"Fire + Water" ("Fire Plus Water") is the twelfth episode of Season 2 of Lost and the 37th produced hour of the series as a whole. Charlie comes to the conclusion that Aaron must be baptized and be "saved", prompting him to recall his past of trying to save his brother. Meanwhile, the first signs of Hurley and Libby's relationship begin to show.

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Synopsis

Previously on Lost

Flashback



Charlie and Karen in the hospital.

Karen, Liam's wife, has just given birth to their daughter, Megan, who is named after Liam and Charlie's mother. Charlie is there doting on the newborn but Liam is not there. Charlie tells Karen that Liam missed the flight because he blew a tire on the way to the airport. Karen asks if Liam is okay, Charlie responds "He's great. He's a dad."

Charlie returns to his apartment where the Kinks are playing "He's Evil" (the same song he was singing to Jin in "The 23rd Psalm") and finds Liam lying on his couch, "fixing" himself. Charlie encourages Liam to hurry to the hospital as soon as possible to see his new baby, but Liam is still in his own world, saying to Charlie "I left you some."



Drive Shaft advertising Butties diapers.

Drive Shaft is filming an advertisement for Butties baby diapers. They are lip syncing to the song "You All Every Butties," a reworked version of their hit "You All Everybody." In order to save the band and make some money, Charlie needs Liam to get his act together, but Liam is too out of it and falls through the bars of the big child's crib in which they are filming. The ad producer tells Charlie to get rid of Liam, but Charlie says that it's his brother. They are all fired.

Charlie tries to reach inside Liam and shake him back to life. But even after Charlie and Liam share a moment by singing together Charlie's new song about their comeback, (Together Now), about how they both "can be saved," Liam only has one question to Charlie: does he have any heroin.



Charlie singing the untitled song he wrote.

Charlie comes home and finds Liam has sold Charlie's piano to build a new life for his family in Australia. He leaves Charlie alone in London, still trying to find an answer; what about his family?

On the Island

In a dream, young Charlie comes down a flight of stairs in his slippers. It's Christmas morning and his brother Liam is already hard at work ripping open his presents. But while Liam continues to unwrap gift after gift, Charlie finds nothing at all for him. That is, until his mother leads him over to a brand new piano. Charlie is thrilled, but before he can even begin to enjoy the gift, he learns it comes with a price, with his mother wanting him to become successful so he can "save them." Suddenly Liam is an adult but wearing only diapers, while their father, a butcher, angrily cuts meat. Charlie, now fully grown, plays the piano, though it's now on the beach. Suddenly, he hears Aaron's cries from inside it. Charlie tries to open it up, but can't. The incoming tide then tips the piano over onto its back and it begins to drift away, apparently carrying Aaron out to sea. ♪ Charlie wakes up and checks to make sure Claire and Aaron are alright, and finds them with Locke. ♪

Charlie tries to get closer to Claire, but Claire asks for some space, for now. He leaves, telling Aaron to take care of his mom.

Hurley approaches Sawyer and Kate and asks Sawyer about "the Tailies," Libby in particular. Sawyer asks if Hurley has a love connection growing there. Hurley denies this and leaves, embarrassed. Kate and Sawyer both see Ana Lucia and Jack coming out of the jungle, talking to each other. Sawyer mentions it's the third time that he has seen them together. It doesn't make either of them particularly comfortable.

While Charlie plays his guitar on the beach, he hears the faint cries of a baby and follows the sound to the ocean, where he sees Aaron's cradle being tossed on the waves. He struggles to swim out and bring Aaron back to shore, where he discovers both Claire and his mother kneeling on the beach in robes, in angelic poses from a religious painting. Charlie is seeing a version of a religious painting from Charlie's childhood home. The angelic Claire and Charlie's mother repeat in unison: "The baby is in danger" and that Charlie "has to save him". A plane crashes in the background. A dove flies out of the sky, through the jungle, and past him out to sea. Hurley approaches him in biblical robes, asking what he's doing. Charlie wakes up in the night standing in the ocean holding the baby, realizing it was a vivid dream, while Hurley continues to ask what he's doing with the baby in the middle of the night. He tries to explain to Claire (and everyone else) that he was only trying to save him, but Claire slaps him across the face.



Libby smiling at Hurley.

Sawyer gives Hurley a small push towards a relationship with Libby, and the two of them do laundry together in the hatch. Hurley asks if he knows her from somewhere. She distracts him by changing her shirt in his presence. She tells him that he stepped on her toe on the plane when he boarded last.



Charlie tries to persuade Locke of his innocence. (promotional still)

Charlie tries to enlist Locke as an ally, only to discover that Locke suspects Charlie is using heroin again. ♪ Charlie defends himself by saying that he and Eko burned the plane, and none of the Virgin Mary statues are left. Locke says trust is a hard thing to win back, and Claire needs her time.

After unsuccessfully trying to enlist Locke, Charlie goes to Eko, who is marking trees because he "likes them". Eko suggests that Charlie's dreams mean something and could be a sign that he has to protect the baby. Eko suggests that the baby be baptized. Charlie goes to Claire with the idea, but is dismissed by Kate.

Locke stands close by, watching Charlie, just like he did in his first days on the Island. ♪

In the jungle, Charlie finds his stash of heroin, ♪ but Locke appears. Charlie claims he came to finish the job and get rid of them all. But Locke doesn't believe him. He takes away all of the statues. ♪

Claire asks Locke whether she and Aaron can sleep in the hatch but Locke offers to move his things closer to her tent for a while. She asks him about baptism and how much he knows about it. Locke tells her his view, calling it "spiritual insurance" so the baby will go to heaven. He says that there is no danger to her or the baby.

Charlie starts a fire near the survivors' camp, attempting to distract Claire from Aaron's crib. While Sayid leads an attempt to put out the fire, Charlie grabs Aaron and runs with him to the ocean to baptize him. ♪ Locke and several other survivors run over after they hear Claire's cries.



Charlie holding and trying to baptize Aaron.

Locke tries to convince Charlie to hand him the baby, but Charlie refuses, saying, "Aaron's not your responsibility. Where were you when he was born? Where were you when he was taken? You're not his father. You're not his family." Locke replies that neither is he. ♪ Charlie gives Locke the baby, who hands him to Claire. Charlie tries to apologize but Locke punches him three times in the face. Charlie stumbles and falls into the water. Everyone leaves Charlie in disgust.

The next day, while Jack is nursing Charlie's wounds, Eko agrees to baptize Claire and her baby, to make sure that they will always be protected together. Locke puts the seven statues in the gun vault of the hatch. ♪ In the hatch, Locke changes the combination for the gun vault's door lock again. He carefully arranges the seven statues of the Virgin Mary on a shelf.

Charlie sits on the beach alone and sullenly pulls his hoodie over his head.

Trivia

During Charlie's dream, when his mother and Claire are on the beach, the drug smugglers' plane can be seen about to crash into the jungle. This is only visible in the widescreen (16:9) aspect ratio; the plane is cut off in the 4:3 version.

In a Catholic baptism, a Catholic godparent is required during the ceremony. Only under extreme circumstances, such as imminent death, would the requirement be waived. Claire and Aaron are baptized with no godparents. Moreover, Catholic doctrine forbids the baptism of an adult (such as Claire) unless they have professed faith in the basic truths of Christianity, but Mr. Eko did not ask Claire anything about her beliefs.

Eko's description of the baptism of Jesus is slightly incorrect. The Catholic Church (along with most other Christian denominations) teaches that Jesus was born without sin and remained sinless throughout his entire life. Although Eko was telling the story from John the Baptist's perspective, it still goes against the views of Catholicism and general Christianity. It is possible that the two above errors were added to the script deliberately, since Eko had, to the knowledge of the audience, no formal religious training, and was therefore not fully versed in the traditions of the church or the scripture of the Bible. For this same reason, in The 23rd Psalm, the producers decided they liked the error the actor made when reciting the psalm. It's also possible that Eko is influenced by a non-Catholic perspective by referring to Jesus's sin in terms of the burden of mankind's sin imputed to him. According to Protestant theology, Jesus lived a life of no moral guilt, though he nevertheless assumed 'legal' guilt in representation of humanity before God's lawful judgment. And so it is often said that man's sin became Jesus's sin, in that sense. Some commentators on Jesus's baptism therefore have interpreted his motivation for getting baptized as being apart of the process of redeeming mankind's sins, [1] thus why Jesus said it was fitting to "fulfill all righteousness".

When Hurley and Libby are doing laundry in the Hatch, Libby wonders if the washer and dryer are newer than anything else in the hatch.

Following the failed filming of Driveshaft's diaper commercial, London's famous Battersea Power Station [2] can be seen in the background as the director and Charlie exit the stage (17:25 mark). A Widmore Construction banner can be seen on the Power Station in the flashback, making this the first reference to Widmore in the series.

This episode is rated TV-14-L.

Production notes

Bloopers and continuity errors

In the season 1 episode "The Moth," Charlie's brother says that, when his child was born, he and Charlie were out looking for a fix. However, in this episode, Charlie visits Liam's daughter in the hospital just after she is born, and then returns home to scold his brother for not being there.

Libby tells Hurley that she can't believe he doesn't remember her from the plane, because he stepped on her foot when he was getting on after barely making the flight. She says she remembers him, the last person to get on the flight, arriving sweaty and wearing headphones, and then stepping on her foot. However, Libby was seated in the tail section, and thus Hurley could not have passed her on his way to his seat. Additionally, in the flashback scene to Hurley catching the flight, it shows that while he was the last person on the flight, he did not put his headphones on until after he had already sat down.

Deleted scenes

A deleted scene from this episode is an extended version of Hurley and Libby's laundry scene. Hurley asked what Libby did before the crash and she told him that she was a psychologist specializing in marriage and children. Libby asked Hurley what he did before the crash and he informed her of his lottery winnings. Hurley was amazed to see that Libby believed him about this, leading Hurley to ask Libby to go on a walk in what would become their first date.

A deleted scene from this episode shows Ana Lucia and Eko having a conversation about the Others. Ana Lucia informs Eko of Jack's plan to venture in the jungle after the Others. Eko doesn't agree with the idea, thinking they are safer where they are. Ana Lucia asks what happened to the Eko that killed two of them the night of the crash, he tells her he is sitting next to her, leaning on a tree.

Music

The Season 2 soundtrack includes two cues from this episode. The episode's opening music appears as "Charlie's Dream". Charlie's theme appears as "Charlie's Temptation", the theme's first statement on a soundtrack.

Analysis

Recurring themes









Cultural references





Literary techniques

In Charlie's dream-vision, his mother tells him that he is "special." Regularly spoken phrases)

When Locke watches Charlie being dragged out of Claire's tent by Kate, the same camera movement is used as the one from " Tabula Rasa "'s ending. It is used on the same person and for the same purpose. Juxtaposition)

"'s ending. It is used on the same person and for the same purpose. Charlie's mother gives him a piano and tells him, "Someday you're going to get us out of here," foreshadowing Charlie's actions at the end of Season 3 in " Through the Looking Glass, Part 2 ", when Charlie plays " Good Vibrations " on a keyboard, in order to help get the survivors off the island. Foreshadowing)

", when Charlie plays " " on a keyboard, in order to help get the survivors off the island. Hurley recognizes Libby from somewhere, but he can't remember where. It would later be revealed in " Dave " that she was in the same mental hospital as Hurley. Foreshadowing)





Storyline analysis

Charlie fears that Locke is taking his place as Aaron's surrogate father. Rivalries)

Charlie tries to get back into Claire's good books, but fails. Relationships)

Hurley expresses interest in Libby. Relationships)





Episode connections

Episode references

Episode allusions

As Locke observes Charlie being thrown out of Claire tent, the camera pans around his head. (" Tabula Rasa ")

We learn how Liam came to live in Australia. (" The Moth ")

When Charlie arrives at his apartment, "He's Evil" by The Kinks is playing. (" The 23rd Psalm ")