Lost - Fire + Water & The Long Con

I just personally wasn't into Fire +Water so I'll be brief. Charlie is having vivid dreams, turns the camp against him when he sets a fire and wants to baptize Claire's baby, Aaron. Locke punches Charlie out. Charlie is given the cold stare by everyone. Claire gets Eko to baptize her and Aaron. Flashbacks to Charlie and his brother as the band was deteriorating are shown. Locke takes the remaining Virgin Mary statuettes and puts them with the guns. While getting stitched up, Charlie insists to Jack he hasn't used.

In The Long Con Sawyer is shown in flashback seemingly falling for a divorcee when in fact she's a "Long Con". He also cons Locke after Sun is dragged into the woods with a bag over head. This ties into the previous episode as Charlie hates Locke and wanted to see him look like a fool. The Others are initially blamed for it so that Jack and Ana will get stirred up. Sawyer had a grand scheme partnered with Charlie. Locke thought he hid the guns elsewhere but Charlie followed him. So Sawyer has the guns, Kate is disappointed in him, Jack and Locke are weakened as a result, and Charlie got to see Locke embarrassed.

These two episodes are dark. Sawyer once again turns bastard, cold hearted and rotten. Charlie is wanting to be with Claire and all of a sudden here is Locke her protector. Stuck on this island, feeling unsafe accompanied with other feelings as personalities clash and true human nature reveals ugliness underneath, the show can be quite unsettling and bleak. With every redemption story is a story that takes us into utter darkness. Sawyer and Kate seem to be bonding and yet he once again ruins it, as he did with the divorcee conned out of 600 grand. He tells Charlie he's not a good person. Charlie rejects the offering of heroin. He wanted revenge on Locke. These are two characters isolated and alone now. Bad decisions and ill advised behavior have fenced them off. Charlie sliding into his hoodie might as well be him slithering into the shadows and Sawyer sets himself up to be a target. Neither have made any friends, only enemies. Quarantine and cordoning yourself off doesn't seem like the ideal plan, but these two sure have decided to do so.

Ana and Kate appear to be on their way to a rivalry. Jack and Sawyer are again at odds despite the former saving the latter's life. Locke's shining armor suffered fracture. The army Jack and Ana wanted to prepare seems to have been a failure. Eko thinks Charlie's vision of Aaron in a crib off in the water, his mum and Claire cherubic as if they fell right out of Jerusalem while Christ passed through, and a Dove are signs that the baby must be protected. Charlie wanted his band to survive rather than his brother get clean and rescue Aaron so he could get back in Claire's good favor. Sawyer after his lover's money and needing to shake a partner-in-con off is no surprise. Kate told she's a runner and Sawyer's a con, the conversation ends. Claire needing Charlie away from her takes meaning and substance from him. Here they are...on an island unto themselves.

At least Hurley seems to have chemistry with Libby who doesn't avoid him, even starting a conversation with him about him stepping on her foot on the plane and them washing clothes gives them some alone time to get to know each other. Before Sawyer turns heel and once again disembarks from decency, he eggs on Hurley playfully. Sawyer had been a tweener before abandoning the idea of getting along with folks. Hurley also gets a hurting Sayid to fix a walkie-talkie leading to a signal from a radio station coming through. I liked the clever line from Hurley regarding the music perhaps being from another time, not just some place way out there.

Fire + Water: ** / ****
The Long Con: *** / ****