A little personal history to start.
Around 2006 I
was starting to feel my way towards my profession of TV criticism and I was
following the Emmys with more seriousness then I did before (and in a sense
today.) So I was absolutely astounded that July when Lost, which had won
Best Drama the previous year, wasn't nominated for Best Drama for Season
2 and would receive just eight nominations overall. It wasn't the most
egregious offense the Emmys did that year by a long shot and I knew that even
then – they completely shutout The Shield and they didn't nominate Six
Feet Under for Best Drama for its final season, which in hindsight is even
more appalling.
Now full
disclosure: this was the year of the fifth season of 24 the greatest
season of that show's entire run, which would deservedly win Best Drama. So I'm
partially grateful that two of my favorite shows of all time didn't have to
face off and I would have had to choose. (And trust me 24 is going to be
getting its own series of articles soon so I can write about that.) But using
the transitive property of logic, its very difficult for me to look at the four
series that were nominated for Best Drama for 2005-2006 and ask the Emmy
judges: "Guys…where were you?"
I admit to
having my own issues with The Sopranos at the time and later on but I
saw every episode of the three other shows that were nominated that year.
Season 2 of Lost was, in my opinion, at least as good as the final
season of The West Wing and superior to the second seasons of House and
Grey's Anatomy all of which received nominations that year. I've
rewatched several of these seasons multiple times over the years and on a level
of technical basis, acting, writing and directing Lost holds up as well.
I've written
before and will write it again how much of an outlier Lost's record with
the Emmys was. It was nominated for Best Drama for Season 1, wasn't nominated
for either Season 2 or 3 (though the Golden Globes did nominate it for both)
and was nominated for its last three seasons. Even odder is the thinking among
critics and fans that much of Season 2 and 3 is inferior to the first season. I
never held that when I was watching the show the first time but at a certain
level I do get some of the reasoning and I'll talk about some of it in regard
to Season 2.
The first flaw
has to do with how network television was in the 2000s and in fact would be for
most of the next ten years. (It altered some in the mid 2010's but it's now
changing back to the old model basically across the board. The circle of
television.) Like all network dramas Lost was 22 episodes long, in fact
in Season 2 it was 24 episodes long. And if you were growing up in that
period by design not every episode in a season was going to be perfect. It's
less obvious in a procedural like Law & Order or House but in
a show that was essentially serialized Lost it was going to be
more obvious then it was for Sopranos or Deadwood. (Back then HBO
was basically the only game in town when it came to television.)
The second
flaw is the fact that in the second season Lindelof and Cuse still had very
little idea of where to take the show. Yes, they'd opened the Hatch and they
went aside and yes the raft had blown up but once everybody had reunited a
third of the way through the season the writers had to figure out where to go
next. And as a result there are probably more story arcs that lead nowhere in
Season 2 then any other season. Jack teaming with Ana Lucia to train an army,
Sawyer deciding to steal the guns and then doing nothing with it, Charlie's
having dreams about Aaron – the writers just start many of them and then seem
to forget about them by the end of the season.
While I
understand how that might appear from a Lost fan as someone who even at
this early age understood the nuts and bolts of TV better than most, these
flaws were a feature of TV, not a bug. The X-Files had its share of
crappy monsters of the week and so did Buffy. 24 had more than its share
of lame story arcs during its run (just say cougar) and Alias had a lot
of individual episodes that didn't seem to fit in with the overarching plot. So
arguing the second season isn't working that way is a case of not seeing the
jungle for the trees. And that's particularly telling because some of the
greatest episodes of the entire series aired in Season 2, something even the
Emmys acknowledged.
'The 23rd
Psalm' would be nominated for Best Writing in a Drama Series and though it
would lost to The Sopranos it ranks as one of the most epic episodes in
the show's entire history. Few episodes tell a more sweeping story in their
flashbacks that this one and fewer still find a way to correlate exact with
events on the island, as well as solving a mystery in the previous season. It
is the first episode in Season 2 to argue that there is some form of destiny
that has been guiding the characters here, an idea that the show had let simmer
but not directly referred to since the season premiere. And to top it off, it
gives us our first real look at 'the monster' that we've had glimpses at but
never seen in the flesh – or as we see here, in the puff.
If the Pilot
of Lost had the appearance of a
feature film, The 23rd Psalm has that same epic structure when it
comes to the flashbacks involving Eko. You could see a story like this being
the plot of an excellent foreign film or even a pretty good independent film,
right down to the yellowish tincture that overlays the cinematography. Lost would often tell exceptional stories of its characters in the course of
several episodes; this one could very well have served as a bubble episode in
so many other series.
The story of Eko and Yemi is framed in religious terms. Eko and Yemi
were two young boys living in Nigeria playing soccer when a group of militiamen
stormed the village to destroy their lives. We see Eko make a choice that
sacrificing his soul for his brother, discarding his cross away in a symbol of
massive significance for both him and Yemi. Years later, the transitions in
their lives could not be more clear: Eko is a bloodthirsty criminal; Yemi is a
priest. In other circumstances the symbolism would be heavy-handed, but because
the two men discuss the world in the kind of terms that so many of us consider
the idea of God and men, even as Eko tells his version of the truth he frames
it in a way that makes us wonder if this is how he sees the world.
Yemi spends much of the episode as if he is high and superior to his
brother, but the fact he still wears his brother’s cross does indicate
something. In his final scene Yemi shows that there is still a part of brother
that he believes can be saved, and we see that in a way Yemi sacrifices himself
to save Eko – though in this case, it does cost him his life.
If it were only for the scale of the story told by the flashbacks The
23rd Psalm would be a brilliant episode on its own. But the action
on the island is just as exceptional to watch because it represents something
that we have never seen on the series to date and will almost never see again.
All of the mysterious events that we have seen so far seem to be ones that only
the island can explain. When Eko breaks open the Virgin Mary statue and reveals
the heroin inside, this is the first time a character can explain one of the
island’s mysteries. The shattering of it in front of Claire is symbolic as
well; by destroying it, this shatters her faith in Charlie and she will
essentially not trust him or even speak to him for the remainder of the season.
Charlie clearly wants to do damage control but he’s in no position to
do so: Eko demands that Charlie take him to the statue and he calls him on
every single bluff that Charlie makes. Charlie is belligerent in these scenes
but not necessarily unpleasant; much of the dialogue he exchanges with Eko is
mean-spirited (particularly when he points out the dried blood on his ‘Jesus
Stick’) but in a way he's also trying to figure out not only what’s happening
around him but how Eko knows so much about it. Like Eko, Charlie is a man of
faith but his belief has been shaky ever since he found the statues and
traipsing through the island behind a man with such certainty to his purpose
would be unsettling to anyone.
We never get a direct explanation as to how this Beechcraft from
Nigeria ended up on an island in the South Pacific (two separate bits of
information in the last two seasons will do so when you put them together) but
just as it is becoming clear the passengers on Oceanic 815 were meant to be on
this plane, you get the feeling this plane came here for the same reason – it
was meant to be a way for Eko to come to the island. And looking back it seems
that the reason he was supposed to come to the island comes in arguably the
most remarkable scene in the episode.
We haven’t seen the monster since it nearly killed Locke in the first
season finale, but now it shows itself again – and it heads right for Eko.
There was clearly supposed to be a comparison between Eko and Locke in this
regard. In Walkabout, the monster came straight for Locke and he walked away
from it unharmed and was strengthened in his faith in the island. The monster
makes a similar run at Eko in this episode and this time seems to show him
snapshots of his past. (I am relying on Finding
Lost for what he actually saw in those
snapshots; multiple pauses and viewings of the episode have left me unable to
see much of what Nikki Stafford did.) What is clear then and now is what
happened: Eko stood his ground, stared the monster dead in the eye without blinking,
and it retreats, for the first time not having hurt or killed anyone. When
Charlie comes down understandably baffled (as we all know he barely survived
his encounter with the monster) he is stunned not only by what he saw but by
Eko’s simple four word explanation as to why he didn’t run: “I was not afraid.”
When Charlie tries to press him on this Eko continues on his mission and
Charlie, now clearly in awe of him, shuts up the rest of the way.
Based on this and what we see in the rest of Season 2, it’s pretty
clear that Eko was being drawn as a parallel – maybe even a rival – to Locke
going forward. I can only speculate on what might have happened, but you could
see the two men engaged in their own personal struggles going forward with
Eko’s presence being important for the rest of the survivors. Could much of
what happened in the original framework for the series come down to a struggle
between Locke and Eko? We will never know.
What is clear is that Eko, as with Locke, was being set up as much a
disciple of the island but clearly framing his faith in religious terms. When
he takes the cross of the body of Yemi and puts it around his neck, it is clear
he has essentially become the island’s priest. As he and Charlie stand over
the plane that Eko is setting on fire
(which is uses as both a significance of both ending and beginning in religious
terms) he acknowledges that he is a priest. He has spent his life prior to this
point pretending to be one but as he says the title passage (and Charlie joins
him) over the plane it is clear that he has embraced the good and pure part of
his nature.
In what is a rave of the episode in Back
to the Island St. James argues that one of the strengths
of Season 2 overall is 'how casually it reveals major information. So is it with this episode where…
"…the show not
only reveals the Monster's form but also a retroactive argument for the
flashbacks' relevance to the on-Island plot."
Late in the series run we will be told that when characters are brought
to the island "their past doesn't matter'.
Based on later events and what we see the Monster do, this may be seen
as the strongest counter-argument that this is not the case. And the fact that
when Eko faces his past and doesn't blink is the clearest indication that the
writers might very well have had long-term plans for him that unfortunately
never came to fruition.
Season Two may be the season where the show leans hardest into the idea
of religious faith as opposed to the faith that Locke demonstrates in the
island. We see it when Charlie, also the most devout character on the show, is
paired with Eko and we will see it again when Desmond shows up later this
season (spoiler alert) But it is Eko and his relationship with the world in
purely religious terms that makes this point clear: he is the only character we
shall meet who mentions a higher power in his thinking and always in a serious
manner. And it his relationship with God that sells the fact that his brother
was in the plane that crashed on the island. Again as St. James puts it:
"Yes, a magical Island surely drew these characters to some sort of
reckoning but the added dose of deep and abiding faith in God helps sell the
idea. From birth these brothers have been in one crucible or another. What's
the Island in the face of that?"
The final minutes of the episode (as what will become Eko’s theme music
play over it) are among the most beautiful in the season and indeed the series.
We see a montage of the survivors bonding in a way we rarely do – Jin
introduces a surprised Ana Lucia to Sun and presents her with a fish in a way
that she is astonished by. Hurley walks over to Libby to help her put her tent
together – you can see even now he’s smitten by her. Sawyer looks at himself in
the mirror over the haircut Kate has given him and when Jack comes by with his
antibiotics for his injuries there’s a tranquility between them we rarely see.
And the episode ends with Claire essentially throwing Charlie out,
which based on what she’s seen is a rational decision. It turns out to be a
well-founded one as in the final shot of the episode we sadly find out that Eko
really didn’t need to ‘replace the one he broke.’
This episode
is a showcase for Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje as Eko not just for Lost but
for the actor overall. Akinnouye-Agbaje had shot to prominence for his role as
Simon Adebisi on OZ a brutal, bloodthirsty Nigerian emigrant turned drug
dealer who was renowned for being the most viscerally evil character on a show
filled with ruthless monsters. There's clearly a common thread that led to his
casting as Eko but we saw so little evidence of it in our introduction to him
that the actors presence said more than anything else. Now he gets to show a
range he had yet to do in television proper as we see the anger and goodness in
him in every scene he's in and sometimes within seconds of each other, both on
the island and in the flashback. It is small wonder that this committed him to
a fan favorite among Losties and I was no exception.
The apocrypha
(to use a term appropriate to his character) was that after reading the script
to The 23rd Psalm, Adewale Akinnouye-Agbaje said that there was no
reason for Eko to be on the series more than a season. He asked Cuse and
Lindelof to be written out of the show at the end of Season 2, but they
convinced him to stay around a little longer. In Finding Lost, it is
quoted that there had always been a discussion as to how to write to the
character out. As we now know, this was not the truth. Akinnouye-Agbaje did not
like living in Hawaii and the writers had planned for Eko for much longer than
a season. That Darlton was willing to shade the truth speaks to their desire to
protect their actors.
Therefore much
of this episode's power is dampened by the knowledge that none of the plans for
Eko put forth will ever come to fruition. But that is irrelevant. The images
and power of the performances can't be erased from the mind regardless nor
should they be.
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