Lost Season 6 - Episode 9: Ab Aeterno - Recap
This was seriously my absolute favorite episode in the entire series of Lost. Ricardo FTW. I'm speechless.
So no flash-sideways... just all Richard Alpert all the time.
On the island, Ilana discusses the situation with Jack, Sun, Hugo, Frank, Miles and Ben. She was approached by Jacob to bring the 6 remaining candidates to the temple. These included Jack, Sun and Hugo. She asked Jacob what she would do after she found the 6. He says: "Ask Ricardus, he'll know what to do next."
"Who's Ricardus?" asks Hugo.
"He is," Ilana says turning to Richard. "So what do we do?"
Richard then gives a nervous laugh and freaks out.
He's says: "You want to know a secret? You're all dead. We're in hell." Storms out.
OMG - that blew my mind! Really? So hooked on this episode after that line.
Ben discusses how Richard never aged and that he really knows nothing. Hugo is talking in Spanish to someone. Jack thinks it's Jacob. Hugo says it's not Jacob and none of his business.
Queue the flashback!
Lost now brings us to 1867 in the Canary Islands where Ricardo and Isabella love story's tragic ending begins. Isabella is sick and Ricardo traveled half a day by horseback to see the doctor. The doctor refuses to take his money and Isabella's necklace (because they're worthless) for some medicine and Ricardo inadvertently kills him. Ricardo races back to his wife with the medicine anyway. But he is too late. She is dead. The authorities arrive and take him to jail.
In jail, Ricardo is reading an English bible (all the language has been in Spanish at this point). He asks for forgiveness from a priest who says that he cannot forgive him for murder. However Ricardo catches a break as he is sold to the captain of the Black Rock! The only criteria was to have strong hands and to speak English -- and somehow Ricardo manages to speak the few words that he knows and gets sold.
Ricardo and the rest of the Spanish slaves are chained in the Black Rock which is now caught in a storm -- it crashes into the statue on the island!
Mysteries solved: Now we know how the statue was destroyed. Now we know what the Black Rock really is.
Ricardo and the rest of the slaves survive the crash, but one of the officers comes down and starts killing them. When he is about to kill Ricardo -- the black smoke arrives! It kills all the officers and when he reaches Ricardo, it stops, then leaves. Close up of Ricardo's eye which now has guyliner???
He tries to get out of his chains by slowly picking out a nail -- it all looks very painful. Random boar arrives and starts eating a corpse. Ricardo passing out every now and then. And then -- Isabella arrives! She says that they are in hell and that the black smoke is the devil. She tries to help him get free, but then the sound of the black smoke arrives and Ricardo tells her to run. "Go if love me!" She runs up the stairs, but the black smoke takes her. Ricardo passes out again.
Then the man in black arrives! He has the keys to unlock Ricardo's chains plus water. He says that he will free him if Ricardo does anything that he asks. Ricardo agrees.
"Thank you."
"Of course my friend. It's good to see you out of those chains." (Gasp!)
So what does the man in black want Ricardo to do? Kill Jacob. With a knife. Using the very same dialogue that Flocke used on Ben!
Not knowing any better, Ricardo goes to the beach to kill Jacob. However, Jacob is bad ass at hand-to-hand combat and beats Ricardo to the ground.
Ricardo explains to Jacob all the hell and he's dead mumbo-jumbo -- but Jacob convinces him otherwise by trying to drown him.
And then they talk.
"I'm the one who brought your ship to the island."
"Why?"
"Think of this wine as what you keep calling hell, it has other names: malevolence, evil, darkness; and here it is swirling in a bottle unable to get out. The cork is this island and it's the only think keeping the darkness where it belongs."
Jacob continues:
"That man who sent you to kill me believes that every man is corruptible because it is in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong, and when they get here, their past doesn't matter."
"Before there were others?"
"Yes many."
"What happened to them?"
"They're all dead."
"Why didnt you help them?"
"Because I wanted them to help themselves ... Why should I step in?"
"If you don't, he will."
Light bulb on Jacob's face.
"Do you want a job? If I don't want to step in, you can do it for me ... you can be my intermediary."
"What do I get in return?"
"You tell me."
"I want my wife back."
"Can't do that."
"Can you absolve me of my sins so I don't go to hell?"
"Can't do that either."
"I never want to die, I want to live forever."
"Now that, I can do."
(Gasp!)
Ricardo goes back to the man in black.
"You let him talk to you didn't you?"
He tells Ricardo that if he ever changes his mind - and he means ever - his offer still stands. (I guess to kill Jacob so he could be with his wife again). He gives him the necklace of Isabella. Disappears. Ricardo buries the necklace.
Back to present! Richard Alpert goes back and digs the necklace. Having lost faith in Jacob, he says "I've changed my mind!" calling out to the man in black. "Does the offer still stand?"
Then Hugo arrives.
"I told you people I don't know anything!"
"Your wife sent me." (Gasp!)
Hugo then plays Whoopi Goldberg in Ghost between Richard and Isabella's ghost. (It is my understanding that this is the real Isabella and not the fake one that he encountered in the Black Rock). Hugo translates what Isabella is telling Richard.
"It wasn't your fault that I died, Ricardo. As much as you wanted to save me, it was my time. You suffered enough, Ricardo."
"I miss you -- I would do anything for us to be together again."
"My love. We are already together."
Pan out and she disappears. Richard wears the necklace.
An amazing scene. I cried. Richard Alpert is now the best character in Lost for me. This was even better than Desmond and Penny -- and that was amazing.
Hugo: "She said one more thing. Something you have to do. She said you have to stop the man in black from leaving the island. Coz if we don't, we all go to hell (in Spanish)."
Closeup to Flocke!
Epilogue!
Jacob and man in black talk.
"So you tried to kill me. Why?"
"I want to leave. Just let me leave Jacob."
"As long as I'm alive you're not going anywhere."
"So now you know why I want to kill you. And I will kill you Jacob."
"Even if you do, someone else will take my place."
"Well then I'll kill them too."
Jacob gives man in black the wine bottle. Man in black breaks it.
LOST
Omigosh. So epic.
An acting tour-de-force from Nestor Carbonell. Bravo.
I love Lost!
Read Noelle's WTF Moments