Evil Urges

LOST Season Six, Episode Nine: Ab Aeterno

We got Richard’s full back story (thankfully without lingering holes) while doubling our total Man in Black screen time. We got illusions of hell and the devil. And we got one seriously symbolic bottle of wine.

I’m going to take the unusual path of recapping this episode as it unfolded, instead of storyline-by-storyline, in hopes of making this make sense. Here we go.


See You In Hell
To start, we filled in the holes of Jacob’s bedside visit with Ilana. We learned that she was indeed tasked with protecting the six remaining candidates by shepherding them to the Island. Lingering question: what put her in that hospital bed? She looks pretty roughed up, and I think it might be tied to Jacob’s comment that this task was what she had been “training for.”

Back on the beach, Ilana explains (per Jacob) that Richard will know what to do next. After some hearty scoffing from Richard, we see the continuation of his complete and utter brokenness, his loss of faith. He explains that Jacob is a liar and that he’s leaving to follow someone else. And he drops a bombshell on the gang, explaining that they’re all dead and that the Island is, get this, hell!

As we later learned, that statement was indeed too dramatic to be true. It was merely an extension of the suicidal Richard we saw in the Black Rock. The bottom had dropped out of a faith he spend 150 years developing when Jacob died and MIB took over. He was in pure desperation mode, stuck in an eternally meaningless existence without a moral compass. And what’s an immortal, lost soul to do in such a situation? Retreat to the literal jungle, and into his own figurative one.

Pre-Existing Conditions
In what constituted our first true flashback in some time, we were whisked away to Delaware. Hi, I’m in Delaware. No wait, wrong thing.

We were in fact transported to a land just off the west coast of Africa, the Canary Islands. It was 1867, where a familiarly-distraught Richard Alpert was in a race to save his wife’s life. Isabella’s case of coughing-up-blood-itis had reached its critical stage, and Richard – with her cross necklace in hand – went to see what he could do.

In town, the doctor tells Richard that the treatment Isabella needs is very expensive, and he doesn’t have the money (or collateral) to pay him. [Insert your timely overreaction to health insurance reform here]. Tensions escalate, and Richard kills the doctor in the same exact way Desmond killed Inman: an accidental blow to the back of the head. Medicine in hand, Richard retreats to his beloved, only to find himself a few hours late and a vile of mysterious white medicine short. To make matters worse, Canary Island’s finest were right behind him, ready to haul him off to jail.

What intrigues me about Richard’s story is how very ordinary it was. There was nothing supernatural about him. He did not seem “special.” He was simply a man who got caught up in all the wrong kinds of circumstances, and had to pay the price. It’s almost as if Richard’s normalcy is the grounding force – the palate cleanser – that Jacob needed in order to deal with all his varies tortured and pre-destined souls on the Island.

Hangman is Coming Down From the Gallows

Yup, second Styx lyric referenced by a subhead this season. Count it.

Imprisoned for physicia-cide, Richard reveals to a (probably crooked) priest that he is learning English, from a bible opened to a passage about Jesus casting a demon out of a man in Galilee. The priest tells Richard that his sins cannot be absolved, and that penance is not an option, as his hanging has already been scheduled. It is here that the seed of “hell,” is planted in Richard’s head by the priest, who tells him that’s right where he’s headed.

But not yet. En route to the gallows, blindfolded Richard is intercepted by Captain Magnus Hanso, who purchases him as an indentured servant for his ship, The Black Rock. Side note: Hanso – as Maggie pointed out – is the surname of the Dharma Initiative’s financier (Alvar Hanso). Chew on that one.

This Place is a Prison

How did the Black Rock get to the Island? How did the statue get destroyed? How did the ship get so far inland? Three questions, one answer: a hell of a tsunami. I kind of brush that off as a copout on the answers to those questions, but I’ll forgive it, if only because this episode included a minimum amount of dialogue from Sun.

Alpert and the other slaves awaken on the ship, hearing their overlords lament their plight. Captain Hanso comes downstairs, and in his anger kills three slaves. But just before he can preemptively kill Richard, the familiar tick-tock of Smokey is heard, and the death rattles of the Black Rock’s commanding officers follow. As blood drips onto Hanso, he looks up just in time to see Smokey lift him out of the ship and kill him.

I’ll say one thing for Smokey, he makes an entrance. In fact, you could say it’s a calling card of sorts. Remember that the first time we saw him (in the Pilot episode), he jolted Jack, Kate and Charlie from the fuselage and killed the pilot (Ha! Pilot and Pilot, I just got that!). It would seem that Smokey – in his infinite anger over Jacob’s relentless “testing” – likes to fire a little warning shot to new arrivals to the Island.

I also took notice of his scanning – and subsequent sparing – of Richard. As Jacob later said, MIB/Smokey is on the hunt for “corruptible” souls. Did he see in Richard an opportunity for corruption? I think so. I think he saw Richard’s angst over Isabella, his pressing fear of being hell-bound and his lamentation of his doomed existence. And when he saw it, he spared Richard. Because those very corruptible elements were something he could use later.

It brings to mind Smokey’s scans of Kate, Eko, John Locke and others. And it makes me wonder if MIB saw in Locke the same sort of malleable, corruptible elements – daddy issues, purposelessness, constant feelings of inadequacy and frustration with his physical paralysis. I think he saw those in Locke, and he knew right away he might have found his ticket off the Island.

Here Comes the Man in Black

Richard – trying desperately to unshackle himself – is visited by what we can only assume is another MIB apparition. His beloved Isabella drops by to tell him that they are indeed dead and in hell, and even mentions the devil. Then she leaves, and we hear her scream at the hands of Smokey.

Sign of hope? Nah. Try “elaborate ruse.” I think that was all a Smokey production, meant to reaffirm in Richard his fears of hell and the devil. He even used the most effective wedge possible with Richard: his dead wife. Shame on me for questioning whether or not this dude was evil. He is, and that manipulative hoax is all the proof I need (until next week, when I’ll believe he’s good again).

But the Devil’s greatest trick was convincing the world he didn’t exist. Or, in this case, convincing Richard that the devil was someone else. The MIB visits newly-rebroken Richard and does exactly what Locke said he did to Claire: he gives him someone to hate. That someone, for Richard, is Jacob. MIB tells Richard that it was Jacob who was the devil, that it was Jacob who took Isabella, that Jacob was imprisoning them both and that Jacob needs to die in order for Isabella to be safe and for them to escape hell. And – much in the same way that Locke last week distanced himself from Smokey while speaking to his followers – MIB told Richard he was a “friend.”

All MIB asked in return for this gift of epiphany was complete, blind allegiance. And Richard was all too happy too oblige, even when MIB revealed that it would mean killing the devil. How, you ask? With a dagger through the heart, delivered before the devil can speak. Sound familiar? It should. That’s how Dogen told Sayid he had to kill MIB/Locke/Smokey a few weeks ago.

Also, a quick closing of a loop: MIB tells Richard that it’s good to see him out of his chains. This explains why Richard looked so terrified when Locke said that to him earlier this season – and why Richard knew at that moment who Locke really was.

What this all boils down to is MIB’s very primitive, ill-conceived attempt at escape. We saw last season the lengths that MIB had to go to in order to kill Jacob. But last night, we saw his failed earlier attempt, using Richard. It’s interesting to think about how far MIB has come in his sophistication. He went from “use this knife,” to “I’ll inhabit the dead body of one of Jacob’s candidates, who I’ll have to manipulate for 50 years in order to get him right into position.”

This also brings to mind a quick thought on Widmore, who told Locke that he had to get back to the Island in order to be on “the right side” of the war. He’s also the man that employed Matthew Abbadon to get people where they needed to go – which, for John Locke, meant an Australian walkabout trip that ultimately resulted in his presence on the Island. I’m starting to see a clearer link between Widmore and the MIB. If Jacob had Ben, it would appear that MIB has Widmore. Keep that in mind as you watch Charles and his submarine crew operate on the Island in the coming weeks.

Jacob the Baptist

Upon reaching the statue, Richard is intercepted by a stiff right hook to the jaw. That hook belonged to Jacob, who surprised me with his fighting skills. After roughing Richard up, Jacob takes the dagger away, and Richard reveals that it was the MIB who told him Jacob was the devil, promised him reunion with his wife, and sent him on his homicidal mission.

Half out of pity and half out of angst, Jacob sets out to prove to Richard just who exactly is good and evil. He grabs him and drags him into the water, where he proceeds to dunk him in the water until Richard admits he wants to live.

It doesn’t take a Sunday School teacher (Maggie) to catch the baptism symbolism here. Jacob bestowed upon Richard a new life. It was one with purpose, a mission and someone to follow.

As long as we’re on the biblical tract, let me jump out of order here to talk quickly about the next-to-last scene, in which the forgiveness motif of LOST’s final season was continued. But this time, the forgiver and the forgiven were one in the same. Richard Alpert finally forgave himself for the things he’d done in the name of finding Isabella again. Standing in the jungle, yelling for MIB to overtake him, Richard was mercifully interrupted (and saved) by good ole’ fun time Hurley, who spoke Spanish and Ghost-anese to give Richard the peace, closure and acceptance he had sought for 150 years. This moment was beautifully acted by Jorge Garcia and Nestor Carbonell. It was a strange scene that, done wrong, would’ve been cheesy. But I believed the calm in Richard’s face as Isabella left him for the last time. And I believed the urgency in Hurley’s voice when he told Richard that Isabella insisted he, “Stop the man in black. Stop him from leaving the Island, or else, we all go to hell.”

This scene, to me, was Richard Alpert’s epiphany. In it, we saw him reconcile his primitive notions of evil with his more learned, informed understanding of hell. Hurley restored Richard’s faith with one conversation, elucidating for him that hell wasn’t some man in a statue or some dark-robed jungle tyrant. What was it? Well, I’ll let Jacob explain that.

Tale of the Tape

Richard’s first service at the Church of Jacob was one of the better moments of the season, as it very clearly broke down the battle between Jacob and MIB. I’m going to recap it pretty precisely, and in the next section I’ll get to a bigger analysis.

Jacob seemed almost annoyed at Richard’s preoccupation with hell and the devil. It was as if such talk was beneath him, and what he was doing on the Island. While I won’t be surprised if Jacob and the MIB’s origins are biblical in nature, I also sense in their dialogue a sentiment that their purpose transcends religion. Instead, their argument seems aimed at the hears and minds of mankind, and the very nature of good and evil. Last night, Richard got a shallow, fear-based lesson in the dangers of evil from MIB. But it was his deeper, more purposeful talk with Jacob about the power of good that held more sway.

When Richard asks Jacob why he brought the Black Rock to the Island, Jacob holds up a bottle of wine and responds,

“Think of this wine as what you keep calling ‘hell.’ There’s many other names for it, too. Malevolence, evil, darkness. And 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.”

He continues,

“That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptible because it’s in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong. And when they get here, their past doesn’t matter.”

And finally, he tells Richard that his group is not the first, and that the others before him were all dead. When Richard asks why Jacob didn’t save them, it prompts this excellent exchange:

Jacob: “I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It’s all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?”

Richard: “Because if you don’t, he will.”

And right there, Jacob is stopped dead in his tracks. Richard’s assertion struck a chord, and Jacob’s reaction was to offer Richard a job as the intermediary between himself and those he brought to the Island. When Jacob tells Richard that he can’t pay him by absolving his sins or reuniting him with Isabella, Richard laments that he wants to live forever (so he never has to deal with the hell of his past). Bingo. Jacob obliges with a hearty shoulder grab, and ageless Richard Alpert is born, and he delivers that message to MIB with a poignant white rock. Then, realizing that his hope for reunion with Isabella is dead, Richard puts the necklace six feet (okay, inches) underground, burying his hope of ever seeing her again.

The next morning (presumably), we see MIB and Jacob meet in the jungle, with MIB clutching Jacob’s celebratory white rock. MIB explains why he’s trying to kill Jacob: he wants to leave. But Jacob vows not to let that happen, and warns MIB that even if he kills him, “Someone else will take my place.” MIB threatens to kill any replacement prison guard, too. Finally, Jacob gives MIB the bottle of wine that he had used as a metaphor for their relationship when talking to Richard, and in what I think was one hugely symbolic moment, MIB smashes the bottle over a log.


Bottled Up

Okay, here's my take on what this all means.

I said right before that last section that Hurley redefined the notion of evil for Richard Alpert in the course of their otherworldly conversation. And here’s what I meant. As explained by Jacob, evil/ darkness/malevolence is not embodied by a man (MIB, or the devil) or a place (the Island, or hell). To Jacob, evil is the very act of accepting MIB’s worldview that man is “corruptible,” and that “it’s in their very nature to sin.”

Jacob’s metaphor of the bottle can be extrapolated out in this manner. The “release of MIB from the Island” represents the permeation of evil into the world. And to Jacob, “evil” is defined as mankind’s resignation to its worst demons. It is not the mere idea of malevolence, it’s the acceptance of malevolence as an inevitability.

Last night, Jacob said that intervening in man’s capacity to determine what was right or wrong was counter-productive to his end game. He couldn’t get in the way, or make man’s decisions for him. Why not? Because every man will tell you he doesn’t want to be evil, but in order to prove the absence of evil’s influence, man has to choose to turn away from it. He has to choose to forego wrongdoing at the expense of his own selfish motives.

In this context, examine MIB’s manipulation of Locke. MIB/Smokey examined Locke, and found in him several corruptible elements (the aforementioned issues with his father, his physical limitations and his inadequacies as a man). And so, in order to prove himself right to Jacob, MIB manipulated Locke (partially by manipulating Ben, another tortured soul) into perpetrating Jacob’s death.

And that is damn brilliant. Because the MIB that haphazardly tried to get Richard to kill Jacob has since learned one hell of a lesson: that in order to kill Jacob, he must kill Jacob’s premise. Stay with me. MIB could only kill Jacob by proving just how corruptible, evil, malleable and dark mankind could choose to be. He did it through Locke and Ben. And only by showcasing for Jacob just how dark their very average souls were capable of being, could that dagger finally pierce – and kill – Jacob. And thus, MIB freed himself from the argument and the imprisonment.

This all matches up fairly well, because it would appear that in current Island time, MIB’s got the upper hand. He has his minions in place and Jacob is dead (though still influencing Hurley, Jack and others). The question now becomes, “How does MIB escape?” I mean, this guy’s not just gonna get on a plane and touch down at LAX to start a drug ring or something is he?

My guess: the alternate timeline. I’ve theorized that the alternate timeline is the world into which MIB/Smokey and his followers will escape. But how? Well, remember, the wine was MIB, the cork was the Island, and Jacob was essentially the bottle itself. So by shattering that bottle, MIB was foreshadowing his shattering of Jacob’s entire concept of the goodness of man in order to put all the dominos in place for his escape. And in practice, he did that through the manipulation of Ben and Locke.

So is the alternate reality a world in which man has resigned himself to the inevitability of evil? Or is it a pure world, in which our characters have foregone their inner darkness in order to lead their best possible lives? It appears to be the latter, based on things like Jack’s good father skills, Ben’s selflessness, Kate’s heart and Locke’s acceptance of his inadequacies.

MIB's ability to prove the inevitability of evil and corruption in this alternate reality is the very "war" that we’ve heard allusions to for a couple season. It involves if, when, how and to what degree “evil” can enter that world. For centuries, the presence of MIB's brand of evil has been confined to (or "bottled up by") the Island. Will he truly succeed in shattering the bottle? I think that will rely on our main characters’ ability to channel the lessons they learned on the Island in order to do what’s right; and prove Jacob right once and for all.

Or they’re all aliens.


Namaste.
Charlie