Official Discussion: 6x09 Ab Aeterno

[Hollywood Heidi]

6x09 Ab Aeterno

Original Air Date: March 23, 2010
Centric: Richard centric
Directed by: Tucker Gates
Written by: Melinda Hsu Taylor & Greggory Nations
Summary: Richard Alpert faces a difficult choice. (tv.com)
Trailer:

 

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Discuss the episode! Below are some discussion points to get you started.  Feel free to simply copy and paste and insert your thoughts or write out your thoughts however you like.  Constructive comments make for better and more interesting conversations so feel free to elaborate and explain your thoughts, conclusions, and opinions.  Repeat Viewers, answer these as if watching for the first time or what your original answers would have been when you first watched:

What did you think of the episode?

What expectations or theories did you have that either ended up right or wrong?

Who was your favorite character in this episode and why?  Least favorite?

What scenes or situations did you like best?  Least?

What were some of your favorite quotes?

How do you rate this episode compared to the rest?


Repeat viewers
Be mindful of the first-time viewers and give fair warning of spoiler comments by putting spoiler tags (directions below) or at the very least keep them at the bottom of your post with a big texted SPOILER before it.

[spoiler]spoiler text[/spoiler]
What do you think of the episode now that you've seen the whole series?

Did you find anything new you didn't catch the previous time(s) watching?

[DarkSideCookie]

5 STARS!!! This was soooo sooo good!

I already liked Richard before, but now I LOVE him! It was like a whole freaking good movie! I felt so terribly sorry for him, though. And although it was, at first, like seeing two completely different characters, the writers were piecing it together so perfectly with the digging out of the necklace that this wasn't how I felt about it by that time. And when Hurley was telling him what his dead wife says to him, omg. So many feels!

The way MIB was talking to Richard in the past made me think of how he talked to Ben. Him AND Jacob are actually both terrible persons as for sucking others into their affairs and as for how manipulative they are. XD Still, I like MIB more than Jacob, lol. I can't wait to find out the whole truth about everything!

I just wonder if Richard is really still thinking that they all are dead, because he stated so in the present time. I was considering that myself to be a possibility even. God, I love this show. So close to the answer! And then I might just start rewatching the whole thing again. XD If we just would have more time! Stupid adulting.

I loved how Ben was sitting among them, throwing in sarcastic remarks every now and then. XD

What was also interesting is that they've shown us Hurley talking spanish to someone nobody else sees BEFORE we knew about Richard's wife. By the time we learned about his story, I had totally forgotten that scene and was rather surprised to see Hurley later.

[Ariel]

Five stars for me as well
I had only seen this episode once before, so this second time around I found a new appreciation for how well done the episode was! This episode was one of my most favorite performances I've seen from Nestor, and it's insane how this episode alone never won any awards because everything about it was cinematic and amazing. I liked Richard before, but after watching this episode I feel that we gain more insight on who he is and what shaped him into who he's become. Well done, Lost! You did it again!

[Hollywood Heidi]

5 stars from me as well! Actually, ALL THE STARS!!! This was amazing and epic. It was cinematic, rich, moving, and told this deep, moving life story of a character we never knew we'd end up caring so very much about.

Nestor's performance was one of the greatest performances I've ever had the privilege of watching. My god, he put his entire heart and soul into it and I felt it. 1867!! Holy crap, Richard is damn near 200 years old! I got the sense that his life before we first got to see him was one where he was so happy and so in love and from the first time we actually see him in the flashback where his wife is sick, his life was heartbreaking from then on.

WTF kind of awful religious figure thinks he has any right to tell the poor man that he cannot be absolved? That he was going to go to hell? Especially when the death of the doctor had been a complete accident? The poor man was distraught. The love of his life was dying. Ricardo rode for a half a day straight in torrential downpour. He tried giving the doctor everything he had. Every. Damn. Thing. And the selfish man said it wasn't enough. The doctor's greed outweighed a human life. Not exactly acting as a doctor should, now is he? I don't care that the oath wasn't even around yet then, nobody should be that heartless, especially not a doctor.

Then the tussle and the doctor gets his head split open. If knowing that they're just gonna go after him isn't enough, he returns home to find his wife had died. Alone. He missed being by her side for the chance to save her life. He gets, what, five seconds to hold her hand and just start the process of letting the realization she was gone hit him before being dragged out to prison.

Then sold into slavery by the awful priest, shipwrecked, trapped in the shackles, terrorized by having to watch the solider kill his fellow captures, then terrorized again as the black smoke finished everyone but him off. Geez.

I almost start crying again just thinking about his life. All that gut wrenching pain that's always been in the center of Richard and we had no idea. He's so much more than just the mysterious guy who doesn't age.

Moving on from that heartbreaking story, we finally get to see more of Jacob and MIB. Jacob may be less murdery, but both men are manipulative assholes using people as pawns in a game where the two are trying to prove the other wrong. Jacob may not be killing people, but he's bringing them to the island to use as pawns to prove he's right and eventually, most of them end up getting killed by MIB and he KNOWS this is happening because he's brought countless people to the island over the years, as it seems in what he tells Richard.

I loved seeing Hurley talking to the dead again! Definitely a mystery at first on who he was talking to in Spanish and it becomes so meaningful at the end when we see Richard get to share a moment and some words with his wife again after 143 years. More tears from me in that moving moment. So much love for her still, even after nearly a century and a half.

Lots of fun easter eggs, even reaching way the hell back in 1867! We hear Magnus Hanso mentioned. He's the owner of the Black Rock, as we'd learned in a previous ep where Widmore was bidding on the journal of Magnus Hanso and there was also a painting of the Black Rock up for auction. When that soldier bought Richard, Richard became the property of Magnus Hanso. Magnus is the relative of Alvar Hanso, from Hanso Foundation, who was the one that started the Dharma Initiative and all those tests there, in case some of you might not know that. That was some stuff we learned outside of the show between seasons during some fun interactive games.

It was so neat to see what had caused the destruction of the statue! And the dagger. We see that again. The same one Dogen gave to Sayid and said the same words as MIB said to Richard about stabbing before he talks because once he talks, it's too late. MIB is always trying to get someone to kill Jacob for him. Apparently, he cannot kill Jacob himself, otherwise I'm sure Jacob would be long dead. Who are these two seemingly immortal beings, one with the ability to change someone's life or to grant them eternal life with a simple touch?

It's so sad how dependent Richard was on his religion. To the point that he believes an obviously corrupt priest that he won't be absolved because he doesn't have enough time to repent for murder. Well, now we know why Richard doesn't age and seems like he's living forever. He wished that not because of the usual reason of most people to want to stop aging and live forever (I totally would love that), but because he does not want to go to hell. Well, my good dude, it's been nearly a century and a half. I think you're good and absolved by now.


Favorite quotes/moments:

Basically the entirety of Ricardo's flashbacks. Just amazing.


JACOB: That man who sent you to kill me believes that everyone is corruptible because it's in their very nature to sin. I bring people here to prove him wrong. And when they get here, their past doesn't matter.
RICHARD: Before you brought my ship, there were others?
JACOB: Yes, many.
RICHARD: What happened to them?
JACOB: They're all dead.
RICHARD: But if you brought them here, why didn't you help them?
JACOB: Because I wanted them to help themselves. To know the difference between right and wrong without me having to tell them. It's all meaningless if I have to force them to do anything. Why should I have to step in?
RICHARD: If you don't, he will.
(How are you not pickin' up on this pattern Richard so easily did, Jacob?) XD



MAN IN BLACK: Just let me leave, Jacob.
JACOB: As long as I'm alive, you're not going anywhere.
MAN IN BLACK: Well then, now you know why I want to kill you. And I will kill you, Jacob.
JACOB: Even if you do so, somebody else will take my place.
MAN IN BLACK: Then I'll kill them too.
(Um, being a Candidate doesn't seem so awesome anymore...)

[Hollywood Heidi]

My own write-up was so friggin long that I decided to respond to your stuff in a separate message cuz it would have been lost in my ramble!

Feb 16, 2021 7:04:42 GMT -8 DarkSideCookie said:

I just wonder if Richard is really still thinking that they all are dead, because he stated so in the present time. I was considering that myself to be a possibility even. God, I love this show. So close to the answer! And then I might just start rewatching the whole thing again. XD If we just would have more time! Stupid adulting.

Nah, I don't think Richard thinks they're really dead anymore.  I think he was thinking that because remembering his past and how the priest told him he was going to hell, he was starting to wonder if he'd died and this had been hell all along.

The writers have stated many times that they aren't all dead and the island isn't some kind of purgatory.  Other shows in the past had done that and there'd been total outrage over it being a total copout.  Because of that, I think a lot of writers know not to have the outcome of an entire show be that the entire thing from start to finish wasn't real.

[DarkSideCookie]

And now I almost cried again whilst reading your review.. thanks though! I love reading your long reviews and thoughts on things, same as the easter eggs I didn't notice myself.

Oh, good! I'm actually glad to hear them all being dead will not be the ending. Itching to find out what it is!!! Soon!