Vaya Con Dios, Mr. Eko

In a previous season of “Lost,” Mr. Eko and Charlie come across a flying tornado of black sand in the jungle. After the frightening encounter, the two found each other again, with a shocked, out-of-breath Charlie freaking out.

Mr. Eko: Did you see it?
Charlie: Yeah, I saw it. What the bloody hell did you do?!
Mr. Eko: I did nothing.
Charlie: Most people, when they see a creature made of swirling black smoke, they run.
Mr. Eko: I was not afraid of it.

In last night’s episode, Mr. Eko suddenly had a lot of reasons to be afraid of the “swirling black smoke.” Because it killed him.

This was after this terrifying apparition appeared to take the form of his fallen priest brother, Yemi. After Mr. Eko refuses to confess or take responsibility for his sins, Yemi/Black Smoke gets angry and says that Mr. Eko is speaking to him as if he’s his brother. Mr. Eko chases him, demanding to know who he is, before meeting his ultimate demise. The back-and-forth recalled two earlier conversations:

Drug Dealer: It is true what they say about you.
Mr. Eko: And what is that?
Drug Dealer: You have no soul.

Mr. Eko: We are both sinners now.
Yemi: Perhaps we are. But God will forgive me, Eko.

And so ended the life of one of the series’ most dynamic, mysterious, conflicted characters. Here are a few of the impactful quotes that Mr. Eko made during the course of his run on “Lost.”

“Do not mistake coincidence for fate.”

“Go. Go and tell your friends I have let you live, that Mr. Eko let you live.”

“I understand that you live in a world where righteousness and evil seem very far apart … but that is not the real world.”

“And then one day, the boy confessed to me that he had beaten his dog to death with a shovel. He said the dog had bitten his baby sister on the cheek and he need to protect her. And he wanted to know whether he would go to hell for this. I told him that God would understand, that he would be forgiven, as long as he was sorry.

“But the boy did not care about forgiveness. He was only afraid that if he did go to hell — that dog would be there waiting for him.”

Take care, Mr. Eko. Maybe you can team up with Big Pussy, Ralphie Cifaretto, Tony Blundetto and others from “The Sopranos” and make a show comprised solely of killed-off gangsters.

P.S. Where the crikey has Nikki been hiding for the past two-and-a-half seasons?! Are they introducing she and Paulo into the plot simply to kill them off, a la Mr. Artz? And what about Paulo “pulling a Chewie” in the Pearl hatch (for the uninformed, this involves dropping a grumpy in the middle of a meeting).