlie: What?
Locke: Heroin? Are you using it again?
Charlie: Kate sees a horse. Nothing. Pretty much everyone's seen Walt wandering around the jungle. But when it's Charlie, it must be the bloody drugs, right? - Cassandra Truth: Nobody believes Charlie when he tells them that he hasn't been using drugs, but given his bizarre behaviour this is understandable.
- Downer Ending: Charlie becomes an outcast among the camp and ruins his relationship with Claire.
- Embarrassing Ad Gig: In one of Charlie's flashbacks, he and his band are doing an ad for baby diapers, which includes them dressing up in diapers and singing a reworked version of their song called "You All Every Butties".
- Everyone Has Standards:
- Eko is easily the most religious character in the cast and the person who suggests baptizing Aaron to begin with, but even he is horrified by Charlie trying to do so against Claire's wishes.
- Liam is genuinely horrified when he tells Charlie that he dropped Megan and it's later indicated that this incident is what made him finally clean up his act.
- The Faceless: The face of Charlie's dad isn't visible during his dream.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Charlie gets jealous of Locke's increasing closeness with Claire and Aaron.
- Have We Met?: Hurley wonders if he knows Libby from somewhere. She claims that he stood on her foot when they got on the plane.
- Idiot Ball: Charlie somehow thinks the best way to convince Claire that he is trustworthy again and that Aaron is in danger is to come up to her raving like a madman and telling her she needs to baptize the baby after she's asked him to give her space.
- It's All About Me: Even at his best, Liam is primarily focused on himself. To clean up his act, he sells Charlie's piano and heads to Australia, leaving Charlie with no plan, no money, and as Charlie points out, no way to write music to get back on his feet. The entire time he's talking about fixing his family, Charlie is incredulously pointing out that they're family.
- Jerkass Ball:
- Despite his own experience with strange visions on the Island, Locke immediately assumes that Charlie is on drugs and refuses to give him a chance to explain himself when Charlie tells him about having a similar vision. He also needlessly beats up Charlie in front of the entire camp after the baptism incident.
- Charlie spends most of the episode holding this, harassing Claire when she asks him for space, getting jealous of Locke when he grows closer with Claire and Aaron and stealing Aaron to try to baptize him against Claire's will after creating a fire in the camp as a distraction.
- "No Peeking!" Request: Libby and Hurley are doing the laundry in the hatch, and she asks him to turn around so she can try on a shirt she found in the abandoned luggage.
- Out-of-Character Moment: Despite being the foremost believer in destiny and fate, Locke completely dismisses Charlie's suggestion that the Virgin Mary statues were put on the Island to tempt him. Beating Charlie up in front of the camp also seems out of character for him, even considering the situation.
- Shipper on Deck: Implied when Kate and Sawyer both start grinning when Hurley asks about Libby. Later, Sawyer helps to set them up by arranging for them to do laundry together.
- Shoulders-Up Nudity: When Libby is changing clothes, the camera doesn't pan below her shoulders.
- Sleepwalking: The first time Charlie takes Aaron, he genuinely has no idea what's happening because he's sleepwalking. One moment, he's standing on the beach during the day, the next he's having a nightmare, and the next it's the middle of the night, he's carrying Aaron by the shoreline, and Hurley is asking him what he's doing.
- You Have to Believe Me!: Charlie says this word-for-word when he tried to convince Locke that Aaron is in danger.
