Ab Aeterno Recap

Mar 24

metalman777Lost recap, season 6 No Comments

“Ab Aeterno” is the 9th episode in Season 6 of Lost and the 112th produced hour of the series as a whole. It was originally broadcast on March 23, 2010. Richard changes his allegiance before having an unexpected meeting. (Lostpedia.com)

I’m gathering that many of you interpreted this episode as concrete proof that Jacob is the good entity and the Man in Black is the evil one. I beg to differ. Both are capable of good and evil, of forgiveness and condemnation, of violence and mercy. And both manipulate others for their own ends. The “good” people are those who have the courage and determination to follow them, not because they believe Jacob and the Man in Black are gods, but in order to protect their loved ones.
And so we go back. Not ALL the way back – not to ancient Egypt – but back to the Canary Islands in 1867. As it turns out, the Canary Islands actually have a connection to ancient Egypt. It’s tenuous, but it’s there. The Canary Islands are named after ‘canaari’, which means, in Latin, “the ones who worship dogs.” Apparently, the indigenous people worshiped dogs as their gods. The other most famous dog-worshipers are in fact the ancient Egyptians, whose god of the afterlife, Anubis (pictured in the hieroglyphics under the Temple wall where Ben encounters the Smoke Monster), is associated with dogs. Historians don’t know whether the people of the Canary Islands were in contact with the Egyptians, though ancient Greek texts establish that the Greeks knew of them.
The overwhelming majority of the inhabitants of the Canary Islands were Roman Catholic in the 19th century, so Richard’s spirituality makes sense. While nearly all forms of Christianity (most all religions, probably) have significant views on hell, the Roman Catholic position on hell is different from other branches of Christianity in a few important ways. Most relevant here is that God’s forgiveness – which is what saves one’s soul from hell – needs to be granted through an intermediary. In many other Christian sects, a person is sent to heaven or hell based on what’s in their heart, on “faith alone”. But Roman Catholics, at least until recent times, had to be absolved by priests in order to have their sins cleansed, and absolution was granted only if the person was truly sorry and if they made up for their mistakes by doing good works.
Let’s do a little fact-checking here. As many of you pointed out in the comments on the episode poll, America wasn’t exactly “new” in the 1860s. However, that’s not conclusive enough for me to definitively rule out America as the Black Rock’s destination. I think it likely that Richard was referring to America when he mentioned wanting to start a family with Isabella in the “new world”. A huge number of people from the Canary Islands emigrated to South America during the mid-to-late 19th century, to places like Venezuela. With so many of his countrymen leaving, Richard could have easily wanted to go there
But I don’t know if Jonas Whitfield was referring to America when he mentioned the “new world”. It’s 1867, the Civil War has just ended and slavery is illegal in the United States. As for South America, it’s possible that varying degrees of indentured servitude were still taking place, so Hanso could have been heading there to sell his captives. I do want to mention another possibility, however. Australia is very much still a “new world” in the 1860s. Gold had been discovered in the 50s, and certain Australian colonies were experiencing gold rushes. I couldn’t find out whether Australia had indentured servitude at the time, but it was still partly a prison colony for the British, so it seems plausible to me that Hanso was headed to Australia to get rich working his slaves in the mines
This would of course also explain how the Black Rock crashed on an island we know to be in the middle of the Pacific (if you sailed from the Canary Islands to America, you wouldn’t cross the Pacific, but you would if your destination was Australia). This also links Richard’s journey, thematically speaking, to the Oceanic 815 survivors.
MIB confesses to being the Smoke Monster, confirms that the island is hell and says that the Devil has Richard’s wife. He presents Richard with a dagger and instructs him to go to the statue and kill him without letting him speak. These were of course the exact same instructions that Dogen gave Sayid in “Sundown”. It may have even been the same dagger. But unlike Dogen, it seemed that MIB thought, or at least hoped, that Richard had a chance at succeeding.
Since MIB seems to be a generally honest, though manipulative, entity, I’m not sure, “this is hell and Jacob is the Devil” was actually an outright lie. From MIB’s perspective, the island is hell. It’s his eternal prison. And Jacob, his prison keeper, is the Devil, a devil that has robbed MIB of his humanity and identity. This speech played right into the Esau and Jacob theories, as Esau stole Jacob’s birth right and inheritance by tricking him with a bowl of soup. “He can be very persuasive,” MIB warns. That’s certainly coming from someone who was once fooled by Jacob, and now regrets it.
Richard asks why Jacob doesn’t just tell them what to do himself. He’s a Catholic, remember, so he’s used to intermediaries assigning tasks. Jacob then invites Richard to become his intermediary, communicating instructions to future island inhabitants. Interestingly enough, Jacob rewards Richard by giving him something he almost certainly does not want – eternal life. This was totally a con: Jacob made Richard think that was what he wanted and tricked him into accepting it. Unwittingly, Richard promises to assist Jacob as a protector of the island.
In person, the Man in Black begs Jacob to just let him leave the island. Jacob retorts that as long as he lives, MIB will never leave. And Jacob is the good guy? He could be, but he could easily be the bad guy. Maybe Jacob loses his power if MIB leaves the island, and whereas MIB only wants to be free, Jacob is obsessed with the religion he has built up around himself, and must hold onto his power. If MIB is malevolence incarnate, as the pro-Jacob forces claim, how was he once human? He wasn’t always this way, then
As I’ve said before, I’m inclined to believe that Jacob and the Man in Black are simply different entities with some differing philosophies but many of the same operating procedures. Both are expert con men, both murder or allow murders to take place, both have lied to the people who were following them, etc. There are faith and science, destiny and free will questions built up around both of these characters. But good and evil? If anything, MIB is the more sympathetic one, based on the fragments of his history we’ve learned. And for that matter, Jacob’s philosophy seems flawed. He doesn’t want to tell people what to do, but telling Richard to tell people is almost exactly the same thing.
So where does all this leave us? We have Jacob. We have the Man in Black. Hopefully they’ll be getting their own centric episodes soon. Learning more about MIB’s childhood will likely shed some light on how we are supposed to interpret his character.
As for the deeply religious undertones in this episode, I don’t think the island is actually hell in the Catholic or religious sense. It’s a hell for those who want to leave, who have lost loved ones or suffered greatly during their time there. But it’s also a place where miracles happen, where people are given second chances, can be healed of their pains, both physical and otherwise, where scientific research can be conducted. Hell is a matter of interpretation. After all, in another tale named Lost – Paradise Lost, that is – John Milton’s Devil declares “Tis better to rule in hell than to serve in heaven.”
I’ll end this recap with one final connection between Lost and the Canary Islands. Over the course of the Canary Islands’ history, people claimed to have seen a vanishing and reappearing eighth island. So there you go, the number 8, and a mysterious island. Oh, and the Canary Islands were the location of a famous plane crash in 1977, the year of the Incident in the Lost universe. Thanks to Lostpedia for the info. (1-14 from Robz888 at Darkufo)
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In addition to getting a story that revealed how Richard Alpert got to The Island, we got a story that revealed more of the historical relationship between Jacob and the Man In Black. Indeed, we got the sense that the battle these two angels/demons/whatchamacallums waged over Alpert’s soul was actually the first phase of Man In Black’s 240-years-in-the-making Smoke-man from Alcatraz escape plan. The episode used a corked, half-empty jug of wine as a metaphor for The Island as a never-to-be-opened holding container for hell and assorted analogous concepts: malevolence, evil, darkness, more. Jacob said all those words were functional words to characterize the archetype embodied by the Man In Black. (No doubt Smokey’s own interpretation of Jacob’s symbols would have been be more charitable and ”glass half full.”)
Father Black tipped off a fellow named Mr. Jonas Whitfield, an officer in the employ of Magnus Hanso, a shipping merchant and slave owner, that Ricardo was basically the kind of guy who’d do anything to stay alive — even suffer dehumanization. Ricardo got a new lease on life by accepting a leash, and he soon found himself in manacles and anklets in the bowels of Hanso’s ship: The Black Rock. According an apocryphal quasi-canon texts of Lost, Magnus Hanso was an ancestor of Alvar Hanso, the financier behind The Dharma Initiative. I encourage you to peruse his deets at Lostpedia at your leisure on another occasion.
(P.S.: I know many of you are wondering if Lost made a continuity error regarding the time of day of The Black Rock’s arrival. The error assumes that the ship that Jacob and the Man In Black saw last season during the sunny breakfast talk was The Black Rock. I was among those who assumed it was The Black Rock; I am now going to assume that I was simply wrong to have assumed that. See? Error resolved!)
As Ricardo chomped, MIB said some interesting things about himself. He claimed that ”the devil” had ”betrayed” him. ”He took my body. My humanity.” My guess is that hard-core theorists will spend the next week factoring that bit of info into their ”Who is Smokey?” conjectures. Some ideas I’m mulling over? Cain and Abel, the world’s first CSI murder case. Cain was punished to wander the world as an immortal entity because he murdered his brother. He was also given a dark mark to scare away anyone who’d want to do him harm. I’d dare say that Earth-bound immortality qualifies as a kind of body-nullifying, dehumanizing curse — and that being able to convert into black smoke and change shape can qualify as some kind of protective-spooky defensive mechanism. Abel’s final fate is more on-the-nose with Lost: Wikipedia cites an apocryphal Biblical text that says that Abel now resides in a ”netherworld,” an ”awful man” who is tasked with judging all creatures, and examining the righteous and the sinners.”
‘My friend, you and I can talk all day long about what is right and what is wrong but the question before you remains the same: Do you ever want to see your wife again?” His utilitarian logic is located in the broad, contentious body of thought known as ”Consequentialism.” As you might glean from MIB’s sentiment, a weaknesses of ”Consequentialism” is its shaky, nebulous definition of justice. A major egghead in this field? Jeremy Bentham, the name Charles Widmore gave John Locke before his death. He had at least one thing in common with MIB/Fake Locke: Bentham was an abolitionist.
He eyeballed the shadowy entrance to Jacob’s crypt-HQ, then got his ass kicked three different ways by the sunny blonde demigod, new and improved with action hero powers. He interrogated Ricardo with a mix of indignation and glibness that was both terrifying and funny. I loved the way he was framed against the blue sky, bright and elemental, a morning star. The Latin word for ”morning star”? That’s right: Lucifer. Which brings us to the semiotic cipher that is Mark Pellegrino. The actor is marvelous as Jacob. But Pellegrino also appears on Supernatural, playing… Lucifer
Interesting: MIB’s m.o. was all about helping people to their feet. Jacob’s m.o. was all about making people do it themselves. Physician, heal thyself!
Let us note two things. If Jacob really was some kind of God/Jesus figure, you’d think he would have been able to grant Ricardo’s first two requests. Moreover, Jacob’s rejection of Original Sin is provocative for anyone whose theory of a Christ-like Jacob has been informed by Christian theology, as many Christians do believe in Original Sin. Maybe Jacob-Jesus is trying to prove that spiritually renewed people can truly ”go and sin no more” (John 8:11)? Perhaps The Island isn’t a place where people are spiritually tested, but rather where religions are tested for relevancy and truthfulness. Jacob and Smokey are basically quality control experts — Inspectors 1 and 2 — of Fruit of the Loom holy underwear. And right now, Christianity’s up.
Put another way: Hurley and Richard basically switched roles last night, with Hurley playing Island advisor and Richard playing castaway spiritual seeker. Isabella asked Ricardo why he had buried her cross — her soul; her love; his compass. It was a gentle indictment of Ricardo’s misplaced values — of finding treasure in the material, not spiritual, in what he can hold in the moment, not carry forever in his heart.
But the rest Ricardo either heard or felt: ”As much as you wanted to save me, it was my time. You’ve suffered enough.” He replied: ”I’ve missed you. I would do anything for us to be together again.” She said, ”My love. We are already together.” Translation: It’s what Michael Landon said in that Little House on the Prairie clip from last week: It’s about ”knowin’ that people aren’t really gone when they die. We have all the good memories to sustain us until we see ‘em again.” Alpert’s real life namesake, Hindu guru Richard Alpert/Ram Dass, advocates the idea that everything is suffused spirit. With an assist from Hurley, Ricardo/Richard finally earned the eyes to see that, and to recognize that we can let go of Hell and move into Heaven whenever we want. What Ricardo/Richard got was huge whollop of ”Amazing Grace,” the hymn written by a former slaver during a harrowing night at sea: ”Amazing grace/how sweet the sound/that saved a wretch like me/I once was lost/but now am found/was blind but now I see.”?
Nonetheless, I’m not sold on MIB being ”bad” and Jacob being ”good.” Neither sold me as wholly trustworthy last night — which is fitting. My other big theory of late has been that each episode of Lost this year has been linked to one of The Ten Commandments. This was the 9th hour, so we should have gotten the 9th Commandment, and we did: Do not bare false witness against your neighbor. Translation: Don’t lie; don’t break a promise. I’m willing to cede that Jacob did right by Richard, fulfilling his promise of giving him purpose and clarity over the course of the episode. But I’m not sure he was telling us the truth about his wine bottle. I accept The Cork. The Cork makes sense. But I wonder if Jacob is wrong about the wine. I get the sense that Jacob isn’t keen on death. His only super-power is the one that Satan has: Fall into his clutches, and he gets to keep you forever. I’m not saying he’s evil. But I am saying that in so many heroic stories, the real, necessary reality of death is often mistaken for evil. So what if the wine in Jacob’s bottle = all the souls that have come to The Island and lost the wager with Smokey? What if all those souls are trapped on The Island because Jacob refuses to let them go? In fact, what if the terms of the wager are akin to one of those Old Testament bets that God would make with his prophets, whereby a while wicked city can be saved if one ”good soul” can be found? Maybe Jacob has been holding onto all those souls who’ve lost the wager because he’s holding out to find that one good man that can give them all a second chance at life? And maybe Smokey thinks that’s fundamentally wrong or unnatural, which is why he’s so desperate to just end this whole damn redemption game, so everyone can move on to whatever afterlife they deserve — including himself. Breaking the bottle doesn’t release a toxic cloud of evil — it just sets the prisoners of Jacob’s purgatory free. (15-25 by Doc Jensen at EW.com)
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After his brief conversation with Richard on the beach, it seemed like Jacob learned something important: that the very act of illumination or explanation might be influencing the decisions his subjects make. Direct interference has been inadvertently corrupting the point he’s been trying to make, marking the whole experiment null and void. This may be why everyone else is dead, and nothing has so far has worked to prove the dark man wrong.Want to go a step further? Richard’s own conversation with him is what exactly made Jacob realize the need for an impartial go-between. Jacob creates Richard’s job because, after realizing Richard’s point, he recognizes the necessity of giving orders without handing out answers. Alpert essentially creates his own position. In that respect, Richard becomes the cause of his own suffering. He wanders the island for the next 150 years as an ancient adviser with very little real knowledge to share, he himself nothing more than a middle man kept in the dark about most things
So no, I don’t think everyone is dead. I don’t think everyone’s in hell. I will however, say this: the way Richard looked specifically at Jack when he said “You’re dead”? I happen to think that was tremendously important. If anyone did die during the plane crash, maybe it was Jack. Maybe that’s why he woke up so far removed from 815′s wreckage. Maybe that’s also why his tattoo says “He walks among us (i.e. ‘the living’), but is not one of us”. Maybe that’s what Achara saw in him back in Thailand that scared the shit out of her. So maybe, just maybe, when Richard said that Jack is dead, he hit the nail right on the head… without even really knowing it.
And if Jacob brought the Black Rock to the island, maybe the dark man caused the wreck. Perhaps he’s even responsible for the storm, too. We already know the MIB protests new people being brought to the island, so it would make sense that he’d try to sink or destroy the ship. In a vengeful way, it even makes sense that he’d ram the prow of the Black Rock right into Jacob’s statue… almost as if saying “You want it? HERE!” and shoving the vessel down Jacob’s throat. These two characters definitely revel in sending messages to each other, as indicated later on when Richard brings the dark man a white rock on Jacob’s behalf.
One cool thing we get confirmation on: the dark man can manifest himself based upon other people’s memories. We’ve seen hints that this was possible during The Cost of Living, when he appeared as ghosts of the drug dealers Mr. Eko had killed with his machete. Up until that point we’d only seen the dark man use physical bodies he’d accessed while on the island: Christian Shephard, Yemi, and later on Alex. But just as he plucked those ghosts from Eko’s past after scanning him, the dark man was able to take Isabella’s form after scanning Richard. His abilities to take the shape of people are limited only to what he knows and sees.
It was also cool to see Dogen’s dagger again. Apparently it works the same on Jacob as it does on the MIB, which is yet another nod toward the theory that these characters are nothing but two halves of one whole being. Jacob got the name, identity, and original human form… the dark man got the kickass smoke powers and ability to manifest himself as other people. They’re as opposite as black and white can get, yet still cut from the same mold.
This would seem to go against Jacob’s assertion that progress is being made. On the contrary however, Jacob is actively seeking to prove his point. He flat out explains LOST’s most basic principal as his own philosophy: people need to do good or bad by their own choice. If he has to interfere or influence them in any way, his point is disproved and therefore meaningless. Over and over he’s tried, and over and over he’s failed, ending in the deaths of all those people he’s brought to the island.
It’s here that Richard points out the flaw in Jacob’s logic: just because he’s not influencing the people who come to the island, it doesn’t mean the dark man isn’t corrupting them himself. If you watch as Jacob first encounters Richard he actually seems frustrated that he’s already been reached, or even touched, by the man in black. At this point Jacob realizes the need to protect his subjects from such outside influence, and that’s where Richard’s job as adviser comes in. Through the use of obscure lists and direction, Jacob’s people can help those who arrive on the island’s shores make their own choices without directly interfering in those choices themselves. That, in essence, is the crux of LOST
Make no mistake about it: Richard was seconds away from joining team Flocke. Hugo arrived in the nick of time to turn Richard around, preventing the dark man from gaining a valuable recruit. The biggest question however, becomes this: did we really see Isabella speaking to her husband? Or did we see Jacob’s own version of Isabella, strategically placed there to sway Richard back to his own team?
Just as the Swan hatch acted as a cork for unlimited magnetic energies, the island acts as a cork to keep corruption and wickedness at bay. This explains why Ms. Hawking (and probably Charles Widmore) understand the gloomy ramifications should the island fail to contain this wellspring of darkness. In fact, it might even explain Widmore’s return to the island: he’s always fancied himself as Jacob’s replacement. I could totally see Widmore’s fanatical devotion lending him a sense of entitlement to Jacob’s position, with the very desire for that power corrupting him and disqualifying him from assuming the role. All other explanations for Widmore’s motives don’t seem to make any sense, at least not right now. (26-34 by Vozzek69 at DarkUFO)

Rating: 10.0/10 (2 votes cast)

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