Season 2, Episode 10: The 23rd Pslam

The 23rd Psalm is a prayer Mr. Eko offers near the episode's conclusion. Charlie's heroin addiction as well as Eko's backstory are also central to the episode.

MAJOR PLOT POINTS

When his little brother Yemi is ordered to murder a town elder by guerrillas in Nigeria, a young Eko grabs the gun and pulls the trigger to spare his brother the horror. But the result is that Eko is taken into the gang and becomes one of its most-feared leaders, a ruthless black-market dealer and murderer. Trying to move a shipment on heroin out of the country, he enlists the help of his brother, who is now the priest in their hometown. Yemi, however, refuses even though the money is needed for polio vaccines.

Eko later returns with a few mercenary friends and forces Yemi to make them all priests, so they can get the drugs out of the country. Threatened with the burning of his church, Yemi agrees, but informs the military of the drug shipment. The heroin is stashed inside Virgin Mary statues packed in crates. In a case of mistaken identity, though, Yemi is shot and put on the plane wounded, Eko is mistaken for his brother, assuming his role as town priest, and the plane somehow crashes on the island.

Claire tells Eko about Charlie's Virgin Mary statue, which he immediately recognizes as one from the plane's heroin stash. Claire is appalled that Charlie was hiding heroin and even angrier when he lies about it. She kicks him out by show's conclusion. Eko, meanwhile, demands that Charlie take him to the plane. Charlie again lies, saying he found the statue by a tree in the jungle, but Eko isn't fooled and makes him show him the real location. Along the way, the two come across his former drug-runner friend as well as the smoke monster, which Eko stares down without being harmed.

Once at the plane, Eko replaces the statue he broke, giving Charlie another Virgin Mary. He also finds his brother's body in the plane and makes a funeral pyre from the wreckage, reciting the 23rd Pslam as the plane burns.

Elsewhere, Locke teaches Michael how to shoot one of the hatch's automatic rifles. Kate also cuts Sawyer's hair and clues him in to the fact that he's now universally beloved, which Sawyer naturally can't stand. Michael, meanwhile, takes Kate's shift at the hatch, hoping to communicate with Walt again. And he does, with Walt saying he's OK, but also telling Michael where to come find him.

QUOTABLE

"I understand that you live in a world where righteousness and evil seem very far apart, but that is not the real world." — Eko to his brother Yemi, a Nigerian priest, when twisting his arm into arranging a heroin deal