sl-LOST.com » Richard Alpert

LOST’s Ricardo Alpert in RINGER Poster

SL-LOST — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 18:33:41 +0000

LOST Season 6 DVD/Blu-ray Bonus Clip: Spanish Lessons by Nestor Carbonell

SL-LOST — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 19:52:38 +0000

Pre-order LOST: The Complete Sixth and Final Season on Blu-ray & DVD and save up to 40%!

Nestor Carbonell Fans Rejoice: New Interview & Photoshoot for HILuxury Magazine

SL-LOST — Sun, 04 Jul 2010 20:41:48 +0000

Nestor Carbonell is the cover story of the June/July issue of the HILuxury magazine. Hit the jump button for more scans!

Click here to read the interview (starts at page 68).

The Official LOST Video Podcast: April 8th, 2010

SL-LOST — Thu, 08 Apr 2010 21:17:52 +0000

Nestor Carbonell takes us behind the scenes for the Black Rock.

[Via ABC]

Siempre Juntos (Part II): Cultural Inversions in LOST 6.09 by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 23:06:31 +0000

Siempre Juntos (Part I)

Wine.

The flask contains one of the oldest beverages known to humankind. This week it became a mystery, along with the water Jacob used to baptise Ricardo, to restore clear thinking, to bring him back to an appreciation of this divine Island. Perhaps by the mystery of this water and wine we may come to share in the divinity of the Island, that humbled itself to lay bare our humanity.

Baptism as a proof of life. Wine as sign of malevolence and evil. Jacob has a unique way of perceiving reality. Every one of his observations was a 180-degree inversion of everything we have ever learned about the world. These were unsettling revelations of the inner thoughts of the Man in White. But the most disturbing event occurred when everyone else had left, and the Man in Black held the inverted flask that contained fermented grapes, and smashed it against the log. The act was disturbing because the Man in Black did not symbolically loose the forces of evil. No, the act was startling–shocking–because the symbolic essence of the act was a true liberation–of the sacred, of the divine.

Man in Black: Angel of the Creator.

Everything He Ever Said Is a Lie

We take Richard’s words to Hurley and Jack to be those of a madman. “You’re dead. We’re in hell. Everything he ever said is a lie.” We dismiss them as the words of a man driven to insanity by death and betrayal.

But there is a kernel of truth in Richard’s perception of Jacob. The Man in White took rapid and decisive action to remove from Richard the idea that he was dead. But took no action whatever to dissuade Richard from the belief that he was in hell, that he was enduring the sufferings that were his due. Jacob could not absolve Richard, and more importantly, he could not bring Isabella back from the dead. But he could give Richard the gift of eternal life. Or, perhaps in Richard’s case, the curse of eternal torment.

Jacob preached to the cursed man about freedom. He professed a life-long commitment to leaving people alone, to allowing them to find ways to help themselves, so they would “know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It’s all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?” And yet, in Richard’s case, in Dogen’s case, he did step in. He didn’t “give a little push”. He summoned the full weight of extraordinary forces beyond nature: to heal Dogen’s son, to grant Richard a life without end. In Dogen’s case he extracted a promise of lifelong servitude. In Richard’s case, no such promise was necessary. Jacob knew Richard had already surrendered himself to eternal penance and suffering.

The essential truth borne by Richard’s words was corroborated throughout the episode. But I don’t think Jacob has false intentions. I don’t think he knowingly utters falsehoods. He is lying, but he doesn’t know that he lies. Understanding the nature of the deceptive words is essential, I feel, to the fullest appreciation of Jacob, the Man in Black, and the Island.

Inversions

We were witness to several important inversions this week. Almost all of them were theological in nature. I am convinced that they were intentional, and I trust that Melinda Hsu Taylor and Gregg Nations were more reliable in their theological interpretations than the writers of “Deus Ex Machina” (Lost 1:19; the episode in which Emily Locke told her son “You have no father. You were immaculately conceived.”).

The first important inversion occurred during Richard’s confession to Father Suarez. Richard gave an emotional, heartfelt confession, begged for absolution. “Le ruego, le ruego, padre, por el perdón de Dios.” Padre Suarez’s response was shocking: “No. No puedo otorgar la absolución por un asesinato.” The priest’s words were false and self-damning. Not only could he give absolution, even for the crime of murder, but in the context of the situation, the priest was virtually obliged to offer immediate pardon. That he refused to do so was a severe perversion of the office of Holy Orders and the sacrament of reconciliation.

Richard’s Bible was open to the Gospel of Luke, Chapter Four. The camera focused on Verse 24: “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native land.” But the full context is crucial. I reproduce below Luke 4:18-30, from the six verses before Verse 24 to the six verses after:

He [Jesus] came to Nazareth, where he had grown up, and went according to his custom into the synagogue on the sabbath day. He stood up to read and was handed a scroll of the prophet Isaiah. He unrolled the scroll and found the passage where it was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he has anointed me to bring glad tidings to the poor. He has sent me to proclaim liberty to captives and recovery of sight to the blind, to let the oppressed go free, and to proclaim a year acceptable to the Lord.”

Rolling up the scroll, he handed it back to the attendant and sat down, and the eyes of all in the synagogue looked intently at him. He said to them, “Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing.”

And all spoke highly of him and were amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth. They also asked, “Isn’t this the son of Joseph?”….

And he said, “Amen, I say to you, no prophet is accepted in his own native place. Indeed, I tell you, there were many widows in Israel in the days of Elijah when the sky was closed for three and a half years and a severe famine spread over the entire land. It was to none of these that Elijah was sent, but only to a widow in Zarephath in the land of Sidon. Again, there were many lepers in Israel during the time of Elisha the prophet; yet not one of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.”

When the people in the synagogue heard this, they were all filled with fury. They rose up, drove him out of the town, and led him to the brow of the hill on which their town had been built, to hurl him down headlong. But he passed through the midst of them and went away.

In this passage, Jesus is depicted as creating another disturbing inversion. The people in the congregation would have believed themselves “righteous before the Creator” but Jesus chose to hold up for them the example of Naaman the Syrian–a gentile who was cleansed (made righteous). The story–even though it was drawn from Hebrew Scripture–was an intentional affront to Jesus’ listeners. In the context of the earlier claim that “this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing,” Jesus’ words could have been interpreted as being not only in bad taste, but possibly even blasphemous. He was subtly claiming divinity, and those listening would have none of it.

Luke 4:10 (“Today this scripture passage is fulfilled in your hearing”) is nothing less than the thesis of the Gospel of Luke. The entire Gospel message is framed in an endless cascade of inversions, with frequent demonstrations of gentiles’ fidelity to the Deity, long diatribes against those normally believed to have great piety (the Pharisees), and the centrepiece, the Sermon on the Plain, in which Jesus says the most blessed among us are the poor. Not the “poor in spirit” as in the Gospel of Matthew, but the literally poor, the destitute of the world.

The message I took from this lingering focus on the fourth chapter of Luke was simple: I should be looking for a person of some prominence in “Ab Aeterno” who seems to be working against humanity’s best interests, but in fact was working for the common good.

The Baptism

Jacob dunked Richard four times. I counted. Why would I do such a thing? Why would the number of dunkings have any significance?

In the Christian tradition we are baptised “In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.” Most of us are baptised with the gentle passing of a few drops of water over our foreheads. Some of us, like my son, are fully immersed in water. In a few Christian denominations there is a single dunking. But in most traditions, including the one I try to follow, the candidate is immersed three times, once for each Person of the Trinity. Jacob’s four-fold baptism was intentionally devised so as to prevent any religious interpretation.

At this point we could move on and admit that Jacob’s baptism was not intended to have Christian or generally religious undertones of any kind. However, I think it may be important to consider the wider context of Jacob’s action.

Baptism, in Christian theology, is a sharing in Jesus’ passion and death. We are forced under water–into death. It is only after the third time under water (mirroring the third day in the tomb) that we finally rise to new life. Baptism is not a denial of death, but an embracing of death. It is not a continuation of life, but the beginning of an entirely new life. It marks a turning point.

Richard’s baptism was no turning point. The only goal of Jacob’s violent exercise was to point out that Richard was not physically dead. “Still think you’re dead?” Jacob kept dunking Richard until he admitted, shouted, that he was not dead, that he lived, that he wished to live. I found the entire scene fascinating. Far from a baptism, this was an anti-baptism. Jacob forced Richard to say he was not dead. The “baptism” was not an acceptance of death–literal or figurative, physical or spiritual. It was, rather, a violent continuation of life as it had been. Richard remained among the damned of the earth–or at least he continued among those who considered themselves beyond redemption. The only change in Richard was the psychological awareness that he was not physically dead. Nothing truly important changed.

This “baptism” became a means of gaining control of Richard’s soul. Richard would forever look to Jacob as the man who made him aware of being alive, but he enjoyed no more spiritual or physical freedom after the dunking than he had known before. The change in Richard was not for his benefit, but for Jacob’s.

Wine

Jacob used the wine symbolically. “Think of this wine,” he said, “as what you keep calling hell. There’s many other names for it: Malevolence, Evil, Darkness. And here it is, swirling around in the bottle, unable to get out, because if it did, it would spread. Cork–is the island. And it’s the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs.”

Wine is a most appropriate element to use in a symbolic manner. But again, Jacob inverts the normal understanding.

Every hour of the day for the past two thousand years, a priest somewhere in the world has stood at an altar, a carafe of wine and a vial of water in front of him. The ritual has been the same for twenty centuries. He pours the wine into a chalice, adds a few drops of water, and in one language or another chants these words: “By the mystery of this water and wine may we come to share in the divinity of Christ who humbled himself to share in our humanity.” The water represents humanity. The wine represents divinity. The mixing of the two symbolises Jesus’ two natures (divine and human) and also indicates the surrender of our human nature to the divine will.

Jacob thinks of the wine as Evil. Richard–born and raised Roman Catholic–would have seen the wine as a potent symbol of the Creator he worshipped every day.

At the very end of the episode the Man in Black inverted the flask and broke it over the log. The red liquid flowed over the decaying wood and down into the earth–the only appropriate destination for communion wine that is not consumed. The Man in Black freed the divine liquid from Jacob’s artificial tomb. The act was breathtaking and extremely upsetting at the same time. In the last several episodes the Man in Black has acted in a manner I find virtually impossible to reconcile with my understanding of a loving Creator. Was this scene trying to say that the MIB was a holy man? An angel of the Deity? I was confused and more than a little upset at the ramifications.

Siempre Juntos, Pero Siempre Separados

These were the most revealing twenty words of the episode:

“You aren’t the only one who’s lost something, my friend. The Devil betrayed me. He took my body. My humanity.”

During his talks with Richard, the Smoke Monster has been speaking of Jacob, referring to him as the “Devil”. Over a meal of roast boar, the MIB confided to Richard the personal centre of his feud with Jacob. Their disagreement is not philosophical, even if Jacob would like to paint it in that manner. Their hostility toward each other had its origin in a very personal set of events.

It is because of Jacob that the Smoke Monster has no tangible human form. It is because of Jacob that Cerberus must fabricate a human image from whatever dead bodies he finds on the Island. And it must be at least in part due to Jacob that the MIB has been left with a sour disposition and dark outlook on humanity.

“He took my body. My humanity.”

Were they once one person? The possibility must be considered. Both the MIB and Jacob seem to be missing important elements of humanity. The Smoke Monster says, “They come, they fight, they destroy, they corrupt. It always ends the same.” He sees only darkness. Jacob says, “That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptible because it’s in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong.” Jacob sees only light in the world, looking at everything through rose-coloured glasses.

They’re both wrong, of course. The world is not all dark, but not one person now living has passed all her days in complete harmony with her fellow human beings and nature. Every one of us, at least now and then, does something to slight or harm another person or the world we inhabit.

Jacob

Carmel Vaisman, in her analysis of Lost 6.07, “Dr. Linus”, came to an important conclusion. I transcribe a portion of the narrative here with her permission:

“I think that the episode sheds light on what are light and dark on LOST. We keep trying to figure out who’s good and who’s bad while both sides do questionable things. So here’s the deal: Being in the light requires courage and truth. Your deeds can still be wrong, but as long as you regret it and truly share, you’re in the light. Darkness is when you think you’re beyond redemption, when you stop sharing and disconnect from the community. Maybe you haven’t done a single thing wrong, but you are dark inside, dark from the pain eating you up. It’s not about doing the right thing. It’s about perspective.”

I believe we can usefully apply this kind of thinking not only to the Candidates, but also to Jacob and the MIB themselves. Jacob can be seen as essentially good, even if he coerces, even if he has an unreasonably, unsupportably rosy outlook on human nature, even if he makes no apparent effort to alleviate suffering. Jacob is all about improvement of the human condition, not with his help, but entirely on our own. He seeks the proof of our innate goodness. “It only ends once. Anything that happens before that is just progress.”

Are his dreams misplaced? If the selfish essence of humanity cannot be torn away, torn as the Man in Black has been excised from Jacob, is there any hope for imperfect human beings? Doesn’t Jacob’s point of view require perfection? How can Jacob’s perfect ending be attained if even the Island’s eternal optimist has relied on deception and coercion to achieve his ends?

I think there is a way. It may or may not involve keeping an evil genie in a bottle, or preventing the opening of Pandora’s box–keeping a cork on the evil of the world. But I am convinced it will never involve the replacement of Jacob. Just as the Man in Black lacks a body–in his words, lacks humanity–so too Jacob lacks a soul, lacks the drive to truly care for and take action in the best interests of the common good.

Man in Black

Black is not necessarily a sign of evil. Read what the original Man in Black said about his wardrobe choice.

Well, you wonder why I always dress in black,
Why you never see bright colors on my back,
And why does my appearance seem to have a somber tone.
Well, there’s a reason for the things that I have on.

I wear the black for the poor and the beaten down,
Livin’ in the hopeless, hungry side of town,
I wear it for the prisoner who has long paid for his crime,
But is there because he’s a victim of the times.

I wear the black for those who never read,
Or listened to the words that Jesus said,
About the road to happiness through love and charity,
Why, you’d think He’s talking straight to you and me.

Well, we’re doin’ mighty fine, I do suppose,
In our streak of lightnin’ cars and fancy clothes,
But just so we’re reminded of the ones who are held back,
Up front there ought ‘a be a Man In Black.

I wear it for the sick and lonely old,
For the reckless ones whose bad trip left them cold,
I wear the black in mournin’ for the lives that could have been,
Each week we lose a hundred fine young men.

And, I wear it for the thousands who have died,
Believen’ that the Lord was on their side,
I wear it for another hundred thousand who have died,
Believen’ that we all were on their side.

Well, there’s things that never will be right I know,
And things need changin’ everywhere you go,
But ’til we start to make a move to make a few things right,
You’ll never see me wear a suit of white.

Ah, I’d love to wear a rainbow every day,
And tell the world that everything’s OK,
But I’ll try to carry off a little darkness on my back,
‘Till things are brighter, I’m the Man In Black.

Johnny Cash’s moving words sound a whole lot better when they’re accompanied by guitar chords and the Man in Black’s strong voice:

Johnny Cash was no saint, and the Smoke Monster is certainly no saint, either. If Jacob deceives and coerces, the Smoke Monster seems to do a hundred-fold more. If Jacob has an agenda, his final goal seems to involve the improvement of all humankind. The Smoke Monster’s only agenda, even from his own lips, is to achieve his own selfish ends, regardless of the effect his voyage off the Island has on others. But we see glimmers of decency even in Cerberus. Perhaps before his body and his humanity were torn away, perhaps when he was whole, he was a different man.

A Boy Named Sue

Who is the Rumpelstiltskin we are forced to call the “Man in Black”? He blames a crazy mother for his difficult childhood. He blames his (Other half? Brother? Father? Son?) opposite, Jacob, for the loss of physical body and spiritual humanity.

Perhaps as Dr. Linus’ invocation of Napoleon’s final exile suggests (Elba, as anagram), the Man in Black is Cain himself, living a dark, lonely exile, thanks to the brother he killed (Abel) and the mother who ate the forbidden fruit that got them all kicked out of the Garden of Eden. The distinguishing mark he carries could be the lack of physical form, or perhaps it is a spiritual mark, the deep, eternal impression on his soul convincing him that progress is impossible because goodness does not exist.

Perhaps he is Esau, whose birthright was stolen by his younger twin, Jacob, with the conniving assistance of their own mother. The Biblical Jacob was not above deception and coercion, even of his own flesh-and-blood twin brother. Who could ever recover from such a conspiracy of familial evil?

Perhaps he is some historical Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde who, through evil experiments or selfish will, was torn into opposing halves.

Whatever his origin, the Man in Black is not a contented man happy in place and circumstance. He is more like the Boy Named Sue, abused by those around him, growing up tough because of the unfair limitations placed on body, mind, and soul. And like the Boy Named Sue, maybe it is still possible for this Man in Black, and for us, to “come away with a different point of view”.

Ring of Fire

The wine is not evil. The Island is more than a sum of the Man in Black’s selfish manifestations of discontent. There is evil on the Island, but there is evil everywhere. All of us carry evil in our hearts, even the Man in Black. The mugshot above is that of a common criminal. But it is also the photograph of a suffering man, a man of conviction and thought, a man who brought hope to millions through words and music transcribed from his soul. Johnny Cash, the Man in Black, has done evil things. But is he an evil man? In the name of the Island, evil deeds are done. But is the Island an evil place?

With the Man in Black who sang at Folsom Prison and at San Quentin, I say the Island is a burning thing. All of it is made worse by the self-centred desires of men like Charles Widmore, Benjamin Linus, and the Smoke Monster. But with Locke, we can believe this place is different, special. “I’ve looked into the eye of this Island, and what I saw was beautiful.” The Eye of Horus–the soul of the Island–is a ring of fire. It burns every one of us, it brings out the worst in us at the very moment when we wish above all else to let our goodness shine. But its essence is not evil. “It’s not an island. It’s a place where miracles happen.” It is a ring of fire, but as Johnny Cash himself would tell us, every ring of fire is full of infinite capacities for good, for the redemption of even the most wayward soul.

Siempre Estaremos Juntos

We have had six long years of guessing, putting together obscure clues drawn from split-second flashes of a child’s toy or the fragment of a photograph far in the background of a shot intended to bring our attention to foreground. How many books have we read, how many thousands of pages of text and analysis, all in hopes of understanding this most complicated of stories ever relayed on the small screen?

How many times have our attempts at understanding been thwarted by the constant deceptions of Benjamin Linus, by the partial inquiries of Jack Shephard, by the frustrating secrets and withholding of critical scenes or crucial words?

The journey is the thing, of course. We could have been told six years ago the exact manner in which this epic would end. But the journey is the thing. We have found new ways of relating Lewis Carroll and Stephen King and Shakespeare and Greek and Egyptian myth into our way of looking at the world.

Still, like slaves held without water or wine, we thirst for nourishment of body and soul. We seek some way of knowing whether we’re on the right track, whether we’ve understood the story as the creators intend. It becomes obvious now, toward the end, that we have had such means all along. They have been with us from the beginning. Now, as we near the end, we can take comfort and assurance in their sure and true word.

Desmond found his Constant in Penny Widmore. She is the truth for him that transcends time and place, transcends separation of body and mind. No matter the situation, no matter the lies he is told, she is always true.

Ricardo found his Constant in Isabella. Even when the Man in Black spewed lies, even when Jacob coerced him into eternal servitude, Ricardo knew a truth that could never be corrupted. No one can tell Ricardo he does not love Isabella. Even trying to convince him of this would be foolishness and a waste of time. Everything in his life has told him of the truth of her, of her love, of their need to be together regardless of cost. When the doctor threw the gold cross across the floor (“Esto no vale nada”), he was discarding Ricardo’s great truth, that Isabella was worth everything. It was an act equal in rank with murder, for it took no account of the infinite value of human life. It was the act of a heartless and truly evil man.

Ricardo, in orienting all thought and action around the infinite worth and goodness of his beloved, established an incontrovertible truth. Truth is something we need, too, if we are ever to make sense of events on the Island. We can rely on Isabella, the Angel in White. And we can rely on at least one other person.

San Hugo

Saint Hugo of Grenoble had a single-minded devotion to honesty and truth. These virtues have usually been in short supply among the world’s leaders, and this was true in the Middle Ages no less than today. Saint Hugo was uncompromising in his forthright and sincere approach to even the intractable dishonesty of the church leaders of the time. His moral leadership led to important reforms that made the church truly responsive to the needs of the poor.

His namesake on the Island is likewise a man of unimpeachable integrity.

Hurley’s discomfort with lies is no mere matter of morality. It is the feature of his character that will allow us to discover truths that would otherwise remain obscured under the lies and deceptions of men like Ben and Charles Widmore and Sawyer.

Hurley was there to allow Isabella to reaffirm the truth Ricardo had always known.

RICHARD: I–I don’t see her.
ISABELLA: Dile que su inglés es magnifico.
HURLEY: She’s right there. She says your English is awesome.
RICHARD: ¿Estas tú realmente aquí?
ISABELLA: Cierra tus ojos.
HURLEY: She wants you to close your eyes. It’s okay, I’ll tell you what she says.

They were the same words she used 140 years before, the last words that passed her lips before she died. Thanks to Hurley, Isabella was able to do something Jacob, or anyone who truly cared, should have done long ago. She told Ricardo he had suffered enough.

ISABELLA: Ya has sufrido suficiente, Ricardo.
RICHARD: Te extraño, yo… Yo haría cualquier cosa para estar juntos de nuevo.

He didn’t yet realise the full force of her words, the full reality of her presence with him, because he told her he’d do anything to be with her again. She reminded him of the fact he had kept in his heart since leaving El Socorro.

ISABELLA: Mi amor, ya estamos juntos.

“My love,” she said, “We’re already together.”

We know with certainty that we can trust anything from Isabella’s lips, and from Hurley’s. These are important and useful facts, because we can learn vitally useful information if we listen to these two trustworthy souls.

HURLEY: She kinda said one more thing. Something you have to do.
RICHARD: What?
HURLEY: She said you have to stop the Man in Black. You have to stop him from leaving the island. ‘Cause if you don’t… todos nos vamos al infierno.

At the very least we know the Man in Black must be restrained. He must be kept on the Island at all costs, for if he is not, everyone is truly going to hell as Hurley said. We don’t know that the Smoke Monster is “evil incarnate”; for all we know, he could yet prove to be an angel seeking to fulfill divine mandate. But his destiny is on the Island, not away from these enchanted sands. Even if Hurley and Richard find themselves obliged to kill the man in order to carry out Isabella’s command, they must do so, or risk the eternal damnation of many lives besides their own.

The Cork

We know now with greater certainty than ever that none of The Seven will replace Jacob. Both the Man in Black and Jacob are incomplete, only partially human. A story that took six years to tell will not end with a re-establishment of a broken status quo. Whatever arrangement Cerberus and the Man in White established between themselves–or were forced to accept–was imperfect enough to allow one of them to be murdered by the other, leading to an instability that now threatens the future of everyone on Earth, and will probably cause the sideways reality to come crashing into the Island reality. The Seven are going to reach beyond the untenable arrangement that guided the Island for thousands of years. They are going to establish something enduring, something beyond Jacob’s apathetic experiment that led to so much unnecessary death and suffering. They are once and for all going to put the Man in Black in his proper place.

One woman alone is not perfect. But seven women, seven leaders, can draw on each other’s strengths–and even their weaknesses–to build something perfect in its trust, in its respect for honesty, faith in goodness, hope for the future, and reliance on the perfection of their own humanity.

The five or six men and the one or two women who constitute The Seven will prevail over any schemes Charles Widmore and the Man in Black can execute to thwart their advance toward control of the Island. We know this is true. After all, as Locke said, and will say again soon, this is no island. It’s a place where miracles happen.

Ricardo is Confused

SL-LOST — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 18:42:57 +0000

Created by Nathan Stapley.

The LOST Initiative: “Ab Aeterno”

SL-LOST — Sat, 27 Mar 2010 01:40:47 +0000

[Via Sky1]

New Official LOST Video Podcast with Nestor Carbonell

SL-LOST — Fri, 26 Mar 2010 17:21:51 +0000

Spoiler Alert: skip the first 5 seconds of this video if you don’t want to know the title for next week’s episode.

If Nestor doesn’t receive at least an Emmy nomination for his performance on “Ab Aeterno”, I will be outraged.

[Thanks to Lyly for the video]

The Spanish Prisoner: “Ab Aeterno” Recap and Analysis by Chris Kirkman

SL-LOST — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 17:24:12 +0000

Previously, on Lost: Richard built a ship in a bottle and was so bored by the experience that he wanted to kill himself.

This week, on Lost: We open on a mummified eye. Well, the eye itself isn’t mummified, it’s just attached to a person who looks mummified. It’s Ilana. She’s a little busted up. Jacob walks in and says hey sugar, he needs some help. She’s gotta bodyguard the six remaining candidates and he hopes he can count on her.

Back on the Island, Ilana, Jack, Hurley, Sun, Ben and Lapidus are sitting around a fire, telling ghost stories. The topic of conversation has shifted to the candidates, and Sun explains to Jack that the candidates are a list of people that could replace Jacob. Jack and Hurley are on the list, and she says that Ilana told Sun that she was on the list. Way to play telephone there, Sun – she said a Kwon was on the list, and she didn’t know if that meant you, Jin or both. Lapidus says that’s great and all, but what now? Ilana doesn’t know. Jack wants to know who does know what to do.

Cut back to the hospital. Ilana’s face no longer looks like a ten-day old persimmon and she’s asking Jacob what she should do after she brings them all to the Temple. Ask Ricardus, says Jacob. He’ll know what to do next.

Back on the beach, Hurley wants to know about this Ricardus fellow. Ilana turns around and motions at Richard, sitting in the shadows – that’s Ricardus. She asks him what they should do next. Richard let’s out the craziest little laugh ever and tells them all that he’s clueless, too. He then starts telling them all that he was about to kill himself and now everyone’s looking to him for a plan. Not a smart decision.

Seriously, Richard’s tee hee is almost Joker-worthy. Or maybe he could play the Riddler in the next Batman movie.

Ilana asks why Jacob would say what he did and Ricardus tells them that everything Jacob says is a lie. Jack, of course, is totally confused, so Richard leans in and says he’ll let Jack in on a little secret. He’s dead. They’re all dead, everyone of them. And the Island, it’s hell. Richard says that he’s tired of listening to Jacob and that it’s time to start listening to someone else. Then he picks up a torch and heads off into the jungle of mystery.

Cue the swirling Lost!

On the beach, Ilana wants to go after Richard, but Jack says there’s no use because Richard doesnt’ know anything and is now a few fries short of a Happy Meal. Ilana insists that he does. Jack states that if he knew and believed in Jacob, he wouldn’t be talking about listening to someone else. Ilana gives a worried look and walks away, leaving Jack confused. “Wait, do you know who he meant?” Jack calls after Ilana. Ben mutters under his breath, “Ohhh this should be interesting.” Good call, Ben. Let’s watch Jack’s tiny head asplode.

Hey girl, you’re looking fine in this campfire. Besides looking damn cute, I thought it was awesome that Sun was like the Oracle during this episode – she knew everything about everybody.

Sun explains that Richard meant Locke. But Locke’s dead, states Jack. Ben then puts his brilliant two cents in and tells Jack that if it’s any consolation, it isn’t exactly Locke. Jack gets the glazed look again, and then notices Hurley off in the shadows talking to someone in Spanish.

Jack goes over to Hurley and wants to know what Jacob is saying. Hurley tells Jack that he should just mind his on beeswax and that this isn’t called The Jack Show, so not everything revolves around him. Then Hurley turns and walks off.

Around the campfire, Ben tells them that there’s no use in going after Richard, because he’s known him since he was 12, so it should count for something. Lapidus assumes that they both met as kids, but Ben straightens that out for him. Lapidus wants a little clarification – is Ben saying that this guy doesn’t age? That’s exactly what Ben is saying. Lapidus furrows his brow and wonders, “Now how exactly does something like that happen?” Hold onto your butts, friend. We’re about to find out …

Tenerife, Canary Islands – 1867

Ricardus gallops through the brush on horseback, his long locks tied into a pony tail which whips in the wind. It’s like the cover of a Harlequin romance novel, really. He ties his horse to a post and enters his humble stone and thatch home. His wife, Isabella, is inside and she is very, very sick. She coughs into a handkerchief and Ricardo notices blood. He needs to ride to the doctor, and fast. Before he leaves, Isabella gives him the necklace and cross around her neck so that he may have enough to buy medicines. Ricardo protests, but his weakened wife tells him to close his eyes. She tells him that she loves him and always will. Ricardo says that he will save her and gallops off into the pouring rain.

It’s night, and very stormy when Ricardo arrives at the doctor’s house. There are protests from his servant when Ricardo tries to enter, but the man will not be deterred. He wants to save his wife. He begs that the doctor help him, as Isabella is coughing blood. Turns out that the doctor is a greedy little dick and can’t be bothered to ride all the way to Santa Poco or wherever Ricardo lives, but that Ricardo can buy medicines if he has enough money. He doesn’t. He tries to persuade the doc with Isabella’s necklace, but the doc tosses it. Bad move, dude. There’s a scuffle and Ricardo shoves the doctor, who falls and breaks his neck on the edge of a table. Ricardo is stunned, but sees the bottle of medicines in his hand and makes a run for it.

When Ricardo returns home, he is too late. Isabella is gone. Ricardo cries and wails lamentations. It’s not long before his grief is broken up by the local authorities, who burst into the home and arrest the heartbroken Spaniard.

Ricardo is in the pokey, reading his Bible. A priest enters and brings him food. He wants to see Ricardo’s Bible, and notices that it’s in English. See, Ricardo and Isabella were going to head to the New World and Ricardo was learning English. I didn’t know they were still referring to the ol’ US of A as the “New World” in 1867, but I digress. Turns out that Ricardo has been sentenced to death, and he asks the priest if he can absolve him of his sins. The priest says that murder is unforgivable and that he can’t help Ricardo and that he’s going to hell. Man, Ricardo was really surrounded by a bunch of assholes.

“No, señor, you’re goink to hell. I theeenk.” This guy looks so Spanish that he makes Antonio Banderas look like a Swede.

Later, the priest and guards blindfold Ricardo and drag him out to be executed. Waiting in the hallway is an Englishman, a Mr. Whitfield, who examines Ricardo and asks him if he speaks English. Ricardo is confused and does not respond, so Whitfield tosses him back. Ricardo comes to his senses and says that he does, he does speak-a English! Whitfield is pleased. He hands the priest some money and says that Ricardo is now the property of Magnus Hanso, and that Ricardo now has a one-way ticket to the New World.

Pretty much the coolest freakin’ shot EVER.

It was a dark and stormy night … at sea. On the Black Rock, to be precise. Ricardo and some other unlikely bastards are chained up down in the hold. The ship’s getting tossed about like a bathtub toy, and they figure they’re all going to die. One of the slaves spots an island, and we see the familiar outline of the Statue in the distance. It’s the devil, the slave exclaims. Suddenly, the Black Rock is swept up by a mother of a wave and sent toward the Island, rising up to collide with the head of the statue. Everything goes black.

I guess it’s better than running into an iceberg.

It’s day now. We’re in the jungle of mystery, where the Black Rock has come to rest in the spot with which we’re all most familiar. Down in the hold, a few slaves have survived, as have some officers topside. We hear that Captain Hanso has bit the big one. Soon, Whitfield comes down into the hold and starts getting all stabby with his sword, taking out the surviving slaves one by one. He soon reaches Ricardo, who doesn’t understand. Whitfield explains that if he frees Ricardo, it would only be a matter of time before he tried to kill the Brit. Ricardo reaches down to take hold of Isabella’s necklace, but it’s no longer around his neck. Whitfield rears his sword back and gets ready to plunge it into Ricardo’s mid-section when we hear the familiar battle horn of Ol’ Smokey and the ratchety cricket sound starts up. Oh, there’s gonna be some shit going down, now.

There’s the usual cacophony of screams and wails and bodies being thrashed about topside, and Whitfield looks like he might have just soiled his underoos. A man dies just above him on deck, and the blood seeps down and spills on Whitfield’s shirt. Ricardo’s eyes are practically bugging out of his head – have been the whole episode, honestly. Whitfield wants a report from topside. He’s answered when a big gust of black smoke pours down through the hold grate and yanks him up to what we can only imagine is a gruesome fate. Ricardo loses his shit and starts pulling on the shackles.

It’s not long before Ricardo stops. He knows he’s not alone. He turns to see Ol’ Smokey come winding down the staircase. Smokey stops for a minute, analyzing Ricardo. Ricardo closes his eyes and prays. There are a few flashes of light, as if Smokey is taking some pictures like he likes to do from time to time, and then he’s gone. It seems as though there’s a touch of grey that MIB likes in Ricardo’s soul, and so the Spaniard lives another day.

Ricardo and Smokey have a little face to, um, puff showdown.

A few days later, we see a blue butterfly float down toward the Black Rock and into the hold (more on the significance of that later), where Richard manages to pry a nail from one of the floorboards. He spends the next few days using the nail to scrape away at the bolt that attaches his chains to the ship. It’s a slow, painful process, especially since Ricardo is without food or water.

Days go by. Ricardo wakes up one night to a wild boar feeding on the dead bodies of the slaves, still chained to the wall. He yells and it runs off, scattering his precious floor nail out of Ricardo’s grasp. He cries in desperation.

More time passes. Ricardo awakens to a voice, asking if anyone is in the hold. It’s his precious Isabella. He’s justifiably confused, and his wife explains to him that they’ve both kicked the bucket and are in hell, and she needs to get him out of there before “he” comes back – the devil. It’s not long before we hear the sounds of what we then assume Isabella means is the devil – Ol’ Smokey. Ricardo tells her to run, and as she gets to the top of the stairs in the hold, she screams and is apparently dragged away by the black smoke. Ricardo is pretty bummed.

With nothing else to do, Ricardo cries and sleeps, waiting to die … until he is awakened by someone else in the hold. Surprise, it’s MIB, at least the 1860s version of MIB. He has water for Ricardo, who wants to know MIB’s identity. MIB confirms that Ricardo is in hell, and that he’s a friend that wants to help. Ricardo recounts the tale of his wife and how the black smoke got her. MIB says that probably means that “he” has her. Who is he? MIB thinks Ricardo knows.

“Well, gosh golly, I found these keys and, shucks, maybe they might work on your chains.”

MIB has conveniently found a key to Ricardo’s restraints, but before he lets him go, he makes Ricardo promise to do anything that MIB asks of him. Ricardo, not having many options, agrees. MIB frees the Spaniard, and he says that it’s good to see Ricardo out of those chains – just as he does 150 years later in the form of Locke. MIB tells Ricardo that he needs his strength if they are going to escape. Escape? asks Ricardo. Yes, MIB says, as there’s only one way to escape from hell – they’re going to have to kill the devil.

MIB takes Ricardo out to a clearing where there’s a stone bench, probably where MIB thinks all his Machiavellian thoughts, and they have a real nice pig pickin’. MIB tells Ricardo that he has to walk due west, where he’ll find the statue that the Black Rock smashed to pieces. MIB produces a knife – the same one that Dogen would present to Sayid – and explains that Ricardo needs it to slay the devil. Ricardo is, again, confused. How can a knife hurt black smoke? MIB explains that he is the black smoke, and that Isabella was not running from him – he was trying to save her from the devil, who took her.

Ricardo has a few moments of clarity in his and MIB’s ensuing conversation, but MIB continues to feed Ricardo what he needs to hear and to believe. Ricardo objects to murder, but MIB tells him that it doesn’t matter what’s right and what’s wrong – it only matters if Richard wants to see his wife again.

Ricardo takes the knife and sets off into the jungle, and straight out onto the beach, towards the statue, where he promptly gets his ass kicked by Jacob. Jacob wants to know who gave Ricardo the knife, and it’s pretty clear that the Spaniard isn’t going to run him through before Jacob opens his mouth. Ricardo wants to know where Isabella is, but Jacob has no clue and asks if she was on the ship. No, replies the Spaniard, she is dead. Then why the hell is Ricardo asking about a dead woman? wonders Jacob. He asks if Ricardo met a man, dressed in black, and Ricardo tells him he has and that MIB told Ricardo that Jacob was the devil. This makes Jacob grin.

Ricardo exclaims that both he and Isabella are dead and that the Island is hell. Jacob says Ricardo has fallen off his high chair, because he’s not dead. To prove it, Jacob drags Ricardo’s ass out into the ocean and commences to dunking him like a day old donut into the surf. It’s not long before Ricardo is begging for his life. Very smooth, Jacob. Very smooth.

“I don’t care if it DID tie the room together!”

Jacob drags Ricardo back to shore, wraps him in a blanky and hands him some hot cocoa. Ricardo asks Jacob if he’s the devil. Jacob smiles a bit and tells him no. He says his name is Jacob and that he’s the one that brought the Black Rock to the Island. Why? Well, in order to explain that, Jacob has to resort to the old cork in the bottle analogy.

“Okay, so you see all this wine in here, that’s like what you call hell, or evil or one of its many other names. It’s all swirling around in this bottle, wanting to get out. Well, the cork on this bottle is like the Island – it sits there, preventing the evil from getting out. Got it?”

Ricardo is still a bit confused. Jacob explains that MIB believes everyone is corruptible because it’s in their nature to sin. Jacob believes otherwise, and so he brings people to the Island to prove MIB wrong. There have been others before, asks Ricardo? Yes, many, replies Jacob. And what happened to them? asks Ricardo. They’re all dead, replies Jacob. Dude, that’s not a very good score. MIB – a whole bunch, Jacob – 0.

Jacob explains that he didn’t help any of the people because they needed to help themselves. He doesn’t want to have to hold their hands, he wants people to know the difference between right and wrong on their own. It’s meaningless, otherwise. Ricardo says that if Jacob doesn’t, MIB will. That’s when Jacob grins and offers Ricardo a job. Since Jacob can’t step in, Ricardo could do it for him. He’ll be Jacob’s consiglieri, if you will. Ricardo agrees, but wants to know what he can expect, in return. Name your price, says Jacob.

“I want my wife back,” says Ricardo.

“Ummmm, yeah, about that – can’t do it,” says Jacob.

“Get out of hell free card, then?”

“Nope, sorry.”

“Fine,” Ricardo huffs. “I guess I want to live forever.”

Now that is something that Jacob can definitely do. And so he touches Ricardo’s shoulder and the partnership is underway.

Ricardo returns to MIB’s thinky place and finds him sitting on the stone bench. MIB rises and figures that Ricardo let Jacob talk. He did. Ricardo hands MIB a white stone, a gift from Jacob. MIB grins. He tells Ricardo that he understands, that Jacob can be very convincing, but Ricardo should also know that he’ll never see his wife again. MIB also tells Ricardo that if he ever changes his mind – ever – the offer still stands.

MIB’s thinky place. Notice the tree behind the bench.

MIB then pulls something out of his pocket and puts it in Ricardo’s hand. He opens it to find Isabella’s necklace. When he looks up, MIB is gone. Ricardo takes the necklace over to the stone bench, digs a hole and, crying, kisses the necklace before dropping it into the hole. “Goodbye, my love,” he says.

150 years later, Richard stomps out of the jungle and into the clearing where MIB’s thinky place is still standing. The stone bench is there, beneath a tree which has grown tall behind it. He gets to his knees and digs through the topsoil, finding Isabella’s necklace, just as he left it.

MIB’s thinky place, circa 2007. The tree is quite a bit larger. Really nice touch.

Richard gets to his feet and says that he has changed his mind. He calls out to the Man in Black, reminding him of his deal and that the offer would still stand. He reiterates that he’s changed his mind quite a few times. “Does the offer still stand?” Richard yells, angrily.

“What offer, dude?” asks Hurley, coming out of the brush.

Richard is suitably perplexed. He asks if Hurley’s been following him, and Hurley says kinda. Richard tells him to get the hell out, because he doesn’t know anything and just to leave him alone. Hurley tells him to calm down, because Richard’s wife Isabella sent him, and she wants to know why he buried her cross. Richard’s eyes widen, and his perfect eyelids flutter a bit.

“How’d you know about that?” asks Richard, astonished.

“Because she just told me,” answers Hurley. “She’s standing right next to you.”

Richard doesn’t move a muscle, which is odd, because if somebody told me an invisible dead person was standing next to me, I might jump back just a little bit. At any rate, we now see Isabella standing next to Richard, and she remarks that he doesn’t believe what Hurley’s saying. Hurley says that it takes some people more time.

Richard starts to believe and turns toward where Isabella is standing. Isabella remarks that Richard’s English is wonderful and Hurley translates it into Hurley-speak. Isabella asks Richard to close his eyes, and Hurley says it’s okay, that he’ll tell Richard what she says. He closes them. She says that it wasn’t Richard’s fault that she died, and that no matter if he tried to save her, it was just her time. Richard cries. Isabella cradles his head in her hand and tells him that he has suffered enough. Richard tells her that he loves her and that he would do anything for them to be together again.

“Ya estamos juntos.”

She kisses his cheek. And with that, she’s gone.

Richard places Isabella’s necklace around his neck and thanks Hurley. Hurley shuffles a bit and says “you got it,” uncomfortably. Richard asks if something is wrong. Hurley hesitates, but says that Isabella told him one last thing. There’s something that Richard has to do. Richard has to stop the Man in Black. He has to stop MIB from leaving the Island. Because if he doesn’t …

“Todos vamos al infierno.”

Off in the distance – unbeknownst to Hurley and Richard – MIB, in the guise of Locke, watches intently.

Cue the … Waitaminute, we’re not done yet.

150 years ago, MIB is sitting on a log, surveying his own personal hell – the Island. Jacob strolls up, and the two nemeses chit chat. Jacob notices MIB palming the white stone that he gifted and mentions it. MIB tells Jacob not to gloat, that it doesn’t become him. Jacob doesn’t exactly like that MIB sent a guy to plunge a knife through is heart, but MIB says that he did it because he wants to leave. As long as he’s alive, Jacob will never let MIB leave. MIB remarks that this is why he has to kill him.

Jacob tells MIB that even if he does manage to punch his ticket, someone else will take his place. This definitely agitates MIB and he says that he will just have to kill them, too. Jacob hands MIB the bottle of wine that he used in his analogy to Richard, earlier. He tells MIB that it’s just something to pass the time.

“I’ll see you around,” says Jacob.

“Sooner than you think,” remarks MIB, as he grips the bottle firmly before bringing it down on the log, smashing the glass and sending the wine – the evil – pouring out, free.

Cue the THONK!

I hope everyone is happy after that episode, because we certainly got a boatload of answers. Hah, get it? Boatload? Shipwreck? Eh, never mind. Not only did we find out why Richard has been pulling a Dick Clark all these years, we also saw how the Black Rock ended up in the middle of the jungle, why all those slaves died down in the hold, and what a really, horribly bad liar the Man in Black can be.

As the series starts to wind down, we’re going to find out more and more about the Island and its secrets, so it’s going to become less important to analyze and speculate about what’s going to happen down the road. However, even though this episode laid bare a whole lot of answers to long-held questions, there’s still plenty to analyze and speculate. Let’s get to it!

SPY VS. SPY

When you see Jacob and MIB having their little talks down by the beach, is anyone else reminded of the MAD Magazine comic strip Spy Vs. Spy? Is it just me? Just like those two mischievous intelligence agents, Jacob and MIB are embroiled in a deadly game of cat and mouse, and have been for untold centuries.

Instead of bombs and dynamite and tanks and gadgets, though, Jacob and MIB wage their war with very personal weapons – people. In this episode, we get to see how each of them subtly manipulates Richard toward their side of the battle.

MIB’s manipulation seems the most elaborate. While Richard is still in chains down in the hold, Isabella appears to him, telling him that they need to get out of there before the devil returns. The sounds of Ol’ Smokey start up in the distance and Isabella has to make a run for it, eventually getting swept up by something as she reaches the top of the hold. MIB would later tell Richard that she was running from Jacob, not the black smoke, as MIB is the black smoke.

Isabella’s cameo in the hold is a bit confusing and contradictory to what we’ve seen of the reappearance of the dead in prior episodes. We now know that MIB has taken the form of the dead in the past in order to coerce the living, but we’ve never seen him engage in such an elaborate ruse. He seemingly appears in two places at once – in Isabella in the hold, and out in the jungle, making all that noise. Is it possible that Isabella was Jacob? We’ve speculated that Jacob may shapeshift like his nemesis. Or was Isabella really MIB and Jacob truly did shoo him away, in his own smokey form?

More than likely, the simplest explanation is the truth, in this case. MIB simply put on a little show for Ricardo so that he could later use all of it to motivate Ricardo into killing Jacob. Isabella had to be MIB, since the sequence of events that led up to her appearance are nearly identical to those we saw of Mr. Eko and Yemi, back in seasons two and three. Eko first encountered Ol’ Smokey out in the jungle back in season two in “The 23rd Psalm.” During their brief encounter, we see Smokey analyze Eko, gleaning tidbits about his past. Satisfied that Eko may be of some use, Smokey zooms off. Later, Yemi appears to Eko, subtly manipulating him through his guilt. In “The Cost of Living,” Yemi appears to Eko again, asking him if he will atone for his sins. When Eko says that he has nothing to atone for and that everything he did, he did simply to survive, MIB sees that he has lost and Eko will be of no more use to him. That’s when he throws a tantrum and tosses him into some trees, killing Eko. MIB further solidifies the sequence of events – and his clear role of the trickster – when he gets caught in his own lies in this episode. When he rescues Richard, Ricardo demands to know the whereabouts of his wife. MIB plays dumb and says that he doesn’t know, but that it’s likely that “he” has her. Ricardo isn’t sure what MIB means, but MIB says that he thinks Ricardo knows who he’s talking about. Later, at the pig pickin’, Richard starts asking a lot of questions and doubts that he can kill Jacob because Jacob is just black smoke. That’s when MIB has to come clean and admit that he is the black smoke. And then he starts talking too much and admits that he did see his wife come out of the hold and that he saw Jacob take her, but he was powerless to stop him. In my mind, it’s now case closed, and MIB had better check his pants, because they’re certainly on fire. In the end, all of the actions and words of MIB in this episode point to one thing: our speculation of how light versus dark may be switched with Jacob and MIB probably has to be discounted. It’s becoming increasingly clear that MIB is this malevolence that has long been purported, and the survivors better wake up and do everything they can to stop him from getting off the Island.

THE BUTTERFLY EFFECT So, raise your hand if you noticed the pretty blue butterfly drift on the wind and float down into the hold where Ricardo was working on his chains. It’s subtle, and a nice little cinematic effect that reestablishes the shot of the brightness of the Black Rock and brings us down into the dark hold where Richard is held captive. The butterfly signifies freedom, and it can come and go as it pleases, while Richard may never be free of his chains – both physically and emotionally. But is that really all the butterfly could signify? Sure, it could be just the director, Tucker Gates, and editor having some fun and using the creature for a nice, cinematic transition. If I left it alone, though, where would be the fun in that?

In many cultures – the Irish, ancient Greeks and Chinese, to name a few – the butterfly has long since symbolized the soul. In some artistic representations of the Biblical Adam, his soul is symbolized by the butterfly, or depicted with butterfly wings. In an ancient Chinese legend, the butterfly comes to symbolize eternal love and the union of souls, as two spurned lovers are forced to commit suicide in order to be together forever.

In the context of that mythological symbolism, our little blue butterfly may be more than just a cinematic effect – it could be representative of Isabella’s soul, as she has been watching over Ricardo while he is on the Island. This is, by far, the most romantic and beautiful interpretation of the butterfly, but there is another, much darker possibility. The butterfly could be MIB.

In “Exposé,” back in Season three, we are privy to the shenanigans of those two out-of-place jewel thieves Nikki and Paulo. In that episode, Nikki wrangles a female Medusa spider to bite Paulo, paralyzing him. Her plan backfires, however, as Nikki is bitten, as well. Just before she is bitten, we hear the ratchety clicks of Ol’ Smokey. It was later confirmed by Lindelof that the Medusa spider was a manifestation of MIB. Knowing that MIB is not only capable of manifesting as a human, but also as an insect, we may conclude that the butterfly could have been MIB, drifting down into the hold to watch Richard and time his next nefarious move.

Personally, I’d like to think it was Isabella, watching out for his love. But, then again, I’m an old softie.

MYSTERIOUS ISLAND It’s amazing what you can find on the Internet. While just doing some background research on the Canary Islands, I came across tales of a legendary eighth island in the Canary chain. This island was known as San Boróndon, named after St. Brendan, and Irish monk who legend tells took a trip to an island of happiness and wealth.

In the Canarian legends, there were tales of a mysterious eighth island that could sometimes be seen west of La Palma and El Hierro. However, when anyone sailed out to find the island, it would become covered in fog or mist and disappear.

The legend of the island permeates the Canarian culture, and maps of the eighth island exist. One resides in the main museum in Las Palmas on Gran Canaria. There are many detailed accounts from sailors and fishermen who claim to have been on the island before it disappeared. And there are still seafarers on the westernmost islands today that will tell you that they sometimes spot San Boróndon off in the distance, covered in a strange mist.

Pretty cool, huh?

THE RANDOM BITS The Spanish prisoner is a confidence trick where the grifter convinces his mark that he has been in touch with a wealthy person imprisoned in Spain under false pretenses. The grifter asks the mark to help him with money so that they can get the wealthy person out of jail. Upon the wealthy benefactor’s release, the mark will be rewarded handsomely. Unfortunately for the mark, there’s no benefactor and the mark was often cajoled into giving up everything for the hope of greater riches. What does this have to do with this week’s episode? Other than both MIB and Jacob using similar techniques to convince Ricardo to join their ranks, nothing. I just thought it was an interesting aside, and because Lost has a big theme of the art of the grift.

It’s awful nice of Ol’ Smokey to make a lot of noise before he attacks. He could just sneak in all quiet-like since he’s just a giant puff of smoke.

Jacob dunks Ricardo into the ocean to convince him of his life. Sayid is dunked into the Temple Spring to save his life, but ends up dead – or, rather, undead. In both instances, the person was then consecrated into duty in the ranks of Jacob or MIB. The act of submerging in water is very reminiscent of a traditional baptism, as depicted in the Biblical account of John the Baptist dunking followers into the river to allow the Holy Spirit into their hearts.

Jacob mentions to Richard that only those he invites into the statue may enter, sort of like a reverse vampire rule. This is reminiscent of God’s decree that only those that are invited to enter his temple in heaven may do so.

Isabella’s cross and the significance to Richard is very similar to the one that Yemi carried with him and Eko kept in remembrance of his dead brother. In “The Cost of Living” Locke presents Eko with the cross after he had lost it, and he says he just came across it. MIB says the same thing to Ricardo when he hands Ricardo the cross. That’s a pretty nice parallel. Good going, Lost team.

For Richard, the Island represents hell. His perspective is one of religion and faith. The Island can be whatever you want it to be. The powers that be said that we would find out what the Island really is in this episode, but I don’t think that the Island is hell. If Jacob’s bottle analogy is any indication, the Island is simply the locked gate on top of the portal to hell or another dimension, or whatever we choose to call it. This would also fall in line with Ol’ Smokey’s Dharma name – Cerberus. Cerberus, of course, was the three-headed dog in Greek mythology that guarded the gates of Hades, making sure that souls trapped there could never escape.

Ab Aeterno is latin for “from eternity,” or “since the beginning of time.” You know, just in case you guys didn’t already know that.

Being damaged goods is the way to enter Jacob’s service. Richard had nowhere to turn and didn’t want to die because he’d be sent to hell. Ilana was beaten, possibly disfigured, and Jacob may have restored her face. He seems to help people, and even heal people, if his touch to Locke after he was pushed from the window is any indication. But even though his actions seem altruistic, he does ask a lot from his servants. There still seems to be a level grey seeping into that white.

Hurley’s conversation to Isabella on the beach can be translated roughly as: “Why? Why is he going to do it? Yes, I can [word garbled] but I don’t know how to find him if …” Again, just in case anyone is curious.

Is it just me, or does Isabella have the craziest damn eyes? They’re yellow. She’d fit right into a Twilight movie, except she’s not all sparkly in the sun. Yeah, I’ve seen Twilight, don’t judge me.

And that about wraps things up for this week. Is there something I missed? Surely there must be. I didn’t even get a chance to talk about how Hurley can talk to dead people that he hasn’t even met. We’ll have to save that for another time, as unfortunately I am now out of it. Until next time, though, keep thinking those thoughts and if you have an epiphany, tell me something good.

Namaste. [Hobotrashcan.com]

LOST Slapdown, Part 8

SL-LOST — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 12:40:42 +0000

Nestor has an interesting request for Damon and Carlton.

Siempre Juntos (Part I): Cultural Insights into LOST 6.09 “Ab Aeterno” by Pearson Moore

SL-LOST — Thu, 25 Mar 2010 11:57:33 +0000

“Siempre estaremos juntos.”

They were Isabella’s words in 1867, and they were her words again 140 years later. More meaningful than anything uttered by Jacob, more enduring than life or death, Isabella’s words gave Richard resolve and purpose. We will always be together. No evil in the world can corrupt the truth of these words. Jacob’s battle has been joined by the purest of souls, and she lives in only one man’s heart. Isabella, angel in white.

La Pasión de Ricardo

Tonight’s tale was arguably the most passionate hour of television we have experienced over the course of this series. We were the afflicted witnesses to love, betrayal, suffering, innocence, deception, undying hope, and unrelenting spiritual pain.

It was a story unto itself, with statement of problem, a plotline filled with generous helpings of malevolence and conflict, and a satisfying resolution, with faithful lovers brought back together across seven generations and despite the best efforts of the Island’s guardians to keep Ricardo locked in his private hell.

It was satisfying at a higher level, as many of the Island’s biggest secrets were revealed. We learned Richard’s story, why he never would have reported to Eloise or Charles, why he could seem independent even of Jacob. We learned about Richard’s relationship to the two angels–or devils–charged with guarding the Island. We learned about the Island itself, and its grand purpose.

All of this should have constituted a pleasant way station on the road to the final battle, but I find myself more agitated tonight than I have ever been over a single episode of LOST. I do not speak of emotions here. The episode certainly demanded deep emotion of us, but it offered more, and what it offered was disturbing, and not in any way that I could have imagined.

I do not speak of Jacob’s interpretation of the Island’s purpose. Pandora’s Box is a tale I grew up with from the earliest bedtime stories my parents read to me. The episode tonight was unsettling because it forced me to consider the limitations of my own views of the world. It challenged me in fundamental ways. I can trace my churning stomach and belaboured thoughts to the final discussion between Man in White and Man in Black on the log in the jungle, to the significance of the few words they shared. But the meaning of their words was extracted from Richard’s story, and it is here I will begin the analysis of the particulars of my discontent.

Sacerdote En Negro

Ricardo kneeled before the man he thought could bring him divine absolution. How could he have known that he was surrendering his soul to an incarnation of evil more despicable than even Cerberus? The Smoke Monster, at least, is motivated to save himself from what he sees as an island prison. The man in black who visited Ricardo in his prison cell betrayed the penitent kneeling before him, desecrated the holy vestments he wore, and blasphemed his Maker in denying absolution. It wasn’t until the next morning that we understood the motivation for his cruelty. For a few silver coins from a slave trader he was willing to consign Ricardo to eternal spiritual torment. If there is a hell, men such as this priest must not even have to show an entry visa; they’re granted immediate and eternal citizenship.

What the priest did in that prison cell was the worst and possibly unforgivable perversion of the Catholic faith. These men in black are supposed to be all about redemption and the undeserved grace of a beneficent Creator. The Roman Catholic faith does not allow a priest to withhold absolution from a truly penitent man only hours from death. If this man was truly a priest, he would have known that his unlawful, cruel, and unthinkably evil act would have placed his own soul in immediate peril.

The black vestments and black stole seemed to me an invitation to contemplate the meaning of Black and White on the Island. Are we to believe that the grand backgammon match going on these past millennia is a duel between Good and Evil? Are we to understand “Ab Aeterno” to refer to the ages-old, relentless struggle between heaven and hell? If a priest, who is supposed to be good, is instead the most visible representative of Satan on Tenerife, is it possible that the Man in Black, who is supposed to be “evil incarnate” may instead contain in him some measure of good? This episode of LOST, I believe, answered in the affirmative. This was unsettling, but not nearly as unsettling as the more profound revelations of the episode.

El Evangelio de la Luz

Ricardo’s Bible was opened to the fourth chapter of Luke, and focused on verse twenty-four, in which Jesus says “No prophet is accepted in his own land.” He has just completed a reading from the book of Isaiah, in which the Hebrew prophet proclaimed there would be a time of “liberty to captives, sight to the blind, freedom to the oppressed.” Jesus stunned everyone in the synagogue when he said, “This text is fulfilled today in your hearing.” He claimed to be a prophet not “accepted in his own land,” and then he went on to further infuriate his listeners, retelling the story of Elijah during the three years of famine, when only a gentile, Naaman the Syrian, was found to be righteous. To an audience composed of those who regularly attended shul, his words must have seemed presumptuous, arrogant, or even blasphemous. It’s no wonder they ended up attacking him, “intending to throw him off the cliff.”

This passage from the Gospel of Luke is another pointed and unsettling invitation to consider possibilities beyond the superficial signs of good and evil we see manifest in Episode 6.09, and throughout the six years of LOST. If Good and Evil can be thought of as inhabiting a continuum, where on this continuum do we place Jacob and the Man in Black? Is Jacob infinitely good, and the Man in Black infinitely evil? Could it be that some continuum other than Good/Evil better distinguishes these two almost immortal entities? Does the Island express only a negative? That is to say, does the Island act only to retain “the darkness where it belongs,” as Jacob said, or could the Island have other purposes, too?

Regresar a Su Gracia

Only on a slaver could an Englishman named Jonas rise to become First Officer. The nineteenth century British Navy would never have promoted a man so named; he could never have earned the crew’s respect. A Jonah (or Jonas) was one who brought bad luck or downright evil on board a ship. But Jonas Whitfield was Captain Magnus Hanso’s right hand man, finding the slaves the nineteenth century entrepreneur would sell in the New World. Great Britain had abolished slavery over forty years before, but slaves remained abundant in the Americas. Even the “Land of the Free,” the former British Colonies in North America, had tolerated and encouraged the practice of shackling fellow human beings up until short months before the Black Rock set sail from the Canary Islands.

Jonas Whitfield showed his true colours on the Island. He proved himself willing to flout British law on slavery, customs of the sea, conventions of social propriety. How many other laws did he bend or break to serve his master and his own enormous caprices?

He earned his keep at Hanso’s side. It was hard work, but he was up to the challenge, whether hunting down slaves or seeing the Black Rock safely through any storm–except those great gales brought about by the clash of Island titans.

In Ricardo’s prison cell, the evil priest uttered words that were false for Ricardo, but true for everyone on the Island. “La única manera de regresar a su gracia es a traves de la penitencia.” Penance may not have been necessary for Ricardo, but it seems to have been necessary for everyone on the Island. Even Ricardo ended up spending 140 years in indentured service to Jacob. Ben served without so much as having seen the man from whom he took orders. The few survivors of Flight 815 have spent most of the last three years in unending penitence for their sins on and off the Island.

The imposition of required penance was not justified in the case of Ricardo’s jail cell confession, as was obvious from context. The natural extrapolation from this truth relates to conditions for Candidacy and service to Jacob. Why were the survivors, the Others, the Candidates required to submit to life-threatening rigours in order to prove their valour? Why, if grace is freely given, was Ricardo forced into eternal service of Jacob’s desires? Why, if true love is unconditional, did Jacob impose lifelong service as a condition of healing Dogen’s son? Why, if Jacob is the embodiment of perfect goodness, did he allow so many of his Candidates to die gruesome and unnecessary deaths?

Does a parent, claiming an interest only in her child’s unencumbered freedom of choice, allow the child to run off a cliff? Does she, seeing a child drowning in a pool three metres in front of her, observe dispassionately as the child takes her last breath, or does she risk her own life by jumping into the pool to drag the child to safety? In what way can anyone claim or believe that Jacob’s actions constitute some advanced awareness of and preference for “progress”?

En El Infierno

He did not lie about being in hell. The Man in Black firmly believes he has been residing in the darkest, most tortured pits of the underworld, held prisoner by the devil who has tormented him perhaps since the beginning of time: Jacob. For some reason he needs assistance, not only in killing Jacob, but in escaping the Island. Is he held prisoner by the water surrounding the Island?

But he did lie about Isabella. He is not above posing as the dearest loved one of those he wishes to bring over to his warped vision of the world. He proved this by coming to Mr. Eko as his brother, Yemi, by appearing to Ben as his daughter, Alex. So to Ricardo he became Isabella, and in her likeness, told Ricardo in all sincerity that they were in hell.

He sized up the prisoner, examined his thoughts, stole the images of the man’s beloved Isabella, allowed him to hunger and thirst, and then came to him as the vision of his wife. It must have seemed entirely logical, even if he had not been in a deranged, thirst-induced hallucinogenic state. Where else could he be besides hell? Why would his dearest wife not come to attempt his rescue?

Even if we do not adopt the Smoke Monster’s view of things, we could say Ricardo was in hell. He was in the part of the Island Rousseau dubbed “Le Territoire Foncé”. It was dark territory not for the presence of the Black Rock, but because of the many “Cerberus Vents” and the palpable sense of the Monster’s awful presence.

The location of the Black Rock’s final resting place was the first image in my mind after hearing Jacob and the Smoke Monster’s discussion on the log in the jungle. Le territoire foncé. Why had the ship ended up in Cerberus’ playground? Why, if Jacob really was “the one who brought your ship to this island”, did Richard arrive on the Island in shackles, his arms bleeding, his soul wounded, prisoner only because of a priest’s treachery? Did Jonas Whitfield pay the priest from Magnus Hanso’s purse, or did the silver coins originate in Jacob’s treasury?

This week’s episode was rich, rewarding, emotional, and unsettling. After a day of reflection, I have reconciled a few of the troublesome revelations, while other, even stronger ideas from the episode continue their torments.

Ab Aeterno sought not to affirm a conventional struggle between Good and Evil, but to put finishing touches on a reconfiguration of our deepest assumptions about the very nature of Good and Evil. This reconfiguration will serve as the focal point of Part II of this analysis, where we will consider a saint named Hugo, a sinner named Ben, and the end of a thousand-year game of backgammon.

Nestor Carbonell ‘Blown Away’ by LOST Series Finale

SL-LOST — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 21:33:51 +0000

Via Kristin Dos Santos:

That final scene with Richard and Isabella is one of the most devastatingly beautiful moments we’ve ever seen on Lost. Is there any chance they could somehow end up together?
Without giving too much away, I can tell you that as soon as I read that script I was certainly wanting some resolution. And I think there will be some element of resolution for Richard. I can’t say whether or not he has a chance at Isabella, but I just read the season finale and there has been some resolution for my character in a great way. The writers, yet again, just knocked it out of the park with the series finale. You’ll see it as the season progresses, what they’ve come up with is pretty mind-blowing. I’m definitely very fulfilled not just about my character but with the whole show in general. It’s an incredible task and they blew me away with what they come up with.

What can you tell us about the finale?
I got the script late, it was like 10 something at night, and usually I go to bed fairly early because you’ve got to put the kids, but no, I was up at 12:30, pouring through it, reading pieces of it again. There’s a lot of tight security as far as scripts—we all have to be there when they’re delivered, but I was really, really, thrilled to get it, and again, just blown away with what they wrote. I’m anxious for people to see it and we’re in the process of shooting it now.

There’s going to be major heartbreak, there’s going to be some very emotional stuff coming down the pike. But the emotional stuff, the payoff will be great. When you see it, and as I read it, it made complete sense what they were doing, and they’re doing it in such a beautiful way, what it needs to be. And again, without giving away too much, I think people will be fulfilled even as they may be crying.

LOST 6.09 “Ab Aeterno” Live Reaction/Recap Video

ajruck — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 16:11:44 +0000

This is the video recap of LOST season 6 episode 9, “Ab Aeterno,” which aired March 23, 2010 on ABC. My friend Allison joined me to summarize the night’s events and share our personal reactions to the show as it aired.

This episode centered around the life of Richard Alpert, who we know as the man who never ages. A flashback takes us to 1867 on the Canary Islands where Richard is with his wife Isabella. After Isabella dies and Richard accidentally kills a man, he is sold into slavery and brought to the island by way of the Black Rock. When on the island, Richard meets the Man in Black and Jacob, and fun and drama ensue.

SHARE your theories in the comments section and tell me your thoughts at http://twitter.com/adamrucker

Thanks for watching, and subscribe for more videos and a new LOST recap every week!

All of my videos can be found at RuckitUp.com

-Adam

Nestor Carbonell Breaks Down “Ab Aeterno”

SL-LOST — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 14:50:28 +0000

Los Angeles Times’ Maria Elena Fernandez discussed last night’s episode with Nestor over the phone:

I really loved that most of the episode was a long flashback. It was different than the rest of this season.

I agree. I think it was a great choice because if you’re going to go into that world and really go back in history, it might be too jarring to cut back and forth to present-day. I think it was really smart choice to have the audience be immersed in that world and stay in that world. As an actor, I’ve totally benefited from the built-in intrigue to the character because we certainly didn’t know who he was. But I didn’t know they were going to go this deep into the character, and I was really blown away by what they wrote.

What do you think of his back story, what happened with his wife, and how he wound up on the island?

It was so beautiful because what I love is that the Alpert character is connected to the mythology of the island, but what I love about how they connected him to the island was something very personal and something everyone can relate to — just pure love of someone. So what his whole dilemma is, everything he’s lived for his whole entire life and agonized over, really boils down to the love of his wife. Every single decision he’s made — a good one or a bad one — has come down to that. So I love that they personalized the story so much and made it so relatable, because it’s a character that could easily be unrelatable because no one is immortal. So it was a really smart and moving way to go into his history.

Also, what was interesting is that he was a man of really meager means and a humble background and had nothing in terms of possessions. It also gives him an enormous arc. You see him in his early 30s or mid-30s, with his wife and this bare-bones cottage, and the only material asset they have is this gold cross that apparently isn’t worth much to the doctor. And he comes from that and then develops into a character who seemingly is well-educated and has no trace of a Latin accent and seemed like a well put-together guy.

We’ve just wondered for so long now who is Richard, was he indigenous to the island? If he wasn’t, how did he end up there?

That’s right, and I certainly never imagined that it was love or a crime of passion that would bring him to the island. I certainly didn’t expect him to come from the Canary Islands. There were all these signs that perhaps he is of Egyptian origin. And I was thinking I’m going to have to adopt a different language. But I was really floored by how they addressed his whereabouts.

Head over to LATimes.com to read the full interview.

LOST Episode 6.09 “Ab Aeterno” [Open Thread]

SL-LOST — Wed, 24 Mar 2010 02:04:22 +0000

Synopsis: Richard Alpert faces a difficult choice.
Written by: Melinda Hsu Taylor & Greggory Nations.
Directed by: Tucker Gates.

What did you think of tonight’s Ricardus-centric episode? Tell us in comments below!

Please, do NOT post any info about upcoming episodes in comments. This includes the preview shown at the end of this episode, episode titles, etc. If you post a spoiler, you’ll be permanently banned. If you see a spoiler, please flag it. Thanks!

Nestor Carbonell Interview with LA Times

SL-LOST — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 22:05:10 +0000

Nestor talks about what it’s like playing Richard Alpert and teases tonight’s episode.

VIDEO: Richard Kills Jack (Well, sort of…)

SL-LOST — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 17:57:32 +0000

I found this video over at the Lostpedia Forums earlier today…

Apparently, this surrealistic scene between Matthew Fox and Nestor Carbonell is from the movie Smokin’ Aces.

VIDEO: Nestor Carbonell Teases Episode 6.09

SL-LOST — Tue, 23 Mar 2010 01:25:09 +0000

Spoiler Alert: Nestor Carbonell talks about what we’ll learn in tonight’s episode.

LOST 6.04 The Substitute Live Reaction/Recap Video

ajruck — Wed, 17 Feb 2010 17:13:14 +0000

This week’s all new episode of LOST, The Substitute, was chock full of surprise appearances and semi-revelations. Do we finally know what the numbers mean?!

Check out my live reaction video from last night’s episode, guest starring my good friend Allison. (And make sure you watch till the end for her dramatic re-enactment of one of LOST’s most iconic scenes.)

Share your thoughts in the video comments and hit me up on Twitter.com/AdamRucker

Enjoy!

-Adam

New Sky1 Interview with Nestor Carbonell

SL-LOST — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 13:45:55 +0000

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