Season 1, Episode 9: Raised by Another

The episode opens like most television shows do: with a close up of an eyeball and babies crying. Wait, no, I take it back. Nothing ever starts like that. What a bunch of weirdos. The crying baby wakes up Claire (the pregnant girl, if you're just joining us) and naturally she walks into the monster/polar bear infested jungle. She finds Locke sitting at a table, sharpening some knives and he says some creepy stuff, so far pretty much what you'd expect. Then she finds a crib with an airplane mobile thing hanging over it, but there's no baby in the crib, just a bunch of... baby goo? Oh, surprise, it was a dream. Claire is freaked the fuck out and she's all screaming and crying and shit, but luckily for everyone Charlie Pace is there to talk her down.

Jack treats Claire's hands which she cut up with her own fingernails during the nightmare and they talk about babies but not in a fun exciting way. In more of a doctor boring way. She has to pee all the time. Great. That's this week's twist.

Flashback.

Some wiener looking guy is all nervous and asking Claire about the pregnancy test she just took. There's a lot of sit-com-ish confusion about how to work the pregnancy test but eventually Claire becomes pretty sure that she is. Wiener circle says that sometimes the tests are wrong because they "thought his uncle had testicular cancer". To which Claire responds, "Your uncle is dead, poindexter!"
"Well... yeah, but when he peed on the stick it said he was pregnant... so, you never know." They nervously make the bed, which is also what I do when I'm freaking out, and they decide that maybe they should keep the baby after listening to a choice Madonna song.

Flash forward.

Jack and Kate are staring into the middle distance out toward the ocean. They talk about sand and water for a little while... and the merits of both, and speaking of sand... the conversation turns to how Sayid's doing, but then quickly deviates back to things like carrying fish and having babies... the scene mercifully ends and cuts to...

Charlie Pace! is bringing some water to Claire. They talk about weird dreams they both have had. Charlie Pace's dream involves everything smelling like bacon which, like everything that Charlie Pace does, sounds wonderful. He kind of hits on Claire a little and awkwardly asks her out, sorta. She's a total bitch, though, and shoots him down. He plays it cool, but you know he's disappointed.

Flashback.

Claire and wiener schnitzel are going to move in together, but first her "friend" makes her go see a "psychic". Listen, readers, real friends don't make you see psychics. Interestingly, the psychic is the president of Russia, or at least, he is if you're like me and you think 24 is real. Which I do, and I also don't think that it's too far fetched to think that the president of Russia is moonlighting as a psychic in Australia. IHe does impress everyone though, because he can tell Claire is pregnant and she doesn't even look pregnant! So far he's 1 for 1, but then he totally freaks the fuck out and tells everyone to leave. No one saw that one coming! He is polite about it, though, if not a bit creepy. But then, who isn't creepy on this show?

Flash forward.

Claire's sleeping again and then someone sneaks up on her and brandishes a knife. She starts screaming and crying again and says that someone attacked her. Hurley and Charlie Pace go off to see if they can find the culprit. Not surprisingly, Hurley does not find anything, except an unending hunger that no dish made by man can quell. He does have some time to do some thinking, though, and he rambles about it for a while to Jack, and eventually gets to the damn point. His name isn't Hurley. It's Hugo Reyes, but then he actually gets to the point which is that he wants to take a census so that they can have an idea of who's all on the island. A census. Will the excitement never end?

Flashback.

Claire got drapes. Wiener dude decided he wants to be cool and he puts on this attitude and starts drinking beer and being aloof. Then he just flat out dumps Claire. He suddenly found out that babies are a lot of work and responsibility. Obviously not the brightest singularity in timespace. He's worried that he won't have time for his painting. Well, he's a shitty painter so no loss there. Claire yells at him but maybe she should be happy because that guy was a fucking wash.

Flash forward.

Hurley is conducting his census. Locke is not amused, but he goes along with it. Locke says some vague, weird stuff and Hurley stands there awkwardly and then leaves in a comical fashion. The writers have hit their stride. Meanwhile, Jack thinks that Claire was maybe just having a nightmare. This makes Charlie Pace mad, but the point is that Jack doesn't want her to freak herself out and go into early labor. To calm Charlie Pace down, Jack puts his arm around his shoulder and says to him, "Stick with me Charlie Pace. For someday, when I am gone, all of this will be yours. You will someday be King Doctor. Until then, I appoint you the royal minstrel of this island, and your first task will be to write a song chronicling the discovery and founding of West Caverberg.

Back at Hurley's census, he's talking to a freaky looking guy named Ethan. Ethan Rom. He's from Ontario... the backstory... so rich and thick... like strawberry syrup poured lovingly over a Grand Slam.

Claire's writing in her diary and Jack tries to tell her that he thinks it was all a dream and tries to give her some mild sedatives to calm her down. She gets a little upset, and starts packing her shit up to move back to South Beachton. Charlie Pace, once again, is not amused.

Flashback.

Claire goes back to see that psychic guy. She wants him to finish that reading they started... He will. Coolio. Umm... let's see... they breathe for a while... he closes his eyes... he figures out she got dumped, warns her the reading might be bad but she wants to go through with it... he sees some bad shit, I guess. Then he says that it is crucial that she raises the child alone and no one else can do it or else... bad. She gets freaked out and leaves and he yells at her a bit. Then he starts calling her at night to remind her that she can't put up the kid for adoption. Blah blah blah... you get the gist.

Flash present.

Charlie Pace meets up with Claire while she's walking back to South Beachton and tries to convince her to go back to the beach.

Hurley is continuing his census by talking to that annoying girl and her annoying brother. The boy makes some smart ass remark about Hurley setting up his own patriot act when he probably doesn't even know what the patriot act actually says. I know I don't. Hurley lets it slip that the reason he's doing it is because Claire got attacked at night to which the girl responds, "I am so not moving to the rape cave," and drops he bags down. "Hey," Hurley says, "Don't confuse us with East Caverberg." Well, the annoying kid proves himself useful for once and tells Hurley that maybe he should get his hands on the plane's manifest, sadly, Sawyer has it, which means that Hurley has to talk to Sawyer. Here's one of the series true great battles of the minds. Sawyer coughs it up. What a guy.

Charlie Pace and Claire are still walking through the jungle and Charlie Pace admits that he likes Claire. She starts going on about how she thinks that Charlie Pace just wants to rescue her but she doesn't need rescuing and with the comedic timing of a Ruth Buzzi, Claire goes into labor. Now she and Charlie Pace are both freaking out and Charlie Pace is acting all goofy. It's all pretty amusing. I thought I was watching Cheers for a minute, but sadly, no. This episode is actually about everybody not knowing your name.

Flashback.

Claire's meeting with the potential adoption parents and they seem nice, but she starts having second thoughts. I mean, when the president of Russia tells you to do something you do it. Hey! You get $20,000 when you put up a kid for adoption!? Not a bad deal. We all have kind of a sad moment while she starts to sign the paper, but the pen doesn't work, nor does the next pen... is this Saturday Night Live? No! It's the comedic stylings of the Lost writing staff. In a hilarious turn of events, Claire decides she can't go through with it and runs out of the room and straight to the psychic's house to hear about his "offer".

Flash forward.

Charlie Pace is running through the forest all gang busters when he runs into Ethan who is... collecting sticks? Anyways, Charlie Pace tells him what's going down with Claire and tells him to run and get the good king doctor. Ethan, seeing the urgency of the situation, throws down his sticks and dashes off while Charlie Pace makes his way back to Claire. They both breathe together for a while.

Flashback.

The psychic found someone to adopt the kid. He's giving her $12,000 to give it to them. What the hell is this? Some kind of baby black market? That's not even a good offer. The legit adoption people were offering her $8,000 more than that. I guess it's a moot point though, since it's all Australian money.

Flash forward.

Charlie Pace thinks that maybe the dude knew that the plane was going to crash and he tricked her into getting on it so that she'd crash on the island and she'd have to raise the kid alone.

Flashback

Psychic dude says that it has to be that flight.

Flash forward.

Claire agrees. That asshole knew all along.

Meanwhile. Oh! It's Sayid. Running through the forest. Haven't seen him in a while.

Wait, back to Charlie Pace and Claire. The contractions maybe stopped. So... that's good, I guess. Everything worked out just fine. They decide to go back to the caves together and Charlie Pace promises he won't let anything happen to them.

Oh, back to Sayid. He meets up with Jack and Locke and tells them about the crazy French bitch. He's... been better and he tells them they're not alone and someone plays a trumpet really ominously. Bah. Bah. Bah. Bah. Bah!!!!

Hurley's the one running all gangbusters now and he says he cross references his census with the manifest and there was an extra dude.

Ethan shows up in the forest to meet Charlie Pace and Claire and he looks like a total fucking creep, and... wait. Oh. Um... the end.

Lost.