Some quick thoughts on this week’s episode, "Fire and Water": Charlie’s, like Eko’s, is a brother story. Eko’s story with his priest-brother resolved itself when he found his remains in the plane wreckage. Eko’s and his brother’s stories, intertwined from the beginning, have become one story, and Eko has assumed his brother’s priesthood. We might have more to find out about what happened to Eko after he was left behind on the airport runway as his abducted brother flew off. My guess is that he went back to his brother’s church and continued his work there.
If Eko’s story has been resolved, why has he not yet been taken by the Others? I think it’s because he has a role to play in helping the other survivors to resolve their stories. He has become a kind of bodhisattva figure–he has found redemption for himself; now he stays to help the other survivors to find theirs.
He is a "priest," and the priest’s role is to be a link between two worlds, in this case the world of the survivors and the world of the Others. If I’m right, that role should become more clearly defined as things progress. Is his baptism of Clair and Aaron, so beautifully and simply presented at the end of this week’s episode, a foreshadowing of their imminent departure? Claire’s concern is that she not be separated from her baby, so if Aaron is taken, will Claire go at the same time?
All of the other children have been taken by the Others, so I’ve wondered why Aaron had not yet been (permanantly) taken. Probably because of a role that he has still to play in Charlie’s story as it unfolds. It’s possible that Charlie’s connection with Claire’s baby, Aaron, is a key to his redemption. How that plays out remains to be seen. I think we have also to learn more about Charlie’s brother, which for sure has something to do with why Charlie was on this plane, which departed from Australia.
I think it’s interesting that Charlie understands that he’s on the island to be tested, and the test for him was whether to start using coke again. It’s left rather ambiguous whether he was using or not. He says he was not–you want to believe him, but he never tells the truth when it comes to his drug habit. He told Locke he intended to destroy the drugs he had stored away, but while a part him sincerely wanted to do that, the addict part of him was never decisively defeated. So that’s a test he’s neither passed nor failed. It’s curious that Locke, after taking the drugs from Charlie, did not destroy them but stored them in a vault. Any bets on whether or not Charlie will eventually find them there?
Leave a Reply