After 6 hours of re-watching LOST it’s pretty apparent that we’re dealing with people that brought more baggage on board flight Oceanic 815 than just their luggage. (or a casket in Jack Shepard’s case.) The characters of LOST, all amazingly attractive on the outside, are all a bit dark and twisty on the inside.  The first four episodes after the pilot focused on four (or five if you count Jin as separate from Sun) people and gave a glimpse at their backgrounds.

This next installment will focus on one of the characters that probably has the most blatant outward dark and twisty baggage.  Charlie is a heroin addict. We knew that from the pilot, when after trekking through monster haunted tropical forests, Charlie disappears into the cabin section’s loo, to retrieve his stash from the toilet bowl.  The precise moment of the turbulance disrupted his plan to flush his stash. After a frightening night of being stranded on an weird island, with strange growling noises (that sounded oddly like a runaway Brooklyn taxi receipt machine *tikka tikka* at one point) Charlie had enough of sobriety and just wanted to get his fix back on.

But Charlie was also fairly good at hiding his habit, at least in his mind.  Sneaking off into the trees to get a fix, Charlie was also present in many of the exploits and travels of the beach dwellers.  He tried his hand at fishing, to gain the attention of Sticks Shannon.  He tried to woo Kate with his stylish rending of the classic DriveShaft hit: You are Everybody.  He also tried to comfort Claire when the lack of water and hydration caused her to faint.  Charlie seems to fancy himself a ladies man, even if the last lady he had hooked up with was only after what was in his pocket.  His smack. Oh wait, that’s later on in the season, nebbermine!

Charlie has also been used as a character of comic relief.  Walking away from a peice of flaming shrapnel in the opening crash montage. When Kate asked, “Does anyone know how to use a gun?” Charlie responded, “I think you just pull the trigger.”  When Kate explained she took off her shirt in House of the Rising Sun because it was “… full of bees,” Charlie’s charming reply of, “I would have thought Cs” earned him a Kate death stare. His friendship with Hurley has started with their attempts at spearing a fish, and their friendship will continue to grow in episodes to come.  Charlie is a drug addict, a bass player, a lousy singer, a sneaky liar, a flirt, and in many ways one of the most endeared characters in the show.  But he’s still carrying a lot of baggage, like all of the survivors of Oceanic 815.

Charlie had a bit of a redemption moment in House of the Rising Sun, when he realized that he was really jonesing for his true love, music, instead of the siren song of his heroin stash.  The observant John Locke, who’s apparent guru-like connection with the beautiful part of the island has able to discern this, and like with his counsel of Jack on his white rabbit quest for water, had a heart to heart with Charlie.  Locke’s insistence on faith pulls at our yearning for all of this craziness to mean something, while at the same time John’s plead to look up, left us thinking things we’re a bit corny. (it also foreshadows a similar search for something or someone precious in Season 3, but we’ll get to that later)

Jeff “Doc” Jensen postulated before the final season that LOST was a story of redemption, or recovery.  I’ve written before about how I connect with that rather strongly.  This one episode will really pound out that medley as a theme. The Moth as a metaphor for rebirth, is rife with recovery themes.  I want to write more, but it’ll have to wait until after this episode’s rewatch is over.  Yeah, if you’ll let me, I’m gonna have to watch The Moth again, and then write another post which I’ll post on Saturday.  I might even mumble a few words on the podcast on Wednesday.

So rewatch with us, in the chatroom, Tuesday at 6PM PDT, or another rewatch on Saturday at 8AM PDT.  Also listen to the We Talk About LOST Podcast on Wednesday at 7PM PDT.

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