Mr. Eko Meets His Fate

Posted on November 3, 2006

The surprise demise of Mr. Eko on Lost this week left us reeling. So went searching for the reason why he was written off the show. According to this interview in Star magazine, Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje explains that he asked to leave because he is getting the chance to direct his own feature film. He says when he signed on to play the character he told the show creators that he only wanted to stay for a certain amount of time -- so they wrote him a self-contained story arc which would up this week.

Why have you left Lost?
I'm leaving because I am going to direct my own feature. For the past five years I have been developing a biographical project that was accepted into the Sundance screen writers lab and it's getting a lot of buzz. When I first joined Lost, I discussed with the creators Carlton Cuse and Damon Lindelof that I probably could only give a year because this was an opportunity I didn't want to miss. A year has expired and we looked for a place in the story where it would server the arc of the character and also the show where I could be released to pursue other things.
Are you sad to be leaving?
Not really, because the type of actor I am I like to move on. I like to keep it fresh. The arc of that character was served. We have had three flashbacks which really gave you another dimension of who he was and if indeed it hasn't been served and the audience feels frustrated they just have to sit around and wait for me to pop up in something else. Obviously bonds were formed in Hawaii and I made a lot of friends. I'm not sad, I'm actually excited. It was a great great journey and there was some great guys to work with.

We liked Mr. Eko -- he was such an interesting character. The Nigerian warlord was violent, but he tried to protect his little brother and seemed to want to follow a non-violent path. But it wasn't for him. In the end, he made his decision. When asked by the black smoke masquerading as his dead brother to repent of his sins, Eko chose pride in his actions over the humility and repentance required by his brother's faith. But he still had a happy ending: the last scene showed him and his brother as boys in their village untouched by the violence to come.

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