Lost Rewatch on VHS: ?

 

In my entry on The 23^rd Psalm, I wrote that the character of Eko was intended to last until at least Season 5, but Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje asked to be written out of the series after the end of the season.  Given the revelations that I spoke of in my entry on Two for the Road, I now question why he might have wanted to be written out of Lost – was the atmosphere too toxic for him as well?

In the case of Eko I am inclined to believe it was the actor’s decision to leave and not the atmosphere. Because watching this episode, it’s clear from start to finish that Eko is clearly being set up as a counterpart to Locke and possibly just as important to the endgame of the series as he is. We also get another master class of how brilliant a performer Akinnouye-Agbaje is and it’s clear why the writers would have wanted to keep him around.

At the start of the episode Eko has a prophetic dream. It tells him that Ana Lucia is dead and that Locke is on the verge of losing his faith. He sees Yemi in the Swan and he also sees the images of the hieroglyphics that John saw, but in the forms of question marks.  Near the end of the dream when the hatch begins to shake and vibrate, there are also sounds that will also prove to be prophetic.  He awakens and then knows he has to go to the Swan.

The group has come to the Swan station and find a bloodbath. If we didn’t know better we’d be inclined to believe Michael: we actually saw Henry in the last episode, there’s no reason to doubt he could have done what happened. Then they come across the bodies of Ana Lucia and Libby. Ana is dead, and Libby is severely wounded. I’ll deal in some detail about what’s going on in the station because it is truly powerful, but since this episode is fundamentally about Locke and Eko, I’ll focus on their journey.

Eko performs what amounts to last rites over Ana’s body and when Jack wants to leave his post over Libby to go hunting in the dark after Henry, Eko is the voice of calm. (Some of his actions will be violent in this episode but he never even raises his voice once.) He asks Locke to help him go tracking in the jungle, and John who is clearly wrecked not only from the carnage but from seeing evidence of so many failures, doesn’t put up an argument.

Terry O’Quinn’s work in Lost is universally considered magnificent but he’s rarely shown a wider range than he does in this episode.  Usually he’s the picture of calm even when he’s frustrated, but when Eko starts talking to him about the question mark and speaking in mystical terms, there is rage that is equally measured by frustration and despair.  Eko uses terms that he did throughout Season 1, and now he clearly thinks that they are nonsense, despite the evidence.  He is dismissive of the hatch from the beginning, barely seems to answer when Eko asks him if he’s ever followed a dream, and when they come to the plane and Eko asks him about it, he seems bitter and unhappy. When he says the phrase ‘the sacrifice the island demanded’ in regard to Boone, he now sounds exactly how Jack must have felt hearing it.

Then in the next sequence, we have one of the most brilliant set-pieces in the entire series. Locke and Eko are asleep and Eko wakes up. He sees Yemi in the woods and he follows him up a cliff. He keeps climbing until he reaches the top and sees Yemi, who pushes him off.  This was a scene we saw in the teaser last week, so we figure everyone we’ll be fine – and then we’re astonished when Locke is the one to wake up.

When Eko asks Locke what he saw, a look of wonder crosses his face. It’s a look we haven’t truly seen since the hatch was opened in the first place. He realizes that he’s been given a path to follow, and that Eko is a part of it. Eko climbs up the safe rock cliff that we’ve seen. Locke shouts out if he’s sees anything. Eko says he doesn’t see anything – and he trails off as he looks down.  I still remember the awe that I felt when he looked down and saw that the Beechcraft had crashed in a place that looked like a period on a question mark.

Eko spends the next several moments in awe and he pounds the ground – and then he hears a clank.  The two men dig and discover what is clearly another opening and Eko uses the axe to break it down. The joy in Locke’s voice as he asks Eko: “May I?” is marvelous – particularly because in just a few minutes, John will be utterly destroyed.

We will never spend much time in the Pearl Station, compared to many of the others throughout the series, but its clear that there was always something more to it. If the Swan looked like a bachelor pad, the Pearl resembles the 1970s version of a man-cave, a primitive computer and TV’s everywhere. I actually think John may have felt when the screen turns on that he’s been misled even before he sees the orientation film. When he comes across the pneumatic tube, he takes out the map he’s spent the better part of four episodes working on and rolls it up and watches as it goes away. There’s an expression on his face as if to say: “Well, it was never that important.” He doesn’t even really need to hear that the Pearl is there to view  ‘a psychological experiment’; in his mind, he already knows he’s a lab rat.

Which is why when Eko goes to such trouble to pack up everything and tells him that it might be important that I honestly think Terry O’Quinn may give one of his greatest performances in the series. Ever since we met John Locke on the island, he has always convinced of some higher purpose, that the island was special, that a miracle happened. (I don’t think it’s a coincidence that the flashback has to do with Eko trying to prove a miracle he doesn’t believe happened and is fine when he hears it wasn’t real. We’ll get to that in a minute.) John’s faith has been wearing away all season, and now it’s completely gone.

I think that’s the reason why when, in Eko’s final speech, he lays out very clearly why this island is special, that he doesn’t react or say anything. The old John Locke would have seen this as proof that the island was special. Eko has every reason to have his faith reaffirmed. What Locke has seen has proven there’s no such thing as destiny. Everything Eko has seen has proven that there has to be something else guiding them. His decision to take up John’s position at the button is symbolic, and it would appear to signify his own position as the island’s disciple.

If it were just for what we saw Eko do on the island, this would be a great episode. But the flashback has just as many rewards. In it, Eko is in a parish in Australia. It honestly looks like the cloth is more of a costume than anything else; he’s clearly decided to go to Los Angeles, and given the man who gives him his passport, it’s not for religious purposes. Then the monsignor tells them that they have to investigate a miracle: a girl named Charlotte has apparently died and come back to life.

Eko clearly does not believe the story and throughout his investigation, we’re not clear if he ever does or is just going through the motions. We never know what he thinks when he hears the recording, but there’s a part of him that seems relieved when he goes to see the family and the girl’s father tells him that there’s a scientific explanation.

Of course, we should consider the source. We’ve seen a lot of links between the survivors in Season 2, but the one in this episode may have caused the most speculation at the time and even now. Charlotte’s father is Richard Malkin, the psychic who told Claire that her child must not be ‘raised by another’ and then arranged things to get her on Oceanic 815.  Claire believed that Malkin knew the plane would crash. In this episode, however, Malkin contradicts much of what we believed in that episode when he tells Eko he’s a fraud and that he learns intelligence about his clients and uses it to exploit them. The question (heh heh) is whether or not he was lying here and did what he did in order to make sure Eko got on the plane. This mystery was one that was never resolved, but let’s be honest, it was always unlikely to be.

There’s the possibility, of course, that Malkin did have paranormal powers – they just weren’t his. For in the final scene in the flashback, Charlotte finds Eko before he gets on the plane and tells him that Yemi had a message for him and that he was a good man, even he didn’t believe in himself. Eko dismisses this angrily because before he got on the plane (and said bye to Libby) he still didn’t believe in himself. Now it is clear that he understand the message his brother sent him and he seems filled with peace.

In this episode, he’s the only one. All of the performances of the actors who are standing watch over Libby are magnificent. Matthew Fox is initially angry, wanting to lash out, but Sawyer convinces him he has to stand over the sickbed. Eventually, he realizes that there’s nothing he can do for his patient but make her comfortable – which means the most primitive version of a morphine drip he can find.

Josh Holloway is brilliant in a way we haven’t seen before. This is the first time he’s seen death of people he knew up close and it clearly hits him in a way we haven’t seen. His hostility and sarcasm is blunted; when he realizes how Jack has tricked him by sending Kate after him, he can’t even really be angry because this is hitting him hard. Even when Kate starts goading him about finding his stash as his tent, he seems tired in a way we haven’t seen him.

Evangeline Lilly and Jorge Garcia spend most of the episode in a state of despair. Kate’s is trying to find some kind of hope and when she learns the truth about what’s going to happen to Libby, she is unmoored. When Hurley learns the truth about what happened to her Garcia gives his first truly remarkable performance on the show. In the hatch, he seems detached when he discusses with Michael that they were going on their first date. And in the last minutes when he stands over Libby and starts weeping saying: “Sorry, I forgot the blankets”, our hearts hurt in a way they haven’t in a while.

The last minute of the episode is truly bleak: Jack closes Libby’s eyes, cleans up after himself and clearly is barely holding it together. Kate collapses in grief, and Sawyer holds her clearly barely handling it. Locke and Eko walk back to the hatch, Eko looking determined, Locke looking despaired.

Then the alarm starts to beep and the countdown begins. And the viewer wonders: which character in this episode is the bomb about to go off? Michael, who has become a murderer and may very well have been turned by the Others? Or Locke who has now completely lost his faith? Both are now men who feel they have nothing left to lose. And we all know just how dangerous those men can be.

 

VHS Rewatch: Throughout this episode there are previews of the Season 2 finale of Grey’s Anatomy, which was one of the flashpoints in television history. It begins the cycle of events that will lead in rapid succession to Preston Burke being shot,  Derek and Meredith getting back together after a season of him and Addison trying to reconcile, and the nearly season-long arc of Izzie and Denny’s romance ending in the first great tragedy in the show’s history. This finale was listed in a 2009 TV Guide article of the 100 greatest episodes in television history.