Ever since the Tailies first showed up, Eko has been the most enigmatic among them. Often going a whole episode without saying a dozen words, his wonderful accent gets a workout here after he discovers Charlie’s Virgin Mary statue.
Episode #2.10, "The 23rd Psalm"
Written by Damon Lindelof & Carlton Cuse
Directed by Matt Earl Beesley
Guest Stars: John Bryan (Thug Captain), Lawrence Jones (Lead Soldier), Adetokumboh McCormack (Yemi), Pierre Olivier (Olu).
Air Date: January 11, 2006
In an opening flashback, we see a group of children playing soccer (or “foot ball” as those crazy billions of people outside the U.S. call it) in the shadows of a Catholic church somewhere in the sere plains of Africa. A car appears on the horizon, containing a cadre of gun-lugging thugs. They grab some of the kids as an adult pleads, “Please don’t take any more children,” implying that this has occurred before. The parallels between this and what the Others have done on the island are obvious, though the motives behind each are not.
The thugs put a gun in one small boy’s hand and order him to shoot one of his elders. The boy, clearly the village pussy, hesitates. That’s when a young Eko comes in. He quickly grabs the gun from, we discover later, his brother and shoots the old man, impressing the leader of the thugs. They discard the silver cross he wears around his neck and take him with them.
Fast forward a few years and we see a cornrowed Eko now the leader of the thugs, negotiating a drug buy that ends in a quite succinct throat-slashing for the two suppliers. But Eko, despite the piss-in-your-pants reputation he projects, appears to be a man of paradox. He tells his brother, now a priest, that drug running is not their usual trade, that he needs the Catholic Charity’s plane to get the heroin out of the country to protect their fellow countrymen. This very well could be a lie to persuade his brother, but he did persuade me. However, it does fit the good-cop, bad-cop mold when Eko returns to the church with some thugs and says he just wants to help, but his colleagues will burn the church down if the priest doesn’t get them on a plane. And then, in a bit of foreshadowing, the military mistakes Eko for a legitimate priest after shooting at the escaping plane and (quite predictably) killing his brother. There’s really no telling, yet, just what motivates this man. Once again, we get many answers but the overall enigma remains.
On the island, Eko bullies Charlie into bringing him to the plane where he found his statue. These scenes were rather humorous as I kept imagining Charlie as a furious grade-schooler swinging wildly at the air while a teenage Eko nonchalantly keeps him at bay with nothing more than a hand on his forehead. Charlie tries to assert himself, demanding respect at one point from this virtual stranger, but Eko brushes him away like an annoying gnat.
One scene during their trek stands out. Charlie is in a tree to regain his bearings when the security system, which Eko had briefly seen earlier, returns. Like Locke, Eko stands his ground as the black cloud confronts him. What we witnessed of this thing before was merely a taste of what we see in this episode: a lingering view of the black cloud in all its serpentine splendor. The camera even travels through the cloud at one point, revealing lightning-like flashes and, unless I’m mistaken, brief, ghost-like faces and even a human form. What is this thing? Unlike Locke’s last encounter, the thing leaves, disappearing gracefully into the jungle. (“Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me.”) Even though not much happened, this was a very fulfilling encounter.
The duo continues to the plane, where Eko discovers the bodies of his compatriots and of his brother. Not being a regular CSI viewer, I couldn’t say how long the bodies have been there. They still had some skin and hair, for those of you who get off on forensics. But we still don’t know how he ended up wearing a suit on a Sydney to L.A. flight. There is, in fact, much we still don’t know about this man. This episode’s many religious references don’t really help either. The biblical brothers most people think of are Cain and Abel, a template that Eko and his brother—superficially, anyway—fit into easily. Eko seems more fascinated by Moses and Aaron, at least in his discussion with Claire. But which one is Eko? He carries a staff like Moses, (“Thy rod and thy staff they comfort me.”) and by the end of the episode, declares himself a priest. Will he emerge as a leader, as Moses was, guiding his people from danger?
In other island happenings, Michael and Locke go hunting, giant tubs of ranch dressing apparently being in season. Michael also tries again to contact Walt on the bunker’s computer (strictly forbidden in the now complete film reel). I wasn’t before, but now I’m skeptical that this really is Walt. He very well could be in another bunker elsewhere on the island with its own computer, but something about their exchange rang false to me. “Are you alone,” Walt types. Why would he ask that? I smell a trap. Another thing: why is everyone so secretive on this island? If I received an instant message from my kidnapped son, I’d be telling anyone who would listen. Why withhold this information? This island is a boiled-down version of a small midwestern town; in the end, everyone knows everyone else’s secrets.
Claire tells Charlie to leave her patch of sand, saying his drug use jeopardizes her son. Charlie skulks off and reveals he has a secret stash of virgins. But, I point out, he doesn’t appear to be using again. Yet. Personally, I’m glad his struggles with heroin aren’t over. He gave them up a little too easily in the first season and hopefully this time they can give his character a new dynamic. The Tailies get welcomed by some regulars, montage-style. Any friction between Ana Lucia and Sayid seems to have dissipated for the moment. Oh, and there was something about Kate and Sawyer and Jack, but who gives a fuck about that?
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