Season 2, Episode 10: "The 23rd Psalm"

Title: The 23rd Psalm
This of course is in reference to the 23rd Psalm which
Mr. Eko recites at the end. This is also what he has
been inscribing on his stick. The 23rd Psalm is most
recognizably used at funerals. Mr.
Eko recites it while burning the plane where he finds
his dead brother, a "funeral" of sorts. Of course, the
number 23 is important as it is one of the numbers.

In this episode, we learn a lot about Mr. Eko. It
starts off with a flashback of him as a child with bad

men coming to his village and taking the children
(this is also parallel to "the others" coming and
taking the children on the island). They grab his
brother, trying to force him to kill an old man. Eko
pushes his brother out of the way, grabs the gun and
kills the man. The bad men take him with them, rip the
cross off his neck saying "you won't need that
anymore." They call him a "bold killer." He grows up
with these guys, and gets involved in drug smuggling,
and becomes known as "the man with no soul."
Meanwhile, his brother becomes a priest.

On the island, Eko is carving Bible verses into his
stick (the 23rd psalm). Claire asks what he is writing
and he says "things I need to remember." He asks her
why she named her baby "Aaron," and he mentions that
was Moses's brother. She says something about it must
have been hard for Moses, always being compared to his
brother who was "good." He seems to nod like he
understand what she means.

In more flashbacks, we see Eko turn to his brother for
help getting a plane to smuggle drugs out of the
country. His brother won't help him and kicks him out.
His brother is now wearing the cross that was ripped
off Eko's neck as a child. He notices it and talks
about "that day...it was you who was saved." This
implies that Eko was in fact trying to save his
brother that day when he was taken. He sacrificed
himself for his brother. Deep down he really is a good
person.

Meanwhile, back on the island, Eko is very adament
about finding the source of the Virgin Mary statues
that Charlie found. He KNOWS before even been told
anything, what is inside the statue, and that it came
from a plane. Charlie is trying to take Eko to the
plane, where he is interrogating him about his drug
use and why he had the statue. Charlie mentions that
it was his brother who got him to become an addict. He
says he was "a good person," he was even an altar boy.
He tells Eko to stop judging him. Many of the
characters have struggled with being "good" (Ana
Lucia, Kate, Jack, etc.) and the subject of being a
good person seems to come up alot. (the others only
took the good people, according to Goodwin. Note his
name GOODwin).

They come across a dead "priest" in the jungle and
noticing he has a gold tooth, Eko says this man saved
his life. This was his "friend" who pushed him out of
the plane. If not for him, Eko would have been on that
plane and would have crashed on the island. (And
instead, he
got on ANOTHER plane and crashed on the same island!)
Hmmm...fate? Although we still don't know why he was
on the plane from Australia to L.A. But it seems that
all of the survivors so far, we have seen that
something went wrong or some strange coincidence or
"fate" intervened, causing them to be on that
particular flight. If Eko's brother hadn't showed up,
his friend would not have pushed him out of the plane,
and he would have died in the crash with the rest of
them.

In the next flashback, Eko threatens his brother that
his men will burn his church unless he makes them
priests so they can fly out of the country with the
drugs. He brother does it and takes the money. Eko
says "we're both sinners now," and his brother
responds yes, but that God will only forgive him. He
tells Eko that he will never be a priest.

In the jungle, Charlie climbs the tree looking for the
crashed plane. Eko is surround by black smoke, which
comes right up to him. Charlie looks on in fear as Eko
stands and faces the smoke. He does not appear to be
afraid ("I fear no evil") and stands there as the
smoke consumes him. Thanks to TiVo and slo-mo, I was
able to watch and rewatch the smoke as it went through
him. Several images appear in the smoke, including
what looks like faces of him as a boy, his brother,
the old man he killed, and what appeared to be a woman
(the Virgin Mary?) or perhaps Jesus? It was hard to
see who specifically but definitely faces were there.
After the
smoke went away, Charlie mentions that most people run
from it, but he replies "I was not afraid of it." This
is similar to Locke, when he was confronted with the
black smoke, and he embraced it rather than run like
everyone else. Locke and Eko are the only two on the
island who have not run from it, or who were not
scared. They are also the only two who are truly "men
of faith."

In another flashback, we see Eko dressed as a priest
and about to board the plane. His brother comes and
tells him not to get on the plane. He says that Eko
saved his life once before, and urges him not to go.
He acknowledges that Eko "saved" him as a boy. (Lots
of references to being "saved" in this show - such as
when Sawyer awoke from his coma and asked if they were
"saved" - kind of double meaning there.) Just then the
military arrives and a shootout begins. His brother
gets killed, and Eko puts him in the plane and is
about to get in, but his "friend" pushes him out, and
the plane takes off without him. The military assumes
he is a real priest and he does not get caught. His
brother truly did save his life. Not only in the sense
that he didn't get on the plane (which eventually
crashed) but also that he was freed and was able to
not get caught. (Same thing
happened to Kate, she was "saved" by crashing on the
island.) This time it was his brother who took the
sacrifice for him. Once again, we see the feelings of
GUILT that pretty much every one of the survivors have
faced in their life. Almost all of them, from what we
have seen so far, feels guilty for the death of
someone else, whether they killed them directly or
indirectly (Jack's guilt over girl dying in surgery,
Sayid's guilt over Nadia - "she is dead because of
me," Sawyer's guilt over killing who he thought was
the real Sawyer, Kate's guilt over killing her
childhood friend Tom, etc.) Now we see that Eko, also,
feels guilt over getting his brother killed. All of
them seem to be struggling with their guilt on the
island. THE ISLAND is a place for them to confront
their fears and their past actions. Those who have
sinned seem to be consumed by this.

Back on the island, Eko finds the plane and his
brother in it. He breaks down and cries when he sees
the cross necklace that was his as a child, now on his
dead brother. He pours water over him (symbolic of a
priest pouring Holy Water/baptism/rebirth) and recites
the 23rd Psalm as he and Charlie burn the plane.
Charlie starts reciting the Psalm along with him
towards the end, then asks if he really is a priest.
He puts the cross back on and says yes, he is. We
think Charlie is going to kick his drug habit, since
he recites the psalm with Eko, and then goes to admit
his problem to Claire and apologize. He appears to
truly have turned over a new leaf. However, we see him
in the last scene go and uncover a hidden stash of the
statues. We don't see if he actually uses the drugs or
not.

This episode also deals alot with fate. (Think back to
last season, when Charlie wrote out the letters F A T
E on the tape on his knuckles. This was eventually
what led the other survivors to find him when he was
taken by Ethan.) Lots of references to
FATE....Remember the conversation between Locke and
Eko about "what are the odds" of finding the missing
film reel. Eko says don't confuse coincidence with
fate. As we have seen with all the other characters,
they were all on that plane for a reason, reasons they
were all put on the island together. What are the
"odds" that Eko's plane crashed on the SAME island as
his brother? Definitely something to do with fate.

So...now that we have FINALLY seen the black smoke or
"the monster" or "the security system," it gives a
little more insight into what it is. As I mentioned
before, Locke and Eko are the only ones so far NOT to
run away from it. They are not afraid, and as the 23rd
psalm says, they fear no evil. The black smoke seems
to represent "the shadow of death" as referred to in
the 23rd psalm (I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death) - when Eko looked into the smoke, he
saw the faces of those who had died as well as other
symbolic religious figures. He looked right into the
face of death, and he is not afraid. Being a "priest"
or a religious person or a man of faith such as Locke,
one would not be afraid of death. I think we are going
to start to see more of a relationship between Eko and
Locke, and more similarities between the two.

One weird thing is that in the TRUE verse of the 23rd
Psalm, it says "I walk through the valley of the
shadow of death." However...when Eko said it, he said
"I walk through the SHADOW of the valley of death." He
switches the words around. Is there a reason for this?
Maybe this ties in with him literally "walking
through" the shadow of the black smoke (death)? I
don't know, but I'm sure the writers switched the two
words for a reason. They have commented several times
the religious implications in the show are not just a
coincidence, there is definite meaning behind it.

We also see in this episode Michael "communiticating"
with Walt again on the computer (or atleast, what he
thinks is Walt, though I'm sure it's not really him.)
After asking if he is alone, "Walt" types for him to
come to.... and we don't see any more because that is
when Jack walks in.
However we know from next week's scenes that Michael
takes off, with a gun. Did "Walt" tell him where to
go? Or is it "the others' tricking him into going
somewhere else so they can get him too?

Great episode tonight!!! One of the best yet, I think.
I am still just so amazed at the creativity and
brilliance of the writers. To think, they had to plan
out all of these characters backstories from the very
beginning. Because before we ever get insight into
each person's flashbacks, there are snippits into
their pasts that we may not understand then, but once
we see their backstory it all makes sense. (So, Eko
taking a "vow of silence" for 40 days after killing
the two men, makes more
sense now that we know he was a "priest.") I'm just
amazed at the depth of each of the characters and how
everything is intertwined into the writing of each
episode.

Can't wait for next week!!