Richard. Ricardus. Ricardo. We’ve known him by several names and he’s clearly an important player in the LOST saga, but everything else about him has been a mystery. This week’s “Ab Aeterno” fills in all the blanks.

Robert

Ever since I heard about this episode, it was easily my most-anticipated of the entire series. An hour devoted to Richard Alpert that explained his role in everything—and presumably some history of the island itself—was an exciting proposition, and for a show that’s been steadily building towards a monumental finale, it turned out to be a striking contrast to the action we’ve been following thus far. And personally, it brought me back into the fold of what’s happening on the island. I’d been saying that the flash-sideways are the final resolutions for all of the main characters and what we should be focused on, but when this episode threatened to destroy that theory altogether by proclaiming that they were all dead and in Hell, I was forced to think again.

Two important ideas that permeate LOST are that 1) there are no absolutes and 2) there are forces larger than ourselves perpetually at work. This episode operated almost entirely on that level with the Man in Black (who’s inferred to be the Devil) simply looking to escape his prison, and Jacob (who might be seen as God) testing mankind’s ability to stay on the straight and narrow—and thus keep the Devil on ice—time and time again. The one thing that religion has taught us is that the Devil can never be trusted, but his subterfuge as Isabella is just clever enough to get a devastated Richard into action again. But when Richard confronts Jacob we’re finally told his reason for being on the island and that he must help Jacob keep the Man in Black in this prison for all of humanity’s sake.

On an even larger scale, it’s a whopper of a conceit (even for LOST) to play with the concept of moral dualism and intertwine it with common Judeo-Christian beliefs, resulting in a scenario where the Devil can actually kill God, but it reminds me once again that with this show there are no absolutes. The Devil found a loophole to kill God (Locke), but God employed murderers (Ben and the Others) in his fight to contain the Devil. Can even God and the Devil be morally interchangeable? Or is it more likely that these agents of good and evil are not who they say they are? Oh, my aching head…

Also, a couple of weeks ago, I commended Michael Emerson on his seemingly effortless work as the ever-shifting Ben Linus, but really, Nestor Carbonell brought a whole new level of humanity to a character I had previously considered almost entirely inhuman. For a character that began as a guest role, I’m kind of amazed that LOST has been able to turn him into such a crucial element in the lore of the series. The sorrow of his loss, the desolation of being the sole survivor of the Black Rock, even the painful desperation of trying to get out of those damn chains; it all made for a poignant, wonderfully told tale of one character’s story amidst all of other chaos that’s going on.

Armando

Wow. That was a pretty good episode of LOST. It was an episode where someone who hasn’t really been keeping up with LOST could have enjoyed.

I was totally captivated by the “out of the norm” backstory. Not only was it in Spanish but it was almost as dramatic as a Spanish soap opera. Almost. Not quite. And that’s a good thing. Now we pretty much know why the Losties are on the island and the reasons for them being there. Do we know all the intricate details of Jacob and MIB? No, but it isn’t bugging me in the least.

The dark, creepy factor was played up quite a bit as well. Some are complaining that the scenes with Alpert trapped on the ship were a bit long in the tooth. While I agree they were a bit long, I was totally invested in it. We see now how tortured a life Alpert has lived.

The one scene I did/didn’t enjoy was the ”ghost” scene with Hurley. I thought it was good but I just couldn’t stop thinking of Ghost while watching it.

Overall, I thought this was one of the best episodes that clearly answered the foundation of the series, and it finally seems like they are working towards a conclusion. If they can keep this momentum up, the series finale should be a smash.

Chris

I enjoy episodes like this one that break the formula that LOST is so known for. The extended flashback answered some questions and definitely expanded Richard’s character a whole lot. Before the episode aired I thought they might kill him off, that this might be Richard’s swan song. Kinda like how the promo for “Dr. Linus” implied that Ben was going to kick the bucket. But I’m glad that they didn’t do either of those things.

This is one of the very few LOST Season 6 episodes that I think new viewers could watch and maybe actually get some entertainment out of. Richard’s journey to the island and positioning him as a tragic figure made the hour fly by. Very surprised by Nestor Carbonell’s performance here as he’s been mostly subdued every other time Richard’s made an appearance.

So the whole devil/god good/evil thing. Will this ever actually be made clearer? Maybe in the runup to the finale but I feel like each side could potentially be making up their stories. MIB told Richard that they were in hell and that Jacob was the devil; Jacob told Richard that MIB was evil and there’s a cork and some junk. Meanwhile in the present-day island time MIB is telling all sorts of tales to the Losties that they’ll see their loved ones again and blah blah blah while also doing plenty of killing. Jacob’s whole thing is that he brings people to the island to prove that not everyone can be corrupted (but I guess since everyone dies has anything really been proven ever?). Hm. What to believe? I want to know the real backstory of Jacob/MIB and how they got to the island originally and all that. But at this point I’m not sure we’ll get that.

I’m still not clear on how the whole candidate/Ilana/Frank thing will work out. But hey, that’s why this is LOST. I’m always left wondering how they’re going to resolve big story points. And eventually they do. They don’t have much time to explain Ilana’s story but maybe we’ll get something. Good episode, though not my favorite ever. We’ve got seven more and I can’t wait!

Scott

I think we all had our own vague notions of what we’d get from last night’s long-awaited Richard-centric episode. I was expecting an entire hour of revisited scenes involving Richard from the past three seasons, with new material from a fresh POV. But that’s why I’m but a lowly peasant while the writers of LOST have turned the task of creating a weekly drama knockoff of Survivor into a billion dollar franchise that’s equal parts The Prisoner and the Torah.

“Ab Aeterno” was LOST’s most religious installment ever. While all its characters’ stories can be stretched into Abrahamic parables, Richard’s was straight out of the Old Testament (or the Twilight Zone): a poor man accidentally kills a rich man, is saved from hanging at the last minute only to live a life of servitude, is ushered into what amounts to the Garden of Eden by an act of God, is tempted by Satan, overcomes his own guilt and wrath, then accepts an eternal life of penance (and servitude) to atone for his sins. Richard (or Ricardo, or Ricardus) has been a humble servant of Jacob for 150 years, carrying out his will without asking many questions. His faith wavers in the wake of Jacob’s death, but just as he’s about to embrace the Man In Black, the forces of good step in.

I for one found the episode incredibly moving, a perfect marriage of LOST’s mythology and adventurousness. And boy, did it have guts; I don’t even think those artsy hippies at HBO would allow one of their signature shows to spend 55 minutes of an hour in the belly of a crashed ship in subtitled Spanish without a single series regular in sight. It’s a great self-contained story, but becomes more ambiguous when contextualized within the series as a whole. While Richard is on the side of white-shirted Jacob, this IS the guy who manipulated a sad kid with an abusive father to carry out genocide on the DHARMA Initiative in a gas attack. And I still wonder if Jacob is the good guy after all. It seems a little too easy for LOST’s six years of shifting allegiances and ambiguous character motives to come down to a guy in a white shirt who’s God and a guy in a black shirt who’s Satan. And why doesn’t he have a name? What if he has a pretty recognizable name, something like “God”? What if he’s grown tired of humanity’s wickedness and wants to wipe us all out? And what if right before he did, a fallen angel called Jacob was able to trap him in the Garden of Eden, and wants to convince him that humanity can be redeemed?

We had to dig deep to tackle all the metaphysical/spiritual/moral undertones working their way throughout this episode, but try we did. What say you, LOST fans?