Lost 6x9 - "Ab Aeterno"

Nestor Carbonell is one of my favorite actors. Ever since he was Batmanuel in The Tick, I've loved the guy and it was fantastic to see him get his own episode of Lost.

Probably the most shocking thing about the Secret Origin of Richard (Ricardus Ricardo) Alpert is how nothing revealed was terribly shocking at all. Everything was pretty much in line with all the clues dropped about Richard over the years. Yes, he's immortal. Yes, he's of Spanish descent. Yes, he was a slave on the Black Rock. Yes, he worked for Jacob. However, that doesn't mean all of it wasn't really good and very well done.

It was a hard knock life for Richard. Everybody he knew in the Canary Islands except Isabella (we assume) was an asshole. The greedy doctor Richard killed by accident was an asshole. The priest was an asshole. Even his white slave master was an asshole. Jacob thinks the Man in Black was an asshole. The Man in Black thinks Jacob is an asshole. Richard 2007 thinks Jacob is an asshole. And Hurley... he's a really good guy.

I didn't put two and two together when Hurley was speaking Spanish to nobody that it would turn out to be Isabella's ghost or whatever. That was a sweet scene with Richard and Isabella while Hurley translated for the ghost.

Is Miles aware that Hurley is also a ghost whisperer now? Hurley's totally stealing Miles' thunder. But then, Miles has millions of dollars worth of Nikki and Paulo's diamonds in his pocket, so he may be richer than Hurley now. They're like two sides of the same coin.

Richard with the beard looked so much like Jim Caviezel in Passion of the Christ. I liked Jacob baptizing him in the surf four times. "Still think you're dead? Still think you're dead?"

Jacob pretty much laid out bare what his Purpose in life is and why he does (and doesn't do) what he does. It really is pretty much black and white between Jacob and the Man in Black.

When Isabella appeared, and there's no doubt now it was the Smoke Monster taking her form after scanning Richard, at the time I thought it really was Isabella, by way of The Magic Box Ben mentioned when suddenly Anthony Cooper was on the Island and Locke got Sawyer to kill him.

I liked the Black Rock smashing the Egyptian statue en route to being moored in the jungle. And that's how both of those things happened. ALL WILL BE REVEALED! Straight up.

So... what's Richard Alpert doing in the sideways Not Lost reality?