LOST: "The Cost of Living"

To Kill a Mockingbird

Lets just get this little side plot out of the way straight up, if only because it was a far-away second to the main story, and can be told fairly quickly.

We first see Jack doing pull-ups in his aquarium-cell, when Ben walks in, wearing clothing of a type we've not seen, telling Jack they're going for a walk.  Jack starts up the conversation this time, asking him about his symptoms and telling him that he won't be taking walks much longer.  With a brief pause, Ben gives Jack a set of the same clothes he's wearing, and they head out.

They get to the beach, where a group of the others, all dressed in the same style of clothes, are preparing to send Colleen out to sea in a Viking-style funeral.  They send her off and set her alight.  Ben confronts Juliet, asking why she showed him his x-rays.  Of course we know she never said they were his.  Which makes me wonder if Jack isn't developing some sort of pre-cognitive ability?  Or maybe it was just a bit of clever deduction on his part, it probably doesn't matter.

More interesting is the fact that the Others here are displaying behavior that we haven't seen from them yet.  Namely the apparent belief in some sort of higher power, as we can hear them praying during the ceremony, but we can't make out what they're saying.

Later, back in Jack's cell, Juliet walks in with a ginormous burger and fries under a silver platter.  She claims to have made it all herself, from butchering the cow, baking the bread, rendering the fat for the fries....  No way of knowing if any of that is actually true, but it's kind of interesting that they'd need to that.

Ben busts in, and there's kind of a "You're Busted!" moment as Ben and Juliet exchange looks.  Juliet leaves, although a bit defiant if you will about having brought Jack this meal.

Ben explains to Jack that his plans have been ruined, that all of this, bringing Jack here, the cell, etc. was to break Jack, and get him to perform the surgery on Ben.  He explains the more-than-coincidental resemblance of Juliet to Jack's ex-wife, Sarah.  That all the effort "invested" has been for naught.  The goal was to get Jack to "want to save [his] life."

Then he asks Jack if he believes in God.  Jack turns it around, "Do you?"  Ben explains that it's fate that the plane crashes, bringing him a spinal surgeon, and that it's proof of God.  More interesting-ness!!

Again, later.  Juliet enters, this time on the other side of the glass.  She's brought a movie, "To Kill a Mockingbird", for Jack to watch.  He gripes, she insists, and starts apologizing for everything they've done.

Then the "movie" starts.  Instead of the film, it's Juliet holding a series of signs.  She rambles on about how Ben is a great man, that he needs to be saved, he's dangerous and he doesn't have a choice, yadda yadda yadda.  All the while on the screen, her cards contradict everything.  "Ignore everything I'm saying." "He's a liar." "You do have a choice." "We want a change." "It has to look like an accident." "I would protect you."

Short version, she (and apparently more of the others) want Ben *out*, more to the point, *gone*.  They want Jack to off him on the operating table.  The last sign tells Jack to ask her to stop the movie, he does, and she leaves, leaving Jack obviously confused and just plain dumbfounded.

"To Kill a Mockingbird" was a book and later a movie (and it's been a while for either for me!) full of themes of misunderstanding, prejudice, and eventually coming to terms and resolving all of that.  Significance? None? Some? I don't know.  Could be...  Could be just looking for something, but as you know, there's got to be something there.

I'm Not Afraid of You

We've got to visit Eko's flashback before we get to the meat of the story.  I'll try to keep this fairly brief, but it's oh-so important in the end.

His flashback starts with he and his brother, Yemmi(?) breaking into a shed to get at some food.  They are busted by one of the local nuns, who takes them to the church to confess.  Eko refuses, saying he did it for his brother.  He finally gets up and walks toward the confessional...

...flash forward to later, he's back in the church after the runway incident, wearing the collar he was using as a disguise in his drug running operation.  He picks up a bible, where there's a photo of him and his brother as kids.  One of the locals enters, and he explains that he's taking Father Yemmi's place, and that he's going to be going to London also.

...again flashing forward.  He's washing his hands in the basin, and the altar boy calls him on it.  He says he's "washing away his sins" (a theme we get a lot with Eko) when automatic weapons fire erupts outside.

It's the local mafia, wanting their cut of the vaccine shipment, which hasn't arrived yet.  Eko says, "I'm not afraid of you", then turns to go back into the church.  The mafia kingpin shoots one of the bystanders, and says "you don't want more life on your conscience."

...futher forward.  The local woman tells Eko that he's "a good man" and that he shouldn't cross the militia.  Eko then returns to his gang, trying to sell them the vaccine, in an apparent attempt to pit one gang against the other?

...another forward jump.  We see Eko praying.  Praying for what? Help? Protection? Forgiveness?  The local mafia shows up at the church, they know about his attempt to sell the vaccine to the other gang.  They're going to spare his life, being a "holy man", and they're only going to cut off his hands.  A fight ensues, and Eko grabs their machete, and brutally kills all of them in a fit of rage.  He exits the church covered in blood.

...last forward jump. He's getting ready to leave for London. As he's leaving, the locals start to board up the church.  "It's no longer sacred."  "One day you'll be judged." "You should start making your peace, start repenting."  And lastly, "You don't owe God anything, you owe Yemmi a church."  Which is interesting given the church he was building on the beach.

Time To Confess, Brother

Now the stories of Eko and Locke's gang are somewhat intertwined at this point, but I'll try to separate them the best I can.  We start with a still-recovering Eko in his tent.  He's been out for a couple of days, and I'm not sure if some of the "flashbacks" were supposed to be LOST-style flashbacks or Eko remembering things.  He's left alone, and suddenly his brother appears to him, Boone-style, with a lit zippo.  "Time to confess, brother, time to be judged.  You know where to find me."

Then his tent bursts into flame.  From the lighter?  Right away you know this is going to be "one of those" episodes, and thats a good thing!  Charlie and Locke manage to pull Eko out, he's mumbling something about his brother, and then they turn away from him, only to turn back and find him missing. 

He's set out on his own back to the downed twin-engine, back by the Pearl station.  He seemingly wakes back up, only to be tortured by more ghosts, and a vision of the altar boy from the church.  The boy tells him, "confess!" (I think, if I'm wrong tell me!)

He makes it to the river, and (yet again) washes his hands.  He's putting some mud on his wounds when we see the abominable smoke monster creeping up on him.  He turns to face it with a defiant, unafraid look.  Suddenly it flees, and there's Locke on the other side of the river.  Now, did the smoke flee from Eko or did it run from Locke?  There's one to think about.

My notes are a bit fuzzy at this point, but Locke says something about Eko's brother, to which Eko pulls a knife on Locke.  I wrote down "What are you afraid of?" and right now I can't recall if it was Eko or Locke who said it! Argh!

They (Eko plus Locke and co.) get to the plane, where everybody but Locke and Eko go into the hatch.  John says, out of nowhere, "I saw it once.  A bright light, it was beautiful."  Now there's a big, giant, WTF if I've ever seen one.  We know Locke's seen "the monster" before, but we were never shown what he saw.  I don't know if he was talking about that or something else, but the differing observations are important, I'll go there later.

Eko goes into the plane, and finds that Yemmi's mummified remains are gone.  He's distraught by this, and pulls out the photo of him and Yemmi (where'd that come from? has he had it the whole time?)  John speaks up, "oh by the way... I found this when we were looking for you", and hands Eko back Yemmi's cross.  John heads down into the hatch with the rest of his crew.

The ghost of Yemmi appears again, and Eko follows it out into the jungle, under a huge spidery-looking tree (that was just a cool shot, btw) and out into a field of red flowers.  He gives the cross back to Yemmi, and it really starts to get wierd.

"I ask for no forgiveness, I did only what I needed to do to survive.  I killed a man to save my brother's life once, and I'm proud of it.  I'm ready to face judgement.  I didn't ask for this life, but it was given to me anyway."

Turning up the level of weird, the ghost speaks, "You speak to me as if I were your brother."  OK, so if he's not then what is it?!  The answer comes quickly, as Eko flees into the jungle away from the black smoke.  He turns to face it, still not afraid, reciting the 23rd Psalm (a reference back to his other encounter with the smoke) and the smoke takes him.  It mercilessly pounds him against the trees, and finally the ground.

Locke and crew hear the commotion, and come to his side.  The smoke has already gone.  Eko whispers something to Locke, who gives one of the strangest looks ever, and then dies.  We're shown a vision of he and Yemmi as kids playing with a ball back in Africa.

What did he say?  "We're next."

Inside the Pearl

Locke and Desmond figure out that they might be able to find a computer in the Pearl they can use to communicate with Jack, or at least get closer to rescuing him.  "Anyone want to come?"  John figures out that Eko's heading toward the same place.

Desmond pipes up, "Are we going after the computer or Eko?"  "Two birds with one stone," replies John.  "Bit of a coincidence, don't you think?" "Don't mistake coincidence with fate."  Who's fate exactly?

The two new castaways decide they want to join in (so exactly WTF have you been doing this whole time?)  And Locke, Desmond, Sayid, Nikki, and Paulo charge off toward the Pearl.

They meet up with Eko and get to the hatch.  They can't seem to find anything useful, and they're hooking up power to various things, watching the orientation video.  Down there, the obviously blonde Nikki asks the obvious question, "What are the other screens for?"  To paraphrase, Locke and Desmond both smack their foreheads and cry, "Doh!"

So they start connecting various wires, trying to get signals from other stations.  Finally, they get something.  There's another station, similarly equipped to the Swan, with the same type of computer, a bunch of blinkenlights equipment and a big reel-to-reel recorder.  The camera starts to move.  Staring back at them is an unshaven and grisly looking man, wearing a DHARMA uniform and an eye patch.  He stares into the camera for a minute, and then turns it off.

Locke explodes with apparent delight at this development, "I guess he'll be expecting us."

The Wages of Sin

Now when I originally heard the rumors of Eko's demise, I was, well, upset at the notion.  The Locke-Eko contrast and interaction had become one of the more interesting and thought provoking parts of the show.  One one hand, Locke's almost secular nature, with his search for something to believe in, his search for faith.  On the other, Eko's resolute and unmoving faith, and his lack of needing anything.  He seemed to have it all figured out, to be at peace with everything, or at least at peace with his situation.

Of course now we know that's not the case.  Eko turned out to be the most troubled of the two.  And his animalistic, do whatever to survive actions, for which he asked for no forgiveness, turned out to be his undoing.

Now I'm going to go waay out on a limb on this one.  We've seen John time and again screw up.  Yet he's always been one to apologize and make some sort of atonement, or at least ask for forgiveness and gain some sort of peace.  We saw it with the hatch, "I was wrong! I'm sorry!"  We saw it at the commune, thanking God for helping him to not be so angry at his father.  We saw it after the hatch, when he took it upon himself to "clean up his own mess" and rescue Eko, and resolve his conflict over Boone.

Eko, on the other hand, did what he did.  Period.  He made no real effort to atone for it, and even at the end, defiantly and specifically asked not to be forgiven. 

Now, take into account Locke's description of what he saw, vs. what we know Eko saw, and what killed him.  Starting to make sense, isn't it?  Maybe our friendly smoke monster (or bright light monster) is fate.  Fate with a capital F coming for both of them?

So I'm definitely sad to see Eko and the Locke/Eko dynamic go.  But I understand why he had to go now.  It made sense.  I was worried they were going to pull a Whedon and just take somebody out for no apparent reason.  Thanks!

The Questions

Of course it wouldn't be an episode of LOST without shoving more questions at us, now would it?

• What is going on with the Others that Juliet (and more) want to see Ben rubbed out?  Are we looking at a "Civil War" of sorts in the making?
• Where did Yemmi's remains go to?  Is it as simple as getting carted off by animals? Or is there something else at work?
• What exactly is the smoke?  Is it indeed Fate personified and made real?  A representation of our destiny? Is it real at all or just a construct for the benefit of the story?
• Was Eko's church on the beach an attempt to pay back Yemmi?  I guess we'll never know.  If it was, it was too little too late.
• Why and How exactly did Yemmi's plane end up on the island.  Did the island bring it there on purpose?
• Who's the guy with the eyepatch? Where is he? What does he know? Is he one of the "bad guys?"
• What "religion" are the Others?  We saw the Viking-style funeral and their ceremonial outfits, is this part of their little culture or something else entirely?
• If the whole purpse of getting Jack was to break him, and get him to work on Ben.  What will become of Kate and Sawyer?  They're not needed anymore from the Others' perspective, if you assume they were there to help with breaking Jack.
• Is Bernard next?  He's the only one of the "tailies" left...

Next Time

Next week we get our "mid season finale" and honestly they weren't giving up much in the preview.  Something about Alex, and Pickett going after Sawyer... hopefully they'll cliffhang us with respect to something!

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