Lost: Season 6, Episode 9 Review: Ab Aeterno

Ab Aeterno

Original Airdate: March 23, 2010

Writer: Melinda Hsu Taylor and Greggory Nations
Director: Tucker Gates

Richard Alpert is an interesting character as far as the evolution of his role is concerned.  Initially, he was just a plot point: he recruited Juliet and hung out in Dharmaville, the end.  However, in “The Man Behind the Curtain”, the reveal that he looked in 1977 the same as he does in the present added an intriguing layer.  Since then, the anticipation for a Richard centric episode picked up where the anticipation for a Rousseau centric episode left off.  On a show like Lost, the characters who know something always stand out, and who better than someone who has been on the island longer than almost everyone else?  Taking a break from the flash-sideways storyline, this episode consists largely of one single flashback of how Richard arrived on the island and the beginning of the current cycle of Jacob’s social experiment.  There are some long awaited answered delivered here, which as the season heads into its second half, should be coming at a much faster pace.

Richard’s story begins in 1867, the earliest flashback by a few days.  Richard, then known as Ricardo, cares for his dying wife, who desperately needs medicine.  After trying to bargain it out of the doctor, a scuffle breaks out and the doctor is killed, similar to Desmond accidentally killing Kelvin.  Of course, running away with something from a dead body (and possibly because of other social systems in place), is going to make the “it was an accident” story impossible to believe.

The death of the doctor turns out to be for nothing, as Isabella died while Richard was away.  So the first segment establishes the two things that have haunted Richard for 140 years: not getting absolution for accidentally killing the doctor and not being able to save the love of his life.  This also introduces the second important piece of Richard’s back story, his faith.  Offering the cross as payment, learning English by reading the Bible and pleading for absolution for his sins reinforce this as well.  Richard is an unquestioning believer, so when one of his fellow prisoners on the Black Rock spots Tawaret and claim it is the Devil, it’s easy for him to believe he is in hell and that any chance he can have to receive absolution or redemption would be taken.

Alpert being on the Black Rock trumps all the obvious answers of the past few seasons, from “Michael is the inside man on the freighter” and “Eloise is Daniel’s mother”.  This is just one flaw of doing a story on episodic television: the audience can get a hold of how the writers think, and while the best writers always try to stay a few steps ahead of their fans, inevitably some details get lost.

This episode answers three major questions: what was Alpert’s involvement on the Black Rock, how the ship wound up in the jungle and how the statue broke down.  For a long time, I had a huge issue with the idea that a wooden ship could somehow bring down a rock statue, but the pressure of a tidal wave would be more than enough to do it.  It probably would’ve been wrecked more when it crashed on the island, but maybe I’m making too much about it.

Another interesting detail: Richard’s arrival is the first of many groups to arrive during storms: Rousseau’s team, Desmond, the Freighties would follow.  Of those who crashed, only 815 happened during a clear day (316 landed).

Johnny sees a golden opportunity and makes Richard believe that Jacob has taken Isabella, safe to assume he was just taking her form, and wearing him down by leaving him there around his rotting comrades.  Of course, this is another parallel to The Stand, where Randall Flagg rescues a starving Lloyd from the prison where he is the sole survivor of the outbreak of Captain Tripps, only in this case the Lloyd stand in sided with the Mother Abigail stand in.

Freeing Richard made him putty in Johnny’s hands, ready to kill “the devil”.  Much like Ben in season five, Johnny manipulates Richard to do his bidding.  Knowing that Richard crashing occurred within 24 hours of Johnny & Jacob’s first encounter, it adds a context similar to Ben finding out he has a tumor within a few days before Jack crashed on the island.  It’s like if the island has some weird wish fulfillment program.

Richard comes across the statue, and much like The Dude, gets roughed up by a character played by Mark Pellegrino.  From here he realizes that he is not dead and joins with Jacob, something Johnny isn’t too pleased with.  A few interesting details here: the knife Johnny gives Richard is the same one (or looks close enough to) that Dogen gave Sayid in “Sundown” and they even give similar instructions.  They also made a point of accenting the fact that Johnny touched Richard, something other characters haven’t done or make a point of not doing.

While recruiting Richard, Jacob explains the purpose of the island with an analogy for wine.  This, where the cork is the island keeping Johnny from getting out, is a little wonky.  A better one would be that the island is the bottle, and Jacob’s magic is the cork, which makes Johnny smashing the bottle at the end possibly foreshadow what is going to happen.

The final scene between Jacob and Johnny is interesting.  While we’re supposed to believe Johnny is the bad guy (and has loads of evidence to support that), his motivations make sense.  Titus Welliver really pulls off the frustration of a guy who was betrayed and lost his “humanity”.  Of course, we still don’t know what he did to warrant this treatment from Jacob, but the second guessing adds a nice layer to what’s going on.

Certainly some people are unhappy over the explanation that Richard’s unaging came from Jacob touching him.  While I can understand not being happy over an answer (something that will surely be an issue in the final episode) what did these fans expect?  Was there a reasonable explanation for a guy not aging in 140 years?  If the Star Wars prequels taught us anything, it’s that trying to excessively explain something inherently magical destroys its magic (midichlorians anyone?)  Fantasy writers tow a thin line, and Lost generally does that balancing act well.

Richard’s flashbacks explain a lot about his current state of crazily running through the jungle trying to take up Johnny on his open door invitation to return to his side.  Through 140 years, Richard’s felt that working for Jacob was penance for accidentally killing the doctor.  Now his leader is gone and he can’t die or be reunited with his beloved.  The penance he’s been working for for over a century seems to have been lost.

As he has been all season, Hurley proves to be a valuable helper, using his gift to have Richard communicate with Isabella in a way more vivid than has been shown before.  Perhaps that was the island intervening, or maybe Johnny’s attempt to be manipulative went the other way thanks to Hurley’s intervention.  Regardless, it takes the purposeless Richard a new goal: keep Johnny from leaving, or else “[they] all go to hell”.

One thing that doesn’t fit in this episode is Ilana’s flashback.  Expanding upon her first, Jacob’s visit explains that her mission, which she has been training for her whole life, is to protect the remaining six candidates.  Besides placing her flashback close to her arrival on the island, it doesn’t add much to the episode that couldn’t have been done with the exposition that was happening at the beach.

So the Richard episode more or less lived up to the hype.  Did I enjoy it as much as most people, who compared it on the level of “The Constant”?  No, the Isabella/Richard catharsis, while good, pales to Desmond and Penny’s phone call.  Maybe I wanted too much, like the four hour back story covering all 140 years, the first time out, but upon second viewing I saw a lot more of the positive knowing what it was compared to what I wanted it to be.  It had some great character development and revealed a lot more to the long standing rivalry between Jacob and Johnny, not to mention a great performance from Nestor Carbonell, who really utilized his time in the spotlight.

Overall Score: 9/10