Leaving fans with deep sense of loss

The “Lost” monster is back.

The billowy black smoke that ambiguously frightened the castaways in past seasons returned with a vengeance on Wednesday, pummeling the island’s favorite “tailie,” Mr. Eko, the priest. In the most affecting death scene on the ABC drama thus far, Mr. Eko, who once had confronted the monster and forced it to retreat, this time surrendered, reciting the 23rd Psalm.

Mr. Eko, played by Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje, is the fifth central survivor to die since the jetliner crashed on the island. But the death of the criminal-turned-priest -- or was he a man of faith who committed crimes for a greater good? -- was the first to evoke such sadness and rage.

On ABC message boards and fan website lost-tv.com, Lost fans wasted no time expressing their feelings about the loss of the Nigerian priest who sat in the tail section of the plane and took a 40-day vow of silence when he survived the crash:

“How ... HOW?!?!?! Can you kill off arguably the most interesting, thought-provoking character in the series?” wrote one.

“He was my favorite character, and I am bawling like a dummy,” wrote another fan.

“It’s as if Eko was our good friend and more than a TV character,” wrote a third. “We ... mourn the loss of Eko from the show.”

The posters are not the only ones grieving. From the beginning, the show’s producers knew Mr. Eko’s time on the island would be brief. So they hastened the pace of the character’s development, which, in turn, made the audience feel more attached.

A priest with a troubled past, Mr. Eko was the perfect counterpart to Locke (Terry O’Quinn), the only other castaway who seems aware of his destiny on the island. Fans on the Internet lamented the things they will miss the most: not seeing the church Mr. Eko was building on the island completed; and the personal touches he carved on the stick he carried. Others were downright furious, calling it “the worst episode ever.”

With the other characters who died -- Boone, Shannon, Ana Lucia and Libby -- “there was a quotient of shock value but there was the idea that it made sense, that it was the characters’ time,” co-creator Damon Lindelof said. “I think the audience may feel that Mr. Eko was taken before his time. The way that he dies is very significant. It is more spectacular, as it were.”

When planning Mr. Eko’s untimely demise, the writers looked at the episode in the second season in which Mr. Eko came face-to-face with the monster inhabiting the island and refused to relent, Lindelof said. What if the monster did not give up, as it seemed at the time? What if the monster was “just intelligence-gathering for a later date?”

“We wanted to make clear that the monster remains a dangerous force,” executive producer Carlton Cuse said.

For his part, Akinnuoye-Agbaje said during an interview at the Four Seasons Hotel in Beverly Hills last week that his character’s story arc was designed to “provoke thought and evaluation of your choices, your judgments, and what you believe.”

“It was such a great way to go,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje said of his character. “He was really comfortable with being on the island and had started to build a church and looked at his plight as an opportunity to strengthen and deepen his faith.”

But did the man whose faith remained steady, despite all of the challenges the mystery island posed, deserve to die so violently? Fans were split: Some thought it was Mr. Eko’s turn to pay for lives he has taken; others were more moved by the character’s compassion. Akinnuoye-Agbaje understands the reaction. As he got to know Mr. Eko, he often asked himself: Is Mr. Eko a priest masquerading as a criminal, or a criminal masquerading as a priest?

“No matter how many heads he chops up, you know his heart is pure,” Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. “Even in the law, when you’re convicting a criminal, it says intent. So it always goes back to the heart. From the very beginning, Eko kills a man to save his brother’s life, which sends him on a spiral of murder, plunder and what have you to survive. But that was the deepest act of compassion: to give up his soul to save another’s.”

Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who also stirred emotions with his fierce portrayal of gang leader Simon Adebisi on HBO’s “Oz,” said he accepted the role because he had never been asked to play a character whose essence was compassion and inner peace.

At the time, Akinnuoye-Agbaje was focused on completing a biographical script for a film he will direct about the African, Asian and West Indian immigrants brought to Britain after World War II to work and were forced to leave their children in the care of strangers, sometimes for good. Akinnuoye-Agbaje hopes to begin production in a few months, which is why he had to say goodbye to “Lost.”

“There’s a whole generation of African kids born in Britain who had this cross-cultural identity crisis,” said Akinnuoye-Agbaje, who was born in Britain and was raised there and in Nigeria. “And they didn’t fit in Nigeria either because they were these white people inside Nigerian bodies. This story gives this a voice but it’s also a story of victory because it shows my struggle through that process to come where I am.”

Although Losties on the Web argued that there was more ground to cover with Mr. Eko, Akinnuoye-Agbaje said he felt that once Mr. Eko helped Locke find his faith again, his mission on the island was realized.

“The way he died is brutal, but it’s a beautiful ending “ Akinnuoye-Agbaje said. “Eko lived this life of torture, living double lives and that’s a lot of energy to be running for your life, pretending to be this guy, that guy, never really showing who you are.... There was no point but to surrender [to death] so he just gave himself to it. Not out of fear, but acceptance.”

maria.elena.fernandez@ latimes.com