LOST Rewatch: The 23rd Psalm

Credit: tle1lost.wordpress.com

Hey, do you know who we don't know much about on LOST, season 2? Mr. Eko, right? He's this big, near silent, seemingly religious individual who likes to carry around big tree branches like Buford Pusser. (And, like Pusser, he doesn't carry that stick for show. He used it in "The Other 48 Days" and since then has been carving scripture verses in it. It was from this initial killing incident on the Island that he remained silent for 40 days.)

So, these things we know. But let's learn more. And that is what this episode is about. We learn that Eko was once the biggest boy in his Nigerian village. And he had a strong sense of loyalty. This he demonstrated when the warlord's army rolled up in town, disrupted the kid's soccer match, and tried to brainwash Eko's brother Yemi into becoming a killer by gunning down a random old man in front of the village Catholic Church. But Eko stepped in and took the gun and did the killing himself to save Yemi the shock of it all.

And because of all of this, Eko grew up to be a stone-cold drug runner who was quick to kill with a knife to get what he wanted. We also learn that Yemi grew up to be a priest. And that Eko concocted the plan that got bundles of heroin in Virgin Mary statues, in a Beechcraft airplane, (remember the Beechcraft airplane, Boone's ghost?) along with priests in the plane, flying and crashing into the Island years before Eko himself crashed along with the rest of Flight 815.

So now we know more about Eko. But we also learn in this episode that the recurrence of heroin on the Island is doing strange things to Charlie. It's not that he is tempted to taking the drugs again--though he insists on carrying a Virgin Mary statue in his backpack at all times and he also has a stash of five other statues hidden in the jungle. But he's not using . .  do you understand?!

Still, Claire doesn't want Charlie around baby Aaron anymore since he's proven to be untrustworthy. And that drives Charlie into a typical (pre-Moth) Charlie spiral of feeling underappreciated and overlooked. So when Eko demands to know where this Beechcraft plane is on the Island, Charlie agrees to take him. And all the while he's whinging about how people think he's a liar and why won't Claire trust him and how come Locke is moving in on his (fake) (not-)Baby Mommy and making him an exile and even discovering his stash of heroin statues and taking them away from him and locking them up in the Swan Station's gun safe, and His News is all of Woe!

But Charlie has to grow up. And Eko is here to help him, along with his trusty "Jesus stick." The two mismatched pair find the plane, burn it, and refrain from getting high off of the smoke.

Still . . . in the end, Charlie is shifting to the dark side. He is living on the outcast side of the beach with Sawyer. (More on HIM to come.) And our favorite rock god is not very happy.