Ok, never in my wildest Lost dreams could I have come up with such a load as was the Richard episode.
You know, Richard Alpert, stalwart mystery man who never ages nor runs out of eyeliner.
He just shows up and an episode is immediately energized!
Unless of course, if said episode is his backstory.
Then it is filled with laughable pap meant to explain away situations the writers created then couldn’t follow through with anything interesting or plausible.
Richard aka Ricardus is older than you could possibly conceive!
That is, if you can’t possibly conceive of the 1800s. I don’t know about you, but I can conceive of the 1800s. In the scheme of things, it’s not that long ago. I’ve been in the presence of relatives who were born then. I’ve lived in houses older. After all the hype and build up, the backstory of Richard is the biggest letdown in TV history. It could have been tremendous, it could have taken place in some long ago mystical time that was befitting the “oldness” and the eyeliner and the camera presence of Richard/Nestor Carbonell. But no, instead it went from the mystery character who when he first appeared in the series put you to mind of a Jesus-type, appearing out of the mists and leading and healing, to a whiny little peasant crying his eyes out over the injustice of corrupt 1860s society in the Canary Islands.
Jesus Richard
Let us hearken back to Richard’s initial appearance. He was parading his many charms to Juliette while calling himself Dr. Alpert in an attempt to lure her to the Island.
Dr. Alpert
Next he is on the Island as the advisor, dealing with both dastardly Ben and crotchety Locke without turning a hair or a smudge of eyeliner.
advisor Richard
No matter what twists and turns the Island takes, Richard rolls right along with it, until he is the star of his own episode. Then, all Hell breaks loose, as the writers would have you think at that moment.
Ab Aeterno reduced the mystery man to a whiny crybaby mooning over the death of his wife. Pharaoh from Egypt’s glorious past? Nope. Pirate blown off course? Nope. Warrior, gladiator, soldier, Indian Chief? Nope. Just a peasant jailed because of an accident involving procuring medicine for his sick wife.
His wife has TB. So what?
He goes to a doctor to get medicine he can’t afford. So what?
He tangles with doctor, doctor bumps head and dies. So what?
He gets home to find wife dead. So what?
He’s in jail. So what?
Then, he is taken on as a passenger of The Black Rock. So what?
Black Rock Richard
Truly yawn worthy. Except when you are laughing at someone in the 1860’s going to the New World. Or when you are laughing at an English “slave ship” taking Spaniards from the Canary Islands in 1867 when slavery was abolished in England in 1833 and in America in 1865.
Now the chuckles continue as the ship is caught in a storm and we hear pronouncements about The Devil, and sure enough we get a view out the porthole to see none other than the Statue. Oh, that wacky statue, first the statue is Tawaret, but as we know, the statue is not Tawaret, it is more likely Sobek, Tawaret’s husband, neither of whom are The Devil.
Richard is scared out of what little wits he has left, frightened of the storm and the Devil, and wondering how he got himself into this role, and by that I mean the role of Richard in the first place, not the role of crybaby cum Catholic fanatic concerned with the Devil in as much of a frenzy as a Spanish Inquisitor back in the heyday of finger-pointing hysteria.
The wooden ship breaking the enormous multiple ton statue is a prelude to the preposterousness that a British Officer would come down to the hold and begin to kill the passengers/slaves announcing some gibberish about food running out, when his ship is aground on a tropical island of verdant splendor capable of sustaining life for as long as necessary. Everyone knows the British panic and kill off their own slaves at the drop of a hat, and especially in far away lands where they would need the captives to do their work for them, like say, in Australia.
Poor frightened Richard, lucky for him the Smoke Monster took a shine to him, maybe it was because of the eyeliner, maybe it was because he “got religion”, but whatever the reason the Smoke Monster dispatches the bloodthirsty Officer just in the nick of time.
Richard & the Smoke Monster
Silliness abounds with Richard seeing his dead wife and all this talk about Hell complete with the fire and brimstone of the Smoke Monster doing in the ship’s crew. Enter the Man in Black. He gives Ben a run for his money in the creepy department, but, as with Ben, he’s likeable just the same. Moody moaning and groaning about Hell and death and favors and killing Jacob makes Richard see the light, or darkness as we are supposed to believe, and Richard agrees to off Jacob.
Richard's eyeliner
At the foot of the broken statue Richard is accosted by Jacob, King of Losers. Everything you hate about everyone, is embodied in Jacob. Sneaky, snotty little fussbudget Jacob throws a hissyfit and pounds crybaby Richard into submission before he sits him down for a heart to heart, pulling a wine bottle out of his butt and spouting the most vomitous of claptrap about the Island holding in evil. Yes, Jacob kills off shiploads of people he brings to the Island to teach them about good vs evil. Too bad Richard the crybaby isn’t evil according to this storyline, so we don’t have a clue what Jacob is talking about, but that’s ok because it’s obvious Jacob hasn’t a clue either.
clueless Richard
It seems the Man in Black is also clueless; and clueless Richard is back in present time remembering his dead wife and how devoutly Catholic he is when equally clueless Hurley shows up and begins reciting to Richard what his dead wife’s ghost is saying.
It certainly makes sense that a man who has lived over a hundred years and through modern history is doing all this suffering because he is trying to protect his dead wife. I guess he hasn’t figured out in all this time that dead means dead and she can’t come back and she isn’t in danger or any of the other foolishness being spouted.
All in all I found this episode to be a tremendous pile of dung. It took what was an interesting character and reduced him to a superstitious, whimpering fool roaming the Island in an arm-waving, semi-hysterical state. If all they could come up with after six seasons is a sappy death of a loved one storyline for Richard it does not bode well for the rest of the final season.
