2.10 - The 23rd Psalm

Title’s significance: Probably the most famous of the Psalms, the 23rd is the one that goes “The Lord is my shepherd...” Eko recites it at his brother’s funeral.

Recap: Eko gets his own flashbacks, in which we learn about his troubled time in Africa as a boy, how he fell in with druglords/warlords, and how his brother Yemi found faith to save his brother; the yellow plane and the drugs inside were meant for Eko’s gang, but it crashed on the island with Eko’s brother aboard. On the island, Eko demands that Charlie take him to the drug plane where he found the Virgin Mary statue; Charlie tells Claire he’s not using, but she doesn’t believe him. While learning to shoot, Michael tells Locke he’s planning to go after Walt. Kate gives Sawyer a haircut, and Michael volunteers to take her shift at The Swan. While hiking to the plane, Charlie and Eko encounter the smoke monster, but Eko stares down the monster without fear until it retreats. At the plane, Eko holds an impromptu funeral for his brother and burns the plane, but when Claire tells Charlie she doesn’t want him around, we learn that Charlie has salvaged at least five Virgin Mary statues.

Thoughts: Yep, no wonder this was a good episode; Damon and Carlton wrote this one. These two are definitely the best writers LOST has, and it’s because of their ability to make an episode that’s about a small conflict (here, Eko’s mysterious past) and end up trickling in so many little nuggets of larger importance that the whole episode is an experience beyond just a standard hour of television. Where a lot of Season Two feels like wheels spinning in the mud, Damon and Carlton somehow find a way to make their episodes drive forward at warp speed.

Favorite moment: It’s gotta be the thirty seconds between Eko and the smoke monster. Even though almost nothing happens on the surface level of the scene, there’s so much room for interpretation that the scene just sizzles.

Characters introduced (in order):

• YEMI, Eko’s brother

What we learned:

• Eko’s giant stick has Bible verses inscribed on it.
• Locke likes silent movies.
• Eko was once a gangster in Africa.
• The Nigerian drug plane belonged to Eko’s brother, who died aboard the plane to save Eko.
• Eko began to serve as a priest after his brother left.

Questions:

• Does Eko have a soul?
• Is that really Walt on the other end of the computer?
• Why didn’t the smoke monster attack Eko?

Things that are going to be important in Season Six:

• This is not the first episode in which Claire says she doesn’t know why she named her baby Aaron. Is there ultimately a significance to the name that maybe even Claire doesn’t understand?
• The smoke monster’s choosiness in who it attacks and who it doesn’t is going to be of the utmost importance when the truth about the smoke monster is finally revealed; this can ONLY come in the sixth season, and I sure hope it has something to do with Jacob’s nemesis.