LOST: The Cost of Living — An Island Indictment

Lost Recaps — November 2, 2006 at 7:10 pm by docarzt

One of the last episodes of LOST to preface a twelve-week hiatus must be good right?  It has to be solid action, has to service the mysteries, and has to set some stuff up all while staying true to the LOST formula.  The Cost of Living does all that, and more.

High Resolution screen-caps and in-depth analysis after the jump!

Young Eko and Yemi

Eko and Yemi Caught Red Handed

To point out that the show is about redemption would be banal at this point, none-the-less The Cost of Living did succeed in expanding this plot theme dramatically.  Redemption is no longer merely a personal experience for the castaways on the island; we know see that redemption, and in particular, the individuals sense of it, are tethered to the island itself, sometimes with deadly consequences.

‘The Cost of Living’ is about Eko in a very psychologically anatomical way.  I, personally, always felt that fans accepted Eko’s transformation from bad-ass warlord to scripture carving holy-man a little too readily.  We saw with our own eyes that even though Eko was a product of his environment he definitely seemed to enjoy the killin’.   The assumption from 23rd Psalm was that he went on after the death of his brother to begin trying to become the man his brother believed he could never be.  I tried to find the super-bold button for “assumption”, but apparently I can’t emphasis that enough with mere text formatting.   ‘The Cost of Living’ fills in that gap in Eko’s past.

Fans who were irked by the sense of separation over the past few episodes will be glad to know that the ensemble style is beginning to come back together.  While Eko-centric, ‘The Cost of Living’ also features, prominently, Locke, Desmond, Nikki, Paolo, Sayid, and Hurley as they traipse off to the Pearl station in an attempt to IM the Others, and Jack as he finally confronts Ben over the X-Rays he glimpsed in last week’s episode.

So, the story of Eko.  In what is becoming a staple of the LOST formula,  we get treated to yet another event of a character’s childhood that helps explain how they came to be who they are.  In this case, it is Eko stealing food for his brother.  Being a good Catholic boy young Eko is expected to confess his sin by one of the villages nuns.  But Eko does not see why he should confess, his brother was hungry and needed to eat.  Thanks to some good editing and child-acting, we can see this latent refusal to accept an act of survival as having consequences pushing-back against the demands of the nun. 

In real-time, Eko is in a very delusional state.  His brother Yemi visits and tells him it is time to confess, he says Eko will know where to find him.  On the beach Sayid, Charlie, and Hurley smell smoke and discover that Eko’s hut is on fire.  They rescue him, but while their backs are turned he disappears, before that he babbles something about his brother to Charlie.  The mention of his brother tips Locke off to where Eko is heading:  the pearl station. 

Young Eko and Yemi

Desmond Geeks out about the Hatch

As luck would have it, Locke has plans of going to the Pearl himself.  His plan is to try to make contact with the Others in an attempt to negotiate the release of Sawyer, Kate, and Jack.   So he assembles a merry band of adventurers including Desmond, Sayid, Nikki, Desmond, and Paolo to set off on the dual mission of finding the pearl, and finding Mr. Eko.

At the others camp it is all Jack, Ben, and Juliet.  It would ‘Appear’, (and again I can’t find a way to emphasize that word enough), that Ben comes clean that he needs Jack to operate on his tumor.  In other scenes, Juliet also reveals this would be an excellent way to off the apparent leader of the others.  It’s one of the better moments for sure, Juliet brings in a video tape and plays it while she talks to Jack.  It is a home video of her showing cue cards.  They say things like “ignore what I am saying”, and talk about dissatisfaction amongst the Other’s camp with the leadership.

The Eko story is very interesting. 

LOST Mr Eko

Eko The Reluctant Priest

It picks up after the double cross on the runway and finds Eko dropped off back at his brother’s village where he is accepted as the new priest.  This is NOT however, where Eko decides to follow the path of the righteous. When warlords show up to demand their ‘share’ of a vaccine shipment Eko refuses and they kill a villager to prove they are serious.  He learns that Yemi was leaving for London to study, and begins to prepare to leave in his place.  Meanwhile there is the issue of these vaccine-hoarding warlords.  Will this be where Eko redeems his own Warlord past and come up with a kick ass way to boot the warlords for the last time?   Nope.

Back to Jack.  Rewind.   When Jack first talks to him about the tumor Ben is incredulous, particularly when Jack begins describing the symptoms that Ben must be feeling.  It is not until later, after Ben realized

Young Eko and Yemi

Jack Ponders Ben’s ‘offer’

Jack in fact did see some X-rays, that Ben confesses he captured Jack to perform the surgery.  He even makes a cute remark about god and spinal surgeons falling from the sky months before he would have died without the proper medical attention.  But, wait a minute?  I hope you are all onboard with me here in crying BS!

First of all, we know the island has cured one person of cancer and another of paralysis.  (And possibly another of male sterility, but we don’t know that for sure anymore.) 

Juliet's Message

"Do not listen to DocArzt"

Ben very likely knows this, Juliet very likely knows this, Jack does not know this.  So the odds that Ben truly wants Jack to perform surgery on him are about a million to one in my book.  This of course also means that Juliet’s plan to have Jack off Ben on the surgery table is also BS.  Not only can she not be trusted, but I say we assume any disparity between Ben and Juliet has been a mind game.  Now, if they don’t want him to operate on Ben… what is it they want to have happen?  Do they know that the best way to break Jack would be for him to see with his eyes proof that there is something magical and important at stake on the island?  The cure for all disease is probably just a side-effect; but knowing that Jack is a realist and a scientist, placing that proof in front of him could prepare him for the truth to come.

When Locke & Co. finally make it to the pearl

LOST one eyed man

Arrrr make a wish

station, they manage to fiddle some wires together and activate a camera in an undisclosed station (probably the flame.)  The camera pans for a moment and lands on a man wearing an eye-patch, played by Andrew Divoff of Wishmaster fame.   Without saying “arrrrrr”, the one eyed man reaches up and clicks off the camera.  Locke says “Well, I guess he will be expecting us.”  This is an intriguing development for sure.  This person, who Gregg Nations confirmed is NOT Radzinsky, was at point carrying around edits from the Swan orientation film in a hollowed out bible.  That, along with his glass eye, was found by the tailies in the arrow station in “48 days later” (proof that the writers DON’T lose track of subtle details.)  Since he is not Radzinsky, but Radzinsky made the edits, maybe this guy was Kelvin’s predecessor at the Swan which would make him the last remaining Dharma guy still in uniform, oh what stories he could tell.

The resolution of the Eko story is a sad one. 

Eko and Yemi

Hi.. I just look like your brother

Eko did not rescue the villagers from the warlords, assuring them all the vaccine they needed.  He killed the warlords so he could sell the vaccine himself, to raise money to escape from the village.  Worse yet he killed them in the church, to the knowledge of the villagers.  In a nice bit of visual poetry, we see the villagers boarding up the church in front of Eko.  He has not only desecrated their church, he has annihilated their faith.  This became a Karmic debt for Eko, and no doubt the impetus of his chapel-on-the-beach project.

In real time, Eko hobbles to a field to face an apparition of his brother (whose corpse is now mysteriously missing.)  Eko again does not see the point in confession,  telling Yemi that he has only done what he needed to do to survive;  He was only dealing with the life he was given, he does not feel remorse for the actions that saved his brother’s life as a child,

Eko and Monster

No pslams for me today, thank you

and later guaranteed his own survival.

Yemi then makes a statement that answers a lot of questions.  “You talk to me as if I were your brother.”

People are going to debate this for a while.  Did he mean as your brother and not a priest?  Or did he mean, haven’t you figured it out, dude?  I’m smokey in human form!
So Eko follows him into the jungle and comes up against a BIG smokey.  Bigger than we’ve ever seen it… huge… roiling… angry.  Eko is not welcome here, we can feel it.  It lengthens a swirling tendril towards him like an amorphous accusation as he tries to stand his ground, sweat coating him, fear palpitating his words as he breaks into the 23rd psalm “… the lord is my shepherd…”, words appropriate for a funeral…

Smokey grabs up Eko in a huge fist and smashes him against the canopy, the trees, and the ground.  By the time Locke and the others arrive, he is on the verge of death.  He whispers something to Locke as he fades away, and image of himself and his brother as children, still behind the veil of innocence, flashes before he finally succumbs to the thrashing and dies.  Mr. Eko… we loved ya… but you should have confessed.

Sayid asks Locke what he said.  “We’re next.”

So, the monster can take human form, as has been theorized before.  An interesting common factor is the disappearance of bodies as well.  Yemi’s body was gone from the plane, Jack’s father was also gone from the plane,  both have appeared on the island.  Is patchy the last hold-out from Dharma?  Or just another Other?  If he’s Dharma,  just imagine how much we’ll learn from him.  But will we get back to him before the end of the mini-season?

Is Ben really dying?  Is Juliet really plotting against him?  Has the answer to why they wanted been answered, or is it just another one of the others mind games?  Why is redemption so important to the island, and why does it, if smokey is an extension of the island, destroy those who refuse to redeem themselves?  Is judgment coming for the remaining 815’rs on a grand scale?  And since the others seem to be getting by just fine, are they exempt from judgment or are they what remains of others who have been judged, the pure.  Many new questions posed in a thoroughly interesting way and an ending to a character that was just fantastic within

Eko and Yemi

Forever Young… RIP Mr. Eko

the mythology of the show. 

The advancement of the shows concepts of redemption continues to stun me.  Social commentary probably isn’t as high on the writers minds as good action and adventure, but the death of Eko forces us to consider what this disembodied force on the island contemplates in its own scale of good, bad, and redeemed.  Is it the vast chromic depth that our characters embody, or is shades of gray where evil is one tick away from reformed?

Consider that this may be a sum of actions.  Sawyer, we learned, was in fact the total opposite of the self centered in it for himself character he tries to convince everyone he is.  In fact, he selflessly gave up a fortune to take care of a love child he’d never met;  an act which seems to balance against any of the small time con-jobs he’s perpetrated.  Eko, on the other hand, had a legacy of violence that walked with

him to the end.  A destroyer of men who, for some time, enjoyed that power and wielded it for purposes far removed from good.  Redeemable to dozens of fans for sure,  but not so to the island who has tried and convicted him on this day.  Rest well our friend.  You will be missed as we ponder the conundrum of your demise.

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