Blogging While Watching LOST: Ab Aeterno

Ilana wakes up, bandaged. We’ve seen this scene where she’s visited by Jacob before. “There’s six people I need you to protect.” The remaining candidates. He gave her their names.

The island.

Campfire time. Sun tells everyone about the whole candidate thing. Ilana was supposed to talk to Ricardus – he’d know what to do next. Richard laughs a girly, crazy laugh, then tells Ilana he tried to kill himself. He says that everything Jacob has ever said was a lie. He doesn’t know what they should do next.

Richard says that everyone is dead. Ah, there’s everyone’s fun theory about Purgatory… well, Hell. Richard is pretty sure “we’re all dead” and everyone’s in Hell. Fun times. I hope he knows that a kitten just died because he made me say the P word.

Richard is tromping through the jungle. Ilana is going to go after him. She thinks that Richard really does know what to do. Jack is trying to talk her out of it. Ben tells Jack about “it’s not exactly Locke.” Hurley is talking to someone in Spanish. We don’t know who, but it was in Spanish. I think… or Portugese?

Ben tells Frank that he met Richard when he was 12. Richard looked the same he does now. Frank wants to know how that’s possible.

Flashback!

Richard on a horse. The Canary Islands, 1867. Isabelle… his wife? She’s burning up with fever. Consumption. Am I crazy, or does she look a lot like Nadia? It must be the lighting. She’s dying. She tells him they’ll always be together. He says that he’ll save her.

He’s riding a horse at night in the rain. That can’t be safe. The doctor is unsympathetic. He doesn’t want to ride half the night in the rain. He has medicine that will save her life, but it’s very expensive. Richard offered his wife’s cross necklace as payment, but he said it was worthless. They struggled… I think Richard just kiilled the doctor and stole the medicine.

No… she’s already dead. That’s just not fair.

He was tracked down and thrown into jail for what he did. The Padre brought him food. His Bible is in English because he and his wife were going to travel to the New World. God will not forgive him because he doesn’t have time to make penance… he will be hanged tomorrow.

So here’s Richard. Without his wife’s Bible. Headed for the hangman.  Is he praying?

Mr. Whitfield wants to know if he can speak English. Richard worked in the fields. He just bought Richard for Magnus Hanso. He’s bound for the New World as a slave aboard the Black Rock!

“The island is guarded by the devil!”

Dude. The Black Rock just crashed into the statue. That’s why it isn’t standing anymore…

But that doesn’t explain why the ship was brought so far inland.

Why is he slaughtering the slaves? “If I freed you, it would only be a matter of time before you killed me.”

Richard was saved by Smokey! Smokey just killed the other four officers! And… the last one as well. Richard is the only one left. Here comes Smokey. Richard closed his eyes and prayed… and Smokey left him alone. Richard was repentant, so he lived?

CG butterfly! Lightning. The chains are just short enough that he can’t drink the water falling through the floor. Dehydrated, starving, he managed to fashion a tool to free himself from the chains. And there’s a board eating the dead guys.

“Hello? Is anyone here?” Is that his wife? Dressed in white. Aha, she’s the one who told him they’re dead and in hell. She’s going to save him before the devil comes back. But we can hear Smokey coming.  And it would seem that Smokey killed Isabella… Can you die twice? Hrm.

Here comes Jacob. He touched Richard. Brought him water. NO! It’s NOT Jacob! It’s the Man in Black!

“Who are you?”
“A friend.”

“I was here long before your ship.”

The Man in Black has keys, but wants Richard’s help if he’s going to get him free. He  wants to be free, too. Richard has to agree to do anything he wants. “It’s good to see you out of those chains.” Smokey Locke said that to him in an episode earlier this season.

“There’s only one way to escape from hell. You’re going to have to kill the devil.”

So… I’m gonna say it now. If the Man in Black freed Richard from the slave ship, how did eyeliner man end up working for Jacob for a century and a half?

Roasting a boar over an open fire. The Man in Black wants Richard to walk due west to the statue and kill the devil, who lives inside. He gives him a dagger and tells Richard to take it and stab “the devil” without hesitation. Before he speaks, or it will be too late. Exactly like Dogen told Sayid to do to Smokey Locke. Same script and everything.

The Man in Black admits to being the smoke monster. He says that the devil (Jacob) stole his body and has Richard’s wife.

Walking purposefully toward the statue, Richard gets the beatdown from Jacob. Dude! Jacob took the dagger and wanted to know where he got it from. “Did you meet a man in black in the jungle?”

Jacob is waterboarding Richard to make him realize he’s not dead. He’s not in hell. Because he wants to live.

“The first sensible thing you’ve said… Ricardo. Get up. We need to talk.”

Richard wants to know what’s inside. Jacob says that no one comes in unless he invites them in. Jacob denies that he’s the devil, admits that he brought the ship to the island. Richard wants to know why. Jacob is using wine as a metaphor for hell and evil. The cork is the island, the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs. The man in black believes that everyone is corruptible because they sin by nature. Jacob brings people to the island to prove him wrong.

Jacob doesn’t think he should force people to do the right thing, because that would be meaningless. “If you don’t, he will,” Richard points out. Jacob offers Richard a job, to act as his intermediary with people he brings to the island. In return, Jacob wants his wife back, or to be absolved of his sins… Jacob says he can’t do that. Instead, Richard said he never wants to die again, he wants to live forever. Jacob can do that.

Richard brings the Man in Black back a white stone. MiB says that his offer still stands, if Richard ever changes his mind and wants to see his wife again. Hands him Isabelle’s cross, which Richard buries.

Back in the present. I think.

Richard must be looking for Locke? No, he’s digging up the cross. He changed his mind. “Does the offer still stand?” Screaming to the heavens. Unanswered. But there’s Hurley, wanting to know what the offer is.

“Your wife sent me.” Isabella. She wants to know why Richard buried her cross. She’s standing there next to him. Hurley told him what she said. She kissed him and disappeared.

He’s wearing the cross now. Hurley said that Isabella had one more thing to tell him. He has to stop the Man in Black from leaving the island, or they’re all going to hell.

Cue ominous Locke.

The Man in Black is sitting on a rock. Jacob wants to know why he tried to kill him. MiB says because he wants to leave the island. Jacob replies that MiB will never leave the island as long as he’s alive. That’s why MiB wants to kill him. Jacob says that someone else will replace him. The Man in Black says that he’ll kill them, too.

Jacob handed the MiB the bottle of wine, told it’s something to help him pass the time. MiB makes a cryptic comment about it being “sooner than you think,” and smashes the bottle on the rock.

Mwahaha.

Tagged as: Blogging while watching LOST, Jacob, LOST Episodes, Richard Alpert, Smokey