Mr. Eko

Mr. Eko Tundi is a fictional character on the ABC television series Lost played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje. Template:Spoiler

Biography

Prior to Oceanic Flight 815

Before arriving on the island, Eko was a ruthless and vicious warlord in Nigeria. He was drawn into this life at an early age, when guerrillas raided his village in search of young recruits. Taking an older man in the village captive, the guerrillas order Eko's younger brother, Yemi, to kill the man. When he hesitates, the guerillas threaten to kill Yemi as well, leading Eko to intervene to save his brother's life. Taking the gun from Yemi, Eko promptly shoots down the older man. Impressed by his actions, the guerilla leader calls him Mr. Eko. The guerrillas take Eko away instead, and stop to remove a pendant bearing a cross from his neck before departing.

Many years later, after he has become leader of a guerrilla group, Eko acquires a large amount of heroin, which he then seeks to smuggle out of the country. Realizing that the most reliable way to smuggle the drugs out of the country is to take advantage of a privilege given to aid groups and missionary priests, Eko returns to his old village, where his younger brother Yemi has become a priest of the village church. There he asks his brother to aid him in smuggling the drugs from the country, requesting a large number of Virgin Mary statues in which to hide the drugs and the use of his plane. In return, Eko offers a large sum of money, which Yemi would use to provide vaccines to the village. Though momentarily tempted, Yemi refuses. Some time after, Eko returns with a second proposal: sign forged documents to make Eko and his henchmen appear to be priests, for which he'll be paid handsomely, or watch as Eko's men burn down the church. This time Yemi agrees.

When the shipment is ready to be smuggled from the country, Eko and his men assemble at an airfield dressed as priests. While they are loading the plane, a Beechcraft 18, Yemi arrives to convince Eko not to go through with his plan. Moments after his arrival, however, the military, having been warned by Yemi about the impending operation, arrive to capture Eko and his men. In the ensuing gun battle, Yemi is wounded in the crossfire. Before the military can stop them, however, Eko and his henchman attempt to flee in the plane. After placing Yemi on the plane, the henchman boards the plane, but then suddenly turns and kicks Eko away from the door, leaving him to be captured. As the plane pulls away, the soldiers arrive at Yemi's vehicle. Based on Eko's clothing, the soldiers mistake him for his brother, the priest, and set him free.

At some later point in time, we find Eko serving as a priest in an Australian church, taking confession from a man who has actually arrived to provide a passport so Eko can travel to Los Angeles. He is asked to investigate a reported miracle, the apparent resurrection of a young woman who drowned the day before. Eko visits the undertaker, who plays him the tape of his autopsy procedure. He later visits the home of the woman, Charlotte, and encounters her father, Richard Malkin, who seeks to explain away the "miracle" as a cover-up of the undertaker's incompetence. Richard is the psychic who told Claire to go on the plane, though he admits to Eko that he is a fraud. At the aiport in Sydney, prior to boarding Oceanic Flight 815, Eko encounters Charlotte Malkin, who agitates him by saying that she saw his brother when she was "between places", asking her to tell Eko to have faith.

On the Island

Eko survives the crash of the tail section, and is the first to return to the water to help other survivors to the shore. When the tail-section survivors are attacked by The Others during that first night, he is among those targeted. Unlike three of their other targets, however, Eko fights back against his attackers and wins, killing two of them. Disturbed and saddened by his actions, even though they were done in self-defense, Eko remains silent for the next 40 days, instead channeling his efforts into the carving of a stick that he adorns with references to Biblical passages. He later refers to them as "Things I need to remember".

Among the tail-section survivors, Eko simultaneously comes to be the muscle and the soul of the group. His strength is well evidenced by his single-handedly incapacitating Sawyer, Michael and Jin when they are mistaken for the mysterious attackers. However, he also speaks up in defense of the trio, frequently disagreeing with Ana Lucia. Moreover, Eko is also the first of the tail-section survivors to support them, as evidenced by his actions when Michael takes off in search of The Others. Even though he was initially assaulted by Jin, it is Eko who goes off with Jin to find Michael.

After the tail-section survivors begin making their way across the island to join the mid-section survivors, Eko proves pivotal in helping the two groups come together in the face of truly terrible circumstances. After Ana-Lucia shoots and kills Shannon after mistaking her for one of the Others, she takes Sayid hostage, and Eko, carrying a dying Sawyer on his back, stands up to her. Then, after arriving at the Station 3 bunker, he meets Locke, to whom he tells the story of Shannon's shooting. When Jack hears this, he begins preparing weapons for an assault on Eko's group. Not wishing to see any more bloodshed, Eko stops Jack, instead offering to take Jack to the other group if he promises to bring no guns.

Soon afterward, in Station 3, Eko meets with Locke once again, who is looking deeper into the mysteries of the bunker. After Michael, Eko, and Locke watch the Dharma Initiative's Station 3 orientation film, Eko pulls Locke to the side. There, Eko shows him an item he'd found in the other bunker: a hollowed-out Bible, which contains a missing piece of the orientation film.

Later, Eko learns from Claire that Charlie has been carrying around a Virgin Mary statue. Surprised and angered, Eko confronts Charlie about the statue and forces him to bring Eko to the plane. While wandering through the jungle, while Charlie is in the trees searching for the plane, the "monster" appears and charges Eko. Undaunted by the dangerous entity before him, Eko stands his ground and stares down the "monster" which displays in its smokey swirls flashes of images from his past. Unshaken by the encounter, Eko continues on, until he and Charlie arrive at the plane, the same Beechcraft plane Eko had used in Nigeria. Inside, Eko finds his brother's body, and, coming full circle, retrieves the cross pendant that had been thrown away by the guerrillas when he was taken from his village. Afterward, he and Charlie set the plane ablaze, as the two recite the 23rd Psalm. As he puts on the cross, he tells Charlie that he is a priest.

After Charlie begins having seemingly prophetic dreams and visions of Aaron in grave danger, Eko baptises Claire and Aaron at Claire's request.

In the episode Maternity Leave, Eko discovers Henry Gale and coerces Jack into permitting a meeting between the two of them. He tells Henry that he is sorry for killing the men who tried to drag him from the beach. He then proceeds to cut a set of two tails from his beard and hand them to Henry, which represent the two men he killed.

In Dave, Charlie comes across Eko chopping wood to build some sort of structure. He jokes that it is a Starbucks, but Eko ignores him and tells him he will find out in time. Later, in "S.O.S.," it is revealed that they are in the progress of building a church.

In "?", Eko has a dream one night where Ana-Lucia and Yemi ask him to help Locke because he is losing faith, and that Eko needs to know about the "question mark." When he wakes up, he asks Locke to help him track "Henry", who has escaped. In truth, Eko wants Locke to show him the "question mark" although Eko himself does not know exactly what it means. When Locke does not cooperate, Eko knocks him out. When he wakes up, Locke shows him the map that he drew from the blastdoor map during the lockdown in the hatch. In the center of the map is a big question mark, and Eko realizes that they both must go there.

Although Locke's faith in the island is suffering, he admits to Eko about having a dream where Yemi appeared, asking him to climb the cliff that the Beechcraft plane was on. They arrive at the cliff and Eko climbs it. The view from the top reveals that the ground below looks like a giant question mark, and when some of the soil is cleared away, another hatch is discovered.

Eko and Locke enter the hatch - called The Pearl - which has numerous television monitors. They watch a video which explains that its purpose is to see if the denizens of the other hatches perform their tasks, a "psychological experiment," as though they are actually meaningless. Although Locke is shattered by this revelation, Eko is rejuvenated by it. He tells Locke that whatever he believes can still be true. Eko explains about the extraordinary circumstances of his brother's plane crashing on the same island that he crashed on. Because of that - and the dream with Yemi telling him about the question mark - Eko believes that the island and the button do indeed mean something. Eko says to Locke if Locke doesn't continue to push the button, he will.

In Three Minutes, Eko stays true to his word. He discontinues building the church (to Charlie's dismay) and moves into the hatch to take over button duty, which he believes is of greater importance. In Live Together, Die Alone, Locke approaches Eko and orders him to stop pushing the button. When Eko refuses, Locke attempts to smash the computer, but Eko punches him in the face and throws him out of the hatch. Sometime later, Eko leaves the computer to investigate a strange dimming of the lights. It turns out Desmond has crossed some wires to trigger a lockdown, which ends up locking Eko out of the computer room, but locks Desmond and Locke in. Locke refuses to let Eko back into the room.

Eko emerges from the hatch and asks for Charlie's help. Although Charlie is upset with Eko for abandoning him and the church, Eko convinces him that something terrible will happen if the button is not pushed. Charlie leads Eko to the remaining dynamite that was used to open the hatch in the first place. Eko goes back into the hatch, places the dynamite by the steel door and lights the fuse. Eko and Charlie take cover as it explodes.

An unconscious Eko is awoken by Charlie some minutes later. The dynamite did nothing to the door, but they open anyway because Desmond ended the lockdown. Eko tells Charlie to escape, which he does. At this point, the countdown is well beyond zero and electromagnetic force is literally destroying the hatch. Eko confronts Locke, who simply responds with, "I was wrong."

When Desmond turned the key in the fail-safe mechanism (which would destroy the hatch in order to stop the electromagnetic force), a bright light and loud noise engulfed the entire island. Although everyone on the island survived, the fate of Eko, along with Locke and Desmond, is unknown.