SPOILER: Due to his cryptic behavior, as well as the fact that Oz veteran Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje plays him, Mr. Eko was, from the start, the most interesting addition to the castaway group in the second season of Lost. And now, thanks to Lindelof and Cuse, he finally gets his own episode, the religiously themed The 23rd Psalm.
Religion plays a significant role in the present day events, since Claire notices Eko's Biblical leanings and mentions the Virgin Mary statue Charlie retrieved in the previous season. Upon hearing of this, Eko takes the statue and reveals that it contains heroin, thus deteriorating Charlie's relationship with Claire. He then asks the former rock star to take him to the plane, of which he appears to have intimate knowledge. Meanwhile, Michael, unaware of the warning about misuse of the hatch computer, asks if he can take Kate's shift, allowing him to continue communicating in secret with Walt.
The plane's origin is explained in the flashbacks, which are set in guerrilla-torn Nigeria. Eko, having shown a predisposition for violence since childhood (similarly to the actor's Oz character, Simon Adebisi), has become a powerful warlord, a position that puts him at odds with his brother, a priest. The latter is selling Virgin Mary statues to raise money for polio vaccines, but Eko thinks they would be better used to smuggle drugs out of the country. And thus begins a series of events that will end with a crashed plane and two dead bodies, as established in Season One.
The episode, which takes its title from a piece of scripture that has been used many times in movies and television (the one about the Valley of the Shadow of Death), sheds some necessary light on Eko, giving him a back-story that also paves the way for some social commentary (much like Sayid's past as a Saddam-employed torturer), and defines him as a person already deeply tied to the series' mythology (case in point: his encounter with the Smoke Monster). Also notable, in terms of ongoing arcs, the Michael/Walt subplot which keeps suggesting a dark payoff, and a reminder of Charlie's troubled past, with one revelatory scene in particular serving as a warm-up for future installments. Good thing he didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea of the situation...
Religion plays a significant role in the present day events, since Claire notices Eko's Biblical leanings and mentions the Virgin Mary statue Charlie retrieved in the previous season. Upon hearing of this, Eko takes the statue and reveals that it contains heroin, thus deteriorating Charlie's relationship with Claire. He then asks the former rock star to take him to the plane, of which he appears to have intimate knowledge. Meanwhile, Michael, unaware of the warning about misuse of the hatch computer, asks if he can take Kate's shift, allowing him to continue communicating in secret with Walt.
The plane's origin is explained in the flashbacks, which are set in guerrilla-torn Nigeria. Eko, having shown a predisposition for violence since childhood (similarly to the actor's Oz character, Simon Adebisi), has become a powerful warlord, a position that puts him at odds with his brother, a priest. The latter is selling Virgin Mary statues to raise money for polio vaccines, but Eko thinks they would be better used to smuggle drugs out of the country. And thus begins a series of events that will end with a crashed plane and two dead bodies, as established in Season One.
The episode, which takes its title from a piece of scripture that has been used many times in movies and television (the one about the Valley of the Shadow of Death), sheds some necessary light on Eko, giving him a back-story that also paves the way for some social commentary (much like Sayid's past as a Saddam-employed torturer), and defines him as a person already deeply tied to the series' mythology (case in point: his encounter with the Smoke Monster). Also notable, in terms of ongoing arcs, the Michael/Walt subplot which keeps suggesting a dark payoff, and a reminder of Charlie's troubled past, with one revelatory scene in particular serving as a warm-up for future installments. Good thing he didn't want anyone to get the wrong idea of the situation...