AB AETERNO

AB AETERNO. According to Wikipedia, it means from eternity or for long ages, which certainly applies to our beloved ageless wonder named Richard Alpert. For long ages he has served Jacob and the island with loyalty and purpose until Jacob's 'death'. Now he is without direction and is uncertain what his purpose is, just as he was after his beloved Isabella's death and the resulting incarceration.

Let's talk about that, shall we?


I'm going to ignore the obvious error in dates here since I don't really think they are as important as others would believe. What's a few years between friends, right?

1867 - Flashback

We now know that Richard hails from Tenerife, on the Canary Islands. He was poverty stricken and married to Isabella. While Isabella was dying, Richard rushed to the doctor for help, giving him everything he had for the medication that would save her.


I am about to digress here, so bear with me. Is it just me, or was that doctor a total jerk? He was either completely consumed by greed or had a prejudice against poor people. Now, I wasn't born yesterday and I do know that most doctors are in it for the big bucks, fancy golf clubs and free drugs, but back then weren't doctors more dedicated to actually helping people? Didn't they brave
all sorts of weather to reach their patients and, oh I don't know, do things like save lives? Just curious.


Jumping back on track now.


We see the doctor pull a dirty on poor Richard and they struggle, the doctor falls, cracks his head and dies. Richard takes the meds (and Isabella's necklace since it was valuable) and rushes off to save her life, observed by the doctor's servant. It was horribly sad to see that he was too late. There is a Pandora's box of "if onlies" here that we could hash over. If only he had been earlier. If only the doctor hadn't been such a pansy ass and selfishly refused to go out in the rain. If only the servant had seen what the doctor had done. We could sit and spout "if onlies" until Mikail's cow came
home to The Flame Station, and then start anew with them. It doesn't change the fact that, despite getting the medication for Isabella, she was already gone before Richard's return. Talk about brutal.


Richard is arrested and is about to be put to death. I missed his trial, if he had one. He asked the priest for forgiveness for accidentally killing the doctor but did not receive absolution. At first I railed against the priest, thinking him a fraud. Does God not forgive those who confess their sins? Does he not allow us all to make penance unto HIM and admit us to heaven? I was so mad at that priest for telling Richard that because he has not done penance he would go to hell. Give the dude a break here! And by dude I am referring to Ricardus.

I think the priest sold Richard so that he could perform his lifetime of penance. And oh what penance it was. All I can think of is that song called Immortality, written by the Bee Gees (I admit to being a huge fan but I digress again).

Immor-tality
I make my journey through eternity
I keep the memory of you and me inside

Getting back to Richard and his indenture to the Black Rock. He is sold and chained in the hold of the ship, destination unknown, until fate intervenes. Remember when we all "assumed" it was the Black Rock on the horizon in the Incident? That has never been confirmed, but it is conceivable that the Black Rock sailed around the island much like Desmond did way back in Season 2, trapped in the bloody snowglobe until the storm swept it inland, presumably destroying the statue in the process. As an aside, GetLostPodcast, a great site for all things LOST, got an excellent screenshot of the ship aiming directly for the statue's nose!
I lightened it a bit.


I'm not sure about you, but I found this episode getting darker and darker as it progressed from the tidal wave onward and wondered what Magnus Hanso and Jonas Whitfield were thinking as they killed off their crew one by one in the name of "we don't have enough food or water for everyone so we're going to kill you all and try to survive on this deserted island all by ourselves, but we probably will die because we're soft hands (meaning we don't do manual labour) and don't know how to hunt, fish, look for water." You know, the basic survival thing. And when did that whole "survival in numbers" philosophy come into play, because if Jonas and the other officers were smart they would have used the slaves to help them survive? What door knobs!


Anyway, I'm off an a tangent again (I blame antibiotics and pain killers). Smokey comes along and kills off the officers and, after flashing and reading their minds, the rest of the slaves save for Richard. This is important to note here, I think. Remember how he flash read Locke and Eko, then Ben? MIB believes that humanity is corrupt and unable to redeem themselves, he scans people and, if he sees that they have no remorse for their actions, he gives them the ole "heave ho" so to speak and kills them. He saw in Richard a deep remorse for what he had done, yet also saw a teensy weensy chance of corruptability...and he had to give it a try, right? Come on, you know it's true.


Ole Smokey waited until that point where Richard was [thisclose] to giving up, rolling over and letting death have its way. I wonder how long that was? Hours or days? Then Smokey uses the image of Isabella to brighten his spirits only to snatch her away from him! How cruel and savage, MIB is! But he uses that anger which we all have inside us that leads us into the dark territory of revenge to his own purposes. He takes advantage and tried to 'encourage' our corruptability. I wonder how many times he has failed in this? How many men like Richard has he tried to use to kill Jacob? Someone needs to tell him that he will fail again and again.


MIB tells lies to convince people to do what he wants them to do. He told Richard that Jacob was the "devil" and that he had Isabella. In order for him to get her back and leave "hell", Richard would need to kill Jacob. That dagger looked familiar, didn't it? Maybe the one that Dogen gave to Sayid? And just as with Sayid, Richard fails in his attempt.

WARNING: I'm going off an a tangent again.

Am I the only person who immediately thought of that Verizon "Can You Hear Me Now?" commercial while Jacob was giving Richard a giant swirly in the surf? "Are you dead?" Dunk. "Are you dead, now?" Dunk. "How about now?" Sputter. Maybe Jacob created those commercials while he was off island touching people.

"Think of this wine as what you keep calling hell. There's many names for it too: malevolence, evil, darkness. Here it is, swirling around in the bottle unable to get out, because if it did it would spread. The cork is this island and it's the only thing keeping the darkness where it belongs. That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptable because it in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong, and when they get here, their past doesn't matter."

Okay, so the island is the door that blocks the passage to hell? I was hoping for more than that and am disappointed. There had better be more. Like, I don't know, MIB is a prisoner on the island because, back when he was a young man, he learned supernatural powers and couldn't handle them. Maybe he wasn't supposed to have powers but stole them? Maybe he was born with them but was dropped on his head when he was a baby and the resulting inability to control himself has forced the leaders of the underworld to exile him. Maybe he's just rotten through and through and likes to play with human lives the same way a cat would play with a bird it has caught. Either way, Jacob says that MIB is malevolence and he must be kept from spreading his darkness across the world.

Jacob brings people to the island to prove to MIB that they are not corruptable. MIB keeps trying to get people to kill Jacob to prove that they are. Is this the proverbial "Chinese Finger Puzzle" or what? Two equal and opposing forces that constantly pull or push at each other will inevitably cancel each other's strengths out. Do you want to know why I believe MIB didn't kill Richard along with the others aboard the Black Rock? Don't answer because I'm going to tell you anyway.

When Ole Smokey flash read Richard's mind he saw inside a man whose circumstances had always taught him to act on the side of good. Richard abided by the law and chose a christian way of life, working toward the promise of heaven when he reached the end. But there were also the words of the priest fresh in his memory, assuring him that he would go to hell to pay for causing the "accidental" death of the not-so-good doctor. Back in those days, with little education, people believed a priest's word was the decree of God himself.

So, MIB sees in Richard an opportunity. What Richard wants more than anything is to redeem himself in the eyes of God and then die to be with his beloved Isabella in heaven. To be told that he was already in hell, then to see his wife and hear her screams while shackled to the bulkhead of a ship had to have been severely demoralizing. MIB provided, through lies and manipulation, an avenue by which Richard could achieve his desire. MIB promised Richard that he would be with his wife once again ( but he forgot to tell Richard that he'd have to die first). Unfortunately MIB failed to realize that Richard, thinking that he would rot in hell for his sin and would never see his Isabella again, decided that he would prefer to live forever.

I need to address this little thing that's been bugging me as I am writing. Over the ages, Jacob has been bringing people to the island, then leaving them to their own devices to survive. He doesn't protect them from MIB's influences or the dangers of the "smoke" persona. Inevitably MIB kills them all and then the cycle begins again with more people arriving. But Jacob has principles and will not, or can't, interfere. Obviously MIB doesn't share the same personal rules since he's taken every opportunity to kill them. What the people need, as Richard pointed out, is guidance. It's true. In many aspects of our lives we can't do what is expected of us unless we know what those expectations are. Didn't God give Moses the Ten Commandments because he needed his followers to understand what was right and what was wrong? Makes sense to me.

The final 1867 scene is of Jacob confronting MIB about the attempt on his life and the promise that should MIB succeed someone would be there to take Jacob's place to keep the cork on the wine bottle. The first attempt failed, but MIB has learned from it (as evidenced by his take over of John Locke's persona) and will continue his quest to escape.

2007

One hundred and forty years later, Richard is himself without direction. He has loyally followed Jacob's directions without reservation and finds himself lost and confused as to what he's supposed to do. He has advised humans on the island, served as intermediary for Jacob, for a century and a half and yet, it would seem, he never really knew why. He reminds me of someone who has devoted their life to God, faithful right to the time when something catastrophic occurs and, as a result of that trauma, are left wondering why God would allow such a thing to happen. The doubt creeps in and they begin to question God and his plan. They wonder why, since they'd followed God's will why would he punish them so. They can go one of two ways. Either their faith is renewed and stronger, or they walk away believing they have been duped and lied to all their lives.

Richard was at this point at the beginning of Ab Aeterno. Before him he saw two paths and needed to choose which one to follow. One path led to MIB's offer of escape and the other had a destination of which was unknown to Richard. His anger, his disillusionment with Jacob, was tugging at him to take the path he knew would lead him off and away from the island. However the island, or rather Jacob, has other plans for Richard.

I'm at a loss to explain Hurley's intervention at the stone bench where Richard had buried Isabella's necklace a century and a half ago. Again, I think of that song Immortality and wonder if Isabella's spirit has been at Richard's side all along. Through Hurley, she is able to communicate that they are already together. Am I wrong to think that Richard should never have buried the cross to begin with and had he kept it with him he would have felt her presence and possibly wouldn't have been tempted to go to the other side? Maybe I am a romantic at heart. So, the touching scene of love that transcends time and death leads us to what Richard's next task will be. Stop the Man In Black from leaving the island.

Just a silly thought here, but what if Richard is the one who takes Jacob's place and the candidates are his intermediaries? Yeah, I'm probably wrong, but wouldn't that be a heck of a twist to the story?
DID YOU NOTICE?

A few friends of mine noticed a cobalt blue butterfly flutter across the screen, did you see it too?

The familiar "whoosh" sound that signals the transiton into a flashback absent in many of the transitions in this episode.

The episode opened with a flashback of one character (Ilana) but centered on a different character (Richard) then closed with a flashback of yet another character (MIB).

In the close up of Richard's eye, when he wakes up on the crashed Black Rock, you can see Nestor's contact lens.

Although Magnus Hanso is referenced, we don't see him.

Hurley's new confidence has made him fearless as he follows Richard into the jungle, spurred on by Isabella.

Arzt suggested that the Black Rock was washed inland by a tidal wave in Exodus Pt.2, and it was confirmed in this episode.

Ben told Sun that he first met Richard after he was shot and was healed by the Others, leading us to believe that the spring in the temple erased his previous memory.

QUESTIONS:

Why was the Black Rock trading in slaves?

Was Isabella's spirit buried with her necklace?

Why didn't Smocke answer Richard's calls?

Why can't Smocke leave the island yet?

If Ben doesn't remember meeting Richard in the jungle before being shot, why does Sayid remember everyone he knew prior to being drowned/saved in the spring?

Now that Richard knows he needs to keep Smocke on the island, does he know how to?

Does he know who Jacob's replacement is?

Ab Aeterno is one of my favourite episodes of the entire series so far. Perhaps THE best! I hope you liked it as much as I did.

Next week we have the Package.

I don't have a clue what it's about but I'll be watching it with a fellow LOSTaholic, whom I will be meeting for the very first time tomorrow. SJ, I can't wait!