So this week’s episode of Lost, Fire Plus Water, is all about birth and rebirth. Baptisms. Literal Christian baptisms of two children (Aaron and Megan), but also baptisms of fire, literally and figuratively. Two levels to all the action this week.

Birth:

1. Liam’s daughter Megan
2. Aaron’s baptism

Rebirth:

1. Charlie realizing he doesn’t have to use
2. Locke being reborn as his former, hostile, suspicious self

Who else is waiting for someone to come along and give Locke a dose of his own overbearing medicine? Let’s hope it’s Jack next week.

3. Claire asking for her own baptism
4. Liam getting clean and sober for his family
5. Eko finding his priesthood

The whole series, it seems to me now, is somehow about redemption but in a new way I hadn’t seen before. Charlie’s desperate attempts to find a family in Aaron and Claire underscores the fact that none of the islanders – save Rose and Bernard – are part of a stable, whole, functioning family.

• Jack got divorced.
• Locke was somehow jilted.
• Claire was going to give up Aaron.
• Kate is running from her family.
• Sawyer is trying to avenge his old man.
• Jin and Sun are the model for a dysfunctional marriage.
• Hurley was the outcast of his family and had to overcompensate when he won the lottery.
• Charlie lost his brother and his band.
• Sayid lost his true love. Twice.
• Starcrossed lovers and step-siblings Boone and Shannon both ended up dead.
• Michael and Walt who were estranged before the Island are now, potentially, lost to one another or enslaved together. Plus, Michael was divorced.
• Ana Lucia lost a child and was on the outs with her mother.
• Eko saved his brother, but had to betray him in the process, eventually getting him killed.

All broken families. All on the island. The only intact, happy union is the one between Rose and Bernard. Are they the key to this whole mystery or is there something sinister in their past.

It seems like the Others have somehow managed to form their own tight-knit family, embracing some islanders (Walt) while killing others. Is there a lesson here? Does the survival of the Lost survivors depend on their ability to form some kind of family?

I sure don’t know, but I think tonight’s episode was incredibly telling and a big turning point for the show. Time will tell if I’m right, but I hope that we see some more great character development from here on out.

What I’d like to see:

1. A showdown between Locke and Jack, with Jack winning
2. Eko and Sayid use their spirituality to bring the survivors together
3. Charlie take more of a leadership role – in opposition to Locke – now that all his drug use and self-doubt are behind him.
4. Some kind of “power couple” struggle

Kate/Sawyer versus Jack/Ana Lucia

What we learned:

• Voltron is still cool

Via the first “dream” sequence

• The black smoke “monster” isn’t the only special effects Lost can use

LOVED the dream sequences

• Libby needs validation

A therapist with self-esteem issues? I didn’t mention her in the “broken homes” list because we haven’t seen enough of her, but her personality – at once shy and mousy but yet somehow flirty and playful – suggests that maybe she wasn’t treating patients as much as she might have been one.

Remember, Hurley thought he recognized her and the revelation of the foot-stomping didn’t seem to get the desired reaction. Could she have been a doctor in his psyche ward?

• It’s Locke who needs saving

Not Charlie. Charlie found his way through his baptism by fire, Locke (and Charlie) are truly Lost souls at this point.

Maybe I’m just a bit over-joyed about this, but I saw tonight’s episode as a large step backward for Locke as a person. Not as a character, mind you, but as a person.

Jenn thought his actions were out of character. I thought they were just fine. They represented who he used to be, who he thought he had stopped being. This is the wheelchair-bound, searching, hungering Locke.

LOVED IT.

His comment about Charlie trying to save Aaron because he (Charlie) couldn’t be saved is more indicative of how Locke feels about himself than how Charlie feels. Charlie was a good Catholic and understands more about himself than does Locke, the man who summarized Baptism incorrectly.

I think Locke feels as though it’s too late for him, even with the second chance of the island. I think Locke is very much a fatalist, a person who sees the worst in himself and others while espousing that we all live by our choices.

I hope he slides even further.

Okay. Enough lists. Enough dissertations on Locke.

Best episode this year (if not this season)! I’m spent.