The Lost Diaries, Episode 210

Lost continues to thrill and baffle. Tonight was a Mr. Eko-centric episode and though my thought has been that his past included involvement in the Rwandan genocide, it was actually a much less specific gang-type involvement. It also seems that Eko is not from Rwanda, but from Nigeria. It's interesting to learn that Eko, as I guessed, has a hugely influential Catholic background. In a nutshell, Eko (as a child) saved his brother from having to kill a man; he became a gang-type leader, at one point, being accused of having "no soul"; and in the end, his brother saved his life. His brother was lost and he took over the duties as priest of the town. The plane in which his brother was lost shows up on the island and in this episode, Eko makes a pilgrimage to find him. This all ties in with his forty days of silence after the crash and the scripture verses carved into his "staff." It makes even more sense, in conjunction with Psalm 23 (also the title of this episode) which refers to a staff as being a comfort. But there's more to Eko than just the religious aspects -- I'm interested in learning what was behind his statement, "Don't confuse coincidence with fate."

The main thrill of this episode was seeing "the monster." Although I'm not really sure what we saw was the monster; it seems like the forerunner to an actual encounter with the monster. It was a nebulus cloud of black smoke, which, when viewed from above, looked like a shadowy brontosaurus. Are we to believe that this cloud is what ripped the pilot out of the plane? It doesn't seem possible. So that leads me to believe that this is not the monster, but an extension of it.

It all ended on a much more scary note than monsters and shadows -- Charlie, the rock-star-and-recovering-heroin-addict, is staring into a tree-stump-hiding-space full of Virgin Mary statues. The kicker? These virgins are full of heroin. As he stares at them, with the flame from his torch flickering on his face, there's an inkling that Mother Mary is not going to save him from starting up with the heroin again. Shiver.