Episode 609: Ab Aeterno

This is it! This is the Richard centric episode we have been waiting for!

SPOILER ALERT! http://abc.go.com/watch/lost/93372 SPOILER ALERT!

There were not many questions answered this episode about the Man in Black or Jacob, but we did recieve a lot of answers. I'm just going to go through the episode piece by piece. I do want to comment right off on Nestor's Carbonell's acting performance in this episode. He was amazing and the way he played the period scenes were fantastic. I even loved him during the present scenes, especially when he did his giddy (though it wasn't giddy) little laugh right at the beginning of the episode. This was an amazing episode, and I just had to watch it again today in order to completely understand everything that happened.

Okay, let's get started. Right at the beginning of the episode we get to see the entire scene of Ilana at the Russian hospital. Why she's there? We don't know. What happened to her? We don't know. How she knows Jacob? We don't know. But we do know what Ilana's mission is: to protect the candidates. Awesome! OK, Ilana team go!

Next: THE ISLAND IS NOT HELL. We were told about four years ago during season 2 by Damon and Carlton that the island is not hell, it's not purgatory. Richard only says this because yes he believes it because he's hurting and this is what the Man in Black told him in order to manipulate him into killing Jacob. The island is a cork apparently that is containing evil. This evil I think is this physical electromagnetic force that brews under the island that causes the time travel, sets off the Swan station, and causes women to not be able to become pregnant. This evil is manifested in the smoke monster and as told through the metaphor at the end with the smashed wine bottle, smokey wants to escape to spread his evil through the world. Jacob is trying to contain him and prove him wrong by giving people a chance to redeem themselves on the island. What a beautiful story. Gotta love Lost.

With that, we come to Richard's backstory in the Canary Islands in 1867. Isabella and Richard are wicked adorable together. I felt so bad for Richard and I will continue to feel bad for Richard for the rest of the series. His backstory was awfully sad, possibly even more sad than Locke, only not really. The doctor and the priest have to be the worst doctor and priest have ever seen in my life. They were horrible! I'm glad Richard killed the stupid doctor. Next, we learned the origins of the Black Rock and I totally knew Richard came in on it! I had a feeling especially with everything that had happened recently with Richard looking at the chains last week and Not-Locke saying "Glad to see you out of those chains!" Totally knew it.

Now I want to talk about that last Ghost Whisperer-esque scene at the end where Hurley really has taken control of his gift. It was adorable and seeing Richard's development and coming to terms with the perspective. Also, Hurley's very creepy warning at the end was scary, and I think Hurley was scared too. Yikes!

And even though we learned that Richard recieved his "gift", (he asked for it) we don't know what this power is that Jacob has. Is Jacob God? Who is the Man in Black? Is he the devil? He said he had a mother but I'm still unsure about who these characters actually are. I guess we shall know soon!

Namaste!