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Wednesday, March 24, 2010

Lost 6.9: Richard's Story

Well, we finally get the story of Richard Alpert in Lost 6.9. Turns out he's not quite eternal, having come to the island on the shipwrecked Black Rock in 1867, but that certainly suffices for ageless immortality for our 20th-21st century characters.

First, let me say I always liked Richard. Timeless characters, whether observers or players, provide a satisfying unity, an anchor, to high-flying magic and science fiction. Over on Fringe, J. J. Abrams latest excellent creation, the eternal bald observer (revealed as part of a team of eternal bald guys) does a good job in this role.

Unlike eternal characters who literally look the same all their lives, Richard Alpert's appearance and manner changed with circumstances, while his age stayed constant (late 30s, maybe a little older). He was homespun on the island, but urbane when he traveled in the greater world, as when he recruited Juliet.

Tonight we learn that through all of this he has been a pawn in the battle between Jacob and the Man in Black (aka Nemesis, faux-Locke). Jacob pulled the Black Rock to the island, Nemesis recruited Richard to kill Jacob, but Jacob succeeded in turning Richard to the better cause and making him ageless in the bargain. We got about as explicit a statement from Jacob as we've so far heard about this cause: keep the evil that is now faux-Locke from spreading out from the island to the world at large. Keep the evil genie in the island-bottle.

Richard's commitment to Jacob and the good receives its ultimate test in Lost 6.9. Devastated by Jacob's death, recalling the Man in Black's offer to Richard to join him if Richard ever changes his mind, Richard is about to move over to the dark side when Hurley engages him in the jungle. Hurley's ability to see and converse with the dead - more full-fledged than Miles' - puts Richard in touch with Isabella, his wife, deceased. Richard's attempt to save her back in 1867 put him on this path of restless immortality. Fortunately, Hurley Reyes is of course fluent in Spanish, and easily converses with Isabella's ghost, who among other things praises Ricardo's fine English. The result: Richard is staying with the good guys after all.

There were some good Tenerife (Richard's original home) scenes in tonight's show, some interesting background on the Jacob-Nemesis conflict, but overall the story was oddly unsurprising, and I missed alternate better-LA and its inexplicably intersecting characters, which I look forward to seeing more of next week.


5-min podcast review of Lost

See also  Lost Season Six Double Premiere ... Three Questions Arising from the Lost Season Six Premiere: Linkage Between Two Realities,  Dead Bodies Inhabited, Who/What Survived H-Blast? ... Lost 6.3:  Kate and Claire, Tenacious Details, and Dr. Arzt's Arse at the Airport ... Lost 6.4:  Better LA, Wilder Island, Some Partial Answers at Last ... Lost 6.5: Jack's Family and Prester John's Speculum ... Lost 6.6: Sayid the Assassin in Both Realities ... Lost 6.7: A Better Ben in Both Realities ... Lost 6.8: The Third Team

More Lost - see : The Richard-Locke Compass Time Travel Loop ...

and Lost Returns in 5 Dimensions and 5.3: The Loops, The Bomb ... 5.4: A Saving Skip Back in Time ... 5.5 Two Time Loops and Mind Benders ... 5.6 A Lot of Questions ... 5.7 Bentham and Ben ... 5.8 True Love Ways ... 5.9 Two Times and a Baby ... 5.10 The Impossible Cannot Happen ... 5.11 Clockwork Perfect Time Travel ... 5.12: Ben v. Charles, and Locke' Slave ... 5.13: Lost Meets Star Wars and the Sixth Sense ... The Problem with Baby Aaron and the Return of the Oceanic Six ... 5.14: Eloise, Daniel, and Obsession Trumping Paradox ... 5.15: Moral Compasses in Motion ... Lost Season 5 Finale: Jacob and Locke





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6 comments:

Larry said...

I've been waiting for the backstory on Richard. I thought he was older than this, since they referred to him as Rickardus (I assumed a Latin/Roman heritage). Looking forward to seeing what Jacob told Richard are the next steps for the candidates.

dawn said...

I thought this was a fantastic episode and my mouth was opened half of it. I had to keep pausing just to take it all in. The writers are brilliant , If they planned this whole thing from the beginning (because of the statue)people definetly underestimated them. From what I have learn about the passage Richard was reading from the bible it talks about a prophet. Well Richard is Jacobs prophet now. I really would like to see Ilana's backstory to find out why she is so loyal to Jacob. I can't believe its half way over!!

Just A Passerby said...

They're just getting better and better. I, too, thought Richard would be older than the 19th century time period they used, however I didn't really think that his origins would have spanned as far back as the heydays of the Roman empire.

I'd just figured that since "Richard" = "Ricardo" in Spanish, and, since Spanish is a romance language, then it wasn't so inconceivable for hin to be referred to as "Ricardus".

Carrin Mahmood said...

I was going even farther back, connecting him to something Egyptian. Ra the Egyptian god,= RA his initials, tying if to the Egyptian statue/foot. Oh so wrong on this one.

As always, so many questions answered, so many more brought to life. If MIB/Fauxe Locke wants to go, and Jacob being alive is what was stopping him...why doesn't he leave?

Why does he need to recruit The O-6ers to his side, why not just kill them? Are Jacob's recuits somehow protected? Can they be killed by him? Why did he need Locke's body, wasn't the MIB body still good?

Knowing that MIB is also smokey...how did Ben call him after Alex was killed?

So many questions, wonder if they will al get answered?

Carrin Mahmood said...

I also thought Jacob did a nice job of explaining free will. His comments fell just short of being Christological by admitting he couldn't redeem or save anybody. A nice touch because, it keeps the characters more dimensional than Jacob = Jesus, MIB = Satan

TheLooper said...

White Bear...about the O-6ers (nice touch by the way!) being protected, that was answered the other week when Richard tried to blow himself up with dynamite on the Black Rock with Jack. Jack suspected the dynamite wouldn't go off at all, and it didn't. Then he quipped, "Wanna try another one?" Priceless!

So there is still something keeping UnLocke from getting off this island and honestly Jacob explained it best with the bottle analogy--the island is stopping him up like a cork on a bottle and won't let him escape. So it's not just Jacob, but the island itself as well preventing him from leaving. It reminds me of Star Trek V: The Final Frontier when Kirk and company encountered that being on Sha Ka Ree that was impersonating God, but wanting to use the Enterprise to spread his essence throughout the galaxy. He needed a vessel (in this case a literal ship) to help him escape. Then Kirk asked, "What does God need with a starship?" I'm hoping the Losties will begin asking UnLocke the same thing about needing them soon.

Which that begs the question, the island is sunk in Alt-04 LA, so has UnLocke already been released there, in that reality? I'm still convinced that although everything seems so grand in Alt-LA, something bad is on the horizon for that reality. Everything is just TOO good. However I missed the flash sideways too.

But I did find it interesting at the very end when Jacob handed MIB the corked bottle of wine and MIB subsequently smashed the bottle, signifying further his desire to be free but maybe illustrating a way in which he can bypass the island as well. Remember, loopholes! He found one with killing Jacob, what's to say he can't find a way to just break the foundation from underneath the island, so he can escape that way, ala a sunken island in Alt-LA reality? Hmmmmmmmmmmm???

Very interesting episode and I too thought Richard was older than 1867 (would like to look up that year and see what significance it has, which I'm sure the Lost producers would do something like that too).

Can't wait to see what happens with Sun and Jin next week, we've almost rounded out the Losties, gettin down to cases now! Woo-hoo!

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